Laura Lippman - Every Secret Thing

“No, is dangerous. I get ticket if I discharge you here.”

“So pull into that 7-Eleven parking lot.”

“No. You call for long ride. You must go or pay.”

She knew from the way his story shifted that he was making this all up. He was a cheater. Ronnie had never been much good at arguing with anyone, but cheaters were the worst.

“Please pull over.”

“You will pay.”

“Pull over.”

With a sigh so forceful it might as well have been a shout, he did just that. The meter said $3.50. Ronnie offered him one of the tens and waited for her change. The man took the bill and put it away.

“You can’t take ten dollars for a three-fifty fare,” she said.

“Extra dollar for call,” he said, pointing to a red light on the meter box.

“That’s still only four-fifty.”

He was ripping her off. Because she was a girl, because she was young. Such encounters had once made Ronnie fierce, with the focused rage of a small dog. But now she was supposed to work toward solutions. Unfortunately, the lessons of the hospital had assumed there was always some nice neutral person who could step in, a doctor or a principal, a teacher or a parent. Use your happy tones, Ronnie. Anger is just a letter away from danger.

Here, in the parking lot at the 7-Eleven, there was no one to sort things out between Ronnie and the cabdriver.

“I came for big fare, not little fare. Plus, you owe me tip.”

She got out of the cab, frightened of her own feelings, frightened by the fix she was in. Now she had only thirty dollars, and thirty dollars might not be enough to take a cab all the way home. She could take a bus, but it would have to be at least two buses, and which two buses? Plus, she needed change for the bus, and no one would give her change unless she bought something, which would mean losing another dollar or two out of the thirty. Aware of the cabdriver’s eyes on her, she walked into the 7-Eleven with her head high, as if this had been her destination all along. Then she hid in the chip aisle until she was sure he was gone.

Back on the street, she knew her only choice was to find a ride. She had never done this before, but her older brothers had. And there had been a girl at Shechter who had bragged about getting rides all the time. “I never had to do anything, either,” the girl, Victoria, had said.

“But how do you keep them from, you know?”

“You’ve got to be picky about who you ride with.” Victoria enjoyed having Ronnie seek her out, ask her advice. No one knew exactly what Ronnie had done, but rumors were rampant at Shechter because she wasn’t required to attend AA or NA. Which, at Shechter, usually meant someone was really nuts, scary nuts. Some people said authoritatively that Ronnie had killed her entire family, despite the fact that her mom visited regularly. Others said Ronnie had been part of a thrill-kill, that her boyfriend had talked her into murdering someone just for fun.

Ronnie liked the idea of being credited with a boyfriend. She also felt a strange, sour pride in the fact that no one ever came close to guessing why she was really there. Anyone who was alive in Baltimore that summer would probably remember the story of the missing baby and how she had been found dead, and then the constant mention of two eleven-year-old girls, two eleven-year-old girls, two eleven-year-old girls, can you believe it, the baby was killed by two eleven-year-old girls. Now she and the event floated free from each other, disconnected. Victoria had no idea who she was or what she had done.

Ronnie persisted, not afraid for once to show her ignorance. “Picky how ?”

“Go for guys in ties.”

“Guys in ties?”

“Yeah, and boring cars like your dad drives.”

Ronnie’s father still drove a Coca-Cola truck, and the family car was an old AMC Hornet-at least, that’s what it was when Ronnie went away. But she knew what Victoria meant.

“You want a businessman, like. A guy who will freak if you scream, or say you’re going to tell or go to the police. With a young guy, a guy closer to your age, he’s not scared of getting in trouble, so you got no-what’s the word?”

“What word?”

“That word for when you have control over another person?”

Ronnie shrugged. She had no idea what Victoria was talking about.

“Anyway, don’t go with anyone under thirty. Oh, and don’t stick your thumb out.”

“But I thought that’s what hitchhikers did.”

“It’s not your thumb that gets you the ride,” Victoria said. “Turn your back to the traffic, and walk as if you mean to be walking. But twitch.”

She demonstrated. Victoria was a large, fleshy girl who wore tight jeans. Her bottom did shift a bit as she walked, but it just looked uncomfortable, as if it wished it weren’t packed so tight.

Out on the street, Ronnie turned her back, as Victoria had advised, and walked as if she had a destination. She didn’t try to twitch. There was a golf course to her right, with lots of men playing, even though it was a weekday. Were they rich, or did they call in sick to their jobs? Her dad had been known to go missing from his job, as he put it, but he said it was bad luck to lie about being sick. He said the trick was to come up with a story that couldn’t be checked, a story that couldn’t hurt anyone. He had never told her what those stories were.

She was almost past the golf course when she got the first offer. The boy was cute on first glance, and he drove one of those little Jeep-like cars, the sort of thing Ronnie would have liked for herself, if she ever learned how to drive. But there was something off about his face, the longer she looked at him, and Victoria ’s advice carried the weight of a rule. No, thank you, no, really. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.

The next guy was older, behind the wheel of a van with the name of a painting company stenciled on the side, and he was freckled with paint. Not a van, Ronnie knew, although Victoria had not thought to tell her this. Never a van. She felt as if she were trudging along one of the board games she had played as a kid, Candy Land, or the one with the ladders. She had to pick carefully if she was going to get home with her thirty dollars.

The third one was just right, everything Victoria said. A tie and a four-door black car, not new, but not old. His face was shiny and red, although the interior of his car felt cool through the window he lowered to talk to Ronnie.

“You need a ride?”

“Well-I was just going up to the bus stop.”

“How far are you going?”

“Pretty far,” Ronnie admitted. “ Saint Agnes Lane, over near Route 40.”

“Outside the Beltway?”

“No, in. Near-” What was it near? It wasn’t just that her parents had moved, it was that Ronnie was no longer sure what milestones had survived along the Route 40 corridor. Arby’s? High’s Dairy Shop? The Crab King? “Do you know that sign, the one that says you’re entering Baltimore City?”

“So it’s on the city-county line?”

“Just over, in the county.” Her mother had been so proud about crossing that line.

“That’s not so far, if you know the right shortcuts. Hop in.”

She did, arranging her black nylon overnight bag so it filled her lap.

“You can put that in the back.”

“I’m okay.”

“Or in the trunk.”

“I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

It was only once they were under way that Ronnie saw the problem she hadn’t anticipated: she had no idea how to answer the man’s questions, innocuous as they were. School? She had actually finished in January, because of summer school credits, but where was her diploma from? She couldn’t say she had graduated from Shechter Unit. Plus, if she said she was finished, she couldn’t say she was fourteen later, which Victoria said was the deal-breaker for most guys, being fourteen.