Freedom

She had about three hours to entertain this fantasy—staring at the taillights of the traffic rushing down and down toward the great metropolis, and wondering what it would be like to be Richard’s chick, wondering if a woman he respected might succeed in changing him, imagining herself never going back to Minnesota, trying to picture the apartment they might find to live in, savoring the thought of unleashing Richard on her contemptuous middle sister, picturing her family’s consternation at how cool she’d become, and imagining her nightly erasure—before they landed in the reality of Chicago’s South Side. It was 2 a.m. and Richard couldn’t find Herrera’s friends’ building. Rail yards and a dark, haunted river kept blocking their way. The streets were deserted except for gypsy cabs and occasional Scary Black Youths of the kind one read about.

“A map would have been helpful,” Patty said.

“It’s a numbered street. Shouldn’t be that hard.”

Herrera’s friends were artists. Their building, which Richard finally located with a cab driver’s help, looked uninhabited. It had a doorbell dangling from two wires that unexpectedly were functional. Somebody moved aside a piece of canvas covering a front window and then came down to air grievances with Richard.

“Sorry, man,” Richard said. “We got held up unavoidably. We just need to crash for a couple of nights.”

The artist was wearing cheap, saggy underpants. “We just started taping that room today,” he said. “It’s pretty wet. Herrera said something about coming on the weekend?”

“He didn’t call you yesterday?”

“Yeah, he called. I told him the spare room’s a fucking mess.”

“Not a problem. We’re grateful. I’ve got some stuff to bring in.”

Patty, being useless for carrying things, guarded the car while Richard slowly emptied it. The room they were given was heavy with a smell that she was too young to recognize as drywall mud, too young to find domestic and comforting. The only light was a glaring aluminum dish clamped to a mud-strafed ladder.

“Jesus,” Richard said. “What do they have, chimpanzees doing drywalling?”

Underneath a dusty and mud-spattered pile of plastic drop cloths was a bare, rust-stained double mattress.

“Not up to your usual Sheraton standards, I’m guessing,” Richard said.

“Are there sheets?” Patty said timidly.

He went rummaging in the main space and came back with an afghan, an Indian bedspread, and a velveteen pillow. “You sleep here,” he said. “They’ve got a couch I can use.”

She threw him a questioning look.

“It’s late,” he said. “You need to sleep.”

“Are you sure? There’s plenty of room here. A couch is going to be too short for you.”

She was bleary, but she wanted him and was carrying the necessary gear, and she had an instinct to get the deed done right away, get it irrevocably on the books, before she had time to think too much and change her mind. And it was many years, practically half a lifetime, before she learned and was duly confounded by Richard’s reason for suddenly turning so gentlemanly that night. At the time, in the mud-humid construction site, she could only assume she’d somehow been mistaken about him, or that she’d turned him off by being a pain in the ass and useless at carrying things.

“There’s something that passes for a bathroom out there,” he said. “You might have better luck than I did finding a light switch.”

She gave him a yearning look from which he turned away quickly, purposefully. The sting and surprise of this, the strain of the drive, the stress of arrival, the grimness of the room: she killed the light and lay down in her clothes and wept for a long time, taking care to keep it inaudible, until her disappointment dissolved in sleep.

The next morning, awakened at six o’clock by ferocious sunlight, and rendered thoroughly cross by then waiting hours and hours for anybody else to stir in the apartment, she really did become a pain in the ass. That whole day represented something of a lifetime nadir of agreeability. Herrera’s friends were physically uncouth and made her feel one inch tall for not getting their hip cultural references. She was given three quick chances to prove herself, after which they brutally ignored her, after which, to her relief, they left the apartment with Richard, who came back alone with a box of doughnuts for breakfast.

“I’m going to work on that room today,” he said. “Makes me sick to see the shitty work they’re doing. You feel like doing some sanding?”

“I was thinking we could go to the lake or something. I mean, it’s so hot in here. Or maybe a museum?”

He regarded her gravely. “You want to go to a museum.”

“Just something to get out and enjoy Chicago.”

“We can do that tonight. Magazine’s playing. You know Magazine?”

“I don’t know anything. Isn’t that obvious?”

“You’re in a bad mood. You want to hit the road.”

“I don’t want to do anything.”

“If we get the room cleaned up, you’ll sleep better tonight.”

“I don’t care. I just don’t feel like sanding.”