He was right, in a way, but the heat was relative, like everything else. Karen was beginning to see that it was all relative. Her body was used to the cloying and visible heat of southern Florida. This place, scattered litter and broken bits of glass and the high weeds and the chain link fences and the boys with their long hair and hoodlum jackets, this was a cold place.
She hadn't even thought to bring a jacket. She wanted to hit her forehead with her hand, she was so stupid. She watched the boy lean against the brick wall and pull another cigarette from his pack. It was filterless. Bits of the stringy tobacco stuck to his lips. Her mother had smoked, too. Long elegant Virginia Slims. She hugged herself, unable to get the chill out.
"Here," the boy said, shrugging out of his jacket.
"No, it's okay," Karen said.
"Take it, Jesus, you're freezing. I got other jackets,"
She smiled at him and the jacket felt warm from when he was wearing it. It smelled like cologne, cigarettes, sweat.
"Thanks,"
She just stood there, thinking she should ask him to guide her to the North Side, but she felt unable to start the process by opening her mouth. She felt suddenly exhausted, too tired to blink. So she leaned against the wall and felt the warmth of the borrowed jacket and felt that she could fall asleep standing up right there.
"What's your name?" he said, bringing her back from the sleepiness, and she sucked in her breath to blow it out again and form her answer.
"Karen. What's your name?"
"Shawn,"
She nodded, and felt the sleepy feeling overwhelm her again. She had nowhere to sleep, nowhere to go. She couldn't just sleep here, risking murder and rape. Being here was enough for now. She wasn't in the mood to search out Sodapop Curtis just yet. What if he wasn't here? As long as she didn't go looking everything could still work out. Hope was better than nothing at this point.
"Nice meeting you, Shawn. Thanks for the jacket," she said, hoisting her bag up again, her muscles aching again.
"Taking off?"
"Yeah,"
She left, even though she sort of wanted to stay with him. She glanced back, saw the thin T-shirt she had left him with, some faded rock group on the front, tour dates on the back. Headed toward a diner, wanting a greasy burger and a big coke. She didn't want to talk to anybody, look for anybody. This maybe wasn't such a good idea. Karen wrinkled her brow, looking around the unfamiliar dark city that her mother had come from. The place where she learned to swear, where she learned not to trust anybody, where she learned that loyalty meant shit and the side of the city you lived in made all the difference. Karen narrowed her eyes, felt acutely the fact that her supply of money was dwindling. And maybe there was no Sodapop Curtis.
"I'm fucked," she whispered. Might as well find some department of social services office and go into foster care, some aloof foster family that would treat her like a paycheck instead of a person.
She found a diner instead, the countertops gleaming in places, the shine dulled under grease and food in other places. Stools lined up under the counter, mismatched, some with cracked leather upholstery, some with cloth slip covers. A jukebox was at the far end, the records inside spinning lazily, and some late 70's Journey tune played, Perry's voice holding the notes until you could almost cry.
Karen came in, and felt the heat inside the diner, felt it warming her legs under her skirt, and she set her bag down on the dusty floor, dragged it to a stool and sat.
"What'll it be?" A waitress came over to her from behind the counter, her long hair piled on top of her head with elastics and black bobby pins. She was skinny and had large sunken eyes, a few silvery grays trapped with the rest of her dark hair under the bobby pins. A thick pad of paper was in one pocket, a stubby, bite marked pencil was behind her ear.
"Hamburger. Coke,"
The order didn't even bear writing down, and the waitress turned from her and spoke to the cook. Karen let her head fall, closed her eyes, felt the beginnings of the headache that meant she was stressed, and tired, and scared, and alone.
She could hear the conversations of the other patrons, the deep voices of the thick muscled factory workers, their faces and hands grimy, talking about bosses and younger female co-workers and raises and getting screwed over. Teenagers, mixed group, laughing and joking, leaning into each other, making plans to go see movies and go to parties and complaining about homework and tests and this teacher and that. She heard it all, heard the mother tell her grade-schooler to stop teasing the younger sibling, heard the married man tell his wife he was at work, the pay phone held in his sweaty hand and his eyes glued to the secretary at his booth. They had their lives, good for them. Karen felt, in their conversations, the lack of her own.
Her food arrived, the burger bigger than the bun, shoestring fries in a pick-up-sticks pile beside the burger, the coke in a tinted yellow plastic cup, ice melting already, watering it down. It looked like more food than she could ever eat.
She chewed slowly, afraid she might puke if she went too fast, and when the waitress seemed to have a free moment Karen called her over.
"I'm new here, and I'm looking for the North side. Could you help me?" Her eyes felt wet and blinky. She shouldn't have tried this, she shouldn't have come here.
"What's on the North side?" the waitress said, one eyebrow cocked, one palm flat on the counter.
"My dad, I think,"
The waitress nodded, and explained to her how to find the North side. Karen jotted the directions down on her napkin, and it was such a cheap napkin it was as good as paper anyway.
The greasy food in a hot ball in the center of her stomach, her headache worse, she fought off waves of nausea, hugged her arms in Shawn's jacket, and headed to the North side. Time to stop putting it off.
It was amazing to her how many doubts could crowd her little brain. He was gone, moved years ago and no one would know where he was. He was dead. He was in a rice field in Vietnam rotting away under the sun. He was in any of the 49 other states, he was lost, he was in any small town or big city and what was she supposed to do? Call them all?
The night grinded on, and she could see the faint stars overhead, felt her shoulder protesting as she settled the bag onto it again, and she kept walking. Head up, shoulders squared as much as she could with the bag twisting her this way and that. Past the shabby houses and apartment buildings, rotting fire escapes hanging down near the sidewalks. She walked, past rusting cars and twisted bikes and cheap plastic toys littering yards and people drinking on their porches, and people sitting in front of the zombie blue glow of their T.V. screens.