NOT WITH A BANG

Chapter 11 End of the Flight.

Grace was exhausted: she had no adrenaline left after three days of flight. Her journey had had a lot of low points. Having to obey the call of nature in a patch of woods halfway between Arcadia and Moretown, which necessitated dropping her jeans and panties in freezing weather. Having to listen to a drug-addicted reactionary radio announcer spout lies about her political ideals, because a cab driver wanted to listen and she didn't want to cross him. Spending hours in Washington's Union Station waiting for a southbound train and terrified of being recognized; to her Washington was like Mordor, the stronghold of the Enemy. Unable to fall asleep in cheap motel rooms, in spite of fatigue, for fear that police would bang on her door in the middle of the night. But at least she seemed to have left her pursuers far behind.

Now she was on the final leg of her journey to her destination: the Cavalo farm where she had vacationed last summer and worked during "Christmas" vacation. Once there, she would do anything -- beg, offer money, promise work -- to get the Cavalos to hide her. She did not know what she would do if they turned her down. She had no Plan B. There was nobody else outside of Arcadia whom Grace knew and trusted.

The cab dropped her off in front of the Cavalo farmhouse, and Grace walked to the front door to ring the bell. Who would answer? The Cavalo's were a middle-aged couple with a teenaged son; the last was probably at school at the moment. And at the last minute Grace remembered that Bonnie McLean, who had offered to let the Cavalos adopt her illegitimate child, might still be here with her baby.

The door opened, revealing none of the above. Instead she found herself facing a very familiar bespectacled nerd.

"Hello, Grace," Luke said coldly.

"What are you doing here, Girardi?"

"Tracking you, obviously."

"Can I come in? I'm freezing, and I'm exhausted."

"It's not my house. That's up to my cousins."

Luke's Aunt Jean appeared behind the boy. "Come in, Grace."

Grace walked in. She found herself in a sort of triangle with Luke and his relative, standing in the Cavalo living room. Two against one, but who were the two and who was the one?

"Luke predicted that you'd show up asking for shelter, Grace--" started Aunt Jean.

"Oh, he did?. Did you tell the police that, Girardi?"

"No. I didn't think of it until last night. Dad doesn't know you well, so he's been handling it as a typical runaway-teen case. He assumed you'd try to disappear in a big city like Baltimore, and be exposed to all sorts of dangers on the streets. He thought the key was reconstructing every phase of your journey. But once I finally turned my brain on, I realized that you'd set out for here, the one place outside Arcadia where you'd feel safe. So I got a plane down this morning."

"Let's get back to the original issue," insisted Aunt Jean. "Grace, we're quite short of space here. What used to be the guest room has been converted to a nursery, and at the moment Bonnie is staying there with her baby. We don't even have a good place to put Luke. But if you're really in danger, we'll try to think of something. Are you sure?"

"How can I tell?" demanded Grace. "We've got visitors from Washington treating the bomb as an act of terrorism. We've got rulers who say it's all right to torture terrorists no matter what the law says. They don't even need to prove that they're terrorists, because they think habeas corpus is a luxury. Ever hear of GuantamoBay and Abu Gharib ?"

"You're talking worst-case scenario," said Luke. "Yes, the stories are disgusting. But they aren't going to happen to you. You're an American citizen and, for that matter, a minor. And you're surrounded by people willing to protect you. Dad's fought government corruption before and he'd fight it again; he doesn't confuse power and right. A lot of people are making sacrifices to do the right thing. Joan loaned me a couple of hundred dollars so that I could fly down and intercept you. . Glynis, of all people, made a fake confession to get you and the rest of the school off the hook. Dad used up his weekend trying to find you without putting your disappearance on record. And you've just heard Aunt Jean said she'd protect you if your enemies come looking for you. The only person who took your danger seriously was Maggie, and that's because she's from another culture with a history of violence. So won't you please come home?"

What it came down to was the ability to trust in -- what? Individual goodness prevailing over government corruption? That was hard for Grace to do after years of cynicism, but she had to admit that goodness could be unexpectedly powerful. Earlier in life when she thought she had no escape from misery, salvation had come from a dork whom she hadn't taken seriously.

"All right. I'll go home with you. I'm sorry that I imposed all this on you, Aunt Jean."

"Don't apologize. The least we can do is give you a nice dinner and a chance to rest."

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Dinner was much more than "nice". Grace had been subsisting on snacks and poor motel food, but that was minor. It was the ritual of sharing food that made her feel so much better. For four days, from Saturday to today, she had been a non-person, on the outside looking in, deliberately dodging any human connection.

Bonnie was there. The former juvenile delinquent was bubbling over with stories about her new baby, who had finally gotten out of the hospital after its premature birth.. Luke was obviously not happy about her presence; this was the tramp who had seduced his sister's boyfriend and plunged her into months of misery. And as he told Grace afterward, popping out an illegitimate child after a history of shallow sexual adventures was nothing to boast about, "any cow can do that". But Bonnie was fascinated by the fact that she had brought life into the world. And if it boosted her self-respect and encouraged her to settle down, it was okay with Grace..

Uncle Jonathan had been checking out their return flights. "You'll have to fly into a hub like Charlotte, but there aren't any more local flights scheduled today. You two will have to spend the night here."

"We've got a spare mattress in the attic," mused Aunt Jean. "We can bring it down and set it in the living room, for a night. That takes care of one of you."

"We can share it," said Grace. Everybody stared and she felt herself turning red. "Luke and I need to talk. We won't -- um, what you think."

"Yeah, we need to talk," confirmed Luke. "We've done this before, and can handle temptation."

"Boy, you guys are such wusses," said Bonnie.

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It was completely dark, and more silent than it ever got in a small city like Arcadia. Grace could feel nothing but the comfortable mattress under her and the warm blanket .covering her, both much superior to the cheap motel beddings she had endured. By shifting a few inches to the right, she could feel her arm nestling against Luke's. It was as if she and he were alone in the universe. Then he withdrew.

"What's wrong?" she demanded. "After all that's happened, you don't even want to touch me now?"

"It's your choice, Grace. After all that's happened, keeping your secrets faithfully for a year and a half, you wouldn't trust me an emergency."

"No, it wasn't like that, Luke. I know how much you value your bond with your Dad, simply from the amount of respect that you show my parents. I didn't want to force you into a dilemma where you had to choose between obeying your Dad and hiding me."

"Oh." There was silence for a moment during which Grace was utterly unable to tell what her companion was thinking, being unable to hear his voice or see his expression. Is my doubt a sign that my bond with him has weakened? she wondered. Finally he said "I understand your motives, Grace, but I think I had better admit something. I told Dad that you went to the Begh's horse farm, and gave him his first clue. I wasn't betrayal; I was trying to protect you from dangers on the road."

"I can take care of myself, dork."

"Please don't accept it as an insult, Grace." A long pause. "He's told me stories about how women have been raped, intelligent and self-reliant women who simply let their guard down at the wrong time. He's seen it a lot in his police work. And it happened to -- a member of my family, in an earlier generation. She was so traumatized that she made us promise never to divulge it, even though she was a victim who did nothing wrong. Horrible things can happen to good and smart people, Grace. Don't think I'm being macho or domineering just because I don't want them to happen to you."

"I understand that now." Unsaid was the realization that she was herself vulnerable to a possible assault, falling asleep inches from a male who had once made love to her and knew how delightful it could be.. It wasn't a danger. She trusted Luke. Even after years of cynicism, she knew on the level of instinct that there were noble people in the world.

TBC