“Me? You’re the one woke me up.”

They were standing in the alley beside the Chrysler. As soon as he’d gotten dressed she’d taken him by the hand and led him silent out through the yard, her hand hot wrapped around his, he following her, still barefooted, following the white of her sleeveless dress through the dark, her bare arms darker than the cloth, long slender sweeps of arm down from her shoulderblades, the collar of the dress low enough behind to show her nape below the bob of thick soft blond hair white in the moonlight. As soon as they went through the gate into the alley she dropped his hand as if all she wanted was to get him away from the house, beyond earshot of sleepless old men. Foster looked back. The upstairs light was out. His hand she’d held was moist and cooling in the night.

“You want to waste a perfectly good night, is that what you’re telling me?”

“I’d thought I’d get some sleep is all. I been on the road some days.”

“God, I could just stand here and listen to you. That funny accent.”

“It’s you that talks funny.” Gawky and awkward immediately. She was not short but he felt himself a loose-limbed clamor just standing beside her. Facing her, her face tilted up, lips parted. She was older. Nineteen.

She tilted her head a little. “Don’t sleep. Let’s go ride around. The nighttime, the nighttime is the only time I can really stand being alive. Everything goes away and the world’s made just the way you want it to be. There’s this piece of time where even the hours are gone. You know what I mean?”

And he recalled those nights riding with his father and knew well what she meant and had even seen enough dawns murder those nights to know how they all ended. And he would not admit it but she was standing two feet away from him, crushing him.

“You should let me drive.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because you’re barefoot and I know my way around and you don’t.”

“Well let’s take your car then. You didn’t walk here, did you?”

“I don’t want to take my car. It’s just a ruint wore-out old flivver that Daddy wouldn’t even let me drive except I told him if I couldn’t use the car I’d just walk out the road and thumb down a ride with the first criminal that came along. But I knew he wasn’t worried at all about criminals but that some neighbor would happen along and see that crazy Pettigrew girl out thumbing like some plain country hussy. I want to drive this car. This car looks like fun.”

He stood silent, rubbing one bare foot against the hard clay of the alley. Wondering if he should go back and get his boots. Wondering if the dogs would howl if he left them. Wondering how far this girl would run circles around him and if she even knew.