“Come on!” I yank her out of the cab. The wheels of the trailer are on the sidewalk and the back end of the truck is about two feet from the front door of a little white church. Grimshaw looks dazed. I get her suitcase out from behind the seat. It’s a lot lighter without the sheets. I hoist my backpack and take her by the hand. On the other side of the street, a line of commuters in trench coats and sneakers are holding up their phones. We run across the street and get in line behind them just as a bus pulls up.

“Where are we again?” Grimshaw asks. I point at downtown Manhattan, pale blue in the early morning haze.

“That’s New York City,” I tell her. “You made it.” Her eyes open wide. Just as we’re about to board, Two by Four boils out from behind the bus.

“Did you steal my wrenches?” he yells. “Let me look in that suitcase!”

I give him the finger and push Grimshaw on to the bus.

“Lezzies!” he screams.

The bus is warm and humid, and the motor makes a soothing grumble. The last thing I remember telling Grimshaw is that the daffodils are out in New Jersey already. At the Port Authority bus terminal, she needs to shake me awake. We get in line to purchase two tickets to Colchis. Having to backtrack like this gives me a strange feeling of completion. If we had stopped at Buffalo without going all the way to the East Coast, I would have felt like I had written a long, long sentence and then never punctuated it. The problem is, we only have Grimshaw’s winnings from Winnemucca to pay for two bus tickets, and eighty-five dollars only buys a ticket and a quarter. She pulls a fifty-dollar bill out of her shoe and passes it through the window.

“My last tip,” she says.

After a long wait, a change in Albany, another long layover, and another night spent traveling, the bus pulls in behind Al’s Superette. The obvious thing for me to do is walk over to the school. Grimshaw picks up her suitcase and walks straight-backed from the bus to Ruby’s pickup truck, which is waiting for her with its motor running. She must have borrowed a phone and called home. I have enough pride, barely, not to stand on the sidewalk and watch the back of her head and Ruby’s taillights disappear.

thirteen

IN THE WEEK THAT I was gone, Colchis has changed utterly. It now looks like an abandoned movie set with the facades propped up by sticks. It’s shrunk to about half the size it was before I left. When I climb the steps of the school and open the front door, I’m surprised to find the lobby on the other side. But it seems to be real. There are the closed doors of the auditorium, the junior high corridor to the left, with handpainted signs for upcoming dances and fund-raisers, the stairs leading to the administration offices to the right. I climb the stairs and walk into math class a minute after the bell rings.