“I’ll tell him something. He’ll get the idea. Please. Tomorrow is Sunday. Tonight, you could stay all night, couldn’t you?”

Sunday.

Her life was blowing up. She didn’t know whether to get on the streetcar that was even now lurching toward them, go to the Greek’s, go back to her room and wait for the hour of Walter’s arrival, go to May Landower’s and beg for mercy, get out of California at once, hitchhike her way back east, or just stay with Jake Yes, they’d get a little house together; Carson could drink beer in the living room and break glasses on the wall while she and Jake huddled in the bedroom…She didn’t know what she was doing with coins in her hand, where she was going.

“No!” she cried out.

“No, what?”

“Jake, I’ve got to go!”

But he held on to her and the streetcar passed. She looked at it hopelessly. “Annie, what is it?”

They walked back up Sycamore. “Are you sick? Is that it?”

She told him. She spoke quickly, her eyes on his feet; his footsteps began to drag; she observed, remotely, that he’d had his shoe resoled. Then she stopped talking. She looked up at him. His face ashen, his eyes rimmed in red. “Wait—” she begged.

“You’ve been waiting for him all this week, then,” he said in a lifeless voice. “You’ve just used me.”

Her legs were weak. Did he know how she’d used him?

“I didn’t mean to,” she said. She wanted to explain to him that she was caught. But she didn’t understand that herself, the how of it. Most of all, she wanted to do something, say something that would change his expression.

“My life’s been a mess,” she said, her eyes on his face, willing him to listen. “Not like Carson’s. Just a mess. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know how to wash my teeth the right way. It’s as if, every day, I start all over again, like an ignorant baby. This man, Walter, well, he’s a little like Max Shore. I mean, he can teach me.” Jake turned his head away, looked up at the houses, the trees, the empty street. What was it some man had said to her once? “I’d like to take you in hand,” he’d said, grinning.

“I need to be taken in hand,” she said wretchedly.

“You’re afraid of that man,” Jake said. She began to deny it. Out of Ivan’s house, a giant suddenly appeared carrying a stuffed pillowcase. She and Jake went back a few steps. The giant had a chin like a ledge.

“Santa Claus,” Jake whispered. Annie laughed weakly. “Maybe he’s gone into business with the Sheriff,” she said. Jake placed a hand on her arm.