The Goats Read online

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” demanded the cleaning lady, shaking her arm.

  It was disgusting to be touched by her. There were patches of old-person sweat under the arms of her sleeveless dress.

  “Don’t touch me. My brother went back to our room. He’s sick. When my dad gets …”

  “Brother nothing. If you were my daughter I’d smack your bottom.”

  The woman had talked about her bottom. She had actually said the word. The girl felt so sick with rage and shame that she could hardly breathe. She suddenly wanted the boy very much, but she was afraid to look for him. It would be awful if they caught him, too.

  “I think,” said the cashier finally, “we’d better talk to Mr. Anderson about this.” She looked at the girl for the first time. “I’m sorry,” she added. “We have to be careful.”

  The girl didn’t understand what she meant. What did they have to be careful about?

  The cashier called over a waitress to take her place behind the counter. It was their waitress. Her eyes were big, and she wasn’t smiling. The girl couldn’t look at her. She let them lead her out of the silent restaurant. Someone scraped a knife against a plate.

  Outside, she knew she should try to run. The cleaning lady was old and the cashier was wearing high heels. She could get away easily; but she couldn’t run, she could barely walk. She had been caught, and she had never imagined what that would be like. Before, she had been happy. She had been crazy-happy, and had felt so light and airy that she had thought nothing could touch her. Now the old woman was pulling at her sweater and thinking bad thoughts about her. They clung like tar. She was wading through the dust of the parking lot, and it was so thick she could barely move.

  Behind the desk in the motel lobby was a young man as neat and clean as a new piece of furniture. He seemed to have been waiting for them. He leaned forward politely. His eyes flickered.

  “Some problem, Hazel?” he said to the cashier.

  “You bet there is,” said the old woman. She talked as if her words were punches, rocking back and forth, jabbing at the girl.

  The girl tried to think of what she might say. She knew she wasn’t going to give up. She wasn’t going to be what the cleaning lady said she was. She would talk until they stopped believing her, and then she wouldn’t say anything. She would never tell them her name. Her mother would never know. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “Miss Hendricks, is it?” said the man. He had flipped through a registration file and was holding up a white card. His face was carefully neutral. “Where are your parents now?”

  “They’re at the garage. Getting the car fixed. That’s where our luggage is, too. The car broke down when we were leaving this morning, that’s why we didn’t bring the luggage back. I thought my mom told you all about this.”

  The old woman with pink hair made a loud noise through her nose. The man coughed to cover the sound. He looked uncertainly, first at the girl and then at the cashier. The girl began to hope that he would believe her, at least for a while. She didn’t know why it was important, but she wanted him to believe her.

  “Well, that’s right, I think. If you could just tell us the garage.”

  “I don’t know the garage. Can’t we just wait until my dad gets back? He’s really going to be mad.”

  “I’m sorry, miss. Of course we can wait. Mrs. Purse just wants to be sure. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Purse?” He looked at the old woman and she turned a mottled red. Even her fat upper arms.

  “What about the boy?” she said, her voice tight. “I saw a boy, too, coming out of that room.”

  “Boy? What boy?” asked the man.

  “My brother …” the girl began, but the man dropped the card on the desk as if he didn’t want to touch it any longer.

  “According to the registration there is a party of three in that room. Is that your mother and father and you?”

  He looked at her very hard. Somewhere outside, a car alarm went off, but no one paid any attention. They were all looking at her, and she didn’t know what to say.

  The old woman grabbed her arm again, triumphant. “There’s just her and her boyfriend. There ain’t any luggage. Just a paper bag with tampons in it.” The woman made a disgusting noise with her mouth.

  The girl thought she was going to cry. It was because the old woman had gone through her bag and found the tampons. She looked at the cashier, but the young woman looked ready to cry herself. That frightened her more than anything.

  A second car alarm went off. In the motel lobby nothing moved but the man’s eyes, darting from the old woman to the cashier, and finally to the girl.

  He jumped when the fire alarm began to shriek. High and warbling, the sound was almost too loud to hear.

  “Damn. Hazel? Check the parking lot. Keep her here, Mrs. Purse.” He pointed a finger at the girl as he came out from behind the desk. “You’re in trouble,” he said.

  A woman in a floral-print bathrobe came out into the lobby and tried to catch his arm as he brushed by.

  “Is there fire?” she asked.

  “I’m checking,” said the man, and disappeared through a large wooden door. The woman looked at the girl and the cleaning lady as if she was going to say something. She changed her mind and went back into her room.

  Mrs. Purse hustled the girl over to a large leather couch in front of the lobby window and pushed her down.

  “You just sit there, missy,” she said, standing over her, little fists on fat hips. “I have a granddaughter about your age. I don’t know what I’d do if I thought she acted this way. I just don’t know.”

  The girl wasn’t listening. There was a very peculiar expression on her small narrow face. When Mrs. Purse recognized it, it took her breath away. The girl was trying not to smile. She was looking out through the lobby window and trying not to smile. Slowly the old woman turned.

  He was staring through the darkening glass, watching her. His eyes were wide and dark, and with a tingle of outrage Mrs. Purse saw that his hair was entangled with green leaves and vines. As she watched, he leaned forward and pressed his hands and face against the glass so that his nose and lips were flattened.

  The girl got up and calmly walked out the door. Outside, she turned and grinned with foxy eyes.

  Mrs. Purse sat down on the couch with her hands on her chest and listened to the blood and the fire alarm pound in her ears.

  “Wild things,” she whispered. “Wicked wild things.”

  “Come on, you dope,” said the girl. “You’re going to give her a heart attack.”

  The boy smiled and climbed out of the laurel bushes planted in front of the window. They walked slowly through the crowd of motel guests waiting for something to happen in the parking lot. As they walked, the boy unwound the vine from around his head. No one tried to stop them.

  The Highway

  THE BOY woke up first, with a sore throat and dry, sticky eyelids. He sat very still, waiting until he was sure that he understood where they were.

  It was the back seat of a car. Somebody’s car. He didn’t know whose. It was parked in a long driveway screened with dark evergreens. At the end of the driveway he could see the house of the people who owned the car. It had green shutters and a plastic deer in the front yard.

  Beyond the house the sky was turning gray. They would have to move soon.

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  She squirmed against him irritably and made a small animal sound, clinging to sleep and dreams. There was no great hurry, he decided. She could finish the dream if she wanted to.

  His nose was starting to run again. A clear, watery drip ran down over his upper lip. It was frustrating to have caught a cold.

  He tipped his head back and tried to breathe gently through his mouth. The toilet paper she had given him back at the motel was gone. She had needed it herself during the night because they had left the paper bag in the motel room and the cleaning lady had found it.

  He didn’t want to think abou
t the motel. He tilted his head to one side so he could see out across a grassy field to where the pine woods started. They looked so dark and deep. They looked as if they might go on forever. From the edge of the dinky little field to the end of the world.

  There wasn’t a bit of wind. Every blade of grass was perfectly still. He found he was holding his breath. Everything was so quiet and still that he didn’t need to breathe.

  He felt a deep longing swell inside his chest, almost lifting him from the seat. He wanted to get out of the car and walk into the woods. Walking away forever from camps, roads, motels, the sound of human voices. In that wood there were no paths, no clearings, no farm fences, no pylons stalking through the trees toward invisible cities. It would be safe there. They wouldn’t be the same. They would be as light, as hard to detect, as shadows in shadows. They could simply disappear.

  “What?” said the girl.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I must have been dreaming.” He blinked and opened his eyes wide. There was a wind. It was moving the tops of the evergreens and shaking the television antenna on top of the house in a great invisible rush. Why had he thought there was no wind? He gave his head a shake, feeling its weight.

  A light came on in the second story of the house. He could see a big shadow moving across the ceiling through the window.

  “Hey,” he said again. “The people in the house are waking up.”

  The girl wiped her face against his sleeve and sat up. “Yuck,” she said. “This blanket is all dog hair.”

  They hadn’t noticed in the dark when they had found the car unlocked. The blanket that had been folded on the back seat was covered with soft yellow hair.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

  “Yeah, but I’m going to take about a million baths when we get home.”

  He tried to think what that would be like. Would he be sitting in some strange apartment that afternoon, trying to talk to her mother while she took a bath? It didn’t seem very likely somehow.

  She stiffened slightly and began to explore under the blanket with her hand. He understood that she was feeling inside her pants, and he closed his eyes to give her some privacy. He was beginning to feel defeated. He couldn’t understand why. They didn’t have to take any more chances. Perhaps it was his cold, and this other thing that she had, that made everything so complicated. It didn’t seem as if anything was going to work.

  “I’ve got to find a bathroom soon,” she said in a small, flat voice.

  Through the windshield he saw a woman with her hair in curlers open the door of the house. A big golden dog pushed by her and bounded stiff-legged out into the wet grass. It rushed the plastic deer and sniffed suspiciously.

  The woman went back in the house.

  “Oh no,” said the girl. The dog was running down the drive sideways toward the car. “Do you think it knows we’re here?”

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” he said, pushing the blanket aside and fumbling for the door handle.

  “But what if it bites?”

  “It’s a golden retriever. They don’t bite people.” He wasn’t really sure about that, but he was willing to take the chance. He didn’t want the people to find them in their car. He didn’t think he could stand people anymore.

  When he pushed the door open he almost hit the dog. It shied off the driveway in astonishment, scattering gravel with its big feet.

  The boy got out of the car slowly. “Hi, dog,” he said, holding out the back of his hand so the dog could sniff at him. He could see it was confused. Its hackles were up, but it was wagging its tail.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the girl was out of the car and moving flat-footed toward the road.

  “Don’t run,” he said. She had left the door open, so he took a step back and slammed it closed.

  The dog was offended. It barked once, loudly, and then made a grab at his ankles. He decided that it might be better to run, after all. It was hard going, because the dog was knocking against him. It wasn’t vicious, but it kept trying to eat his sneakers.

  When he reached the road he stopped and pointed back down the drive. “Go home!” he said. The dog sat down and grinned at him.

  “I thought you said not to run,” said the girl.

  “What do you mean? He was chewing on me!” Her hair and shirt were wet and covered with white flecks. When he looked closely he saw that they were flowers. Her hair was filled with tiny white blossoms.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I ran into a bush.”

  “See. I told you not to run.”

  He suddenly felt lighthearted again. The dog hadn’t really hurt him, and maybe her mother would let them stay together, after all. It was possible. He reached out and began to pluck the blossoms from her dark head one by one.

  “You look like Spring,” he said.

  “What do you mean, spring?” she asked. She was suspicious, but she tipped her head down so he could get the flowers out of her hair.

  “No, I mean it. It’s this lady in a painting. She’s Spring.” He had had sort of a crush on the lady in the painting, actually. She didn’t in fact look like the girl, but their smiles were the same.

  “Is she pretty?” asked the girl. She knew she was asking for it, but she felt brave.

  “Of course. She has flowers in her hair. Just like you.” The flowers were wet and sticky and clung to his fingers. “You can see right through her clothes.”

  She shoved him hard, and he almost fell over the dog. It started barking as loudly as it could, and they took off running, hardly caring where they were going.

  The sun was already hot on the backs of their necks when they found a gas station that was open.

  A teenager with bad acne and long black hair was wheeling a Pennzoil sign out of the garage. He positioned it carefully in front of the pumps and watched the girl go around to the ladies’ room at the side of the station. He looked at the boy and then went back into the garage.

  “It’s locked,” said the girl, coming back.

  “Can you wait?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, we’ll get the key.”

  They walked together into the office. Through the door into the garage they could see the teenager pushing a large red jack under a pickup.

  The key was hanging on one end of the counter. It was attached to a chunk of broom handle. Someone had written WOMAN on the broom handle with a Magic Marker.

  The girl started to lift it off the hook.

  “Hey!” yelled the teenager. He dropped the jack handle and came into the office.

  “That’s for customers,” he said, putting out his hand to stop the key from swinging on its hook. He lounged against the counter, smiling and nodding, as if he had just made a very clever move and wanted to see what they would do next.

  “Can I have a Mars bar, please?” said the boy. The teenager looked puzzled, but he unlocked the counter with a key attached to his belt by a long, heavy chain.

  “Thirty-five cents,” he said, keeping his hand on the candy bar.

  The girl counted the money carefully out of the palm of her hand onto the counter.

  “Can we have the key, please?” said the boy.

  “I said that was for customers.”

  The boy looked at the money.

  “Damn,” said the teenager, but he gave the girl the key.

  “You wait outside,” he said to the boy when she was gone. He had stopped smiling.

  “Okay. Is this the way to Ahlburg?”

  “Yeah.” The teenager looked curious for the first time. “You walking to Ahlburg? That’s ten miles.”

  “No. I just wanted to know.”

  The teenager nodded, not believing him, so the boy went outside and stood by the Pennzoil sign.

  When the boy and girl were gone, the teenager went into the office to see if she had put the key back. Satisfied, he followed them out to the edge of the highway. He could see them walking toward Ahlburg.
That’s what they were doing. They had unwrapped the candy bar and were sharing it.

  A battered Jeepster pulled up by the pumps behind him. On the door was a faded sign that said HOF-STADDER’ S GOAT FARM. He looked at the Jeepster, and then at the two kids. He thought a minute, and then started walking toward the Jeepster. The more he thought, the faster he walked. He had started to grin again.

  “Ten miles,” the girl was saying. “I thought it was supposed to be eight.”

  “I think this guy probably didn’t know. He didn’t seem too smart.” The boy had to clear his throat to talk. The Mars bar had made him thirsty.

  “Yeah. Still. Do you think we should try to hitch?”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to.”

  “No. But maybe we should.” She was a little worried about him. She could hear him breathing. He made little whistling sounds. She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think when you had a cold you were supposed to make little whistling sounds.

  The boy shook his head. He didn’t feel that great, but he didn’t want to talk to people. It made him tired. Tireder than walking. He wished they could leave the highway and walk through the woods. It looked cool up there in the trees, and the road was so hot. If he could get away from the highway, he was sure he’d feel better.

  When he looked ahead he could see that a Jeepster had pulled onto the shoulder in front of them with its motor running. The back of the truck was coated with dust, but he could see the shadow of a man’s head, cocked to watch them in the rearview mirror.

  They tried to go around the Jeepster. It smelled of dust, hot oil, and burning gas.

  As they came up on the passenger side, the man stuck his arm out and worked the handle on the outside of the door. The door swung open in front of them. They would have to go down in the ditch to get around. The ditch was filled with tall wet grass and weeds. The boy looked at the man.

  “Hi there! You need a lift to Ahlburg? Hop in.” The man had ginger hair and sore blue eyes.

  “No thanks,” said the boy, and tried to nudge the girl into the ditch.