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Ernetta never even thought to ask about Rose Merriman. Maybe if she'd shown the photograph of herself in Tops to the red–bearded, deep–voiced editor on the fifteenth floor of the Pierce–Wright building, he'd have put two and two together and dialed Rose's number.

"Greetings, Merriman. This is Tom McLeesh. Remember that photo we ran with Jimmy's review of your book? Well, she's sitting out in my lobby at the moment. The woman in the photograph. Yeah, I want you to get rid of her."

Rose would have dropped what she was doing (a free–lance assignment at the Smithsonian), skipped dinner with her mother, and rushed over to rescue Ernetta before nightfall. Probably she'd have put new sheets on her guestroom bed; at the very least she'd have set Ernetta up in a good hotel for the night. Rose was a kind–hearted woman, frequently showing mercy to the unwanted and the irritating (her downfall when it came to men). She might have spared everyone a lot of trouble, at least in the short run.

But Ernetta didn't mention Rose to Tom McLeesh. When she reached the Pierce–Wright building, late on the same day her truck had broken down, she found the building already locked. Locked! Ernetta had not reckoned on that. What she'd imagined, based on having seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington eight times, was a rambling, domed structure with a statue of Abraham Lincoln on the steps out front; inside, a high–ceilinged auditorium (not unlike the Senate chambers) open to the public both day and night, where she could wait in a leather chair until such time as Stan E. Colfax agreed to see her. She hadn't reckoned on this windowless blade of a skyscraper, thrusting upward with its sharp edge toward the road and its point holding up the sky.

And now she was dizzy and thirsty, and she couldn't lock onto a welcoming sight anywhere. Not a restaurant or even a Starvin' Marvin—nothing but office buildings and cars sweeping back and forth on the black road, between rows of lime–green baby trees. She looked down and the sidewalk appeared to bend up towards the clouds; the sky drooped near her shoulders, grey and hot. Blisters burned like fire on the balls of her feet and the sides of her pinky toes. She had no idea what to do next.

A short flight of steps led up to the glass doors of the Pierce–Wright building. Ernetta lowered herself to the bottom of the steps and sat there huddled up with her purse on her knees. To passersby she looked like a homeless woman: ankles swollen, face leathered and caved–in, short hair matted down with sweat. She could have been anybody, any age, with any story to tell. A young black fellow walked by and gave her a kindly look. "Hidey," she said, and he nodded. He reminded her of her pharmacist back home. She watched him cross the street and turn at the next corner. Other folks came by: a tall white woman in high heels and a red suit, a scattered group of black teenagers, a couple of businessmen. Nobody looked her way at all.

Then an elderly woman rushed past with three small tow–headed boys. Ernetta couldn't help herself. "They's good–looking children," she said loudly, and the smallest one turned to wave at her. But the old woman hissed and gave him a hard push. The boy tripped over his own feet. He caught himself with his hands on the sidewalk, then burst into tears and took off running. The woman frowned at Ernetta and Ernetta frowned back. "Plain ugly way of behaving," she said to herself, shaking her head.

A half hour passed without much change. Then suddenly the sky turned dark, though it was still early evening. The traffic light on the corner glowed fire–red against a patch of blue cloud between buildings. Ernetta put her tongue out to lick the air. It tasted like rain, like heavy rain that would fall for a long time. She had already made up her mind that she'd have to sleep here all night, hungry and thirsty. Now she looked around for an awning or an archway—any place to hide so her clothes wouldn't be soaked next morning when the folks upstairs came back and opened their building up. She moved to the top step and curled up under the small overhang, with her hands around her legs and her head tucked between her knees.

She'd been thinking a lot lately about the "incident." Used to be she'd only remember it when she felt unhappy or scared—not too often, really, but when she did feel unhappy, then something let it fly, something inside her freed the memory like an arrow leaving a string to go way high, to rise above all else and then fall again. Nowadays she thought of it even in normal times, sometimes up to two or three times a day, for as long as ten minutes at a go (she kept track). She thought of Arvin's careful, bony hands tying ropes around her ankles, around her wrists. She remembered the days and endless days of lying on her side, curled up under a grey bedspread in his room with the grey lace curtains made by his recently dead mother. How she had stared over the edge of the bed at the patterns in the red shag carpet. Sometimes the cat with blue eyes had come to stare, or roll up and fall asleep against her back.