Chapter One


"We're lost," my daughter tells me for the third time in an hour. "I told you we should have gotten GPS. Lexy's mother has it and they never get lost."

"We're not lost," I reply, biting back the urge to tell Sally that one, we can no longer afford the things Lexy's mother can, and two, the only places Lexy's mother drives to are the Americana shopping center and the hair salon, two destinations within a five-mile radius of their Kings Point home, and so she is not likely to get lost. Instead I say: "We're taking the scenic route."

Sally rolls her eyes, throwing her head, neck, and shoulders into a gesture so practiced it has attained the grace of a yoga asana. I told her this a few weeks ago, making a joke of it. It was the kind of thing she and I used to joke about: eye-rolling teenagers. Instead of laughing, she asked me with exaggerated patience not to try to be funny anymore. And would I please stop comparing everything to yoga, she added as she plugged her iPod buds into her ears.

"Scenic would imply that we were able to see something. How remote is this place?"

"It's only two and a half hours to the city."

"There's a train?" Sally asks, stretching her neck and sniffing as if scenting the air for freedom. When she sits up straight you can see how lovely she is-like an exotic wading bird craning its long neck.

"Well, no, I don't think so. There might be a bus."

"Oh," Sally says, slouching back into her more characteristic slump. She pulls her long legs-in the prefaded jeans that cost more than the rent on my first apartment-up to her chin and plugs in her iPod. "Great. A bus." I may as well have suggested she take a coach and four. Good thing. ...