Gift of the Golden Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page A

graduate student in chemistry. He's been very helpful."
         "I'll just bet," May said.
         Karin sighed.
         "I'm sorry," May answered, and she was, but she couldn't get back on the plane. "Look, K, I'll call you tomorrow. I promise. I won't stay more than a day, two at the most . . ."
         "There's a big welcome home party for you tonight," Karin put in, her voice pleading now, "at Kit's."
         "Poor Kit," she answered, "maybe she should have informed the guest of honor."
         Karin's voice was full of reproach. "It was supposed to be a surprise party, May. The twins are here visiting Faith, and it was their idea. They've been decorating all day, and it's going to be an awful disappointment. . . ."
         Faith and Annie and Amos and Karin—all of them waiting for her. She bit her lip. "Listen, K—I can't talk anymore, there's a line of people waiting for this phone. I'll call you tomorrow, I promise." And she hung up.
         No one was waiting in line, she was all alone in the glaring white corridor, her stomach churning and her eyes blurred with tears, feeling sick as the clouds gathered outside the big plate-glass corridor. She was, she thought, being suffocated: the plane, the air-conditioned airport lounge, the corridor. She stood for a minute, looking at the dark clouds closing in, and she knew she had to get out and into the open.
         She made her way to the airline counter to ask that her luggage be held in San Francisco, then she found the car rental desk and calmed herself with the ritual filling out of forms.
         The girl at the counter had brightly lacquered fingernails which she flashed ostentatiously, lingering over the small x's where you signed on the line.
         "Destination?" she asked.
         May had to think a minute. "Batavia," she finally told her, "I think that's west of Chicago."
         "Here," the girl said, stabbing the map with a red forefinger, then drawing a few quick, deft lines with a green marking pen.
         "We have a brand-new Mustang for you today, Mr. Ford just sent it over, a bright shiny new red Mustang. Here," she went on, fingernails flashing over the map, "you are here, your car is here, make a left and a left and a right, keeping to the right, and that will take you onto 294 south. Here." She made a mark on the map. "Then you want to watch out for Highway 38, Roosevelt Road, west."
         May pushed hard on the doors and a tidal wave of heat washed over her, thick and choking and heavy, filling her lungs. A hot wind caressed her, moving up her skirt. She opened the car door and rolled down the window and waited for the heat to escape. Settling herself in the driver's seat, she pulled up her skirt, exposing long, slender brown legs. She rummaged in her purse until she found an elastic and caught up the mass of her hair, thick and jet black in the pale light. For an instant she smoothed her hands over her stomach, as if to allay the churning inside her.
         The slow throb of the motor steadied her. She needed to be behind the wheel, moving, traveling, in control. She could not sit, not wait in the heat. She swung around the turn, left and left again? She didn't remember but it didn't matter, she could see the highway, she could follow her instinct, feel her way.
         Driving helped, feeling the slow power of the engine beneath her helped, moving along a strange highway in an alien city helped; the windows were down and the wind was blowing, the clouds moved dark and ominous above and all of it helped.
         She turned on the radio but all she could get was static, so she turned it off again. She didn't need that sound, the wind blowing warm against her face was enough.
         The sign said Highway 38 and she turned, hoping she was turning west. She was moving now through small towns, one after another, all of them connected: Elmhurst and Villa Park and Lombard and Glen Ellyn, yellow and red flags snapping in the wind