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    mouth seemed pinched, almost sullen, and the thick
    cascade of blond hair looked fake. The nose was
    straight but slightly too bulbous at the end to be pretty.
    Only the eyes were striking, darkly fired with anger and
    resentment, a redneck rage more suited to a thinner
    face. She wore an old-fashioned, high-collared lace
    blouse with a black ribbon threaded through the collar
    to hold a small cameo to her throat. As I looked at the
    face again, the blouse seemed oddly defiant, the face
    so determined not to be laughed at that it seemed sad,
    too sad.
    I knew the story: a nearly pretty girl, but without the
    money for the right clothes or· braces or confidence, the
    sort of young girl who either lurked about the fringes of
    the richer, more popular girls, and was thought pushy
    for her efforts, or who stood alone and avoided the
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    high school crowd, and for her lonely troubles was
    thought stuck-up, stuck on herself without good reason. Ah, the sad machinations of high school. As I stared at the picture, I was once again pleased that I
    had missed most of those troubles. I lived in the
    country and worked, and although I hadn't exactly
    planned it that way, I had joined the Anny three weeks
    before I was supposed to graduate. Somehow the GED
    I had earned in the Army seemed cleaner than a high
    school degree. Less sad, somehow.
    "How long ago did she take off?" I asked Rosie, the
    photograph dangling from my fingers like a slice of
    dead skin.
    "Ten years ago come May," she answered as calmly
    as if she had said a week ago come Sunday.
    "And you haven't heard from her since?" I asked.
    "Not a single solitary word."
    "Ten years is too long," I said, still trying not to
    sound shocked. "Even a year is usually too long, but
    ten years is forever."
    Once again, though, Rosie acted as if she hadn't
    heard me. "She went over to San Francisco one
    Saturday afternoon with this boy friend of hers, and he
    said she just stepped out of the car at a red light and
    walked off without sayin' a word or even lookin' back.
    Just walked away. That's what he said."
    "Any reason to think he might have lied?"
    "No reason," Rosie said. "I've known him all his
    life, and his momma's a friend of mine. She's been
    fixin' my hair once a week for nearly twenty years. And
    Albert, he was tom up by it something terrible. He
    kept lookin' for Betty Sue for years after I give up. His
    momma says he still asks about her every time she sees
    him."
    "Did you report it to the police?" I asked.
    "Well of course I did," Rosie answered angrily, her
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    wrinkled eyes finding an old spark. "What kinda
    mother would I be if I hadn't? You think I'd let a
    seventeen-year-old girl wander around that damned
    city fulla niggers and dope fiends and queers? Of course
    I told the police. Half a dozen times." Then in a softer
    voice, she added, "Not that they did diddly-squat about
    it. I even went over there my own damned self. Twenty,
    maybe thirty times. Walked up and down them hills till
    I wore out my shoes, and showed pictures of her till I
    wore them out. But nobody had seen her. Not a soul."
    She paused again. "I just hate that damned city over
    there, you know. Wish it would have another earthquake and fall right into the sea. I just hate it. I was raised Church of Christ, you understand, and I know I
    ain't got no right to judge, runnin' a beer joint like I do,
    but I swear if there's a Sodom and Gomorrah in this
    wicked, sinful world, it's a-sittin' over there across the
    bay," she said, then pointed a finger like a curse across
    the hills. When she saw an amused grin on my face, she
    stopped and glared down her sharp nose at me. "You
    probably like it over there, don't you? You probably
    think it's all right, don't you, all that crap over there?"
    "You don't have to get mad at me," I answered.
    "I'm sorry," she said quickly, then looked away.
    "That's all right."
    "No, it ain't all right, dammit. Here I am askin' a
    favor of you and hollerin' at the