August

Her thoughts, that Tuesday night as she walks along the edge of the road, are mainly occupied by the first day of school tomorrow.

What she'll wear, who she'll have for homeroom, and whether she'll get third or fourth period lunch, Seniors always get one or the other of the later lunch periods. That'll be a nice switch. Last year, she had first period; who wants sloppy joes or egg salad at 10:20 in the morning?

The pothole pocked pavement of Cuttington Road shines in the murky glow of streetlights; the strip Of ground that borders it is still muddy from this morning's hard rain.

Ma always reminds her to walk in the gutter, not the road, on her way home from her job at the fast-food place out on the highway. But she can't walk in the mud; she's wearing sandals.

And anyway, it's less than half a mile, and there isn't a lot of traffic on this old, winding back road leading to their apartment complex at this time of night. A year or two ago, there wasn't any through traffic at all; the only thing out here in the woods was Orchard Arms, a cluster of boxy, stucco, two-story buildings with rectangular wrought- iron balconies cluttered with potted impatiens, tricycles, and hibachis.

Then bulldozers rolled in and created a development where the woods used to be. They call it Orchard Hollow, probably because of all the apple trees they tore down to make way for the houses. Now, farther down the road, just past Orchard Arms, cul de sacs branch off from Cuttington Road like jeweled fingers on a work-roughened hand.

Two- and three-story houses with two- and three-car garages sprang up where there used to be only trees and brambles. In the garages are shiny cars and SUVs; in the homes are people who complain about the ruts and poor lighting along the old road that leads to Orchard Hollow. It's always been bad but nobody other than the apartment complex's residents ever cared until now. The construction equipment has torn up the pavement worse than ever, but they're still building back there.

The new houses have broad decks and brick terraces instead of wrought-iron balconies. They have real yards with raised beds of roses, wide gas grills, and elaborate wooden swing sets. Some of them even have in-ground pools.

On the hottest days of this summer, as she sat out on the balcony, she could sometimes hear the sound of splashing and gleeful shouts in the distance.

She often wondered what it would be like to make friends with one of the girls who ride her bus. Then she might be invited over to one of their pools to swim.

But so far, that hasn't happened. The girls from the development stick together, and she, as the only kid her age living in Orchard Arms, keeps to herself on the bus. Sometimes she eavesdrops on the other girls' conversations when they talk about things that interest her. Things like boys at Woodsbridge High and sales at Abercrombie & Fitch over at the Galleria. But when they discuss things to which she can't relate--like curfews and overly strict fathers and nosy mothers who are always home, always asking questions--well, then she tunes them out.

She sticks to the very edge of the pavement as she walks, doing her best to pick her way around the puddles that fill the potholes. Her toes are getting wet and dirty anyway.

Tomorrow, she'll have to put on regular shoes again for the first time in two months, she thinks with a tinge of regret. Regular shoes and regular clothes. In western New York, the days of sandals and shorts and tank tops are too fleeting as it is--you'd think Woodsbridge High would allow students to wear them through the warm days of early September, but hope.

What a waste of a pedicure, she thinks, remembering how painstakingly she polished her toenails pearly pink just this morning while she was sitting on the balcony watching the rain.

She hears a car splashing toward her from behind and steps farther off the road to let it pass.

It doesn't pass.

Gravel crunches beneath the fires as it slows; the headlights illuminate the road before her, casting an eerily long, distorted shadow of herself.

She wonders, as she turns toward the blinding lights, whether it's somebody she knows from Orchard Arms, stop ping to give her a ride.

Her next thought, a belated thought, is that Ma always tells her to walk facing traffic, not with it, so that she can see what's coming toward her.

And her last coherent thought as the car door opens and she is dragged roughly inside is that she never, ever would have seen this coming.