That night Lori and I lay in our rope beds and discussed New York City.
The things I had heard always made it sound like a big, noisy place with
a lot of pollution and mobs of people in suits elbowing one another on
the sidewalks. But Lori began to see New York as a sort of Emerald City
—this glowing, bustling place at the end of a long road where she could
become the person she was meant to be.
What Lori liked most about Ken and Bob's description was that the city
attracted people who were different. Lori was about as different as it was
possible to be in Welch. While almost all the other kids wore jeans,
Converse sneakers, and T-shirts, she showed up at school in army boots,
a white dress with red polka dots, and a jean jacket with dark poetry
she'd painted on the back. The other kids threw bars of soap at her,
pushed one another into her path, and wrote graffiti about her on the
bathroom walls. In return, she cursed them out in Latin.
At home she read and painted late into the night, by candlelight or
kerosene lamp if the electricity was turned off. She liked Gothic details:
mist hanging over a silent lake, gnarled roots heaving up from the earth,
a solitary crow in the branches of a bare tree on the shoreline. I thought
Lori was amazing, and I had no doubt she would become a successful
artist, but only if she could get to New York. I decided I wanted to go
there, too, and that winter we came up with a plan. Lori would leave by
herself for New York in June, after she graduated. She'd settle in, find a
place for us, and I'd follow her as soon as I could.
I told Lori about my escape fund, the seventy-five dollars I'd saved.
From now on, I said, it would be our joint fund. We'd take on extra work
after school and put everything we earned into the piggy bank. Lori
could take it to New York and use it to get established, so that by the
time I arrived, everything would be set.
Lori had always made very good posters, for football rallies, for the
plays the drama club put on, and for candidates running for student