They passed through a series of toll booths but, otherwise, traffic was scanty and the Volvo cruised comfortably at sixty. “After Maine, what’ll you do?” Rose asked. Marty said that he was hoping she could use her influence to get him a management position at Kupperman's Bakery. “Unfortunately, my word doesn't carry much weight with Herb Kupperman or anyone else in the Jewish community.”
With every revolution of the odometer, the country grew wilder, less populated. Occasionally an isolated farmhouse would loom into view as they rounded a bend in the road. The farms invariably gave way to a smooth stretch of untainted country. Five miles on, they came across a barn with a tractor and rusty harrow lying idle in a field. Then more empty space. And there were signs: Beware of Falling Rocks; Deer Crossing; Soft Shoulder (What does someone do, Marty thought, to prepare for a soft shoulder?); Next Gas Station 22 Miles.
The muck and the misery of the D Street Projects did not extend this far north, but perhaps the locals suffered from a different brand of personal blight brought on by the frigid winters, loneliness and physical isolation. Fifty feet ahead, a brown hawk nested on a scruffy pine. The bird watched the car approach impassively before spreading its massive wings and flying off in the opposite direction, beating the air with thick, visceral strokes.
Rose sat facing him, her back resting comfortably up against the side door and hands clasped around her legs. Offsetting her delicate features, her eyes held a dreamy glow, a glossy brightness that lit up her face, Marty reached out and traced the curve of her cheek down around the lips, across the chin and lifted his hand away before the finger caromed onto the pearly neck. “What do you want from this trip?”
Staring out the passenger window at the endless procession of fat, alabaster birches, Rose gave no indication she heard the question. On a sharp descent, they passed a series of runaway trailer ramps, bottomed out and headed up another steep incline. She teased a scrap of paper from her wallet and handed it to him.
The leaves on the trees become
like the pages of the Holy Book
when the eyes of the heart are open.”
Persian poet, Saádi
Ten minutes later as they passed over a ridge with slabs or marbleized granite rising fifty feet on either side, the girl shifted in her seat. “I want my heart turned inside out, if that's not too much to ask.”
Marty had a mental image of the ragged scar curling crazily up the fleshy underside of her arm. “Not unreasonable,” he replied. “Definitely not too much to ask.”
Entering Bangor, they left the interstate and followed the Penobscot River in a northerly direction. The fading sunlight sifted through the treetops, but Marty felt no sense of urgency. They would reach their destination long before darkness fell.
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