On the way, she and Mary Stuart would sleep in the bedroom, and they would park outside a motel, so they could get a room for Tom. And an elaborate alarm system would keep them safe. In some cases, Tanya took security along, but she felt that this time she wasn't likely to need it. She was looking forward to the trip, and to spending two whole days chatting with Mary Stuart. Driving ten-hour days, they should be able to reach Jackson Hole the following day in time for dinner.

They reached the airport ten minutes before Mary Stuart's plane, and Tanya was waiting at the gate in dark glasses and a black cowboy hat when Mary Stuart came off in jeans and a blazer, carrying a Vuitton tote bag. As usual, she looked immaculate, and as though someone had pressed her jacket on the plane, and her hair looked as though she'd just had a haircut.

“I wish I knew how you did that,” Tanya said, smiling at her, and then hugging her tight. “You always look so damn neat and clean.”

“It's congenital. My kids hate me for it. Todd always used to try and ‘mess me up,’ just so I'd look ‘normal.’ “She looked faintly apologetic, and arm in arm they walked toward the baggage claim, where Tanya's bus driver was waiting to help them. She stood a little to one side with her friend, and within less than a minute heads began turning, she saw a few people whispering, some shy smiles, and five minutes later a cluster of teenagers came over with a pen and some paper.

“May we have your autograph, Miss Thomas?” they asked, giggling and shoving each other. She was used to it, and she always signed when she was asked to. But she also knew that if they didn't move quickly then, she would be surrounded by fans in less than five minutes. She knew from experience that once she was recognized it was only a matter of moments before it became a mob scene. And she smiled over the kids at Mary Stuart, as her old friend watched her. As she signed the last piece of paper, she whispered to her, “We gotta go… it'll be crazy in a minute.” She said something to Tom, and Mary Stuart gave him her baggage stub and described her bag, she'd only brought one with her, and Tanya hustled her as quickly as she could toward the exit. But there was already a large group of women and young girls heading toward her, and two rough-looking guys grabbed her arm, and one of them shoved a pen in her face.

“Hey, Tanya, how ‘bout signing something for me, hey sweetheart, like your bra.” The two of them were laughing, thinking they were very amusing, and Tom, the bus driver, had been watching and came right over.

“Thanks, guys, another time… see ya…” and before Mary Stuart realized what had happened to them, they were out the door and across the pavement, right in front of the women who had been hurrying toward her. They zipped right by just as two women took her picture. But Tom had the key in his hand, and unlocked the bus, shoving Tanya ahead of him, and Mary Stuart just behind her. They were inside and the door was closed in a fraction of a second. But there was already the breathless feeling of having been stampeded. And it reminded Mary Stuart instantly of how difficult Tanya's life was. She had almost forgotten. It happened to her everywhere. The supermarket, the doctor, the movies. She couldn't go anywhere without attracting attention. No matter what she did to hide, they always found her.

“That was awful,” Mary Stuart said succinctly, as Tanya took two Cokes out of the fridge in the kitchen and handed her one through the doorway with a smile at her driver.

“You get used to it… almost… Thanks, Tom. That was very smooth.”

“Anytime.” He told her he was going back for Mary Stuart's bag, and reminded Tanya to keep the door locked.

“Hell, no, I thought I'd hang out in the doorway and sell tickets.” She grinned with her cowboy hat still on. In her hat and her boots, she looked very Texas.

“Be careful,” he warned again as he left, and the two women could see a small crowd forming on the sidewalk, taking pictures of the bus, and pointing to it, although they couldn't see into the bus and there was nothing to identify it. It was just a long, sleek, black bus with no markings. But they knew. Word had gotten out. They had seen her. And by the time Tom got back, there were fifty people outside, pushing and shoving and talking. They tried to stop him as he came in, wanting to push their way past him, but he was a powerful guy, and no one was going to get by him. He was on the bus, with Mary Stuart's bag, and the door was locked again before anyone could get near him.

“Jesus, the natives are aggressive today, aren't they?” Tanya said, watching the crowd outside. They still frightened her at times. It was scary to be so pursued, so devoured, so compulsively hunted. And as Mary Stuart watched her face, she was overwhelmed with pity.

“I don't know how you stand it,” Mary Stuart said softly, and then they both sat down, as the bus began rolling.

“Neither do I,” Tanya said as she put her Coke can down on a white marble table, “but you just do, I guess. It goes with the territory. It's just that no one really explains it to you when you grab that mike for the first time and sing your heart out. At first you think it's all about you and the music. But it isn't. After a while, it has nothing to do with that. You can have that anytime, all by yourself, out in a field, in the bathtub, anywhere you are… but it's all about the rest that comes with it. They eat you up, if you let them. They give you everything, their hearts, their minds, their souls, their bodies if you want them, and then they take yours, everything you got, and you never get it back again if you're not careful.” She knew whereof she spoke. She had fought long and hard to get where she was, and she had paid a high price for it, and given up parts of herself she knew she would never get back now. She had given trust and caring and love, and worked harder than anyone Mary Stuart had ever known, and in the end, she stood alone at the top of the mountain. It wasn't an easy place to be. Mary Stuart could only guess at it. But Tanya knew it.

“So how's it going?… How was the flight?… How's Alyssa?” Tanya asked, settling back in one of the big club chairs for the long drive to Winnemucca, Nevada, where they were sleeping.

“Alyssa's fine. She's in Holland, and she's in love. She sounds so happy it almost hurts to hear her. And Bill's fine too,” she volunteered, but her face saddened instantly as she said it. “He sounds very busy,” and he didn't want her with him, she thought. That said it all as far as she was concerned. She didn't say any more, but it was obvious that she was unhappy.

“How's that going, or should I ask?”

“I'm not sure.” She hesitated for a long moment, looking out the window. “I've been doing a lot of thinking.” And then she looked into her friend's eyes and remembered the endless confessions in Berkeley, the hours they spent talking about their lives and their dreams, and what they really wanted. All Tanya had wanted was to marry Bobby Joe. Mary Stuart had wanted a job and a great husband, and good children. She had married Bill two months after graduation, and for a while seemed to have everything she wanted. But she wasn't as sure now. “I'm not sure I want to go back after the summer,” she said softly, and Tanya looked startled.

“To New York?” She couldn't imagine her living in California. Tanya was her only friend there, and everything about her was so Eastern. It would have been a brave decision, but Mary Stuart shook her head at the question. Her answer shocked Tanya still further.

“No, to Bill. I don't know. Something happened when he left. It's as though he thinks he can do whatever he likes now. He has the option to do what he wants, to go to London for two months alone, even though I could have been there. The firm would even have paid for it, but he didn't want me. And yet I'm expected to be there for him, to run his home, to take his messages, to cook his dinner. But he no longer has to speak to me, or care for me, or take me anywhere. He's silently blaming me for killing Todd, or at least not stopping him from what he did. But Bill no longer acts married to me now. That's my punishment. I'm married, and he's not. Like a sentence in purgatory, and I've been letting him punish me because I felt so guilty. But a funny thing happened when I put Todd's things away, it freed me. I feel sad, I feel loss, I still feel terrible grief sometimes.” She had cried for him again the night before she left, and for her marriage as well. She had sensed before she left that she might never come back in quite the same way to their apartment. “But I don't feel as guilty. It wasn't my fault. It was terrible. But it was something Todd did. And no matter how terrible it was, or how foolish, even though I'm his mother, I couldn't have stopped him.”

“Do you really believe that?” Tanya asked, looking relieved. It was exactly what she had tried to tell her, but Mary Stuart hadn't been ready to hear it. Or maybe Tanya had started the process for her. She hoped so, as she listened.

“I believe it now,” Mary Stuart said quietly. “But I don't think Bill does. I think he's going to go on punishing me forever.” And then she looked out the window as they drove out of Los Angeles County, thinking of her husband. “We're not married to each other anymore, Tan. It's all over. I don't think he'd admit it if I asked him. But there's nothing left, and I think he knows it too. If there were, I'd be in London with him.”

“Maybe he just can't face you yet,” Tanya tried to say fairly, but she suspected Mary Stuart was right. What she had told her in New York had been a nightmare. The silence, the loneliness, the agony of his rejection. And even to Tanya the fact that he didn't want her in London with him told its own story.