Chapter 1 - Escape

         A silver coin poised in the sky over the long spindly palm trees lining the terra cotta roof of Union Station. A metallic pock-marked ‘O.' 

         A tilted mirror in broad daylight, 

        The woman in the moon.  

          The Southwest Chief diesel train pulled out of the station. Wanda’s finger touched the scratched window glass. Penny for your thoughts? How about a golden Sacajawea to spend on any number of words? 

         The moon was round, she had been around.

         And she was leaving. 

         She wheeled her suitcase through the East Portal into the vaulted rotunda, its Art Deco expanse a geometric pathway, diagonals and diamonds intercut with black and gold marble. A classic film noir getaway.

         Johnny had no idea. The sports stats memorized, he’d be sipping fresh squeezed grapefruit juice by now.  Her silver VW Rabbit, abandoned with the keys in the Venice condo parking lot, had its own dashboard message. 

         “LA is a great big freeway. In a week or maybe two they’ll make you a star.” 

         Marly would have appreciated the Dionne Warwick reference and the irony of an Amtrak exit from the land of endless cloverleafs as Wanda released her own beat-up set of wheels.

         The Pacific Coast Highway of her mind ended somewhere in sooty residue. Hot summer blacktop, a shimmer-smudge of hesitation, route points circled in red on a paper map. 

         Fold it up, tuck it away. She was going to Santa Fe.

         The train’s rattling sequence of cars would soon bisect highway 5, leaving LA behind. 

         What began as a search for blue-light fingertips on a microphone and a bit of gold rush promise had devolved into a dangerous tag-along to someone else’s party. 

         The Amtrak horn initiated a slow-motion blur as the line of date palms receded from view, long-legged and shaggy, alien trees of the tropics swaying in the sonic hum of eastward acceleration. 

        Positive vibrant, ohh.

         A feeble peace sign farewell to no one in particular caused a wince-glance at her hasty DIY bandaging, a crisscross of gauze over the emergency room nurse’s neat stitches and tape. Luckily no severed artery from the broken glass. 

         Smashing a mirror barehanded on shots of Stoli Vee resulted in a headache so overkill, so sledgehammer, it broadcast the end of a binge and the beginning of “I’ll never do that again.” Ever.  

         This veer-off marked a turning point, her asphalt silhouette sketched onto the crime scene of her own making. Several days under the dark sheets lapsed with shades drawn, until a lyric returned, a song Marly played in heavy rotation in the SUV, the den, the barn back in Lexington. 

         The secret to a long life is knowing when it’s time to go.

         No guitar playing for a while. Maybe it was over, this striving on a set of strings, tight wires snapping.

         Incandescent bulbs give way to nightfall,

        Filaments twitching as she ended it all.

         Leaving the four-year celebrity pyramid game meant an end to dirty Martinis festooned with heart-spiked toothpicks. She was giving up her guaranteed spot in the back seat of her brother’s Range Rover. Occasionally, she rode shot gun.

         Can you slip Crystal’s manager a copy of my demo? 

         You think they’ll audition me for your brother Johnny's show?