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She had settled on red because it suited her temperament. Lu Ann happened to have been, she explained, a honey blond just at the time her first daughter was born with red hair. She soon got tired of people asking how the baby came out that way. So even though her husband objected, she thought she'd try the bright red herself. Talk of a turnabout, she didn't like it, but he did. So she kept it. She had now kept it so many years she would say, "Being a redhead is being me."
                    She was a Utah girl, she said, and had been bounced back and forth. Her parents moved around the state a lot. When her husband, whom she dated through high school, went into the Navy, she hit both coasts with him: California and Florida. That was her life until she got divorced.
                    Now, she was back in Utah County again. The desert was at the end of every street, she said, except to the east. There, was the Interstate, and after that, the mountains. That was about it.
                    She would admit to being curious about his life. "What's it like in prison?" she asked. "What do you have to do to survive?"
                    Gary said, "I got myself put into Solitary as much as I could so they would leave me alone."
                    When they were ready to go, Gary asked, "Can I have a six-pack to take home?" She said, "If you want it." Gary said, "Is it all right to drink my beer in your car?" She said yes.
                    Gary wanted to know why she'd come out to meet him. She said it was simple: he needed a friend and she needed a new friend. That did not satisfy him. He said, "When somebody in prison offers friendship, they want something for it."
                    As they drove, he kept staring at the road ahead. Once he looked up and said, "Do you normally do that—just drive around?"
                    "Yes, I do," Lu Ann told him, "it relaxes me."
                    "It doesn't bother you?" he asked. "No," she said, "it doesn't bother me in the least."
                    They kept driving. Suddenly he turned to her and said, "Will you go to a motel with me?"
                    Lu Ann said, "No."
                    "No," Lu Ann told him, "I'm here to be your friend." She said as forcefully as she could, "If the other is what you want, you better go look someplace else."
                    He said, "I'm sorry, but I haven't been around a girl." He kept staring at the dashboard. After a silence that went on for a couple of minutes, he said, "Everybody's got something, but I've got nothing." Lu Ann answered, "We all have to earn it, Gary." He said, "I don't want to hear any of that."
                    She pulled over. "We've been talking," she told him, "but not face to face. I want you to listen to me." She said that all her friends had all worked superhard to have their homes, their cars, their children.
                    "You," he said, "all had it easy."
                    She said, "Gary, you can't expect everything to be handed to you the minute you walk out the prison door. I'm a working girl," she told him, "Brenda works hard at home. She has her kids and husband to take care of. Don't you think she's earned all that?"
                    He was fidgeting as she spoke. At that point he said, "I'm a guest in this car."
                    Lu Ann replied, "Yes, you're in my car, but you're not going anywhere, unless you're going on foot." She had the feeling he would get out at this point if he knew where he was.
                    Gary said, "I don't want to hear any more." "Well, you're going to." Suddenly, he raised his fist.
                    She said, "You want to hit me?" She didn't really think he would. Still, she felt his rage pass over her