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all—”
    “Yes,” said Jenny. “That’s what I wanted to know.”
    Maybe it was not a good idea to tell her that. Jenny did not need any more help being wild. But it was the truth. I could not tell her where I was or where I was going, but I could tell her one truth.
    We whispered goodbyes to each other and I promised to help her when I could. She asked me when I was coming home and I told her to hold tight. I was lying though. I could not face going home. I did not have it in me.
    Traffic moved me slowly down the block and I was suddenly tired. My legs and back and ass felt bloated and sore. I thought about pulling into Paris or New York, but I did not feel I belonged there. I did not belong anywhere. This was a false land. But I had to stop somewhere. I could not drive forever. I neared the end of the strip and I had no choice left. I pulled into the driveway of the giant pyramid.

4.
    I t was dark and cool in the Luxor Hotel, like someone had flipped a switch and made it nighttime, even though there was still at least an hour left till sundown. There were a dozen long lines of people waiting to check into the hotel. I slid in behind someone. I was happy to be standing still for a moment. But then the soft tinkle of the slot machines wormed its way into my head, and I could see already there were too many traps here. Also, I could not shut out the voices around me. I was in a sea of strangers. I saw and heard everything at once.
    The couple to the right of me was fighting. Loud. They did not care anymore who heard what. The man leaned in real close to her face and his lips moved fast. He was fat, and his polo shirt stretched tight against his belly, and great bunches of dark hair came out of the top of his shirt. The woman had nails that were long and red and she pointed one at his face, the curved tip of it coming close to his nose. He moved away from her. “Enough,” he said. “Of you and the way you feel.” I thought he was just going to take one step, but then he kept on going. He left her standing there with two suitcases. Her mouth was open as she watched him leave. I wondered if they were checking in or out.
    The couple to the left of me wore matching blue wind-breakers and blue jeans. I wondered how it made them feel, to match like that. His head was shaved clean and her hair was wound in rows of tight braids close to her head. She was telling him a story about her grandmother worrying about their flight. There was a late-night phone call involved. The grandmother had offered to pray for them, but she would need to know the flight number, the time they were leaving, and the time they were landing. That would help the praying, the woman told the man. Every few seconds he broke into a big laugh and he would rub her shoulder or brush up against her cheek with the back of his hand. His teeth were bright white in the dark of the hotel. He would never get lost in the dark with those teeth. They were excited to be here. I thought they would have a good weekend. I wished them well.
    There was a woman in her wedding gown, much older than me, maybe late forties, blond hair swept up and pinned back with pearl-clustered barrettes, who stood still clutching her bouquet, while her husband leaned in at reception toward a clerk. She did not look deliriously happy, like I did on my wedding day. Older brides are just happy to be there, I guess. She looked calm and content. Her lips were tight against each other. She was not breaking out of her home and leaving her parents behind like I had been.
    Her parents were there, with her, I noticed. Her father was blind, and her mother was stroking his arm and speaking directly into his ear. They were tiny and old, shrunken versions of the way they used to be. I bet he called her “mother” and she called him “father” and when they slept next to each other, they would turn together perfectly in the night.
    I started to cry, missing Thomas’s touch in the mornings. I shaded my