Saturday morning found me tooling along the road from Kingston U. to the police station in the metropolis, Kingstown proper. The big city.
      The weather was strange, even for New England. It was frosty out, colder than it had been even last night. And yet, the sun was out. It was also raining lightly. This combination might seem odd, but not if you've lived in New England. The weather can switch from cold to rain to sun in a minute, and sometimes nature isn't fussy about waiting the minute.
      My black VW bug had started right up, which was a pleasant surprise. One of the things I liked about the bug was that it was so light I could push it myself, jump in, and start it by popping the clutch, if necessary. Last winter, after a plow had buried it under a hill of snow, six friends and myself had managed to lift it straight up and set it back in the street. Try that with a Buick.
      As I turned from the university onto the road to town, I saw someone hitchhiking on the side of the road. I generally picked up hitchhikers, as long as they looked okay. Big burly guys with scars on their face and tattoos on their arms (or vice versa), probably not. People who seemed unlikely to commit violence against my person, more likely. Probably not a smart idea, but there had been plenty of times when I was without a car myself. I knew what it was like to be out there, freezing your tootsies off, walking backwards as fast as physically possible (which is to say, not very), thumb stuck out, smiling, trying to look acceptable to drivers, hoping whoever picked you up wasn't a Charles Manson disciple.
      Through a swipe of windshield wiper, I saw that it was a young woman. I really hated to see that. I worried about women getting rides from dangerous people. I often thought there should be some kind of national register of safe hitchhiker-picker-uppers or something, but I had never figured out how to do it. Computers, maybe.
      I pulled my ancient Volkswagen over about twenty feet past her and stopped. She turned and ran towards the car, which I found gratifying. I hate it when you pull over to pick up a hiker and they saunter over taking their own sweet time. I like to see that they appreciate my gesture.
      She was trotting up to the car. I leaned to the right and opened the door.
      “Where are you headed?” I asked, before I could even see her.
      She stuck her head in the door and looked in at me. It was a shock to the poor girl, and I couldn't blame her. My appearance is tough to take even when you know it's coming, never mind all at once without any warning, the way she had gotten it.
      “Into, uh, into town.” She kept looking at me steadily, then slid into the seat and pulled the door shut. I turned my eyes to the road, made sure to put both hands on the wheel, and started the car moving again. She sat looking straight ahead out the window. She was in a good defensive position, her right hand gripping the door handle, her left balled into a fist in the pocket of her jacket, just in case.
      To be fair, I was also somewhat taken aback by her appearance. She was beautiful. I had noticed that right off. Her blondish-brown hair was pulled back from her face into a knot. It was a little bedewed with drizzle, and pearls of rain here and there were most becoming. She had a creamy complexion sprinkled with freckles – no makeup – and the most luminous green eyes I had ever seen. But there was something else.
      I swept a swift glance at her, then concentrated on driving and what I had seen. Her face, jacket, jeans, shoes, and knapsack all added up in my mind to only one conclusion.
      I took a while editing and re-editing my question into something I could actually say without my usual embarrassment tying my tongue into knots, then made a throat-clearing sound. “So, did you run away from home in New York or New Jersey?” I asked her mildly.
      Her head whipped around toward me, the astonishment on her face supporting my theory nicely. Then her mask snapped shut again and she faced forward.
      “I haven't run away from anywhere. Why should you think such a thing?”
      Note the syntax, I thought. This is an educated, intelligent young woman. And, to have survived on her own for several months, obviously a resourceful one, too.
      I shrugged. “A lot of things. You don't know the name of the town we're heading towards, for example, so you aren't from around here.”
      She shook her head. “I know the name of the town. It's Kingston. I live there.” She jutted her chin out defiantly and stared determinedly out the window.
      “Actually, through an accident of spelling and geography, Kingston University is located near the town of Kingstown.”
      She was silent.
      I went on. Sticking to the facts made it easier to speak. And, for some reason, she was easy to speak to. “You're a little too young to be in college, you don't live around here, so you're passing through. Your face is pale, which could be several things, but you don't seem sick, so I think you haven't been eating well lately. Therefore, you have little money, and no family around to help you. No hat or gloves. Your jacket isn’t windproof, waterproof or warm. A summer jacket. If you had another, you'd wear it, especially on a day like this. So, it must be all you have and you've been wearing it since the summer. Therefore, you probably left home in the summer. Your jeans are very worn. I know that's the style these days, but yours look like real wear, not fashion. Also, I can see another pair in your knapsack. Since you'd probably wear your warmest on a cold day, the others must be worse. Your sneakers are worn smooth, so you've been doing a lot of walking in them. So,” I concluded, “you ran away from home in the summer and I'm curious about where you’re from. I'm not very good with accents, but you’re obviously not from the south or Midwest or the more Yankee parts of New England. So, I’m thinking it’s either New York or New Jersey.”
      I could feel her staring at me. “Who the hell are you? Sherlock Holmes?”
      In view of where I was headed, and why, I thought that was a very perceptive comment.
      And a literary allusion besides. She has done some reading, possibly a good student in school, before whatever trouble it was.
      I shook my head. “Nope. Which is it?”
      She looked down, looked out the side window, looked straight ahead, sighed heavily. “New Jersey.” She sounded tired, not defiant.
      I tried another angle. “I know it's none of my business, but you really shouldn't hitchhike. There are some dangerous people around. The bus only costs a quarter around here.”
      She was furious now. I could feel her glaring at me as she spoke through clenched teeth. “I don't have a quarter.”
      I drove with my right hand and dug my money out of my pocket with my left. Six dollars: my food shopping money for the week. I pulled the one free of the five, sighed, and stuck it back in my pocket. I held the five out to her.
      She sneered. “What do you think five dollars is going to get you?”
      I felt sick and sad. “Don't do it for money.”
      She stared straight ahead again. “What do you know about it?”
      “I know it's not good for you.”
      “Yeah? And how did you come by that experience?”
      “You don't have to murder somebody to know that murder isn't a good idea. It's not a good idea. And it can lead to the kind of life you don't deserve.”
      “How do you know what I deserve?”
      “I know. You’re a smart person, probably good in school. A nice girl. You ran away from something to protect yourself. Keep protecting yourself. You left in a hurry, but my guess is something had been building for a long time. Your mother and father?”
      “Step,” she said with an edge on it. “Father.”
      Step-father. With a beautiful teenaged step-daughter. Who ran away. I clenched my teeth to stem a sudden distaste. “I'm sorry,” I said softly.
      And we were silent together for a while.
      Finally, she said, “Okay, Sherlock. You seem to know everything. Maybe you can tell me what I'm supposed to do now. Instead.”
      “You didn't finish high school.”
      She shook her head no. “I would have been a senior,” she said, as if describing something very far away.
      Homecoming game. Applying to colleges. Cutting class when the weather got nice. Parties. Gowns and tuxes. Graduation.
      Not this girl. Not this life. Not this way.
      An idea came to me. A stone in a pond. It expanded, it grew. Pieces fell into place. In about three seconds, I had it all, and I started talking.
      “Where I'm going to drop you off is in front of the state employment service,” I began. “They're open on Saturday mornings, so people can get their unemployment checks. They like helping people who are actually looking for work. You're looking for work. You tell them you're over 18.” I looked at her to see if she would object.
      She didn't. She looked straight at me and she looked scared. Hope can be frightening. “I actually am,” she said in a low voice. I gave a minute shrug and smile.
      I went on. “Look for anything you can do. Get creative if they ask about experience. My guess is, if you've survived on your own with no money since summer, you must be pretty sharp and can learn anything they show you. Waitress, clerk, stuff like that. Use their free phone and call all the local jobs, starting with the best ones. Take the bus or walk, don't hitch.” I shook the five insistently and she took it gently and looked at it in her hand.
      I stopped and thought, then shook my head. “I know they don't need any help in the physics department, or I'd ask there. Anyway, keep looking until you find something. Job.”
      “Tonight, you take the bus back to the university, but go to the first stop past the campus. The youth hostel is there, a little house for students coming and going. It's clean and safe, run by a married couple. Costs 50 cents a night to stay there, but if you do some of their chores, maybe you'll save the 50 cents. Stay there until you get an apartment. Lodging.”
      “When you get hungry today, go across the street from the unemployment office. Day-old bakery. Buy the leftover donuts. They go stale fastest, so they're cheapest. They also come in assorted flavors. Food.” I spoke from experience. I had bought a lot of stale donuts recently. Sometimes that six dollars didn't cover a whole week. Like maybe this week, for instance.
      “When you get your job, do good work, show them they were right to hire you. See if you can get paid daily, or a little in advance. Find an apartment in the paper, clean, safe, doesn’t have to be fancy.
      “This is a good area, lots of cheap and free things to do at the college. Do you have a religion?”
      She was startled by the question. “Presbyterian,” she said, as if suddenly finding something she thought she had lost.
      I nodded. “One of their churches in Kingstown. Go tomorrow. Maybe you don’t believe it all right now, but you can meet people there, make some contacts, maybe find a better job, a better apartment. Faith can come later.”
      I took a breath and went on. “You're pretty. That'll help, but I’m sure you know it goes both ways. For all the people who'll want to help you, there'll be some who want something from you. Be careful and take care of yourself. I bet you already know how.”
      I pulled off the road into the parking lot. “Here we are.” I stopped the car – another pleasant surprise, because the brakes were iffy – and turned to face her. I had been looking out the windshield all the time I had been talking. Too embarrassing to look at her while I was saying all that stuff. She was holding the five in her hand as if it were a fragile glass butterfly, afraid that the slightest movement might shatter it or make it fly away. She looked fragile herself in that moment, but I knew she must be smart and tough to survive on her own as she had.
      She was looking at me strangely. Part like she wanted to smile, and part like she wanted to cry, and part just mystified. Finally, she said, “Who are you?”
      I laughed. “I'm nobody. I'm just some guy. The last person you ever hitchhiked with. Right?”
      “Right,” she said, a little shyly. I think I caught a glimpse then of what she might have been like. Before August. Kind of shy, kind of quiet, kind of unsure.
      “I'm gonna leave now, and you're going to be okay. You're going to take care of yourself, right?”
      She nodded. She opened the door, gathered her stuff and stepped out. She turned and looked at me through the door. She was bending slightly to look in, and her hair framed her face and eyes. She was young and beautiful and smart and strong. I felt things stirring in me, and I ignored them.
      “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”
      I shrugged and looked into her eyes. “When I stopped the car you looked in at me.”
      She shook her head and smiled, puzzled. “Yes. So?”
      “You got in anyway.”
      She gave me a look I can't describe, a look that made me want to keep her with me forever. So I said good-bye, and she walked away toward the unemployment office. I drove away and left her there.
      Oddly, the first thought I had when I left her was: I can never tell Stan about what I just did. Why would I let a beautiful, intelligent young woman just walk away, without even getting her name, without even giving her my number, when I obviously felt something toward her, and maybe she did a little for me? Oddly, though, I thought Stan might understand – if not accept – the real answer. It had to do with last night, the dance, temptation, and wanting something so badly that you were willing to do something you knew was wrong to get it. They taught you all about it in Catholic school.
      Penance.