On this particular evening, she threw a salad together—avocado, feta cheese, a few scallions, red leaf lettuce, lemon juice, and a yummy Portuguese olive oil that Ann-in-the-deli had recommended. Ann was middle aged with a red face and a bad leg. She sat behind the cash register, talking loudly with customers, denouncing the government and its stupid war. She liked young people and extended credit when they were short of money. She had a metal box with 3X5 cards in it, alphabetized by name. Willow watched her accept payments and cross out numbers at the bottom of little columns while customers waited proudly with bags containing six-packs, cigarettes, potato chips, and quarts of milk. If someone was charging, he (usually a he) would mumble thanks and pick his way out guiltily while Ann added another number to his column.
"I've got to get a job soon," Willow said, taking another bite of salad.
"What for?" Amber's father made a deposit every month to her account.
While you're in school, he told her.
"I want to. I mean, I don't want to keep living on your money."
"It's not my money. I didn't earn it."
"Yeah, but . . . " They had taken a bus to Sacramento and caught a train east, the day after finals. The idea swept them off their feet. They were just now, a month later, realizing that they were actually somewhere else. After a day of walking around the Village in New York, they took a bus to Woodstock. They got out in front of the News Shop, and here they were. Their parents weren't thrilled, but Amber convinced her father on the phone that she was having a good time and was in control of herself. Willow resorted to a stream of postcards—maple trees in October, scenes of the Ashokan Reservoir, and one of the tiny Old Catholic Church peeping out of the trees. "Father Francis built it himself with the help of his boys, I mean, acolytes," she wrote. "A kindly old fraud who presides over his two acres with tottering good humor, dispensing advice and tea to wanderers. Amber and I went to a wedding there last week. Lots of flowers. Lousy cake. It's halfway up a mountain called, 'Overlook.' Love, Willow."
"What would you do?" Amber asked.
"I don't know. I don't think I'm waitress material. I mean, God, I wish I were. I like food, but I'm too dreamy. I mean, I want to do something well."
"You don't want to work at night, anyway," Amber said.
"No." When it got dark, Willow would just as soon go to bed with a book. She was an early riser.