July 23, 2003
Reno, Nevada
Henrie pulled in behind a supermarket, letting Rose and Daffodil out before she pulled all the way forward.
"Thanks for the ride!" Rose called, waving.
"Yeah," Daffodil agreed, a little less enthusiastically.
They slipped around the corner before anyone could see that they’d hitched a ride in the big rig. Slinging their packs on their backs and walking casually, the traveled several blocks before stopping to get their bearings.
"Oh, wow!" Rose turned to stare at something, her eyes widening.
"What?" Daffodil turned, too.
"That arch. I never expected to see something like that here."
"It’s a famous tourist attraction. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of The Biggest Little City in the World."
Rose shook her head, moving forward to see it better. "I’ve never been here before."
"You’ve never been to Reno?"
"No. I went with my parents to Las Vegas once when I was little, but I’ve never been to Reno before."
"Then why did you want to come here?"
"Because it was there." Rose started down the street. "What should be we do now?"
"I don’t know. It was your idea!"
"What is your problem?" Rose turned to stare at Daffodil. "You’ve been a bitch ever since I asked for a ride here."
"Nothing. I don’t have a problem."
"Yeah, right. If you didn’t want to go to Reno, you should have said so. I, of all people, can understand not wanting to go somewhere, whatever the reason is. Why don’t you like Reno?"
"I never said I didn’t."
"You didn’t have to. You’ve been bitching the whole way here, and you were trying to talk me out of this before we hitched that ride. You even told me it was much hotter here than in the California desert, but it isn’t."
"I was wrong. So, sue me."
"Maybe I should. Maybe it would get you off your high horse."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. You’ve been impossible to get along with since we left that truck stop."
"Look, Rose. I have my reasons for not liking Reno. You have your secrets; I have mine. Now lay off!"
"Bite me!"
"Up yours!"
A crowd was beginning to gather, attracted by the disturbance. Daffodil noticed a police officer approaching and turned quickly, grabbing Rose’s arm.
"Come on. Let’s get out of here."
*****
When they were away from the crowd, Daffodil stopped, turning to glare at Rose. "You got us here. Now, what do you want to do?"
Rose opened her mouth to make a rude retort, then thought better of it. "I think that the first thing we need to do is find a way to earn some money. You’ve been here before. What do you suggest?"
Daffodil took a deep breath. "Since I have no intention of staying here long enough to collect a paycheck, and we have no address anyway, I suggest we find some kind of casual work."
"Is there a recycling center around here?"
Daffodil rolled her eyes. "Duh."
Rose’s temper flared, but she held it in check. "Then I suggest we search for recyclable trash to turn in for money. While we’re at it, we can see if there’s anyplace in this town where I can sing for our supper."
"It’s Reno. People come here to be entertained."
Rose glared at her. "By the big acts. I’m not a big act. I don’t have anyplace to perform."
"You really swallowed what Henrie told you, didn’t you? About being a singer?"
"I didn’t swallow anything. I am a good entertainer, and it’s not like I’m a star-struck young girl thinking that all I have to do is be here and I’ll make it big. I just want a place to sleep and food. Singing is an enjoyable way of getting those things, if I can do it. If you don’t want to help me search for a place to entertain people, I’ll try it on my own."
"No way am I letting you wander around here by yourself. You’re too naïve."
"I am not!"
"You fell asleep in the truck."
"So did you!"
"I wasn’t sleeping. I was just resting my eyes. I was perfectly alert." Daffodil stiffened with affront.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Are you with me or not?"
"I’m with you. I’m with you."
*****
Rose and Daffodil spent most of the day wandering through Reno, filling plastic trash bags with aluminum cans and other recyclables. Unseen, they poked through trash cans and dumpsters, picking up anything that looked recyclable. In the view of other people, they were more circumspect, collecting only what had been dropped on the streets as litter.
By late afternoon, their bags were full, two large trash bags each. After turning in their collections to a local recycling center and receiving their money, they walked down to the Truckee River in Wingfield Park, where Rose had observed a large number of tourists and few competing forms of entertainment.
Choosing a spot that was near to a walkway, but not in people’s way, Rose slipped into a restroom and donned her performing clothes—the dress and shoes that she had brought with her from Masline. Daffodil changed into a brightly colored peasant-style outfit that she kept rolled up at the bottom of her pack, and odds and ends of scarves and jewelry that she had made, found, or been given. A little makeup completed their looks, and soon they were standing by the wayside. Rose was singing and Daffodil, who Rose had to admit had a good sense of comic timing if not a good singing voice, was telling jokes. They soon attracted a crowd of people, many of whom assumed they were part of a tourist attraction.
Rose was embarrassed when Daffodil pulled off the hat she had left hanging down her back and shouted, "Hey, everyone! Give us a hand here! Our landlord needs your help!" She held the hat out, making a wisecrack about what certain politicians might do in Reno, and encouraged people to give them money.
People laughed at her antics, but some did contribute. Two men tried to interrupt their performance, trying to lure them away with promises of bigger money for a different type of service, but were put off by Rose, Daffodil, and the crowd. They walked away in fury, people laughing at them.
They continued to perform for a couple of hours, until Rose’s voice began to give out and Daffodil began to run out of jokes. After passing the hat one more time, they changed out of their performance clothes, divided the money, and left, walking into town to buy groceries and then wandering along the river for a distance.
Not far from downtown Reno, Rose stopped and stared in puzzlement at the river. Dozens of rings sparkled on the river bottom, seeming out of place in the quiet setting.
"Hey, Daffodil." She nudged her, pointing to the rings. "What do you make of that?"
Daffodil looked at what she was pointing to. "That? It’s been a tradition here for a long time for divorced couples to throw their wedding rings into the water."
"How interesting." Rose raised an eyebrow at Daffodil. “Is that why you don’t like it here?”
Daffodil looked affronted. “I’ve never been married. I’ve never met a man good enough to tie me down.”
“I think people come here to get untied.”
“If you don’t get tied down in the first place, you never have to get untied. It would take a really special man to get me to settle down.”
“Me, too.” Rose nodded, looking at the rings sparkling in the early evening light, a thought occurring to her. If people came here to throw away their symbols of broken marriages, would it be any more odd for her to throw away a symbol of an engagement that had been a mistake? The gaudy diamond ring still lay at the bottom of her purse, unknown to anyone but her. It would probably be wiser to sell it, but she couldn’t help but think that the idea of tossing it into the river was a good one, a way of finally letting go of her old life.
She turned away as Daffodil started back along the bank, heading away from the city. She would think about it later, when there was more time. For now, they needed to find a place to sleep, preferably one where there would be no cost and no one would drive them away.
*****
Late that night, as Daffodil slept across the tiny campfire from her, Rose still lay awake, thinking about the place in the river where people tossed their rings.
She glanced at her purse, where it lay almost hidden beneath her backpack. The ring was inside, hidden by the other things she had packed on top of it. The knowledge that the ring was there, and what it symbolized to her, lay heavy on her mind.
Crawling out of her bedroll, Rose opened her purse, looking around to make sure no one could see. Pawing through the bag, she pulled out the ring and stared at it in the dim light of the banked campfire.
She remembered the night Cal had given her the ring, proposing to her on the same night that she had graduated from high school. She hadn’t been ready for marriage to anyone, let alone Cal, but after her mother had informed her of the consequences of refusing the proposal, she hadn’t felt that she had a choice. She had accepted, knowing even as she did that she was making a mistake.
Things had gone downhill from there. Cal had grown progressively more controlling, and when he began to hit her, she had seriously considered ending the engagement, in spite of her mother’s threats. But fear had held her back, and it wasn’t until a cold November night, when she had attempted to jump from the landing at the university library, that things had begun to change. That night, she had met Jack Dawson.
He had talked her out of jumping, and had pulled her back over when one of her high-heeled shoes caught in a crack in the concrete. She had gone to his college to return his schedule and talk to him the next day, and it had been the beginning of one of the deepest friendships she had ever known, one that had eventually progressed to love.
Jack had been there for her throughout those difficult months, even when she pushed him away, and had made her realize that she had options other than marriage to Cal. On the afternoon before the earthquake had struck, Rose had at last understood that she could never go through with the marriage to Cal, and had sought Jack out. When they had returned to his home that evening, she had removed the ring and told Jack that when the quarter ended, she was moving in with him.
Hours later, as they had eaten dinner at a local fast food restaurant, Cal had found them, and had been enraged by Rose’s decision to end their engagement. He had slipped the ring into Jack’s pocket, then framed him for its theft. After the earthquake had struck, Rose had realized what Cal had done and had run from him and her mother, freeing Jack from the city jail just before flames overtook it.
It had been when they were leaving the area most damaged by the fire and earthquake that the horrifying events that would never leave her had occurred. They had met Cal on the street, looking for Rose, and when they had walked away, Cal had pulled out a gun and fired at them. He had missed Rose—but Jack hadn’t been so lucky. They had taken shelter between two half-collapsed buildings, but by the time they had felt it was safe to venture out, Jack was so weak from the exertion and blood loss that he couldn’t move quickly enough, and an aftershock had trapped them in the rubble. Jack had told her to wait until morning, when the rescue crews would arrive, but by morning it had been too late for him. He had already bled to death from the gunshot wound.
Rose had struggled free, promising Jack that she would never let go, and had managed to escape from the rubble. A few days later, she had confronted Cal for the last time, promising to keep her silence in exchange for his. Not long after, she had left the emergency shelter, returning to the place she had been in when the earthquake had struck, and had retrieved her few belongings, including the ring. She had planned to keep it as a reminder, but it was a reminder she didn’t think she needed any longer. She would never forget what had happened, or why she had left her old life behind.
Closing her fist around the ring, Rose looked around her, then got slowly to her feet and started down the riverbank toward the place where she had seen the discarded wedding rings earlier. This was something she had to do, and she had to do it alone.
*****
It was dark beside the river, but enough light spilled from the nearby city and from the moon and stars above for Rose to find her way. When she saw the faint glimmer of light reflecting off the rings, she stopped, looking down at the water.
It was time for her to put aside her past, to keep only those things that would benefit her. With every step that she had taken, she had felt a little lighter, as though tossing the ring into the river was a purifying ritual.
Standing before the water, she looked down for several minutes before bringing the ring from her pocket. She looked at it in the faint light, watching the diamond sparkle, then took a deep breath and tossed it far out into the water.
The ring tumbled over and over as it fell, finally hitting the water with a faint splash and disappearing from view, sinking into the depths of the river.
Rose stood there a few moments longer, feeling a sense of peace that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Then, with a faint, secretive smile, she turned and walked away, back towards her new life.