Far-Flung Read Free Page B

change the lock?”
    “I know about you and Curly,” Louisa said. “You must go away now, before I kill you.”
    “What are you talking about? Where’s Curly?”
    “I now understand that you try to steal Curly. That you come into our happy home and try to steal him. But no way. I always suspect you.” Louisa closed the door. I knocked again, but she didn’t answer it. She turned the radio up.
    There was a paper bag on the porch containing Daria’s winter clothes. I left them there. I walked up to the corner and went into the bar where Curly sometimes went before dinner, but it was too early. I decided to wait. I ordered a vodka gimlet and got four because it was both ladies’ day and happy hour. I drank two of them, and by the time I finished the second one I knew what I wanted to do.
    I got up and left some money and took the T into Boston. I went straight to the Peace Corps offices, and explained my situation to a man in a suit. He was wearing a button that said “THE NEW PEACE CORPS.” This unnerved me since I wasn’t sure if I had been in the old Peace Corps or the new Peace Corps, or what the difference was. When I had finished my story, he didn’t say anything for a minute. We both just sat there.
    Then he said, “You did resign, didn’t you?”
    “Yes,” I said. “But it was a mistake. I want to withdraw my resignation.”
    “You can’t,” he said. “You have to reapply.”
    “But that’s absurd,” I said. “Can’t I just go back?”
    “No,” he said. “This is all very complicated. You have to reapply, and then, if you are accepted, you’ll have to be reassigned.”
    “I can’t just go back to Slemba?”
    “No,” he said. “Why don’t you take some time to think about this? It’s probably just culture shock. It does take some time to readjust. Going back isn’t always the solution.”
    “But I made a terrible mistake. I don’t know why I didn’t stay. I should have stayed.”
    “Why didn’t you, then?”
    “Well, I thought I wanted to come back and start a life here and a career and all that, but I’ve realized I don’t.”
    “What?” he asked.
    “Nothing,” I said.
    “The Peace Corps is not an escape. You can’t use it to escape.”
    “I’m not escaping. That’s why I want to go right back. If I stay here, I’ll get another job or something, and that will be something to escape. But right now I don’t have anything to escape from. Nothing. So it’s not an escape.” I thought this was a very good point, but the man just looked at me oddly.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really think you should give this some time and thought. If you decide to reapply, I’ll personally supervise your application and make sure it gets processed with the utmost expediency. But that’s all I can do for you.”
    I took the application he handed me and went outside and sat in the plaza and started to fill it out, but halfway through, the pen I had stolen from the receptionist’s desk ran out of ink, but it ran out slowly, so the application was all scratched out and awful looking, and I started to cry. I hadn’t cried once, during this whole ordeal, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.
    When I did stop crying, I realized my application now looked even worse: It was tear-stained and crumpled, so I tore it up and threw it away. I thought about going up and getting another application, but it was after five o’clock.
    I must have sat there a long time because suddenly I realized it was getting dark. I thought about going back to Medford and trying to talk to Curly, but for some reason I knew it would be a waste of time. And I was sick of wasting my time. The plaza was starting to look ornery in the fading light, so I got up and tried to find a bus out to Pilgrim Acres. I figured I’d stay there for the night.
    I wasn’t planning on hitchhiking, but a car stopped beside me. “Need a ride?” the guy asked.
    “Where are you going?”
    “Out to Stockbridge,” he said.
    I