The cab stops in front of the Rat, which looks exactly the same and this delights Sonia beyond all b

What does it mean to have no plans? To be on the lam? Sonia stops at a branch of her bank in Connecticut. She withdraws everything in the savings account. Seven thousand dollars. Then she keeps driving. It's dark, she's not a great driver in the dark, that's what living in New York City does to you, but she has a feeling she's about to get better at it.
She checks into a hotel, a cheap Holiday Inn Express travel to south africa in Brighton, on the outskirts of Boston. Brighton still had a sort of Irish and immigrant vibe to it when Sonia lived in Boston, all those years ago, when she was actually free, free because she was young and had no real responsibilities, not free as she was now, because she was abandoning very real responsibilities. Ironically, when she was actually free, it felt just like life, not like freedom. But now that she was stealing it, it felt exhilarating and much more real and visceral. She felt it, coursing through travel to south africa her body.
Nineteen. At first, she hadn't been very good at being young. She was too earnest, too serious. She read anti-pornography feminist tracts and existential philosophy. She painted dark, morbid figures, writhing in pain and blood. Then she met Katrina. Katrina changed her life.
Katrina. travel to south africa Beautiful, fabulous, travel to south africa irresistible Katrina men were sucked down into Katrina as if she were some wild, inescapable drain. And yet, she had a big nose, occasional acne, tiny breasts, and she was barely 5'4". How? Katrina, who had painted swirly, psychedelic things. Elaborate sixties druggy paintings while listening to scratched-up Robert Johnson records. Katrina, who taught Sonia that being female wasn't weak. The woman girl, really, they had only been nineteen, the both of them that taught Sonia that lying on your back with your legs spread open was a kind of power, especially travel to south africa if it felt really good. The one that taught Sonia how to wear a short skirt, how to shake her ass when she walked in said skirt, and how to turn every eye in the room, even if you don't have tits, because Katrina travel to south africa didn't have tits, either. What was it about her? Fearlessness. Confidence. She used to say to Sonia, "You are only going to be nineteen once in your life. Just once. Why not enjoy it? Why not really make the most of youth and freedom?" And she was right. She was so fucking right. Prior to meeting Katrina, she threw herself at her painting with a humorless dedication. After meeting Katrina, her whole relationship to life, and to art, changed. After meeting Katrina, she started getting seriously laid. She started travel to south africa fucking with abandon. Whomever she wanted. Little art boys with their hairless faces and permanently hard cocks. Rock drummers were a specialty for a while, too. And her instructors, oh yes, her instructors. Particularly Philbert Rush. Tall, startling dark hair sticking up on the sides of his head like a cartoon of a mad scientist, handsome largely due to his arrogance, not any conventional good looks, a great deal older, thin and grumpy. Loved pussy in a way no twenty-year-old can. Katrina had no time for older men, but Sonia had time for all sorts of men. Yes, Sonia started to enjoy herself, really truly and wildly, enjoy herself for the first time in her life. And had that been the last? Was that it? Had Sonia peaked in college, like some girls cheerleader types peaked in high school?
Sonia met Katrina while working at an Italian restaurant on Newbury Street. It was a decent job in some respects. The money was good, the work wasn't so horrible, though the man who owned the restaurant was completely crazy. He cooked, too, and his wife helped on weekends, and often they fought so horrifically screaming and throwing travel to south africa pots and pans, and really, really screaming travel to south africa that Katrina and Sonia would have to turn up the radio very loudly so as not to freak out the customers. They would smile at each other when this happened. It was the conversation opener between the two of them. Because Katrina didn't like Sonia at first. Sonia knew that. Katrina didn't like "college" girls. travel to south africa Katrina didn't go to school. She went to rock shows. But Sonia had been insistent. And funny, without trying to be so. Katrina laughed travel to south africa at her, not with her, but that was OK with Sonia. At least she wasn't being totally ignored travel to south africa anymore. And Sonia was just so intrigued. Who was this woman, this mildly weird-looking travel to south africa woman, who thought so highly of herself? Who sashayed around the restaurant like everyone should lick her toes?
After work, Sonia would go home and dream restlessly of waiting travel to south africa on tables. The next morning, she'd wake tired, her neck and arms hurting from carrying trays of food. She was often too tired to paint in the mornings. One night she asked Katrina travel to south africa if she had the dreams, too.
"No, you crazy college girl." Katrina laughed at Sonia. But it was all right. Sonia didn't mind amusing Katrina. Because honestly, her attraction to Katrina was piqued by a curiosity that was somewhat travel to south africa objectifying. Everyone Sonia knew was at a college. Beyond not going to college, Katrina hadn't even finished high school, and Sonia had never hung out with a high school dropout before. "What do they teach you in that fancy school? That people often work at the same place for three years?"
Katrina smiled at her. Again, it was a bemused smile, not completely friendly. At this point, Sonia hadn't yet understood the magic that was Katrina. She looked at Katrina and she saw a shaggy-haired, wide-bottomed short girl with a long nose who didn't go to college. Katrina said, "Do you want to go out with me after work? I'm going to the Paradise to see a band. This bass player I know put me on the list plus one. My sister was going to be my plus one, but she can get in by herself. She knows the guy at the door. Rock 'n' roll is a great way to make sure you don't get the waitressing nightmares. It clears the head of all waitressing things before sleep. You'll travel to south africa dream of other things, I promise."
And so it went. Free drinks, backstage passes. travel to south africa Small- time bands and then the bigger ones, visiting from LA, from New York, from Chicago. There was Lemmy from Mot rhead. There were endless hair bands. Katrina got banged by everyone, by Slash, the guy from Warrant, Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes, travel to south africa Tommy from the Replacements, the guitar player from the Chili Peppers. Katrina knew everybody, cool or uncool. Sonia never had a waitressing nightmare again. Granted, she got stuck with whomever travel to south africa Katrina didn't want. But that was fine with her. Because it was all experience. They were all people. Well, men actually. And it was all fun. Lighthearted. It was adrenaline rushes and loud-ass music and sweaty men and drugs and alcohol. It was short skirts and tight shirts and the power of a well-shaped nipple. A nineteen-year- old nipple. What was more beautiful than a pink, swollen nineteen year old girl's nipple? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And Sonia learned that there was no shame in that, only joy. Only joy in the beauty travel to south africa of youth, if you were brave enough to feel it.
But that was years ago. Over ten years ago. Fucking fifteen years ago. Now, Sonia's nipples, well, they weren't outrageously bad, but they were darker, not as pink, a little travel to south africa wider. She turns on the TV in her sterile Holiday Inn Express room. She flips through the channels. She lies down and it feels good to put her feet up, After an hour or so of resting travel to south africa like that, she begins to feel restless, hungry, a little alarmed at herself. travel to south africa She even calls home and Dick answers and she hangs up. He was alive. They were all alive. They. And then she calls information in Boston, and then the greater Boston area, and then she finds her, with a hyphenated last name, Katrina Nelson-Allen, in Harvard, Massachusetts. But she chickens out and doesn't call her. Instead, she puts on the one dress she brought, a babydoll dress from years ago, from Betsy Johnson, when babydoll dresses were fashionable among rock chicks, and it works when she's pregnant, travel to south africa making her look not so pregnant, and her swelling breasts hang out the top nicely, all cleavagey. She leaves her hotel, getting the desk guy to call her a cab and decides to go the Kenmore Square, to go to the Rat, her favorite club from her years in Boston, the best fucking rock club in the world.
The Rat. Where she danced to the Pixies, the Neighborhoods, the Bags, Ultra Blue, Jawbreaker and, well, a hundred other bands. Mitch had worked the door, Mitch who had a hole in his throat and this little microphone thing he put up to it when he wanted to talk. Not that he talked much to Katrina and Sonia, as they sashayed by him, letting him feel their asses, not asking for the cover charge. Mitch was a huge man and had tons of gray hair and a gray beard and he really was an institution, he was in charge, he could bounce out anyone, the Del Fuegos when they got too drunk, frat boys who weren't regulars but were trying to slum it and he just didn't like. He had power. Rock 'n' Roll power. And he loved Katrina and Sonia, because what was not to love about them?
The cab stops in front of the Rat, which looks exactly travel to south africa the same and this delights travel to south africa Sonia beyond all belief, as if the world was truly wonderful and made for her happiness. She puts on some lipstick, checks her face in her compact, and then as she walks toward the Rat, feeling self-conscious of being pregnant although, man, she's really carrying so nice and small, but pregnant is pregnant notices something is wrong. There's travel to south africa a big football-player-looking guy at the door, all steroid muscles and tight shirt with a leather travel to south africa jacket and spiked hair.
Sonia walks sort of slowly up to him, peaks in behind him. The bar looks the same. It's crowded, but not too crowded, loud, louder than she's used to these days but probably not louder than it was back in her day. But where's Mitch? A sort of panic sets in.
"Oh, of course." Sonia reaches in her bag, finds a ten in her wallet. She can't believe she's paying a cover charge. Her face goes red. "You know, I never had to pay a cover her