Diablo

"When are you going to Frisco?"

Hannah was starting to hate the question. She certainly already hated the use of the word Frisco.

“Well?” The woman prompted again.

Every Wednesday, sharp-tongued old Lee-Ann honored Diablo’s one corner store with her patronage for one pack of cigarettes. A weathered woman, with a ring of dark red lipstick applied too liberally across lips, skin, and teeth, Lee Ann still thought of herself as beautiful. She must have been, at one point in the past, to still bemoan the rich husband she felt the world had owed but forbidden her. Lee Ann had moved to town sometime in the late 80s and seemed determined to die there.

Too far from the coast for tourism and too far from the wine country for grapes, Diablo sat firmly on a dry stretch of the 101, surrounded by a hundred little agricultural towns exactly like it. Those who came there never left; those who were born there never tried.

Once Lee Ann had asked Hannah if she was in Diablo to stay and Hannah had made the mistake of answering. No. No, of course not. She wouldn’t be here until she died. She was going to San Francisco, any day now. Nevermind that Hannah wasn’t sure if that was even where she wanted to go. It had been the first place that came to mind and so she had blurted it out.

Now Lee Ann asked the same tired question every time she saw Hannah.

"You know." Hannah tried to be casual, not to let the annoyance show in her actions, on her face. "Soon. I just have to save a little more."

"Sure." Lee Ann’s nails broke the plastic seal, leaving a crumpled wrapper on the counter.

Pure heat flooded Hannah's face and slowly drifted down. Even though she didn't want this obnoxious woman here, minding her business, her dismissal still burned, suffocating Hannah’s thoughts. She would leave. The north seemed to call to her: she could start up the 101, maybe go to Portland. Or if Portland wasn’t it for her, she could go east. Chicago? Or New York. Did it even matter, as long as it wasn’t here?