Radius

rubber town

As planned, the tape reaches Oleta, who's been living in the cottage for weeks now. She's bored out of her mind, but wary of venturing beyond the safe radius of the beach town.

What she should do is this: Stay here; Wait for Hester; Take up a hobby; Go to the library; Do as the tape says, regardless of whether she can trust the soft, mesmerizing voice in the recording--a question which still runs through her mind on slower, more rainy evenings.

Hester told her to stay inside the town. The town is secure. The people are nice. There is a café. She sits with an espresso in hand, foot a'twirl, over an ink-scented fantasy novel. The weight of surveillance, of hidden eyes and cameras, is gone. This is freedom. She is free.

Oleta familiarizes herself with each of the town's 150 square miles, from the book shop run by the old man across the street, to the vintage store where she finds more tapes, music tapes, for the cassette player. She listens to them by the fireplace over solitary hours. They're a welcome, off-tempo comfort.

She buys a bike from the shop on the other side of town. It's a joyous cherry red, with a small wicker basket on the front, above a round headlight. It holds pencils and books for spontaneous doodling and a shiny new camera, Oleta's latest impulse purchase. She discovers an ice cream place near a gas station on the outskirts of town, just far enough away to be considered separate. It feels dangerous, in a good way.

Long months pass, the music loses its quirkiness, the beats become predictable, the dangerous feeling wears off. It's an ordinary phenomenon to park in the gravelly lot and order a large cone of pistachio ice cream, lemon sherbet if she needs to feel adventurous. Ordinary to the point when new ice cream flavors seem adventurous.

The first month felt like the moment after you've run a mile, and you're sore all over, and you want to collapse. In those that followed, Oleta learned she hates the feeling of having collapsed. She hates inactivity. Up till now, that's all she remembered; Inactivity and silence and a white cell.

The town no longer feels safe. Or rather, it feels too safe.

She's combed every corner, taken up every hobby she can think of, from jogging to--she can't believe this--fishing! And there's still no sign of a blue-eyed woman with fretful mannerisms and a sensible disposition come to find her. She's widened the radius of the circle in which she lives the way one stretches a rubber band, until it snaps.

The afternoon is hot. Lemon sherbet dribbles down her chin. She takes the bike out for gas and a paint job, then returns to the cottage she was told to call home. She listens to the tape once, the only form of inactivity that soothes her. Her hands are calloused and lines have developed around her eyes and lips, but Hester's voice remains young and gentle.

She leaves a message on a powder blue post-it note that states she arrived at the cottage and received the tape. Then, Oleta leaves for good.