11. She had lost her map.

Richard had spent the entire two hours sitting in his car. Dolores knew this, but did not confess when she accepted his $20, agreed to come again in two nights, and left through the front door. She walked her bike, did not ride. It wasn't far, never had been, which was part of the rub.

In four blocks, the houses turned to brick and grew into four and five bedroom homes with fenced in yards and wrought iron gates. The trees grew wise with years and touched limbs over quiet streets. Quirky foreign cars sat clean inside well organized garages. Garrison's was the second from the end of the block on the north side of the street. The lights were on and a golden retriever gnawed on a stick under the porch swing.

A pretty blonde teenage girl slammed through the front door, startling the dog who jumped to his feet and barked. The girl stretched one arm above her head and raised her middle finger, holding it high as she charged down the driveway and stuck a key into the driver's side door of a blue Rav4.

Dolores stopped ten feet short of the girl and bent to feign tying her shoe.

"Lilith!" Garrison's wife stormed down the porch steps and half way down the drive in the girl's wake. Karen was barefoot; it was dark; she was not as pretty as Dolores remembered. Too empty to be pretty. "Lilith!" she hissed again. But it was too late. The girl named Lilith--her baby sister who did not know--started the engine, hit the gas, and left.

Dolores made adjustments to her bicycle seat, felt trapped.

Karen stood with her hands on her hips and was silent. The dog barked again and sniffed at the ground, retrieved the stick. The television was on in the house next door, and Will & Grace bickered through an open window followed by a studio laugh track.

"I see you," Karen said.

The houses, the trees, the sidewalks and waiting cars, all held their breaths as each syllable ripped through a still canvas. "I see you," Karen repeated, calmly.

Dolores re-tightened the bolt under the seat she had loosened and stood, making great effort to appear casual. She opened her mouth to say, "Hey," or "How's it going?" or "Cool. Nice night for a ride," but the words were superglued and all she could do was swallow and stare back. Her mother had been wrong: The woman was not empty. Karen was tired, had been wrung out and then filled with something Dolores could not slow her brain enough to name.

Karen did not move, did not adjust her stance, shift weight from one leg to another, blink, or lick her lips. It was Changing-of-the-Guard, and Dolores was the tourist. She had lost her map.

"Sorry." Dolores pushed the word through dry, barely open lips. She scrambled onto her bike and pedaled to the end of the block and turned left. She did not stop until Todd's wet nose greeted her inside her own front door. Her mother had been wrong about other things, too. Karen knew, and this changed everything. Dolores would have to go.

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