The Ten Rules of Hitchhiking
(and How Ruby Broke Every One)

Chapter One

Rule 1: Stick to Surface Streets.

Your odds of being picked up are better in high traffic areas, and it's safer. Most people behave better in front of witnesses. Though some people seem to forget that their cars have windows, and with a young woman as inspiration, they may think of more interesting things than nose picking to illustrate this oversight. Traffic lights and stop signs can be your best friend in an emergency. It's easier to exit a stopped car than one that's sailing down the fast lane. For best results hitchhike at bus stops. If nothing else you might catch a bus.

Sometimes a place stays haunted long after the ghosts have gone. It had been six years since Ruby and her mother had moved away; six years and at least as many vows to never see this place again. Yet here she was. Returning made her feel like she'd never left, never changed, never grown beyond the age of ten. Stepping through that threshold was stepping back into a skin shed so long ago she'd come to hope it had never really been her own.

When she left this time she knew it was for good. There was nothing in that house for her after today. She took a deep breath and looked around her as she descended the porch steps. Everything had changed. The glamour of childhood imaginings was peeling from the houses faster than the lead-based paint. They were the same neat rows of cramped, postwar starter homes they had always been. Their dark windows still stared out onto that tree shaded street. They used to seem like so much more, but not now. For the first time Ruby stared right back at those windows and saw that they no longer had the strength to judge her. She was bigger now, of course, but the houses had aged too. They seemed paler; neglected by younger, busier owners.

Ruby kept her stride sure and steady. Her posture straightening even more with every step. It was a mid-July in southern California, but Ruby shivered slightly. Her body filled with emotion pushing out every hair follicle in anxious little goose bumps. She'd done it. She'd really done it.

Ruby focused on the mosaic of moving colors created by the lunch hour traffic ahead of her. Somehow this neighborhood had always been immune to the honks and screeches of nearby Magnolia Boulevard. With those last steps she felt the silence lifting as softly as a blanket drawn from her shoulders, and as surely as if it had been the whole weight of the world.

She continued walking, resisting the urge to run. The past was finally finished, but she wasn't ready to face the uncertainty of her future. When in doubt, Ruby was inclined to keep moving. So move she did until she reached the nearest bus stop. Realizing the bus was due any moment Ruby hurried into the AM/PM.

She was self-conscious, sure she was buzzing with as much energy as the electric lines that ran behind her neighborhood. Runaways shouldn't draw attention to themselves. As sure as she was that no one would be looking for her, she still didn't want to leave a trail. Act normal. What would she do if she were acting normal right now? Ruby bought herself a box of Lemon Heads and watched through the window, bouncing on the edge of her toes. Her feet could barely touch the ground. She was too excited for gravity to have any hold on her. The bus streaked by, right on time for once. Now she could go forward. She marched eagerly to the bus stop. Smiling her friendliest smile, Ruby stood boldly with her thumb outstretched to the world.

Bus fare was more than she had to spare right now. She really didn�t have much to call her own, no more than she could fit into her threadbare denim backpack. On any other day she might tell herself that it wasn't enough to get her anywhere. Today was the day that she looked it over and realized it wasn't enough to hold her back.

Ruby considered herself an experienced hitchhiker. She thumbed it more often than she caught the bus to school and she wasn't shy about taking a ride to the mall when it was too hot to go without air conditioning. She knew that Whitsett was a slow street where a person could be stuck for hours, and that Lankershim was a dangerous street where rides are likely to end in uncomfortable alleys. Laurel Canyon was entirely between the two; a surer, safer route.

It wasn't much of a wait before a man met her smile long enough to stop his car. He leaned over and pushed the door open a crack in a gesture of invitation. Ruby grabbed her backpack and dropped into the car quickly. She had barely closed the door behind her when he joined the flow of traffic.

"Where are you going?" he asked.
"North" she said pointing in the direction they were already headed.
"How far north?"
"San Francisco." Ruby beamed, giddy to have finally said it out loud.
"That's five-hundred miles from here!"
"I wasn't asking you to take me the whole way. Just take me as far as north as you're going."
"You can't hitchhike to San Francisco."
"I won't know until I've tried."
"Do you have any idea how dangerous... where do live? Let me take you home."
"San Francisco is my home." Or at least Ruby planned for it to be as soon as possible.
"Then to your friend's house."
"I don't have any friends in L.A." Which was true enough now.
"You can't hitchhike to San Francisco."
"You said that already."
"It's still true."
"Maybe. You don't know that." Ruby began to hug her backpack like a teddy bear as she fought off the encroaching doubts.
"Please, I don't want to see your face on a milk carton. Let me take you somewhere safe."
"I have to go to San Francisco."
"Fine. I have to go back to work anyway."

With that he pulled into the parking lot of another AM/PM. Ruby stepped out of his car sliding her pack to her back. When she turned to wave goodbye her lunch-break hero had already pulled away. It wasn't that important anyway. She was only going to wave to be polite. It's not like she cared what he thought anyway. Ruby knew where she was going, more or less, and she knew why she was leaving. That had to count for something.

Yvette, Ruby's mother, had been kicked out of her parents' house for conceiving Ruby out of wedlock. She just came home from work one day to find her stuff in bags on the porch and that her key no longer worked in the lock. From that day on Yvette was dead to her parents. She didn't need them anyway. Yvette took her swollen belly and her bad news bags to her newlywed sister's house.

It was a little crowded, but no one seemed to complain. It was a nice little arrangement for the first four years of Ruby's life. Then Yvette started dating Adam. Ruby couldn't remember her mom dating anyone before Adam, but surely she did. Yvette was not the sort of woman who tolerated being single for long. Still the fights didn't start until Adam came along.

Yvette would come in late and Ruby would wake up to the sound of her and Suz yelling at each other. Sometimes Suz's husband, Birch, would break up the fight. Sometimes Birch and Suz would both yell at Yvette. Then in the morning when Ruby was out of bed everybody would be nice to each other. It made Ruby wonder if she'd been dreaming it all.

Then one morning Ruby woke up and her mom wasn't home. She didn't know what else to do so she went into Suz and Birch's room and woke up her aunt. Maybe if she hadn't done that, woken up her aunt, it would have been okay. Yvette came home that morning just as Ruby had been finishing her breakfast. Maybe Yvette didn't know that everybody was already awake, because she tiptoed in quietly with her shoes in her hand. She still had on her black dress with the sparkly straps. Ruby loved that dress, but she was sent into the backyard to play. She didn't hear any fighting, not like the way they'd yell at night.

Still there must have been fighting because the next morning when Ruby woke up her mom was not only home, but awake. Yvette must have been up all night packing. Adam showed up in a big truck and they started loading stuff up. They told her they were going to be a real family now. Ruby was going to have a mother and a father. She liked that idea.

She liked living with Suz and Birch too, but she'd never had a real family before. A part of her thought she should be sad to leave her home behind. She couldn't be sad though. She was going to have a real family. It didn't matter where she lived if she could have that.

Yes, even at four, Ruby didn't like to look back. It was the same at sixteen. She did her best to shake it off and stretch a smile under her sad eyes. Her thumb had work to do. Distracted by her memories Ruby was almost confused when a car stopped in front of her.

"Get in." urged a young man's voice.
So she did.

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