“Please”, she implored, her hands outstretched, “I’m desperate, Ma’am”. Her dirty fingers, their unkempt nails black and torn, protruded through tattered fingerless gloves. Her clothes, layered to combat the cold winter weather, hung on her frame as though her shoulders were a hanger. She dragged along a torn black patched rolling suitcase with a broken wheel. Gray duct tape was wrapped around it to keep it closed. A handful of bulging plastic bags was anchored to its handle.

But mostly it was her face I remember: From her high forehead dangled limp colorless strands of greasy hair. Her porous skin was pitted and chalky, a forest of dark coarse hairs growing above her chapped upper lip and on her chin. Her teeth were dark grey, there was a yellowish smear on her cheek and the fading remnants of a shiner under one of the small, dark eyes that locked onto mine as Arturo and I piloted our shopping cart through Target’s parking lot to my car.

“Please,” she repeated. Her voice, nasal and soft, had a faintly southern twang. “I know you all are leaving but I need some help. I’m not askin’ for a handout”, she said, moving closer. “I’m desperate, I just need a ride. Or fare for a ride. Bus fare, could you all give me some bus fare so I can go get my husband from the hospital? Like, maybe five dollars?”.

“Bus fare?” I repeated.

“Yes Ma’am. See, my husband just got out of the hospital, he’s sick with the heart failure and he was admitted to Kaiser ‘cause he can’t breathe sometimes when it gets cold.  . . . it bein’ winter and all . . . . and he just got out today and he’s waitin for me there, and I’m trying to get a ride or bus fare, Ma’am, that’s all, for him and for me. I’d walk it but he’s waitin’ outside and it’s a coupla a miles . . .I’m trying to get myself down there, it bein’ cold and all . . . .” Her explanation trailed off.

“Actually”, I replied, as Arturo and I lifted our bags out of the cart, “I’m headed almost to that exact location”. I carried the bags to the rear of the car and opened the hatchback.  “Yah, sure,  I’ll give you a ride. Arturo, ride in the back just for a bit.”

The two of them just stood there, not moving.

I placed the bags in the back of the car. “OK, lets bounce. It’s cold”, I said.

I closed the hatchback, then opened the passenger-side back door, then the passenger front door, and then walked around the front of the car to the driver door and opened it.  “Let’s get in”, I said. I could see my breath when I spoke. “I’ll turn on the heater”.

“Get in there?”, the woman repeated, gesturing toward the car with her chin and keeping her eyes on me.

“Yah, Arturo won’t mind the back seat for 10 minutes, will you Arturo?”

I looked at them over the roof of my car, where they stood next to the open doors. They stared back, wearing identical expressions of frozen incredulity.

“Arturo, what’s wrong with you?” I said. “It’s cold, come on”.

“Uhhhh, okay”, Arturo replied.  “Here”, he said to the woman, “get in”, he instructed, his hand on the open passenger door. The woman looked briefly around her and then slowly entered the car and sat on the edge of the passenger seat. Arturo slammed her door, then slid onto the back seat. As I started the ignition, I said, “we can give you a ride right to Kaiser, I’ve got an appointment practically next door to it in half an hour.”  Pulling out of the parking lot, I added,  “I just have to stop quickly for gas, or we’ll be pushing the car!”

Waiting for the traffic light to change, I observed, “pretty cold out, huh?”

“Yes Ma’am”, the woman whispered, tightening her arms around the black suitcase she held on her lap. She turned so that her back was pressed against the passenger door.  As I drove the next few blocks, she stared at me without moving. By the time we hit the next red light, the back of her head was pressed up against the passenger side window and her right elbow was touching the glove box door.

The seatbelt alarm began beeping. “Could you fasten your seatbelt, please?” I asked her as I accelerated through the next traffic light.

The woman continued to stare at me without speaking.

“Bleep bleep”, went the seatbelt alarm.

“The seatbelt’s tucked down near the floor on your right”, I informed her.

She wrapped her arms tighter around the black suitcase.

“Bleep, bleep.”

I spied a gas station and steered into the right lane.

“Um, I think I’ll get out here, Ma’am . . . I can get out anywhere, Ma’am . . . I can get out right here”.

“I just have to stop for some gas,” I replied, slowing down. “It’ll just take a minute, I’m totally on reserve”. With this, I pulled into the gas station and cruised slowly to a stop at the pump.

While the car was still moving, the woman opened the door and leapt out of the passenger seat. Clutching the suitcase to her chest with both arms, she took a few steps backward and looked around, as though seeking assistance. “Whoa, whoa, what is it?” I said, getting out of the car. “We’re not there yet.”

“Uh-hunh”, she replied levelly, taking another step back.

It was when Arturo got out of the car that the woman plunked her suitcase onto the ground. The broken wheel made it cant comically to the side. She pulled out its telescoping hand grip and stepped back again. Pinning her eyes on me, she slowly said, “I’m not goin’ anywhere with you all.” Moving deliberately, she slowly walked backwards, dragging the suitcase, looking back and forth between me and Arturo. When she was about 20 feet away, she suddenly turned away from us and broke into a clumsy jog, the suitcase bouncing along the pavement behind her. She jogged down the gas station driveway, and then, after casting an apprehensive look over her shoulder in our direction, she scurried across the street and down the sidewalk, the suitcase bumping along behind her, until she was out of sight.

“What the hell!?” I said, staring after her. “We’re still pretty far from Kaiser”.

Arturo was standing next to the gas pump laughing so hard, he was doubled over. “Oh my God”, he gasped, wiping his eyes. “Don’t you get it?”

“Get what?”, I asked.

“She thought she was in danger. From us. I’m sure no one ever let her into their car before and then you come along and instead of giving her change –  like everyone else – you frickin’ invite her into your car to give her a ride…..Oh my God, she was freaked out . . . she thought we were abducting her . . . Not only does she not score any money, but she’s figuring she’s either going to be , like, abducted, tortured and killed in the car or end up just—just—marooned at frickin’ Kaiser . . . oh my God!” He burst into peals of laughter again, laughing so hard he was groaning. “Oh my God”, he exclaimed. “You really gave that woman a ride in your car! Kaiser! Oh my God.” He paused to wipe his eyes.

“Anything else, while you’re still enjoying a good laugh at my expense?”, I asked, removing the nozzle from the pump.

“Um, yes”, Arturo answered. “We’d better get out of here before she calls the police”.