At the end of the service lane a van sat sideways, its rear doors open. Beyond it, people carried cases out from the smaller stage. A volunteer in an orange vest held a barrier across the lane, keeping pedestrians away from the moving vehicles. The driver of the van was arguing with him through the window.
Leah stopped.
“Go around,” Walt said.
There wasn't an around. The ground on one side was full of stacked equipment. The other side held a line of people whose only remaining space was the lane itself. Somebody had decided all these movements could happen at the same time. Now every person was waiting for somebody else to do something first.
Kit leaned forward between the seats.
“That's Luis.”
“What's Luis doing?” Leah asked.
“My job.”
Rosa shifted the bag away from her feet. In the mirror Leah could see Kit looking at the barrier. A plain aluminum thing with a swinging support. It would have been hers to move, hers to leave shut while the last cases crossed. Brenda had written her name on a sheet because someone needed to do it.
“Tell him to move,” Walt said.
“He can't. There's people walking.”
Leah looked beyond the van. A family was trying to fold a chair without losing the child's jacket draped over it. Behind them a man with a case on wheels had discovered that one wheel wouldn't turn. He was dragging it sideways, furious with it.
The man inside the van hit his horn. Luis came around the barrier toward him, hands spread. Kit swore softly.
“He doesn't do pack-out. He does tickets.”
“Then help him,” Leah said.
Kit stared at her. For a second Leah thought she would refuse, or ask what she was supposed to say to a person who expected her to be working instead of leaving. Then her daughter opened the door.
Walt turned. “Where are you going?”
“To get us out.”
She got out before he answered. Leah watched her walk toward Luis, not running, not looking back at the lit money building. The man at the van saw her first. He shouted something. Kit put a hand up to show she'd heard, then went to Luis and spoke close to his ear.
Luis gave her the look of someone whose replacement had finally arrived. He started taking off the vest.
Kit shook her head.
He stopped.
Leah couldn't hear what they said. She could see Luis point toward the stage, then at the radio clipped beneath his vest. Kit looked in the same direction. Devon stood beside the stage tent with a case balanced against one knee, waiting for the van to move. He had not seen the pickup yet. Or he had seen it without looking at it. Leah could no longer rely on either.
“This is taking too long,” Walt said.
Leah watched Kit put both hands on the barrier. She did not lift it. She waited for a gap in the pedestrians, then pointed the van driver backward with two fingers. He shouted at her. She pointed again, the same movement, without giving him a new argument. The van rolled back a little.
Luis stepped out to stop the next cluster of pedestrians. The man with the dragging case came through anyway, too busy swearing at the wheel to see a person standing in front of him. Kit put a hand on the top of the case and waited until he looked up. She pointed him toward the firmer path beside the concession trailers. He looked where she pointed, offended, then went that way because it was easier.
The gap grew. Leah could move a few feet.
She did. The pickup's nose reached the barrier, then stopped again as a stagehand carried a long piece of equipment across. The boy at the far end couldn't see the car. Leah waited until the whole length cleared before lifting her foot from the brake.
Walt made a movement beside her. His hand came up toward the window.
“Put it down,” she said.
He looked at her.
“They don't need to see what you're holding.”
His hand lowered. He had been about to show the gun to someone who could not make a road wider by being frightened. Leah kept her eyes ahead until she heard him set it low beside his leg.
Kit looked back. She had seen enough of the movement to know. Her face changed, then she turned to Luis and said something that made him lean nearer.
He shook his head. He pointed toward Devon.
Leah knew the shape of the answer. Wait. Do the thing you said you'd do. Everybody else is waiting too.
Kit took the radio from him. She listened, pressed a button and answered. Her voice came faintly through the open window.
“I'm here. I've got it.”
Then she put the radio down against the barrier instead of clipping it on. Luis didn't notice. He had turned to stop the next group of pedestrians, and Kit left the radio where it was.
Leah went forward another few feet. Kit held up her hand.
She stopped.
A young man came around the back of the van carrying a black hard case. He looked toward the pickup. Leah recognized him as one of the band members from yesterday. His niece wasn't with him now. He had both hands full and sweat running down his face.
“Kit,” he called. “Where does this go?”
She pointed at the tent.
“Devon'll take it. Put it by him.”
“You said you were helping.”
“I am.”
Leah watched the sentence come out. Kit heard it too. For one moment her face was plainly visible, no work expression over it. Then she went to the van driver and asked him to reverse a little more.
He got out.
“I've got a load to pick up,” he said, loud enough for Leah to hear. “I can't keep moving for everybody who wants to go home.”
Kit pointed toward the open rear doors. “If you pull forward now, you'll close the walk. Let this one through, then the cases come across behind you.”
“Who's keeping people off me?”
“Luis is there.”
Luis looked toward them at the sound of his name. He was trying to stop three different movements with one arm. A radio had begun calling for Kit. The little crackle of it reached Leah over the idling engines.
“Kit. North lane. Kit?”
Her daughter turned away from the sound.
The van driver got back in. He reversed enough to open a narrow passage, stopping when Kit dropped her hand. Leah could see the clearance. She could see the open doors, the people beside the van, the family who had finally folded the chair. She moved slowly, judging the space that belonged to the car without claiming the part that belonged to their bodies.
Kit walked beside the front fender. For a few seconds they worked together as they had carried the refrigerator and the painted waves. Kit watched the people. Leah watched the vehicle. Neither could see everything the other saw.
The pickup cleared the van.
“Now,” Walt said.
There were still pedestrians ahead. Leah kept her speed down. Kit went to them, asked them to wait, held a hand out toward a woman looking at her phone. The woman looked up and frowned. Kit said something Leah couldn't hear. The woman moved a step aside, taking her friend with her.
At the gate the woman in the yellow vest had started pulling the sliding barrier across. An alarm was going out; Leah could see the radio at the woman's mouth. A vendor's van sat beneath the barrier's path, its driver trying to reverse away from pedestrians he couldn't see.
Kit ran ahead. She did not tell the woman everything was fine. She went to the van's rear corner and stopped the people walking behind it. The driver could move now. He reversed, then pulled forward across the gate, blocking the woman from closing it for another few seconds.
Leah had those seconds. Kit looked back at her, hand held low, and Leah brought the pickup through behind the van while the guard at the service building was still calling for help. The barrier struck the rear corner of the pickup bed. A hard scrape, a jolt through the cab. Leah stopped rather than take the woman's arm with it.
The woman pulled back, swearing. She looked into the truck, saw Rosa, saw Walt turn toward her, and stepped clear. Leah moved. She heard the barrier bang shut behind the truck bed.
The road beyond lay dark between streetlights. Leah stopped just outside the gate, leaving room behind the pickup for Kit to reach the rear door. Kit came through the pedestrian gap beside the barrier. Luis followed her, calling her name.
“You said you had it.”
Kit stopped with her hand on the pickup's handle. The radio was back on the lane barrier. Devon had put his case down and was coming toward the gate. Beyond him, a woman with a finance badge ran across the work space, pointing toward the van. The alarm had caught up with the people who were still trying to pack out.
“I'm coming back,” Kit said.
Luis looked at her. He could see Rosa in the rear seat and the bag pushed against her legs. Kit opened the door. Izzy's cloth bird lay on the floor where her bag had slid from under the seat. Kit put one foot beside it and pulled herself in.
Luis hit the side of the pickup with his palm.
“Kit!”
She shut the door. Her shoulders folded forward, both hands over her mouth. Leah moved before the woman at the barrier could come around to the road. In the mirror she saw Devon stop beside Luis. His hand had dropped. He was no longer trying to get Kit's attention.
Nobody in the car spoke for several blocks.
Then Walt said, “How much?”
Rosa turned toward him. “Drive,” she told Leah.
Leah drove. At the next red light she looked at Kit in the mirror. Her daughter was staring at the seat in front of her, where she had promised someone she would return.