and the city streets were deserted by all but the most hardy, the most desperate, and the faded few with nothing to lose.
Glenda was numbered among those last. This mor­ning she’d spent her last change getting a bus to the welfare office, only to be told that she hadn’t been a resident long enough to qualify for aid. That wasn’t true—but she couldn’t have known that. The supercilious clerk had taken in her age and inexperience at a glance, and assumed “student.” If he had begun processing her, he’d have been late for lunch. He guessed she wouldn’t know enough to contradict him, and he’d been right. And years of her aunt’s browbeating (“Isn’t one ‘no’ good enough for you?”) had drummed into her the lesson that there were no second chances. He’d gone off to his lunch date; she’d trudged back home in the rain. This afternoon she’d eaten the last packet of cheese and crackers and had