thirteenRobin had had trouble falling asleep ever since she’d come to the City of the Golden Gate. Some nights she lay in bed, while her clock radio flicked through the hours, minutes and seconds before she had to get up and go to work. Sometimes she fell asleep an hour or so before the alarm went off. Then she had to struggle to wake up, get up, drink up her tap-water instant coffee, take a broken-water-heater shower, and finally head out in her sneakers, for speed, carrying her platforms in her bottomless shoulder bag. Winos, flashers, smog. The Daily Grind.
One Tuesday night in spring, when Paula and the Pistols were blasting out hard rock, she lay in bed watching her life flash past like the numbers on her conjoined clock and radio. Now, it was midnight and they still hadn’t stopped—t
