It was the most magnificent birthday of my life, the first one I celebrated after we started working at the motel. Juan Esteban warned that I had to eat everything myself, but it turned out that MacKenzie, Camila, Michael, and Derek were all more than happy to help out. Still, you should have seen my eyes when I thought I would have to eat it all on my own!
After breakfast, I walk into town. It’s as if I want to reassure myself that it’s still there. And it is!
There’s the tasteful town sign, and there are the elms. All of the leaves are now brilliantly red, I discover. If I’m still here next year, I’ll come over here every day to find out exactly when the first leaf changes color.
Pine Creek is so intertwined with my past that I almost manage to forget that I don’t have a future. I see town the way it used to be: so big and confusing that every excursion became an adventure; somewhere it was perfectly possible for a ten-year-old girl and her best friend to get lost on one of its side streets. As children, we explored Pine Creek as though it was our very own kingdom. It grew with each new street we conquered, every shop we poked our heads into, every grown-up MacKenzie charmed.
As I pass the school, I can see myself and MacKenzie in the children playing in the sun. I think this kind of sunshine is the one I like most. Cold and bright and sharper than it is in summer. Like water in an icy stream. But then I start to doubt myself and make a mental list of my favorites:
A clear autumn day in late September. The first spring sun, when everything is pale and gray and the branches are bare, almost glittering in the sun. The confident July sun, one day after another, with the heat and light shimmering in the air. The sunlight that filters through a particularly big oak, the way it did when MacKenzie and I lay beneath Dad’s tree, looking up at the clouds. The sunlight in winter is nice, too, I think, promising myself that I’ll pay attention to it this winter.
I spend almost an hour on Elm Street, watching the people hurry by. Everyday life is like a play being acted out in front of me: harried mothers shopping with tired children, handymen grabbing an early lunch at Sally’s Café, senior citizens moving slowly but surely along the street.
It’s a little disappointing that the town’s inhabitants don’t seem to realize what a miracle it is to be alive, but maybe that’s unfair of me. It’s easy for me to say, being dead. I’m sure they have other things to think about.
I follow a smile all the way from Elm Street to Water Street. It starts with a seven-year-old girl who is out with her mother. The mother is half a step ahead of her, and the girl is constantly trying to catch up. I can see the mother going through the day’s plans in her head, mentally rushing from one place to the next. The girl, on the other hand, is looking all around. Her eyes sweep over the people, the buildings, an empty plastic bag that needs to be investigated, a forgotten glove that has been carefully hung up on the branch of one of the elms. And, at some point in the middle of all of this, she smiles innocently and cheerily at an old woman with grandmotherly wrinkles, white hair, and a colorful knit hat.
I decide to follow that smile.
The woman passes it on to the young man packing bags at the supermarket, and he smiles genuinely, not just politely, at the next customer, a confused woman who is trying to keep track of her wallet, bags, and gloves. She is so focused on making sure she hasn’t forgotten anything that she pays no notice to anyone around her, and I have to follow her for at least ten minutes. Then, just before she reaches Water Street, she looks up and beams at an elderly man with a dog.
That’s where it dies out. The man grunts in response, looks down at the ground, and wanders off. He isn’t going to look up and smile unnecessarily, I’m sure of that.
Dad is out in his yard. He’s wearing a pair of pressed gray trousers, a pale-blue shirt, and a pullover. His movements are slow and dignified, letting everyone know that he is raking leaves in a sorrowful manner.
Cheryl and her husband are working in their garden, and Dad keeps trying to shield himself from her friendly offers of juice, coffee, or a warmer sweater.
He starts raking even harder.
Oh, Dad.
* * *
As I make my way back to the motel, all I can think about is the look in the smiling girl’s eyes.
Wonder. That was what I saw. To her, the main street in Pine Creek is a big, exciting world, just like it once was for MacKenzie and me. I wonder when we stopped looking at the world with that kind of simple fascination.
Maybe we can learn to see things for the first time again, I think. Maybe we just need to pause and allow ourselves to remember how everything used to be.
So, when I get back to the motel I stand in the parking lot and look up at it. If I really focus, in this particular glittering sunlight, I can see it the way I did the very first time. Exciting. Enormous. The best thing ever to happen to us.
Pine Creek Motel. Vacancies.
The neon sign made everything new and exciting. And a tiny, tiny bit dangerous, even though it was the middle of the day and the motel was almost empty.
I had never stayed in a motel before. At sixteen years old, I had never even left Pine Creek.
It was a sunny afternoon in May, and MacKenzie had pulled up down the road from the motel, meaning we could look at it however much we wanted. She pushed a damp lock of hair out of her eyes.
“Look, Henny,” she said.
There were only three cars parked outside, but MacKenzie studied them intently. Then she reached for a pen and paper from the glove compartment and wrote down: Montana. Washington, Idaho, and Iowa were already on her list.
“Cars from all over the country come to the motel,” she said. “And we’re going to work there.”
Something new had appeared in MacKenzie’s eyes, and looking back now, I know what it was: love at first sight.
This wasn’t just another way for her not to have to go home at night; it wasn’t just a fun part-time job. MacKenzie had fallen for this tired, horrible, weird place. Something completely new had appeared in her world, and I struggled to keep up.
But even MacKenzie hesitated as we stepped into the reception area. After the bright sunlight, the room felt dark and drab. There was a lone fan struggling in vain against the heat, noisily pushing warm air around the room. I was painfully aware that we weren’t here to check in and that we were only sixteen.
“We need to talk to the boss,” MacKenzie said, and for some reason—maybe out of sheer curiosity at what this gangly teen with the confidence of an adult could want, maybe because MacKenzie had irresistible charm—the woman at the desk sent us up to Juan Esteban’s office.
It wasn’t like any other office I had ever seen. In my eyes, it was as big as a ballroom. The sunlight seemed to dance over the barely restrained chaos.
There were papers scattered across every free surface, and I could see a bucket of brushes and an unopened can of paint in one corner. On one of the bookcases, a tool belt lay ready to be worn. Juan Esteban was standing in the middle of it all.
He was short and thin and drowning in an old-fashioned suit with huge shoulder pads, but his personality filled the room.
His personality was the room.
Juan Esteban never stood still. During the minute or so that passed between us being shown into the room and him noticing us, he had picked up a piece of paper, given it a quick glance, put it to one side, picked up another, patted his jacket pocket. Then he swung around and saw us. His eyes were intensely dark, his hair thin and flecked with gray, sticking up in several different directions. His forehead was damp with sweat, but that was the only real sign he was feeling the heat.
“We want to work here,” MacKenzie said. I think Juan Esteban must have been able to see something in her, because he instantly seemed to grow calm. That’s the best way I can describe it. It was as if their restless energies spoke to each other.
Mac
Kenzie looked him straight in the eye.
He nodded. “We’ll give it a try. I’m assuming you want an after-school job? A few weekends a month? Just for the summer?”
“We both do,” MacKenzie interrupted him.
Juan Esteban seemed surprised to see me, as if he had only just realized I was there. Then he waved a hand, as though I was a minor detail. One kid, two, it made no difference to him.
“Have you ever worked in a motel before?” he asked.
“No,” said MacKenzie. I quickly shook my head.
“Neither had I when I bought this place. I promise you, it’ll be the adventure of your lives. Absolutely anything can happen at a motel.”
* * *
For a while, the evening sun colors everything a warm shade of golden orange, and as darkness falls, I’m still standing in the parking lot. I take three deep breaths and pretend that my chest is still rising and falling, that my lungs are still drawing in air. It feels like breaking the surface after you’ve been holding your breath underwater. I’m going to go in and see MacKenzie soon, keep her company while she works, and then I’ll hang out with Camila. We can do whatever she wants, and after that I’ll run over to the cabin to see Michael. It feels incredible to have time again.
I don’t know why I’m still here, and I have no idea how long it will last, but I do know that I need to make the most of this second chance I’ve been given. The possibilities dance in the blue and red light of the parking lot.
I feel a stab of something, some kind of new energy, a purpose, perhaps. There has to be a reason why I’m still here, and I’ll work it out sooner or later.
* * *
MacKenzie is alone at the reception desk. Her face is blank and exhausted. Her eyes are half-closed, her forehead creased, her cheeks hollow as though grief has taken up residence in her sinuses.
Things I don’t like: blank faces.
“I wish I could make you see the world the way I do now,” I say to her. She barely even looks up as Camila comes into the room.
Camila has prepared a speech. “Since I don’t have anywhere else to be, I thought I could help out,” she begins far too quickly, her voice trailing off when she notices MacKenzie’s complete lack of interest.
She forces herself to continue. “But right now, I don’t know how anything works. I assume things have changed since I worked here. I don’t even know how our finances are doing.”
“Pretty interesting.”
“Or how the reservation system works.”
“That’s even more interesting.”
I think Camila must be wondering whether MacKenzie is joking, but there isn’t a hint of humor in MacKenzie’s eyes.
“You must have a lot to do, now that Henny—”
MacKenzie interrupts her. “I can handle it,” she says.
“But still…”
“Have you ever heard me complain? Did I ask for help?”
Camila looks away and then stubbornly decides to continue. “I’ll do anything. Cleaning. The night shift.”
“I don’t need any help.”
* * *
Things Michael and I will never do together: Go on a road trip. Argue about whose family we’ll spend Christmas with. Move in together. We’ll also never: Buy a dog together. Argue about whose turn it is to take it for a walk. Spontaneously surprise each other with flowers. Make a nice dinner for the other when they’re tired after getting home from work. Decide to skip dinner and have sex instead.
The thought could depress me, but I decide to focus on the most important thing instead: I’m still here.
So, I move in with him.
It goes incredibly smoothly. I guess I thought it would be more difficult. More fighting about what should happen to one person’s books and the other person’s table and whose couch we should really keep.
But I just take my pretend box of pretend things and go over to the cabin and pretend to unpack.
I turn the whole thing into a kind of pantomime. Pick up the box. It’s big, I imagine, even though I can’t think what I would fill it with right now. Torn photographs, perhaps? In any case, I hold my arms wide apart, push the door open with my shoulder and shout: “Here’s the first box!”
And then I stop dead in the living room with the pretend cardboard box in my arms.
Michael is moving restlessly around the cabin, as though he thinks that the answer to all of life’s mysteries is in the next room. He kicks a pair of shoes out of the way by the front door, grabs two coffee cups from the living room, forgets what he’s doing, and takes them with him into the bedroom.
I hurry after him. “Is it all right if I take one of the drawers?” I ask his back, unnecessarily cheerily.
Not that my imaginary clothes will take up much room. I’m stuck in my jeans and the blouse with the red polka dots, which I’m really starting to get sick of by now.
I sigh. I wonder if it counts as living together if one of us doesn’t know about it.
Michael paces back and forth. The living room is the biggest room in the cabin, with the most floor space, but it’s not big enough to be very satisfying to trudge around in. Michael has to swing around the sofa and dodge the little dining table on every loop. I stand by the window to keep out of the way. It’s almost a relief when his phone starts ringing.
I can see that the name on the screen is Julia, and I have time to tense up before I hear the weary tone in his voice when he answers. Definitely not a girlfriend. His agent, it turns out.
“How are things with my favorite nerd?” she asks.
“I don’t have time to chat right now,” Michael lies. Time is all he does have. “Could we speak—” he begins, but Julia interrupts him.
“Why am I the only one who cares about your career?”
“I’m a geologist. My career is going fine, thanks. I don’t need an agent.”
“The fact you’re even saying that shows how much you need me.”
“What do you want, Julia?”
“I want you to write another book.”
“I don’t have any inspiration.”
“Inspiration is for wimps. How hard can it be to find a couple of rocks to write about?”
“I…I just don’t feel like talking about rocks right now.”
I anxiously pat his arm.
“You need to strike while the iron is still hot,” Julia continues. “Right now, people are interested in rocks. That’s a fact, but it’s not going to last forever. They’ll move on and find some other obscure thing to obsess over. Maybe it’ll be frogs, who knows? So you need to get a move on.” Then, with a hopeful tone in her voice, she adds: “Where are you, anyway?”
“Oregon.”
“That’s not the right place for exotic rocks. Give me something exciting. I want you on some snow-covered mountain in South America or in the middle of the Canadian wilderness…”
“If there’s snow on the ground, you can’t see the rocks.”
“You’re going to make me age prematurely.”
“Julia…”
“At least think up some interesting places? If you have a good enough idea, I can sort out a decent advance for you. Just write me a couple of pages. And whatever you do, don’t fill it with a load of boring geological terms, all right? We want it to sell, don’t we?”
With that, she hangs up. Michael stares irritably at the phone as if he wants to call her back and tell her what he thinks of her ideas.
Ultimately, that proves too much effort, and he takes out a notepad and obediently starts scribbling away: exotic places where you can find rocks.
He writes down the first place he can think of, along with everything he knows about it.
Aconcagua (Argentina, Andes). World’s highest place of sacrifice. Subduction zone. Volcanic rocks: lava, breccia, pyroclastics.
&nb
sp; Then he continues, sarcastically:
Brilliant idea! Travel to Saturn. Diamond rain. Guaranteed bestseller. NB: Explain to Julia that unfortunately the diamonds are uncut. Will that affect sales? Plan B: Become a diamond seller instead. Before leaving: Buy a sturdy umbrella. And rubber boots.
I smile. Michael once told me about the diamonds on Saturn. I was picturing glittering jewel raindrops before he explained that in actual fact, most of the rain there was rock.
“There’s methane gas in Saturn’s upper atmosphere, and the lightning storms transform it into soot particles. As the soot falls toward the hotter areas, the carbon becomes graphite.”
“Pencil lead,” I said. “You’re telling me it rains lead?”
“Yeah, well, only for a while. After falling another 3,700 miles toward the gas planet, the graphite becomes diamond. They estimate that around a thousand tons of diamonds fall on Saturn every year.”
“You’d need a pretty sturdy umbrella for that,” I said thoughtfully. “Ours can barely even handle a light breeze, so they’d be no use against rocks.”
“Uh,” said Michael. “They actually don’t know what happens to the diamonds as they near the core of the planet. The suspicion is that the conditions are so extreme that they can’t keep their solid form and become liquid instead.”
“And they say that diamonds are forever,” I said, sounding disappointed.
“Not on Saturn. Maybe they’ve got a sea of liquid carbon up there.”
“So you’d need a decent pair of rubber boots, too?” I said, and then he started telling me all about the problematic aspects of visiting one of the gas giants.
Michael tears out the sheet of paper, crumples it up with a clear sense of satisfaction, and sends it sailing into the air. Darkness has fallen outside, and when I peer out through the window, all I can see is his reflection. It breaks my heart to see him struggling on his own like this.
Check in at the Pine Away Motel (ARC) Page 14