“Okay, God. So you want me to save five people, huh? I’ll do it—this time. But that’s where I draw the line.”
I can’t stop smiling. I take two skipping steps, pause, look up again. “But I haven’t forgiven you yet, if that’s what you were thinking.”
Two more steps. It really is a fantastic evening. “It was nice of you to make sure Paul came over here. Now you just need to get MacKenzie to kiss Camila.”
Chapter 32
Nod If It Helps
I don’t know how well Paul slept—either despite or thanks to last night’s cleaning frenzy—but he does seem less worn out this morning. He does his best to erase all traces of himself from the office, but after pulling on his boots and straightening the cushions, there isn’t much else he can do.
He stares at the door to reception as though there are unspeakable horrors awaiting him on the other side, but eventually he finds the courage to tiptoe out.
Dad is sitting on the couch. My urn is next to him, but Paul doesn’t notice that. He sneaks past as quickly as he can, pausing and blinking in confusion at the bright sunlight outside.
I suppose it’s asking too much of the motel to be able to fix everything, because Paul goes straight back to his old, ineffective plan of getting drunk. He walks to the liquor store and buys a six-pack of Budweiser, then sits down on the bench outside the restaurant, seemingly unable to bring himself to open any of the cans.
Clarence gives him a horrified glance as he passes on his way to breakfast. “Jesus, man, what are you doing?”
“Getting drunk,” Paul replies, honest and indifferent.
Clarence shivers. “No commitment! No routines! How are you going to manage that if you aren’t willing to work for it? Getting drunk is a full-time job. Or do I mean a calling? Either way, it’s not for amateurs. Your body might pack in completely if you don’t do it right. Breakfast first, then sun and booze.”
Paul doesn’t have the energy to stand up to Clarence, so he allows himself to be led into the restaurant. Before long, he is eating scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. He drinks coffee and polishes off two slices of apple pie. He doesn’t even argue when Dolores forces the second slice on him.
Back outside, on the bench, he listens patiently as Clarence tries to teach him everything he knows.
“People think they can do anything. So long as they want something, it’ll come to them automatically. I blame all those self-help books. Positive thinking and that kind of crap. That’s the problem with this country—no one is prepared to work for anything. Just take me. Do you think I ended up here by chance? No, I worked hard to be this much of a wreck. It took years. But the kids these days, they take drugs and get further than I’ve ever been in just a few short months. They don’t even know whether it’s what they want. They think it might be, but since they’ve never had to work for it, they’ve never been forced to really ask themselves: Do I want to spend all day drinking on a park bench? Do I have what it takes?
“Look at you. I’m guessing you woke up one day and thought, ‘I want to start drinking.’ Just like that. No preparation at all.” He gives the cans of beer a disgusted glance. “No commitment.”
Paul has closed his eyes. I don’t know whether he’s even listening. His face is raised toward the sun, and he is leaning back against the rough concrete wall behind him.
“Discipline. Routine. That’s what it takes,” Clarence says.
He turns to Paul.
“You look awful,” Clarence says.
“How do you live with the knowledge that you’ve killed someone?”
“Booze?”
Paul shakes his head. “It doesn’t work.”
“Then I don’t know.”
“I can’t sleep. When it’s quiet, all I can hear is the sound of the truck hitting her. And when I close my eyes, I can picture her face right in front of me. It was so strange, the way she appeared like that. One second to the next, she was just there. I remember the sound of the brakes screeching, but I don’t even remember whether her eyes widened. She must’ve just had a shower, because her hair was still damp. She’d tried to comb it, but the wind had messed it up. I remember thinking I was about to ruin her hair. Isn’t that weird? I did, as well. Jesus Christ, I did. It was all matted with blood, and…”
“Okay, okay. I get it,” Clarence interrupts. “Maybe you should try to think about something else.”
“I tried to do the washing up the other day. But as I stood there, I couldn’t see the water anymore. All I could see was blood. Bubbling red blood. I emptied the sink, but the blood just kept on bubbling up. Gurgling, almost. There wasn’t even that much blood. She was just lying there on the road.”
“Jesus, I need a drink,” Clarence says. He gets up and walks away, but Paul remains where he is.
Clarence returns after an hour or so. He pats down his pockets and pulls out a folded napkin. On it, he has scrawled down a few lines of comfort. “All right,” he says. “I spoke to the guys at the bar. Nod if any of this helps. Shake your head if it doesn’t. Okay?”
Paul nods.
“Don’t worry about it?”
Paul shakes his head, but he also manages a faint smile.
“It’s all going to be okay.”
A shake of the head.
“Time heals all wounds.”
Another shake of the head.
“Try not to think about it so much.”
A third weary shake of the head.
“She’s with God now.” Not even Clarence can manage that one without pulling a face. Paul shakes his head. “Didn’t think so, but you never know. Everything happens for a reason?”
Paul doesn’t even bother shaking his head this time.
* * *
“Michael!” Clarence says, desperately grabbing his arm as he walks by. “We need help!”
“He’s just sitting there,” Clarence continues. “But nothing I say seems to help.”
He waves his hand in front of Paul’s face, but there is no reaction. Paul just continues to stare blankly ahead.
“All right,” Michael says. “I’ll take over. You go off and…do whatever you usually do.”
“I usually sit here,” Clarence protests.
Michael runs a hand over his face. “Okay. So sit down. We’ll go.”
He grips Paul’s arm and leads him around the back of the motel. I assume he’s just trying to avoid the nosy stares of the lunch guests, but I also think Paul starts to feel slightly better when he sees the mountains. I always do.
Michael leans Paul against the wall and stands beside him.
Silence. Paul has nothing against that. He just stands there.
Michael sighs. “Henny loved it here,” he says.
My name cuts through the haze. Paul turns toward Michael’s voice.
“Of all the mountains, she chose that one. There’s absolutely nothing special about it. There are higher mountains, more beautiful mountains, more geologically interesting mountains, but no. She wanted this particular view, to see this exact mountain every morning.”
“It’s a nice mountain.”
Michael laughs. For the first time since I died, the hardness in his eyes disappears. “Damn nice,” he says. “Henny dreamed of building a veranda here.”
“The veranda wasn’t the most important part,” I say quietly.
“And we’d all sit here on it. Me, MacKenzie—her best friend—and Camila. Henny too, of course. We’d grow old together.”
A smile lingers in Michael’s eyes, and he shakes his head at himself.
“She looked so surprised when she died,” Paul says. “Suddenly she was just there, in the middle of the road.”
Michael pulls a face. “Let’s try to focus on Henny while she was alive, can we? No more moments of death, all right?”
“I didn�
��t know her while she was alive.”
“I don’t know if I did, either. But I hope I can get to know her now. And I guess you can, too.”
* * *
Michael temporarily hands responsibility for Paul back to Clarence, and while the two men go for an early dinner at the restaurant, he tracks down Camila.
“I’ve got kind of a weird question,” he says. “What do you think about me and Paul building a veranda? At the back of the motel.”
“A veranda for Henny?” she asks.
“I know, it’s a stupid idea, but it would give Paul something to do, and…”
“I think it’s a great idea. And I think Henny would’ve loved it.” She pauses. “This might sound strange, but sometimes I think I can feel her presence here at the motel. I think she wants us to be here. Maybe she always did.”
I eagerly place a hand on her arm. “You can feel it! I’m still here. And you’re right. You belong here.”
“If that’s the case, I wasted a lot of time,” Michael says.
I shake my head impatiently.
“I thought you said you were happy while you were working,” Camila says.
“I was, but…”
“Then it’s hardly wasted, is it?”
Michael gives her a faint smile. “That’s what Henny said, too.”
“Maybe you should try listening to her,” Camila suggests.
I love this woman, I think.
“I think she’s happy with us now,” she continues. “I think she likes the fact that we’re all hanging out at the motel again.”
Michael hesitates. “You know how you wanted to freshen up the rooms?” he says.
Camila pulls a face. “Don’t remind me. No matter what I try, I can’t get them to feel cozy. Everything we bought just feels wrong.”
“It’s not my place to be giving you advice, but…”
“Please do!”
“When I was traveling with work, I stayed in a lot of motels. Often for several weeks at a time, months even. I never bothered to find an apartment if I didn’t know I would be there for at least a year. I never needed the places to be fantastic.”
“Not fantastic, no, but a little cozier?”
“Yeah, but is it really the rooms you should be focusing on? I never spent any longer in my room than I had to. The best places were the ones with some kind of shared space you could hang out in, so you could be around other people in the evening. Not that you did much there, but you could watch a little TV or talk about the news or drink coffee. You didn’t just sit alone in your room, bored.”
“How did you manage it?” Camila asks. “Traveling around like that. Never having a place of your own.”
Michael seems surprised. “I had fun,” he says. “My advice is to put more effort into the shared spaces where your guests can people watch. The restaurant, for example, or Clarence’s bench, or…”
“There’s not much I can do about the restaurant.” Camila sounds thoughtful. “It’s already cozy enough. Dolores’s personality guarantees that. But I wonder… Michael, where did you put the leftover paint from the flag?”
“In the cabin.”
“Bring it over.”
* * *
Camila heads for reception, grabbing hold of Alejandro on her way over.
“All right,” she says firmly. “Sorry, but everyone needs to leave reception. Please take any furniture you can carry.”
Dad stands up, confused. He decides that she must have been joking about the furniture, but he does at least take my urn with him to the restaurant. MacKenzie looks up at Camila in surprise.
As it happens, she wasn’t joking about the furniture. Camila convinces Buddy to help out, and he and Alejandro carry everything into the parking lot: the floor lamp, the old brochure stand, the coffee table—even the couch.
Clarence waves for Buddy and Alejandro to put the old couch beneath the sign, and then he sits down on it, crosses his legs, and waves for Paul to join him. “‘I like work; it fascinates me,’” he quotes. “‘I can sit and look at it for hours.’”
Alejandro temporarily pauses his lifting work to take a photo.
Dad and Stacey are the only guests who stay put in the restaurant. Sitting as far away from each other as they can get.
Buddy, Alejandro, and Michael drag the reception desk outside. They position the bulky old thing around the corner, out of sight from the restaurant. Camila has moved the computer, phone, and papers into the office.
She and MacKenzie glance around the empty room. The furniture has worn holes in the carpet, and though they vacuumed yesterday, they can still see the dirty, dusty outline of where the couch once was. In one corner, they find a lone cigarette butt. The room seems much bigger without all the furniture.
“You really take your cleaning seriously,” MacKenzie tells her.
“Cleaning is just the beginning.”
* * *
Michael fetches the cans of paint and the bag of rollers, and before long the painting is in full swing. Camila and MacKenzie are hard at work, and I sit down on one of the chairs outside and watch the cozy chaos unfolding. The floor lamp is next to the chairs, as though someone could sit down out here to read. The brochures, however, are fluttering away in the breeze. No one bothers to chase them, and before long, they are scattered around the parking lot.
The bright autumn sun bathes everything in a warm, sepia-tinged light, and the floor lamp and chairs and brochure stand cast long, dramatic shadows across the ground.
Paul is lying on the couch.
He’s asleep again! This time, he is perfectly still in the middle of the parking lot, snoring in the glow of the neon sign. His face is relaxed. MacKenzie must have been right about it being easier to sleep somewhere bustling and noisy.
On the surface, Michael doesn’t seem to be doing much, but something about him has changed. He’s involved again. A part of something. When Alejandro snaps a picture of Paul sleeping beneath the sign, Michael even goes over to him and says, “You know, I’ve been thinking about your Instagram account. The one you set up for the motel.”
Alejandro takes several pictures rather than responding.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t try to present some polished image of this place,” Michael tells him. “Why not take the pictures you want to take? Nothing about the motel pretends to be anything it’s not.”
Alejandro suddenly stands tall. “The honest motel,” he says to himself.
“Somewhere you can pine away in peace and quiet,” Michael agrees.
Suddenly, it strikes me that I don’t just have a few people to help. I’ve got a whole flock. And right now, they’re all gathered here. Dad and Stacey are in the restaurant; Alejandro has already started to take pictures and is currently interviewing Clarence; Michael and Buddy are ready to help out; MacKenzie and Camila are painting in reception. And Paul is snoring away.
There is nothing more beautiful than seeing the people you love suddenly doing things again. It’s pure joy, an intoxicating mix of relief and freedom. The sun seems brighter, the colors sharper and the air fresher—all because Michael wants to build a veranda and Camila is repainting reception.
Somehow, we all belong together, and the motel is the center of everything again. The strange objects out in the parking lot make everything seem as magical as it used to be, as it should be now.
I walk around, catching snatches of conversation—“No, I don’t want a goddamn refill” (Stacey); “Now we just need to paint the restaurant pink, too” (Clarence); “Yeah, and build Henny’s veranda” (Michael)—and enjoying the beautiful evening.
Things are finally starting to happen. I can feel it. They aren’t alone anymore. At first glance, it might look as though Dad and Stacey are alone, but they aren’t. They’re fondly irritated by each other. Sometimes we need a little irritati
on in our lives, just so we have something to cling to.
Not even Paul is truly alone. After he fell asleep, Clarence went in and fetched a blanket, dumping it unceremoniously on top of him. Michael came along later and straightened it out. Now that the sun is setting, he fetches another.
And Paul keeps sleeping.
* * *
Once the painting is done, everyone who is still awake gathers in reception. Curiosity even convinces Dad and Stacey to leave the restaurant.
“It’s, uh…very colorful,” Michael says. He knew which colors they had to choose from, but he still seems…taken aback by the first impression.
“No one can take that away from us,” Clarence says.
It really is colorful. Camila has given up any thought of minimalist perfection: colorful freedom is all that matters now. She and MacKenzie have used up the paint by working in blocks. The wall behind the desk is blue and yellow, with both colors continuing past the corners and onto opposite walls. This is followed by a block of red on one side and green on the other, and the slightly trickier orange and purple paint on the wall around the automatic doors.
The whole thing is more or less symmetrical, and though Juan Esteban would have had a heart attack, it works.
The overall impression is charmingly chaotic; a warm, almost childish welcome.
“It’s…multicolored,” says Dad. “Who paints a reception area several different colors? This can’t be right.”
“At least it’s not prim and proper,” Stacey says approvingly.
After that, they help to carry the furniture back inside. Camila fetches cushions and blankets from her storeroom, and Buddy and Michael bring down the bureau she bought. It looks fantastic against all the bright colors.
“What do we do with the couch?” Michael asks.
“I guess we just bring it back in.”
So, that’s what they do. It’s still the same boring, brown sofa, but it looks much cozier against the bright-red wall. Camila spreads out a couple of fluffy white blankets, and gently places a new decorative cushion beneath Paul’s head.
A sleeping man on a couch always looks cozy, after all.
Check in at the Pine Away Motel (ARC) Page 27