Check in at the Pine Away Motel (ARC)

by Katarina Bivald

  “None of us is perfect. Not them, not us. That isn’t the point here. The point is that we are trying. We’re doing our best. We welcome Jesus into our lives—we don’t mock him! We can make a difference. Never doubt what faith can achieve—both in your life and in your community. Don’t listen to those false voices in your head, or to the people around you, to the media, telling you that it is pointless even to try. There are so many of us walking alongside Jesus on the beach.”

  Once the service is over, people linger in the church. I suppose they want to spend a little longer basking in the beautiful image he conjured up for them. They feel acknowledged, forgiven, loved. Several want to speak to the pastor, either to thank him or because they hope that he might rub off on them. They have sat in silence, but now they want to speak; they want to talk about fate, to show him that they understand and agree. He greets them all with simple warmth. He has spoken, and now he will listen.

  I watch the scene from a distance with stubbornly folded arms.

  Outside, the sun is shining, as though to prove God’s greatness, and when the congregation eventually starts to file out, the air fills with electricity. It feels as if someone has taken a balloon and rubbed it over their lives, and now everything is on end.

  Derek can feel it too, but as he steps out into the crisp fall air, the powerful impression the pastor’s sermon made on him fades. He pauses and seems lost, unsure whether he should leave or stay.

  The pastor sees him and comes over. Cheryl is by his side.

  He pats Derek on the shoulder. “Good to see you here.”

  “Great sermon, pastor,” Derek says politely.

  An informal group has gathered around them, lured in by the pastor’s presence.

  “Derek was the one who organized the much-needed painting work at the school,” the pastor announces. Everyone smiles and nods.

  “I used to follow all of your games, of course. But—if you’ll excuse me saying so—I think you can make an even more important contribution here than you ever did on the field.”

  “Yeah…” Derek sounds hesitant.

  “I assume you’ve also noticed the damaging impact the motel has on our town?”

  “That dam…darned motel. They’ve definitely warped my wife’s mind. But if she thinks I’m going to chase after her, she’s wrong. I mean, she’s only there temporarily, but…”

  “Separating a man from his wife,” one of the congregation members murmurs, shaking his head.

  “I would never stay there,” says another.

  I feel a sudden, unreasonable anger at all of them.

  “But where do we start?” Derek asks. “It’s a motel. What the heck can we do?”

  The pastor smiles. “I think you’ll find that the answer is: a whole lot. And we’ll start with a petition.”

  “We always start with a petition,” Cheryl cheerily agrees.

  * * *

  “Do you know why I married Derek?”

  Stacey is sprawled across the couch at the check-in desk, her legs outstretched in front of her.

  “No!” Dad says, sounding horrified. He is squeezed up against the armrest. “And I don’t want to.”

  “It was because of my mother-in-law. I know it’s stupid, but she had a husband who didn’t drink or do drugs, and she lived in that incredible house. As much space as you like, and her clothes were always neat and tidy and perfect for the occasion. The food she served was perfect too. Salmon, baby carrots, tender meat. Peas, for God’s sake. And she eats them with a fork! My folks wouldn’t have been able to eat peas if you’d given them a bib and a spoon.”

  “That’s no way to talk about your parents.”

  “I didn’t want to be like Joyce, I wanted her as a mother. I imagined us together in her enormous kitchen. Jesus, it seemed so big to me. You never bumped into the table while you were putting something in the microwave. She would teach me to cook, I thought. Something other than mac and cheese. And she would appreciate my help. A bit of company during the day. Maybe we would even bake together—apple pie, the kind with the lattice top—and we’d drink coffee, and there would be pretty, delicate white lace curtains, and the sun would be shining in through them. Don’t laugh.”

  Dad isn’t laughing. He still looks horrified at the intimacy of the conversation.

  “I grew up in a trailer. You couldn’t move without bumping into something. Mom and Dad were almost always drunk. Drunk or absent. They would disappear for days at a time. One of them, both of them, suddenly they just wouldn’t be there, and I was left alone with my little sister. I actually used to feel guilty that life was easier when they weren’t around. I made dinner for the two of us. Mac and cheese. Hot dogs. Do you know how sick a kid can get of hot dogs?”

  “You don’t need to tell me any of this!” Dad protests.

  “No, I guess not even you deserve to have to listen to pathetic childhood memories. But the point is: when I was ten, I swore to myself that one day, I’d have a normal happy family. I daydreamed about finding out I was adopted, and my real parents coming back to rescue me. But then I met Derek, and for a while I thought I could actually fit in.”

  Dad is staring straight ahead to avoid looking her in the eye.

  “But it’s impossible. People in this town never forget who you were. And everyone talks so much. I just can’t bear the thought of people talking about me, laughing, and…”

  Dad straightens up. “Exactly!” he says.

  “Don’t they have anything better to do? Why can’t they worry about their own goddamn lives instead?”

  “Did you ever learn to cook?” Dad asks. “Because it isn’t so hard. You just follow the instructions, and then…”

  Stacey runs her hands over her face. “Sure, sure,” she says wearily. “That’s exactly what I was talking about.”

  Dad gives her a surprised glance. He’s thinking: What did I do wrong now?

  Chapter 35

  A Veranda for Henny

  Alejandro throws himself into the project of reviving his Instagram account. All afternoon, I see him walking around the motel with his camera in tow. He stops several times to interview guests about their opinions of the motel and life in general. I’m sure he must have gotten some interesting answers. Eventually, he tracks down Camila and asks whether he can have a chat with her.

  “You know I made an Instagram account for the motel? There hasn’t been much activity on it because, well, it’s just not possible to take all that many flattering pictures of this place.”

  “A challenge,” Camila agrees with a smile. “But at least now we have a rainbow-colored reception area.”

  “Uh, yeah. And that’s definitely on there. But Michael came up with the idea of me taking honest pictures instead. You know, like the new sign. Truthful. With a bit of humor. To show we can laugh at ourselves.”

  I think Alejandro has been practicing this argument.

  “All right,” Camila sounds hesitant.

  “So I’ve, uh, been uploading some more honest pictures.”

  “Could I see?”

  He quickly flicks through his posts and shows her a couple of them. He wasn’t kidding about the honesty part. Several of the photos are of the sign, of course, but he has also continued the theme of pining away in the others. In one of them, Dad is sitting unhappily at check-in. His face isn’t in focus, meaning he is unrecognizable to anyone but us. Instead, the focus is on the bright-yellow wall behind him, and the gleaming urn to one side. The caption beneath consists of the list of complaints he reeled off yesterday, including his views on the frivolous, colorful paint that’s now on the walls. The majority of portraits are blurry, the people impossible to identify, aside from one picture of Clarence, who is staring straight at the camera with his coffee cup raised in a toast. You can’t tell that his cup is full of booze, but the caption beneath is a long quot
e from him. It’s a bit like something from Humans of New York, except Clarence is talking about how liquor built this state. Liquor and constitutional racism. In another picture, a hungover group from Vermont is proud to be in focus. Alejandro hasn’t edited their views on town, either.

  The rest of the posts are beautiful, artistic shots of forgotten items and abandoned objects. A lone coffee cup with lipstick on the rim, an empty packet of potato chips on the ground beneath a trash can, and several genuinely beautiful shots of the mountains—but even they have a lonely, melancholic feel to them.

  Then, of course, there is a picture of Paul asleep on the couch beneath the sign. Alejandro has written #vacancies beneath that one.

  I glance nervously at Camila. I doubt this is what she was expecting. But all she says is: “And you think this will make people want to stay here?”

  “It’s just an Instagram account,” Alejandro mumbles. “No one books a motel on the basis of its Instagram posts. Our homepage and the entries on Booking.com and TripAdvisor are still perfectly normal. This just a bit of…fun.”

  I don’t agree with him. He might have convinced himself that he was doing it for fun, but the pictures radiate honesty. They’re fantastic, and surprisingly revealing. For a moment, I can really see the world through his eyes.

  “I just wanted to check it was all right with you.”

  “Yeah…” Camila sounds hesitant. “I guess.”

  * * *

  It’s possible that Camila didn’t give Alejandro her full attention, because as she walks away, her mind is definitely elsewhere. She fetches a basket from her room and takes it down to reception.

  “Come on, MacKenzie,” she says. “We’re celebrating.”

  “Celebrating what?”

  Camila shrugs as she drags MacKenzie toward the car. “Pick something,” she says. “The new paint. The couch turning ten.”

  “I think it might actually be older than that.” But she obediently follows Camila all the same, and they drive to a spot by the river, where they can be alone.

  Camila spreads a blanket on the grass, brushing away a couple of dry leaves. MacKenzie stands beside her, gazing over to the edge of the forest. She closes her eyes and breathes in the timeless scent of cool, damp air and freedom. The hum of the road behind us mixes with the noise of the river, making it sound even more powerful. The passing trucks sound like the roar of waves.

  There are a number of small birch trees clinging to the edge of the beach and one particularly fearless pine that’s practically in the water. Three rocks form a kind of bridge out into the water. On the other side, there is a break in the pines, making the world feel bigger here.

  Camila holds up a bottle of champagne and two coffee cups. “It’s not really a celebration without some bubbly.”

  I lie down on my back in the grass. Up above, the sun and the wind play in the trees. A lone leaf swirls down to the ground as a gust of wind takes hold of it, making it spin through the air in lazy circles.

  MacKenzie sits down next to Camila on the blanket. Camila pops the cork, and MacKenzie smiles when it foams over.

  “Can I ask you something?” Camila asks.

  MacKenzie takes the cup from her, immediately spilling a little champagne on her hand. “Ask away,” she says.

  “Why haven’t you kissed me yet?” Camila calmly continues in the silence that follows. “I mean, we’ve been flirting long enough. Do you want to kiss me?”

  I sit bolt upright, shocked by the bluntness of her question.

  Not as shocked as MacKenzie, though. “For God’s sake, Camila.” She sounds panicked.

  Camila slowly stretches out her legs in front of her. Sips from her cup. “It’s not a difficult question. A yes or no will do.”

  “Why haven’t you kissed me?”

  “I wanted to. But then I thought it might be fun to see how long you would tiptoe around, flirting with me and not doing anything about it.”

  “Yeah, I can see you waited patiently.”

  “I got bored.”

  “I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.”

  “So you’re going to live the rest of your life as a celibate?”

  “You’re not a one-night stand, Camila. And I’m not getting into feelings. I don’t feel anything anymore. I can’t even remember how a heart works.”

  “Oh, MacKenzie,” she says. “You feel so much you’re about to break.”

  MacKenzie moves to stand up, but Camila grabs her arm and pulls her back down onto the blanket. “Are you ever going to stop talking and make out with me, or do I have to do everything around here?”

  MacKenzie doesn’t speak. I don’t think she can.

  “Does foreplay always last this long with you?” Camila goes on. “Because if it does, I’m surprised you don’t spend months in Eugene before you get la…”

  MacKenzie pulls Camila to her and kisses her before she has time to finish her sentence. I prudishly look away, get up, and start walking.

  I’ll have to walk back to the motel, I think. But it’s worth it.

  Amazing things in life: MacKenzie in shock, MacKenzie feeling nervous, MacKenzie in love.

  They’ll be a perfect couple. It wouldn’t surprise me if MacKenzie proposed before fall is out.

  Okay. Calm down, Henny. No expectations. MacKenzie can be incredibly slow at times.

  Let’s say before Christmas.

  * * *

  It’s funny how much satisfaction men seem to get from measuring things. I know that Paul and Michael can’t just get straight to work on building my veranda, but they’re walking around with their strings and sticks and measuring tapes, checking lengths, widths and depths with focused contentment. Next, they double-check everything, and after that they double-check all of the angles. Not once do they throw down their tools in frustration. They actually seem to enjoy having to make the odd adjustment.

  Neither of them speaks while they work. I guess they’re communicating on some deeper level. Some kind of manly carpentry-based telepathy.

  It’s the day after MacKenzie and Camila’s excursion, and I’m still in an incredibly good mood.

  “Are you sure this is the right time of year to be building a veranda?” I cheerily ask.

  Michael shakes his head. Paul nods and moves the string a fraction of an inch.

  “I think it looks straight,” I say, just to mess with them.

  Michael had turned up at Paul’s bench earlier that day, and Paul had obediently followed him back to the car. He paused for a moment before climbing in, tensing up every time they passed a truck heading in the opposite direction, but he didn’t put up any kind of fight. He actually didn’t say anything at all.

  “You any good at woodwork?” Michael asked once they were on their way.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  For the first time, it dawned on Paul to ask: “Where are we going?”

  “To buy wood.”

  Back at the motel, they had managed to spend almost an hour working on the measurements in peace and quiet, but the minute they start unloading the wood, everyone at the motel gathers around Michael’s car.

  “Well, well, well,” MacKenzie says in a deep, authoritative voice. “What’s going on here?”

  Michael and Paul freeze.

  “We’re building a veranda,” Michael tells her. “Out the back. Camila said it was all right.” He looks a little sheepish at having to justify himself—or pass the blame on to someone else.

  Everyone follows him around the corner. Michael and Paul have prepared a space for the wood, and there are already six boards stacked and waiting. They have marked out the shape of the veranda using string.

  “My tomato plants!” Dolores cries out.

  Unfortunately, her tomatoes are growing right in the middle the marked out area.

  “We
’re going to replant them,” Michael quickly explains.

  “Replant them!”

  “We’re building a veranda for Henny,” Paul says. “This was her favorite spot.”

  “Aha,” says Dolores. “A veranda for Henny. Well, that changes things. My tomato plants will probably be just as happy against that wall over there.”

  MacKenzie and Alejandro get to work carrying wood, Dolores returns to the kitchen, and Michael and Paul move one of the strings a few inches to one side.

  “What did she look like?” Paul asks.

  “Henny? She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw.”

  “Michael!” I protest. “Don’t lie to poor Paul. He might actually believe you.”

  “Maybe not in a conventional sense, but Henny was really beautiful. She made all other women seem bland and boring.”

  “Good,” I say, but then I stop short. “You can start dating again, though. Eventually.”

  “In a while,” I add. But I don’t believe it. Not now that he has finally found his way home. We’re going to be together forever, that’s how it feels.

  The conversation trails off as MacKenzie and Alejandro dump another couple of planks onto the pile. Once they leave, Michael goes on. “I think it was the way she looked at you. She could always convince me of anything. Her eyes seemed to radiate some kind of easy confidence. She knew it was true, and if she knew, then how could I doubt it? Everything will be fine, people are fundamentally nice, the earth is flat—it made no difference what she said when she was looking at you with those blue eyes of hers. Bright blue, like the water in Crater Lake.” He falls silent. “I must sound ridiculous. Let’s keep digging.”

  They carefully move the tomato plants over to their new spot by the wall. Michael keeps talking without really seeming to be aware of it. “They say that the Inuit have hundreds of words for snow,” he says.

  Paul continues to dig.

  “I should have at least one hundred words for Henny’s different smiles. She could communicate absolutely anything with a smile—laughter, love, consideration, compassion, even the fact that she didn’t agree with you. I actually think that if you got everyone who knew to describe her smile, you’d find out she had a special smile for each of them. It meant it was impossible to argue with her. Don’t get me wrong; I tried—when I was young and dumb. I tried to resist her, too. I knew I would be leaving, and I didn’t need anything to make that harder. But then she smiled, and suddenly I was willing to do anything for her again. I’ve always been prepared to do anything she asked of me.”