Reception

by Kenzie Jennings

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to call or visit my parents often. It’s just that…Well, I didn’t want to call or visit my parents often. There’s only so much of the tension between us that I can feasibly take.

  And, meanwhile, I was cutting my last benzodiazapine prescription down, moving my way into low dose Diazepam, as per strict, hellish instructions. Aprazolam, Lorazepam, Clonazepam, you name it, I’d been overprescribed it and its other mellow kin. I wanted a break from the whole anal-retentive tapering schedule. Just some relief. I didn’t care about the physical toll it was having on me. My sister’s wedding was the real test of self-endurance as to what I could possibly take while tapering off the hell I’d been on to numb myself to everything and then some.

  At least Shay hadn’t asked me to be maid of honor. Thank God for small favors, I suppose.

  The road suddenly shifted beneath us, and the little car jumped and growled its displeasure at us. Mom had turned us off the smoothness of the main drag onto a rocky side road that, according to the rustic wooden sign we’d passed, led to the Montague Ranch Resort. The road itself was lined with desert broom and spiky palmettos, leading us down a winding, bumpy trail.

  “So how far are we from civilization? Are we going to be relying on outhouses and campfire coffee or what?” I said. Not like I particularly minded being away from people and noise. I just didn’t care to be corralled in with people and noise.

  A darkened guardpost with no guard on duty greeted our arrival. The closed iron gates ahead of us kept us from going any further. Mom urged the car to a shuddering halt and set it in Park. Then she rolled down her window and stretched out her arm to hit the call button on the post beside the car. There was a crackle-pop of static and then silence on the other end.

  She poked at the call button again. “Hello? Are you just going to breathe into the speaker or are you planning on answering at all?” she snapped.

  There was another crackle in response. Then a man’s voice, deep and chuckling, came on with a “Sorry about that, darlin’. You here for the Boone-Card wedding?”

  “Nooooo, we’re here for the whole ranch-hand experience, lassoing, campfire farting, cattle-branding, and all,” I said.

  Mom shushed me, giving me the old settle-down look only real mothers could ever possibly perfect. Then she turned back to the call speaker and said, “Yes, I’m the mother of the bride. I was just picking up my oldest. Would you kindly open the gates?”

  Another chuckle, and I didn’t like the raspy-deep sound of it. “Well, hay-loooo! Sure thing, lambchop. Lemme just get the keys to the truck here. Just a min’ and I’ll let you ladies in.”

  We sat there in the quiet, listening to the droning buzz of the cicadas, waiting, just waiting.

  “Lambchop? For real?”

  Mom gritted her teeth, glancing at me in the rosy light of the sunset. “That was certainly Rex. That man.”

  “What a card, that Card.”

  Mom’s scowl twisted into a half smile. I can’t even remember the last time I saw her smile like that. It was the smile that signaled she appreciated the humor even when things happening weren’t particularly amusing all in all.

  In the distance, headlight halos winked at us just past the gates as the pickup truck dipped and eased its way down towards the entrance.

  “Why don’t they have an actual guard to, you know, guard the place, and stay there…in the guardhouse?” I pressed. Not that I required an answer or anything, but it was a valid question, I thought.

  Mom kept steadily watching the truck as it pulled up and then made a U-turn around, facing back towards the driveway path. After a moment, she said, sort of absently, “It’s the only resort I’ve ever been where the staff wasn’t around much at all. Delia said there’s a maid service in the morning but only during the weekdays. Restaurant service is minimal, but their lunch was quite lovely. Crepes and fruit salad. I rather liked it. Good choice for the heat.”

  A tall, broad-shouldered shadow of a figure slid out from the driver side of the truck and gave us a jaunty wave. Rex Card then stepped out in front of his truck, his facial features blotted by the lights behind him. He let out a whoop of a laugh, one hand on his hip, the other playfully wagging a finger at us like we were children who’d done something naughty.

  “You gals gettin’ here well past the dinner bell,” he said with a chortle. “It’s not po-lite to keep your family waitin’, especially when there’s some divine grub to be had.”

  Mom leaned out the window and said, “Obliged, Rex, if you’d be so kind as to let us in. My youngest is probably worried by now.”

  Rex unlocked the gates and swung them wide open, motioning us in. Mom pulled up the car next to him. He dropped into an easy crouch near her window. It was the first time I’d seen him since the engagement party well over a year before. He was a good-looking man in his early 60s with curly salt-and-pepper hair, a perfectly trimmed mustache and a broad smile bearing too many teeth to count. His eyes though, like Delia’s, they showed something lacking, something inexplicable. They were alive, yet their light had long since gone cold.

  He winked at me. “Lookit you there, Missy Prissy. Been awhile. You feelin’ any better? They get you good n’healthy?”

  I glared at the back of Mom’s head. That wasn’t what I’d wanted anyone to share. I know she could feel the heat of my stare against her neck, but she kept her focus on Rex who didn’t avert his gaze from me until she spoke.

  “She’s well. Thanks, Rex. We’ll meet you back up at the courtyard.” With that, she rolled up her window and eased the car past Rex who waved us in, his smile forming into a blank line as he did.

  “What exactly did you tell them?”

  She pretended like I hadn’t said anything and kept her eye on the trail as she drove on.

  “Mom. Answer me.”

  She blew out a long exhale, as if she’d been holding her breath, trying to keep it all in. “Shay had already mentioned something to Nathan about it. Just that you had been ill and needed some time in a facility but that it was nothing serious. Nothing for anyone to worry themselves over.” Mom glanced at me, her face crinkled. “And she’s right, isn’t she now. Nothing to worry about. The alternative would’ve been much worse, but they don’t have to know that.”

  Nothing. Right. Shay and I would certainly have some words. But first, all I wanted was to knock back some Ibuprofen and take a long soak in the shower to get the stink of the long drive off me.

  Then swallow a pill crumb.

  It was going to be like that this weekend. Sheer hell.

  I just wasn’t aware how awful a weekend in hell could be.

  TWO

  I don’t know exactly how long I’d been sitting there on the edge of my bed. I was fresh out of a lukewarm drizzle from underneath the showerhead, attempting to check my email on my cell with shaky-twitchy hands, but it must have been awhile since the violet streaks of light had long since disappeared from between the cracks in the heavy wooden door to my suite. Stray streams of water from my wet hair cut shivery trails down my back, so I ruffled it a bit more in a towel and then turbaned it over my head. The towels weren’t heavy and soft as they ought to be at a hotel. Instead, they were thin and rough and didn’t do much to get one dry. There was a hairdryer that had been placed in a velveteen bag that dangled from a hook on the bathroom wall, but I didn’t feel like plugging the thing into the only socket available and maneuvering my way around the tiny bathroom in order to get my tangled hair dry. So I let my hair dribble water, forming little puddles on the cold concrete floor of my suite.

  “Suite” probably wasn’t the right word to describe the room. The resort itself was designed to look like something out of a western, a little pueblo village with cobblestone paths leading to tight alleys, courtyards, doorways, and rock gardens, one of which was part of the natural landscaping surrounding an algae-choked swimming pool. Some of the paths led to wooden doors to what seemed like would be cozy casitas, like the one
I was staying in. The inside of them was another matter altogether.

  If any place were to make one feel imprisoned, it would be within the guest rooms. Mine didn’t have any windows at all, making it feel like the interior of a cave. The main light to the room was out, its lightbulb having fizzled and died when I attempted to turn it on, so I had to rely on the dusky light of the little table lamp on the scuffed nightstand. I’d needed to charge my cell, but most of the free sockets were nothing more than a spaghetti-jumble of exposed wiring. I’d tried to plug in my cell in a socket in the bathroom beforehand, but there was no place to set my phone. There was no bathroom sink countertop at all. Instead, the sink was little more than a deep marble bowl with a wide drain and a swan-necked tap, a completely impractical attempt to appear modern and stylish. The cord couldn’t reach the toilet tank, so I couldn’t set the phone on that either.

  Evidently, that didn’t matter anyway. There was no signal out in the middle of an obvious nowhere. After a third, fourth, and then an angry fifth attempt to move about the room, trying to pick up something…anything…to grant me a bar or two, I plopped myself back down on the edge of my bed and scrolled through the much older messages from Simon, ones that had grown scarce and sporadic, brusque and short, once the days, then weeks, then months, had passed. I hadn’t trashed any of them. That record of a dying relationship had grown into a frantic obsession for me, one that Leon had tried to ease out of me through my therapy sessions but couldn’t.

  Simon’s last message to me was simple and telling.

  You need to leave me alone.

  It was the finality of those words that broke me in pieces. That was the day I went ballistic at work. The fact that I’d not been able to get an updose on my benzo prescription only made it worse.

  I felt something tickling my thigh in light, airy touches just below the cuff of my shorts. A spider had gotten confused, apparently mistaking my leg for a part of the dusky, drab surroundings. Normally, I would’ve screeched and leapt away from the bed, frantically shaking myself free of the rest of his invisible friends that might have landed on me as well. Instead though, I used the edge of my cell to gently ease him off me and onto the damp, pebbly-rough floor.

  The room’s cranky AC unit clicked on and rumbled. It had been perfectly placed beside the bed as well, so that would be a plus when I finally managed to sleep. The in-house rotary phone suddenly came to life as well, ringing and rattling on the glass-topped dinette table against the wall. When I went over and answered it, all I could hear was a crackle of static, and a broken, barely recognizable feminine voice said, “Ans…Here?” and then the line went dead.

  I hung up the receiver and then picked it up again and put it to my ear. Again, no signal. Just a hollow, low-pitched whine. It sounded like it was picking up the sound of the wind from a far-off place. I tried dialing “O” as that usually worked at hotels, often signaling the front desk to pick up. Still, nothing.

  “Hello?” I said into the receiver. “Anybody there?”

  The wind on the other end of the line whistled softly at me. There was something else there though, something almost out of reach, but one of my many withdrawal symptoms, as it turned out, was a bit advantageous. When there was sound, whole sound, perceptible sound, it was often sharp in my ear, causing the pain to streak down my neck and tighten and twist nerve endings further.

  I swear to Christ, in that moment, I heard a voice on the other end of the line muttering something I couldn’t understand, not even a bit, and right then, I wasn’t in any sort of mood to take it.

  “Hey, who is this?” I said. “Speak clearly because I can’t understand anything you’re trying to say—”

  A voice then came on. Masculine and raspy. A rattle-cough.

  I slammed down the receiver before whoever it was on the other end could answer, and I briskly rubbed my arms that had gone goosepimply all over. I’d had my fair share of crazy, never mind when it came from me and was evident all over my emails and text messages to Simon. The detox unit of the rehab center held all-day, all-night screamers, criers, and babblers from all over the state, all in various stages of withdrawals, many who had stupidly tried to quit cold turkey. The babblers had been the worst because their words either came out in random bursts of mumbo-jumbo, or they kept repeating the same mantra over and over again. One of them had everyone on the rec floor completely bonkers with his constant, roaring complaints about being hungry and the lack of a 24-hour snack bar. It was much more problematic for those of us who sometimes got wavery-nauseous at even the slightest thought of eating anything at all.

  When he finally got his wish as soon as the unit had a working vending machine installed, he tried to hit everyone up for money. The foolish among us would offer him a couple of dollars, only to later discover that instead of eating the junk food he’d buy, he’d merely hoard it in his room. I don’t know just how much the attendants discovered there, but I do know he’d hidden some of the food in between his mattress and box spring. They’d pulled out a number of flattened bags of mushy Doritos and Cheetos. The bottom of the mattress and top of the box springs were stained in bright orange globs of Cheeto dust. He’d screamed for the attendants to put the mattress back and “leave (his) food alone, Goddamnittohellandfuck!”

  So crazytalk in general, that I could handle. It was the hiss of the sound itself that had been creepy and so… final. The voice hadn’t sounded familiar, so I couldn’t place a face to it whatsoever. I tried dialing again, if anything, to attempt to get a dial tone out, but there was nothing on the other end but dead air. I couldn’t figure it out – If someone was able to pick up somewhere around the resort, the phones couldn’t be completely fried, could they? How did that work exactly (or not since that was the case)?

  There was a soft rapping on the door, which gave me a jolt, causing me to nearly slip on the floor when I turned around.

  “Ans, it’s me. Open the door, dumbass!”

  I could barely hear her through the heavy door, but it didn’t matter. All it took was ‘dumbass’ and I was grinning like a nitwit, instantly feeling the anxiety melt away. I unlatched the door and opened it wide.

  It was my little sister Shay, a sight. Her auburn hair had been recently cut into angled edges that skimmed down, just touching below her shoulders. Her wide brown eyes gleamed mischief as ever, which was comforting. I’d missed that. That said though, she was also deep in “impress-me” mode. Instead of her usual tee-and-tight-shorts combo, she was casual chic in a white men’s dress shirt (probably Nathan’s because she was like that), chunky bracelets, rolled jeans and Keds. Like a Banana Republic ad. Shay was the only reason why I’d agreed to go through with the wedding. If it had been any other relative or friend, I would’ve turned the touching offer down without question. Shay though…Shay was my lifeline to something feasibly normal and whole, decent and real.

  Plus, she was holding out a soda and a paper bag of something that smelled so wonderful, all fried and greasy, and hell if I wasn’t famished. It was often like that while dealing with withdrawals, the appetite suddenly showed up when I’d no idea I’d been hungry for so long. Other times, the mere sight of food made me want to spend the next few days hunched over the toilet bowl.

  As hungry as I was though, I didn’t know if I really wanted it. My heart was still dancing after the call.

  Shay’s smile twisted into a quizzical frown. “It’s bratwurst, your favorite. I had Nathan and Charlie pick it up in town just for you since you and Mom couldn’t make it to the rehearsal dinner,” she said, shoving the bag and drink at me. “Let me help. ‘It’s great to see you, Shay. Thank you for being so thoughtful. You’re an awesome little sister. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’”

  “Did you call me earlier?”

  “Yeah, but the line went all funny,” she said. “I was coming down anyway. I just wanted to say ‘hi’, see if you were all right. Mom said you were hungry.”

  I opened up the bag, my appetite winn
ing over. The spicy, oily-rich aroma alone caused my stomach to burble a reminder that it was high time I ate something. Then I beckoned Shay inside, but not before I gave her a swift peck on the cheek and a grumbling, “Thanks, butterbutt.”

  “Sure thing, titty-tata.” Shay sauntered in and made herself right at home, plopping down on the bed. She grasped one of the bedposts, making a face at it. “It’s ostentatious, right? Too fancy? I don’t like the furniture. It screams luxe comfort but feels like something out of The Princess and the Pea…or like Nana’s house. She was always into style over comfort. Sort of. Kind of. Okay, she wasn’t stylish at all, but she tried, right?”

  “Don’t forget, she was the one who kept all the ‘parlor’ furniture covered in plastic sheets,” I said as I made myself as comfy as I could in the overstuffed armchair in the corner. Then I promptly dug right into the bag of fries and bratwurst. Everything was as I’d imagined, all greasy good, food I’d totally regret later because that’s just how it was for me.

  “Why did she call that room a ‘parlor,’ like she was expecting gentlemen callers over for cards and brandy…?”

  “She liked the idea of gentlemen callers,” I said around a mouthful of fries.

  “Until they actually came over,” reminded Shay. “Then she did everything she could to keep them out of the parlor and at the kitchen table, having them drink that nasty Turkish coffee she made so they’d sober up and leave her alone to her romance novels and endless games of Solitaire.”

  “Nana would’ve hated this place. Too dark and dreary. She liked happy colors, floral wallpaper, Hummel figurines carefully placed everywhere,” I said. I took a long swig of my drink, something cherry-flavored and calorie-dense wonderful.

  Shay wrinkled her nose as she peered all around the room. “Friend of Nathan’s family runs it. Most of them are out for the weekend, except for some of the kitchen staff, their cousins, who are amazing cooks. They had these steak kabobs for dinner tonight, and the meat just melted in your mouth. I don’t think I’ve ever had steak that tender.”