by Larry Watson
“But fair warning—I’ll probably bawl like a baby at the end. I always do.”
In the darkened motel room with the only light coming from the flickering television screen and from the amber light of the parking lot, the man and the woman wordlessly watch the movie and drink their bourbon.
Halfway through the film, when Robin Hood and his men have returned to Sherwood Forest, Roy asks Edie, still without turning to look at her, “What year is your Civic?”
“A ninety-seven.”
“How many miles?”
“Closing in on a hundred thousand, I think. I put so few miles on it, but I bought it used—”
“You’ll want to put in a new timing belt pretty soon. When you do, might as well replace the water pump too. You do that, you’ll be set for another hundred thousand.”
To this advice, Edie merely says, “Thanks.”
She swirls her whiskey in its glass. She continues to stare at the television, but it takes only a slight shift of her gaze to keep watching Roy as well. She watches, and she waits.
WHEN EDIE WAKES up it’s not light from the parking lot leaking into the room but sunlight. She’s on the bed, and still on top of the covers, though at some time during the night she must have pulled the hem of the bedspread over herself. Or someone did it for her. And at some time Roy moved from the desk chair to the chair beside the bed. He’s sleeping there now. The television is off, and Edie was spared her tears since she fell asleep before Marian told Robin that she loved him more than God.
Edie picks up her phone from the nightstand, opens it, and then closes it again.
She slides quietly off the bed. The carpet muffles her footsteps. At the door she turns and looks back at Roy. His mouth is open. He slept with his false teeth in. She turns the doorknob slowly and slips out.
WHEN SHE WALKS into the motel’s breakfast room an hour later, he’s already there, sitting at a table facing a television tuned to CNN. No other guests are there. Edie waves to him and then steps over to the counter with its cereal dispensers, juice pitchers, plates of doughnuts and pastries, and coffee urns. She’s ready for the day dressed in a yellow sundress.
As she approaches with coffee and a doughnut, Roy raises his Styrofoam cup. “I finally got my wish. Edie Pritchard spent the night in my bed.”
The line is surely meant to be humorous, but he delivers it with a straight face.
Edie however smiles at him. “And was it good for you?”
“Nope,” Roy says and stands up. “Just can’t do it. I thought I could, but I can’t. I’ll wait for you in the car. Take your time.”
Edie takes a bite of the doughnut but then puts it back down on the paper plate. She grimaces when she sips her coffee. She looks up at the television. Another politician has made another speech in another town in Iowa. On her way out of the room she drops her uneaten doughnut and most of her coffee into a garbage bin.
ONCE AGAIN THE sound of the rattling wheels on Edie’s suitcase cause Roy to turn around.
“You want to open the back?” she says, pushing down the handle of her suitcase.
“You checked out?” He drops his cigarette and grinds it on the asphalt. “You must be pretty damn sure.”
“Why, did you keep your room?” Edie asks.
“Dreary Lane? Not a hell of a lot to go on. I guess I don’t share your confidence.”
Edie turns toward the east and squints right at the sun. “We’re getting a good start.”
Roy pops open the liftgate. He lifts her suitcase and slides it inside. “What the hell,” he says. “Let’s go find your granddaughter.”
“HEY, SUNSHINE. UP and at ’em.”
Lauren blinks her way to wakefulness and sees Marilyn standing over her by the couch. On the living room floor a few feet away, Randy is watching Finding Nemo again. He’s eating Honey Nut Cheerios out of the box.
“Trouble in paradise?” Marilyn asks.
“What? Oh. It was so hot up there.”
“Get yourself up and ready. I’m going to town, and I need you to come along.”
Lauren sits up. She glances over at Randy and straightens her tank top, making sure everything is tucked in. “To town?”
“That’s right. Chop-chop. Get a move on. I need to shop for Tiff’s birthday, and since she thinks you’re pretty much the second coming of cool, you, my dear, will be my shopping advisor. We’re going to the mall.”
THEY HAVE BEEN traveling for two miles without speaking when Marilyn says, “How did you hook up with those two anyway?”
Lauren stares out her window at the sunlit prairie rolling past. Just when it seems her silence is permanent, she says, “Billy’s my boyfriend. Jesse’s his brother.”
“Yeah, I got that,” says Marilyn. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
Lauren says nothing.
After another mile of silence Marilyn asks, “Was that the plan all along? Come out here and make a big dope score and get rich?”
“Not hardly.”
“So now what?”
“Billy said maybe we’ll get like jobs or something.”
“Here? In Bismarck?”
“I guess.”
“And is that what he said? We? We’ll get jobs? Because I’m about to tell you something, and you’re not going to like hearing it.”
“I bet.”
Marilyn takes a hand off the wheel, rests her elbow on the window ledge, and leans on that hand. “I used to live with a guy like your Jesse.”
“He’s not my Jesse. Fuck. How many times do I have to tell you. Billy. Billy’s my boyfriend.”
Marilyn ignores this and continues. “We’d been together for over a year, and things were going pretty good for us. He dealt weed. A little coke too, but weed was the main thing. Like I say, we were doing okay. Until we weren’t. He lost his connection and the money ran out fast. So I got a job waitressing, something I’d been doing off and on since high school. If you can waitress, you can always find work.”
“Is that the lesson for today?”
“You’ll know when I come to the lesson, honey. You won’t be able to fucking miss it. Now let me finish. I was waitressing at a diner that only did breakfast and lunch, which are lousy meals for tips, which meant I wasn’t bringing in enough money—not enough for him anyway. But he had a plan. Men always have a fucking plan. And his was to pimp me out. Now, it wasn’t like we were strung out or anything. Like some crackhead and his ghetto whore who’ll do anything for a fix. We were a regular couple. That’s what I thought anyway. Except it was okay with my guy if I spread my legs or sucked cocks for anyone who’d pay. Yeah. A real fucking sweetheart. ‘Huh-uh,’ I told him. ‘I’m not doing it.’ Now, he had a motorcycle, and one day we were riding out in the country, and we were heading back to the city. I’m on the back and he’s driving fast. Fast and then faster. I mean, every fucking curve in the road I think, Oh shit, we’re not going to make it. And finally he stops. Out in the middle of nowhere. And he tells me, ‘I thought about killing us both. What do you think about that?’ I mean, what the fuck could I say? ‘Please don’t,’ I said. Like a little kid. ‘Please don’t.’ ‘Then don’t give me any more shit.’ I knew what that meant. I didn’t want to get back on that motorcycle. More than anything I didn’t want to get on. What else could I do though? But that night when he was asleep, I took off. Got out to the highway and started hitchhiking. Now this is the hilarious part. A guy picked me up and took me where I wanted to go. A city where I knew a couple who’d let me crash at their place. But he didn’t drop me off there. He took me to a corner of a parking lot where he proceeded to beat the hell out of me and rape me. And he wasn’t about to pay me for the privilege.”
“When’s the lesson?” Lauren says.
Marilyn shakes her head sadly. “Not for a few years. I still had a lot of nasty shit I had to get through. And plenty of it I instigated. Including running off with the husband of that couple who let me stay with them for a few months. But I can tell you’re getting impati
ent, so I won’t bore you with any more lurid details. I’ll just give you a visual aid and then move on.”
Marilyn is wearing a chambray work shirt over her sundress. With her left hand she pulls her shirtsleeve up to her elbow on her right arm. Steering now with her left hand, she extends her right arm toward Lauren. The pale line on her inner arm is no thicker than a pencil would make, but it’s a serious scar, a determined scar, running from her wrist almost to her elbow.
But she doesn’t give Lauren much study time. She pulls the arm back and rolls her sleeve down. She laughs a mirthless little laugh. “And now,” she says, “I’m just showing off. No, the lesson is when I met Garth. Because then I learned there was such a thing as a man who’d never ask me to do something I didn’t want to do. Someone who’s been a better father to my girls than the man who was their actual father. And in case you were wondering, Randy’s his.”
They are traveling south now on the four lanes of Highway 83, and they’ve entered the corridor leading into Bismarck, the gaudy miles of fast food franchises, big box stores, strip malls, discount centers, and auto dealerships. Then they’re in the city, and they drive past the state capitol, a nineteen-story limestone tower that looks like a brick balanced on end. They keep driving, through residential streets, and into the business district.
Marilyn doesn’t speak again until they’ve stopped for a freight train at a crossing that divides the city like a suture. “You might look at Garth,” says Marilyn, “and think he’s just making it up as he goes along, but he’s got a code. Take that business with Matt. Garth made it clear to Matt before he left that he was welcome to come back anytime, but he couldn’t be peddling his wares out of the house. He had to be doing that on his own time on his own turf. You understood that, right? Garth won’t have anyone coming to the door looking to score. And no drugs on the premises either. I mean, no weight. I tried to explain all this to your . . . to Jesse and your boyfriend—”
“Billy.”
“Right. Billy. Garth’ll let almost anyone crash at our place rent free, but you have to make a contribution. Like in a commune, which Garth says he once lived in, though when he describes it, it sounds suspiciously like rehab. But anyway. He won’t assign duties or anything. You’re just supposed to find a way to kick in. Garth thought maybe you could watch the kids, but Randy’s scared of you and I’m not sure I want you any-fucking-where near the girls. So when we’re at the mall, I suggest you look around for stores that might be hiring.”
Lauren has been intently watching the rumbling procession of train cars, but now she looks at Marilyn. “So like the whole shopping-for-your-daughter thing was just bullshit?”
“Not at all. I really don’t know what Tiff wants. Except to be you. And while we’re at it, let’s see if we can find a way to nip that in the bud, shall we?”
FOR HOURS ROY and Edie have been traveling up and down the streets, avenues, county roads, and main highways north of Bismarck. They’ve driven through housing developments so new their streets have only recently been graded, and they’ve followed dirt and gravel roads that have ended at farm ponds, hay fields, and cow pastures. No matter how unpromising a lane, road, or path might seem, they’ve turned onto it.
Roy asks, “Are you religious, Edie?”
“Why? Have we tried everything now but prayer? But no, that gene skipped our family.”
“Ours too. No, I was wondering because Carla got religion. One of those no-name-make-your-own-personal-Jesus-brain-dead denominations. How she could believe that happy horseshit was beyond me.”
“I used to think maybe there’s a God who dreams up a special punishment for each one of us. And mine was to have twin brothers both want me.”
“Well, shit, Edie. Nothing deep there. We were men. No reason we should be exempt.”
They take another turn only to end up in someone’s long driveway. Roy simply follows it until they come to a massive brick mansion where a man in shorts, flip-flops, and a pink polo shirt is hosing off a riding lawn mower in front of a triple garage. He’s drinking a Coors Light.
Roy rolls down the window. The man aims the hose in the other direction and comes just close enough to hear what Roy has to say.
“Excuse me!” Roy calls out. “We took a wrong turn somewhere. We’re looking for Dreary Lane.”
The man shakes his head no. “Not around here.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“The Solon farm?”
The man laughs. “Does this look like anyone’s farm?”
Roy takes a deep breath. “The name doesn’t mean anything?”
“You’re lost, man. And you’re in my driveway.”
“Okay. Thanks anyway.” Then Roy rolls up the window, puts the Highlander into reverse, and begins to back down the driveway. Edie raises her middle finger to the man with the hose. He probably sees her gesture, though he can’t hear her say, “Prick.”
Roy turns onto the main road and speeds off with a spray of dirt and gravel. “I believe,” he says, “your frustrations are beginning to show.”
A few minutes later he stops the car at an intersection of two county roads, one paved and one dirt. The stop sign is riddled with bullet holes. Roy turns onto the road that’s paved.
“By the way, Miss Edie, when did you turn into such a badass? Flipping off strangers. Drinking whiskey. Spending the night in a man’s motel room.”
“Is the Holiday Inn a motel?”
“Holiday Inn Express then.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever called me a badass.”
“How’s the fit?”
She taps her chin. “Edie Pritchard. Badass. Yeah, maybe.”
A tractor is poking along ahead of them, and Roy accelerates and passes it and the sunbaked farmer driving it. “Edie Pritchard,” Roy says.
“Yes, Roy Linderman?”
“No, I just mean . . . It’s interesting. Not Dunn. Back to Pritchard.”
“Well, I never had quite enough time with it, so yes. Back to Pritchard.”
“Sure, sure. I get it. It’s just that . . . When we were checking in yesterday, it occurred to me there was a time when we both could have checked in as Lindermans.”
“A very short time. Dean and I weren’t together very long. Not when you look at all the years since.”
“The long view. I’ve never been very good at it.”
“You haven’t, have you? But time forces it on all of us.”
They’re back inside Bismarck’s city limits now, and Roy turns into the Prairie Falcon Fuel and Truck Stop. “Let’s see if someone here knows where we can find Dreary Lane.”
Roy parks the Highlander near a line of semis. He leaves the windows open, and the fumes of diesel fuel, of trains, buses, and trucks, drift into the vehicle and fill Edie’s nostrils. It’s an odor that all but issues a command: “Better get moving.”
A few minutes later Roy comes out of the gas station. He climbs into the car and says, “Nobody’s ever heard of a Dreary Lane. And there’s a young guy in there who says he’d know. He plows roads and driveways out this way.”
“How about the Solon farm?”
“That name,” Roy says, “means nothing to nobody.”
He bends forward, crosses his arms on the steering wheel, and rests his head on his arms.
“Are you that tired?” Edie asks.
“My back. Sciatica.”
“Maybe if you wouldn’t sleep sitting up in a chair.”
He turns his head and looks at her but says nothing. Then he sits up straight and starts the engine.
“There’s a café here,” she says. “Shall we go in? You didn’t have much breakfast.”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you want me to drive?” Edie asks.
“Nope.”
“And you don’t want to take a break?”
“Nope.”
“Is there something you usually take for your back troubles?”
“
Ibuprofen,” he says. “It’s hard on the stomach though. Especially for someone who likes his whiskey. So I try not to take too much.”
“You could try to go easy on the whiskey.”
“I could.” Roy has turned the vehicle around, and he’s about to exit the gas station’s lot. “Which way?” he asks.
“Back up north, I guess. Maybe there’s a road we missed.”
“Not fucking likely,” he says. But he turns into the line of cars flowing north.
Only when they are traveling again through the open country north of the city, through the sunlit rolling hills where the road curves for reasons that don’t reveal themselves to the eye, does Edie begin to speak.
“Maybe you don’t want to talk about any of this,” she says, “but I’m still trying to figure out what happened last night.”
“It’s complicated,” Roy says with a shrug.
“It’s not complicated,” Edie says. “I got into your bed and you decided to sit up in your chair.”
“I had the feeling I was where you wanted me to be.”
“Did it ever occur to you to ask me what I wanted?”
“Did it ever occur to you to tell me?”
“My God,” she says. “You sound like a teenage girl who wants everything to be just perfect her first time.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Roy says. “What the hell. I had a little too much to drink. I think you did too.”
“Jesus. You know what they used to say? That Roy Linderman—he can talk any woman into the sack. But me? You talk out.”
He says nothing to this, and they travel in silence for a few miles. Then Edie turns and looks at Roy. “I have a theory about you,” she says. “You probably don’t want to hear it.”
“I probably don’t,” he replies. “But I will anyway, won’t I?”
“All these years you’ve wanted me only because you couldn’t have me. And because you couldn’t, you turned me into this, this ideal. So if you saw my stretch marks or how one boob is bigger than the other, you might have had to let go of your obsession. And what if, God forbid, it turned out I was lousy in bed? What then? Would your life suddenly lose its meaning?”