by Nick Lake
Oh.
Did you have a nightmare?
I look at her. Uh, yes, I guess, I say.
Sorry, honey.
When I realize that her voice isn’t in my head, that she’s speaking to me with her hands, I nearly cry. For a moment, I wish so powerfully that I was back in the Dreaming again, that it’s like a pain in my chest.
Luke made eggs, she says. He has a kerosene stove.
Mom helps me to lever myself out of the car, swinging the heavy CAM Walker out and down. I stand slowly—the pain is back in my leg, a constant throbbing, like there’s another heart down there, a big one. Mom goes over to Luke.
That’s when I feel something hard pressing against my other leg, and I check my sweatpants pocket. My hand closes around a handle of bone, and I gingerly touch the blade below it, and yes, it’s the knife that Mark gave me.
In the Dreaming.
What the hell?
I try to calm my breathing, because now Luke and Mom are looking over at me. I smile and point to my right leg, as if to say, I got a twinge of pain, you know?
Mom clasps her hands over her chest like, poor sweetheart, and Luke gives me a sympathetic look. Then they beckon me over.
I leave the cocoon of the car; step out into the forest. It is silent. After the Dreaming it is so silent. The birds have swallowed their song, the wind has closed its mouth, the leaves are still and their rustling is gone. I feel like I am going to cry all the tears. All of them.
But no. I need to reserve some tears for the whole Luke and Mom situation.
Because I look at them and I see the way Luke’s and Mom’s hands touch as he hands her a plastic plate of eggs, and a pang of—what? hurt? jealousy? both?—shoots through me. But I sit down anyway and accept my own plate, and also some muddy, bitter coffee that Luke has brewed who knows how.
I can still feel the knife pressing into my leg. Its bone handle, its blade. I try to mentally will it into disappearing, into not being there.
Only …
Only …
I can’t get one feeling out of my head: it’s the feeling of sound, glorious sound, trickling into my ears, buzzing in my head. I know already that I would go back to the Dreaming again in a second, if I could, that I would embrace madness like an old friend—if madness is what it is—just to hear those leaves in the breeze again, just to hear my own voice.
After breakfast, Luke walks into the forest, I guess to use the bathroom. Mom comes quickly over to me.
Are you okay? she says.
Yes. Why?
You look pale, honey.
Oh, I say. I’m just worried, I guess. About what’s going to happen to us. This is at least partly true. Okay, 100 percent true. I mean, what IS going to happen if my dad, who I always thought was dead and gone, catches up with us? Is he seriously going to kill us? What kind of lunatic does something like that?
I understand, Mom says, her hands moving quickly. I’m sorry about that. But right now I have to do something. We’ll discuss it later. She looks over to the forest, checking that Luke isn’t coming back, then steps to the front of the car and pops the hood, then bends over it. I see her disconnect some stuff, and pull on some other stuff.
Mom, I say. What are you doing?
But she doesn’t answer me. She sits in the front seat, and turns the ignition. Then she nods, satisfied.
Mom.
She comes over to me. She touches my hair, brushing a strand of it behind my ear. Her hand is trembling a little. We can’t keep the car, she says. It could be traced.
I blink. Traced?
Yes. It’s not safe. This way we can hitch a ride with Luke.
This is insane, I say.
She gets like a pained expression. I know, she says. I’m sorry. But it’s better than hitting him with a rock, huh?
Uh, yeah, but that doesn’t—
She shakes her head. I wish it were—
She turns, suddenly, because Luke is waving to her, smiling broadly, as he returns from the forest.
A short while later, after everything is cleared away, Mom says we have to get going—we want to be in Flagstaff this morning.
Special plans? says Luke.
Oh no, says Mom. But we do want to see Route 66, don’t we honey? Before we go on to the Canyon.
I look at her and she shoots me daggers, and I nod.
She makes a big show then of getting me into the front seat, which is super annoying because I know that she has sabotaged the engine and I’m going to have to get back out again, but I don’t say anything. I watch while she puts on a dumb show of trying to start the engine, throwing up her hands, the whole works.
Then she gets out and pops the hood again.
Luke comes over and I know Mom so well that I can read just in the movement of her face that she’s really, really hoping he doesn’t know mechanics. But from the way he looks at the engine I can tell he doesn’t.
Damn rental car, says Mom.
You have a cell? asks Luke.
Mom reaches into the car and snags her cell from her purse. She checks it. No coverage, she says.
Luke starts for his car. You can use mine, he says. Call the rental company.
Well …, says Mom.
Luke stops. His face is hope and suspicion, mixed. I don’t know who this person is who’s stepped into my mom’s skin, but she freaks me out.
I’m thinking…, says Mom. We don’t have that long for our vacation. If we have to wait for the tow truck … I mean, say you gave us a ride to Flagstaff. Then we could rent another car, to get to the Canyon, and we could call Hertz and tell them to come pick up this one. And no one …
… wastes their time, says Luke, considering.
What do you say? asks Mom. You have space for two more?
Watching Luke’s face, it’s fascinating. You can see that he doesn’t buy it, that he has figured by now something weird is going on, but that he really, really wants to. Sure, he says eventually, I mean it was fun yesterday, right? We may as well stick together for another day. He has walked all the way back now and he kicks the tire of the rental.
You don’t want to travel in this anyway, he says. I don’t even know how many people I’ve seen cut out of these. The crumple zone is a piece of crap.
Chapter 18
Flagstaff is Cold, when we get there like an hour later. If Alaska has fingers of rain, then Flagstaff has teeth of ice.
It’s high up, that’s why, like thousands of feet, and it couldn’t be more different from Phoenix. It’s got history, for one thing. There’s a bit of the old Route 66 that runs through it, and you can still see the fifties motels that people used to stay in. There’s also a full-on downtown, with stores and buildings of more than three stories pretty much everywhere.
Phoenix is surrounded by desert; Flagstaff is surrounded by forest, mostly pine, and mountains. It’s almost alpine, a palette of blues and grays and greens, where Phoenix is just all shades of red.
That’s the historic Weatherford Hotel, says Luke as the car noses down the main street, like he’s some kind of fricking tour guide. It’s been there since, like, pioneer days.
I look—it’s okay, I guess. Like the saloon in Deadwood, with a wooden balcony running around the outside of it.
Amazing, says Mom, and I make a barfing motion that she doesn’t see, or chooses not to.
We’re cruising the streets, looking for somewhere to park for lunch. It’s cute, I have to admit. Old-style buildings, wooden beams, that kind of stuff. We pass a store called Gene’s Western Wear, with cowboy hats in the window, and boots, and then a climbing store called the Flagstaff Climbing Store, which must have taken a full second to think up, and the window is all ropes and crampons or whatever they’re called.
It’s mostly a tourist economy now, says Luke, who has obviously read some kind of book. The Grand Canyon, obviously. But also skiing in winter. ’Course, if you want to ski and end up in a coma, you’re welcome, far as I’m concerned.
It seems affluent,
says Mom, who is leaning forward into the space between me and Luke from the back, in her stupid fake-friendly chatting way. I’m in front—more space for my leg to stretch out. Like there’s a lot of [ ], she continues, but I don’t catch that last bit because she sits back in her seat.
Oh yeah, well, there’s big companies here too, says Luke. Walmart has a distribution center. And there’s the astronomical telescope.
Who’d a thunk it? I want to say.
We circle, looking for a parking spot.
We pull up by a meter, and Luke gets out. Mom shouts after him; hands him some coins from her purse. He pays and we walk a short distance down the street to the Downtown Diner. I’ll say something for Luke: he stuck it out for a space close to the restaurant, so I wouldn’t have to walk far.
Mom helps me out of the car and I stand up. It’s rained, sometime recently—I’m not used to this, from living in Phoenix, but I can see it glistening on the sidewalk and the road, and smell it as it evaporates into the air; it smells like the earth is opening its secret heart to me. I feel it seeping into my pores, the moisture in the air.
I almost want to close my eyes and breathe it in, but I don’t.
Ugh, feel that? says Mom.
What?
The rain, in the air.
Yeah, I say. It’s cool. I like it.
She shakes her head in disgust. It’s wrong, she says. It’s not natural, the air all wet like that. Sooner we get back to the desert the better.
Luke turns. You two coming? he says.
We grab pizza at an Italian place and as we’re eating it, Luke gives Mom a little complicit smile that makes me want to puke. So, he says. You going to call the rental-car company?
I don’t know, says Mom. What’s your plan?
He shrugs. Check out some of the [ ]. Head to the Grand Canyon.
Today? asks Mom.
No. It’s like a three hours’ drive from here. I thought I’d check into one of the motels. Flagstaff is kind of famous for them. Old art [ ] motels from like the glory days of Route 66, you know? Kitsch, but in a good way.
Route 66 goes through here? asks Mom, faux-naive like she has not known this forever.
Yep. And a couple of the old motels are still open.
Mom nods and smiles and I know what she’s going to say before she says it, I can read it in her face.
Well, she says, maybe we’ll stay one night here too. I mean, before we get our car. How could we miss out on [ ]?
Luke grins. Great, he says.
I look at him. Is that a friendly grin or a wolf grin? Mom says all men can be dangerous, but how can you tell when they are?
After lunch we head to the car but Mom makes Luke stop as we pass Gene’s Western Wear—she puts her hand on his arm; the touch looks very deliberate and he smiles at her quizzically.
What? he says.
I want a hat, says Mom.
The store is on a corner. The sign says that it’s not just Gene’s Western Wear but also a SHOE HOSPITAL. We walk in and it’s like stepping back in time. There’s a guy in chaps and a leather apron, with a gray mustache and nearly bald head, who smiles at us and welcomes us to Gene’s.
One whole wall is just rows of cowboy boots. There are bullhorns on the walls and rodeo posters.
Mom finds a rack with cowboy hats on it—I’m surprised by how expensive they are. Like, hundreds of dollars, some of them. She picks a pink one and puts it on her head, at a tilt. She winks at Luke and he laughs.
That one, he says. Definitely.
She leaves the hat on, picks up another, a gray one with a red band around it. Here, Shelby, she says.
I shuffle up, glaring at her. She kind of spins the hat on her finger and lands it on my head. Perfect, she says.
I look in the mirror. I look like a different person. A different, weirder person.
[ ], says the guy with the mustache who greeted us. I feel him behind us though so I turn and he nods at me. Nice choice, he says. You need any help?
I think we’re good, says Mom. I think we’ll take these.
On me, says Luke.
Oh no—starts Mom.
No, I insist, says Luke.
Well, hey, says mustache. What are husbands for?
And Mom … Mom DOES NOT CORRECT HIM. She just laughs, and Luke doesn’t correct him either; he takes the two hats to the counter and pays for them with his credit card.
We leave the store and Mom puts on her hat and tells me to do the same. It’s only then that I realize—because apparently I’m an idiot—that she’s disguising us. She’s dressing us in hats and making us go around with Luke and she’s happy that people think he’s her husband because we look like a family, we don’t look like a mother and a daughter on the run.
But won’t my dad recognize her? I mean, if he sees under the hat?
But then I think:
1. Maybe not. It’s been years, hasn’t it? I mean, I always thought he was dead, and I’m seventeen, so he’s been gone for like fifteen years at least.
2. Who even knows if my dad really is chasing us? The coyote said there would be two lies and then the truth, and of course I probably didn’t see the coyote anyway and it was just a hallucination, from the shock of being, oh, HIT BY A CAR, but there’s still something seriously weird up with Mom, and I don’t know that I believe anything she’s saying at the moment.
So.
Sigh.
I put on the hat anyway and we all wander around Flagstaff for a bit, checking out the different stores, looking in the window of the bookstore, the climbing place, and so on. Luke jokes about how I must have been put off climbing now, surely, with my injury, and I try to fake a smile.
If you think an injury’s going to put her off, says Mom, then you don’t know the teenage mentality.
I don’t know, he says, I feel kinda like a teenager right now, and he gives her this significant look.
And I spray vomit from my mouth and nose all over him, a great geyser of sick and—
No, not really.
Like an hour later, we go back to the car.
Oh wait, says Mom.
Yeah?
I need to go back and grab something. You two don’t go anywhere.
Oh yeah, sure, I think. Like with my CAM Walker and Luke’s massive boner for my mom we’re going to be rushing off somewhere. We stand by the car for like ten minutes before Mom comes back carrying a bag that says FLAGSTAFF WINE AND LIQUOR on it.
We get in the car and Luke drives us out of town and back to the highway. I grab my makeup bag from my backpack and take two codeine pills from it—my leg is aching after all the walking around town.
I dry-swallow the codeine and it’s probably my imagination but it’s like the throbbing eases almost immediately.
We turn onto Route 66 and as the sun lowers in the sky, we take the off-ramp to the Wagon Wheel Motel.
There’s an old neon sign at the entrance to the parking lot. WAGON WHEEL is lit up in bright blue, and underneath it is MOTEL in those yellow-bulb letters, like a Broadway show. Riding above the whole sign is a train of horses pulling a wagon, the horses made of various neon tracks so that as the light cycles, they seem to gallop.
Underneath is one of those signboards churches have, where the letters can be rearranged. At the moment they are saying:
Vacancies
European Hostess
Wkly Specials
Hbo Coffee
Big Ranch
I find it strange that they have to specify they have coffee—wouldn’t any motel have coffee? And what’s the deal with the European hostess? But as we park up in the parking lot in front of the low building, Mom is all clasping-hands-cutely.
It’s historic, says Luke.
I can see that, says Mom.
We get out of the car and go into the reception, where a girl who must be no older than me checks us in, looking like she might die of boredom at any moment. Her fingernails are painted all in different colors and she’s chewing gu
m and smells of cigarette smoke. Her skin is sallow.
How many rooms? she says.
Three? says Luke. Or do you and Shelby want to share?
How about two? says Mom. Shelby can sleep on her own, she’s old enough.
It takes a while for this to sink in, for Luke, but then he flushes and smiles. Okay, he says.
Oh God Kill Me Now.
Chapter 19
In the end we get a suite, which the receptionist tells us has a main bedroom, with a little seating area and TV and stuff, and then another bedroom adjoining it.
You two head up, says Mom, when we go back to the car with the key from the bored reception girl. I’ll be right behind you. Shelby, I’ll bring our bags.
Sure, says Luke.
He snags his own bag and we go up the stairs—our room is 213, on the second floor. He wants to help me up the steps, but I shake my head and hold on to the rail instead, half lifting myself up with my CAM Walker. It takes ages—by the time we get to the top Mom is pretty much right behind us anyway.
I turn, as we walk along the walkway to the room. You can see mountains in the distance, forest, across the blurred brightness of the highway. The parking lot is only half full and as I look, a cop car turns in, headlights on but blues off. For a moment I have that feeling, you know the one? Where you’re convinced they’re here for you, though there’s no rational reason to think so.
Or here for Mom? I mean …
But then they pull a little closer and are under a light and I see that the two cops inside are just eating something—burgers, maybe—from cardboard boxes, chatting as they have their meal. Something they bought from a drive-through, I guess. One of them lights a cigarette and rolls down his window, blows smoke out it.
Not here for us, then.
I turn away and follow Mom and Luke who are gesticulating at me impatiently from the doorway with 213 on it in peeling white paint.
We go in and it’s fine—I mean, it’s not charming, because what motel is? But it’s clean and serviceable. There’s a smell of some kind of pine-based air freshener, tingly and fresh and ever-so-slightly reminiscent of the Dreaming, but too chemical in its undertones to be more than a hint.
Mom takes my bag into this annex bedroom and her own stuff to the main bedroom she’s going to … share … with … Luke.