by C D Cain
Chapter 5
Since it was late when she returned, Sam dimmed her headlights as she gradually pulled into the Pelican Motel parking lot. She didn’t want their brightness to shine into the large picture windows of the motel rooms as she passed. The dirt and gravel crunched under her tires as she made her way to her building, the last one in the back. She raised her window, turned the engine off, and immediately felt paralyzed in the silence. The loneliness of the motel room awaited her.
“Find something in the silence,” she whispered to herself. She closed her eyes and listened for anything to fill it. Music? She took a second look at her dashboard to make sure she in fact had turned off the car. Stranger things have happened in these last days of barely putting one foot in front of the other.
She grabbed the paper sack from the front seat and stepped out. There it was again—the distant sound of music. She looked around the dark parking lot for the source but all she saw were a few parked cars in front of motel room windows.
“Where is that music coming from?” she mumbled as she walked in between patches of tall bahia grass to go behind the building. The sound of the acoustic guitar and a female singing grew louder with each step she took out into the darkness. As she turned the corner, a light came into focus. A lantern resting on the ground beneath a park bench illuminated the shadow of a woman playing an acoustic guitar.
“Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around, some,” Gentry sang softly into the night. Her hands moved along the neck of her guitar and strummed the chords of the body. “Tell me, why you wanna lay there and revel in your abandon.”
Sam quietly walked closer. She didn’t want Gentry to stop playing. Her voice was low, soft but oh so elegant even with the ache and pain in each word she sang. Gentry’s body swayed gently as if each note was felt throughout her body.
“Honey, it don’t make no difference to me baby, everybody’s had to fight to be free.”
Crack.
Fuck. Sam thought as she looked down at the broken stick beneath her foot.
Gentry stood up quickly and held the guitar by the neck as if it was a weapon ready to be beaten across the head of whatever threatened her. “Who’s there? Come any closer, asshole, and you’ll regret it,” she said through gritted teeth.
“It’s Sam.” Sam sped up to come fully into the light of the lantern. “The woman from the diner.”
“Shit.” Gentry sat back down on the bench and patted her chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was trying not to disturb you.”
“Not disturbing me would’ve been to not come out here at all.”
“True enough.” Sam took a step back. “I’ll go. I’m sorry.” She turned on her heel to walk away.
“Wait.” Gentry set her guitar on the ground and leaned it against the bench. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You just really scared me is all.”
“I honestly didn’t mean to. I heard you singing when I got out of my car. I wanted to see where it was coming from. When I saw it was you, I wanted to listen. That’s all.”
“It’s fine. No worries.” Gentry shrugged her shoulders. “Do you want to sit?”
Sam walked cautiously toward the bench and sat down. “You play beautifully. Will you play some more?”
Gentry shuffled her seating on the bench and ran her hand through her hair. “No, I can’t. I’ve never been able to play in front of people.”
Sam smelled the scent of lavender as Gentry’s hair fell back upon her face. She watched Gentry tuck the fallen strands behind her ear. “But you’re so good. Your voice is amazing.”
Gentry smiled shyly. “Thanks. But no.”
“Fair enough.”
Gentry shifted on the bench to face Sam. “Have you ever played anything? A musical instrument? Or written or drawn anything that comes from within you? Something so personal that you feel exposed to share it with someone else? Like they can see you just by reading, seeing, or hearing it?”
“Not really.”
“Then it’s really hard to explain. But that’s how playing is for me. It’s an expression of myself.” Gentry closed her eyes. “The truest expression of me.” She shook her head lightly. “I can’t share it.”
Sam pulled the bottles of whiskey and coke from the paper bag. She poured a healthy shot of each in the disposable cup she talked the store attendant into giving her. “Would you like some? I’ll try to find another cup.”
Gentry shook her head. “No, I’m good. I see you found the convenience store down the road. That’s a pretty stiff drink for this time of night.”
“Yep. It’s one of those nights. And you? Couldn’t sleep?”
“It’s sure been a day.”
Gentry stared up into the sky. The Pelican Motel may not have been much to offer in the way of scenery or entertainment but it sure had some stunning night skies when the clouds were scarce. It was the streetlights or rather lack thereof which gave the stars their brightness. They competed with no other light but each other’s. Tonight was no exception.
“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?”
Sam looked up. “Completely.”
“I love nights like these. When it’s cool enough to sit outside and need a jacket but it’s too nice to want to go in. The critters come alive in the cool air.” Gentry cocked her head to the side. “Listen.” In her mind, she separated and singled out each insect and bird she could hear. “I always wonder what they’re saying to one another. Like that. Listen.” She was quiet for a moment while she listened again. “What in the heck is that little critter saying? Whatever it is, it must be important because he’s pretty loud about it.”
Sam recognized the cicada. She had tried to force it from her mind. Tried even not to hear the loudest of them all. The cicada. She pictured the charm hanging next to Memaw’s cross on Rayne’s chain. She followed the chain up and around her delicate neck. A light breeze passed her, as if to bring the scent of Rayne’s skin back to her. She inhaled but was left with only the night air of dirt and woods with the faintest of hints of lavender. The cicada sang again. This time even louder. “They’re always loud,” Sam mumbled under her breath and took a healthy drink. She let the whiskey burn as she swallowed.
“True. Some people are annoyed by them.”
Sam took another swallow of her drink. “It’s not that. They just remind me of someone. I can hear them even in my room sometimes. It’s like I can’t get away from them.”
“Someone you don’t want to be reminded of?”
“Not currently.” She brought the cup to her lips and swallowed with force to drink as much as she could in one swallow.
Gentry picked a tall strand of bahia grass from the ground and ran it between her fingers. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not currently.” She emptied the cup and poured another, this time with a ratio preference of whiskey over coke.
Gentry watched Sam drink for affect—for where the alcohol could take her. She had always found that type of drinking to take her to the places she no longer wanted to go. Not everyone had the capability to hurt like the way she saw in Sam’s eyes. Not all people carried a soul that could feel such grief and pain. They simply went through life as if they owned it. As if they wore a coat of impenetrable armor. With Sam, with her, each breath seemed to rust and weaken their armor.
“Did you figure out where you were headed yet?” she asked, hoping to slow the pace of her drinking.
“Not really.” Sam looked at the cup. “I guess I’ll go back to Atlanta.”
Gentry twirled the grass around her finger and let it spring back into shape. “Is that where you’re from?”
“I grew up there. My parents still live there.”
“Ah, so you want to go see your parents?”
“Not really.”
&n
bsp; “You know, I’m not trying to pry. Totally okay if you don’t want to talk. I’m just making conversation.”
Sam reached out to touch Gentry’s arm but then drew her hand back. “It’s not that. Really. I honestly haven’t figured out where I’m going next. I know it’s time to go somewhere. I just don’t know where that somewhere is. I need some kind of destination before I go. So, I thought I would head home and see if something came to mind before I got there.”
Gentry threw the blade of grass out in front of her. “You don’t really though.”
“Don’t really what?”
“Have to have a destination in mind before you go? You’ve got pretty much three choices. I would say four but if you choose south, you’ve not got that far to go. Pick any of the other three: north, east, or west. And then go.”
“And it’s supposed to be that simple.” Sam poured another drink.
Gentry saw the light of the lamp shine through the top half of the whiskey bottle. “Yes. Actually, it is.” She wrapped her hand around the neck of her guitar and stood up. “It’s time for me to go.” She didn’t want to stay to hear the slur slither into Sam’s voice. “Go easy on that stuff or you’ll regret it in the morning. I’ll come back for the lantern later.”
Sam held the whisky bottle up and swirled it to gauge how much was left. “Thanks for the company, Gentry.”
“You’re welcome.” Gentry stopped as she passed behind Sam. She recognized the brokenness in the slump of her shoulders. “You can tell a lot about a person when you can see their soul carried on them the way you carry yours.”
Sam’s head perked up to her voice. Yet she didn’t turn around.
“Take care of yours, Sam. It seems to deserve it.”
Sam swirled her drink in her glass as she stared at the trees in the distance. In the dark, they looked like the silhouette of mountain peaks.
Chapter 6
Gentry had known from the beginning that she would leave the Pelican one day. Yvette was right—it was never meant to be more than a stepping stone for her. The job with the National Park Service had been her first sign it was time. She had applied to different parks over the years but this was the only time she had been chosen. Her second sign had been the distinctive pink plus sign. She couldn’t possibly stay with the impending growth of her baby bump. What to do with this baby needed to be her decision without anyone else feeling the need to input theirs. She gave the motel room she had called home for the last few years one more look. She checked the drawers to make sure they were empty. She looked around the bathroom, behind the shower curtain, and under the bed. It was all clear. Nothing of Gentry Bell was left in the room. Not a trace she had been there. She liked it that way.
The sun had not yet started to rise when she walked out of the room. The hint of morning was nothing more than an early glow toward the eastern sky and the smell of fresh dew on the grass. It wet the tips of her Converse tennis shoes as she walked toward the bright blue renovated school bus. She couldn’t help but smile as she saw it waiting for the next journey in her life. Tirelessly, she had worked on it to transform it from a school bus to her new home. As she rounded the front of it, she looked up at the street light, flickering and humming with electricity. Come to think of it, that’s exactly how she felt. Her body was humming with electricity of excitement and nervousness. She had never been one to shy away from being alone. Honestly, she rather enjoyed it. In her youth, she had found people to be hurtful and disappointing. As she grew older, she learned to never give them the chance to disappoint her which often times found her alone. This morning, she was alone purely by design. Today was the first day of her next chapter. She opened the doors of the bus, stepped up the two steps, sat in the driver’s seat, and cranked her up. Her smile broadened.
Slowly, she drove past the buildings of the Pelican Motel. She stopped before pulling out onto the highway and looked in her rearview mirror at the sign. The boomerang arrow pointed to another memory of a home she was leaving. A better memory than the one she had of her previous one. She leaned her head down to look at the tip of the antenna tower that stood behind the sign. She remembered helping Lou fix it after a tornado twisted the metal into an awful shape. She never quite understood why Lou spent so much time fixing a CB antenna he never planned to use. Hell, he didn’t even have the CB radio anymore. She shrugged her shoulders. People have their reasons, who was she to try to figure them out?
She smiled at the camelia bushes she planted and hoped they would bloom to bring pleasant, happy thoughts of her to Lou, Yvette, and Wendy.
“Well, Pelican, you’ve been good to me but it’s time to move on. After all, it’s a great big world.”
She grabbed her red-framed sunglasses and rested them on her head, readying them for when the rising sun would burst through her windshield. She pushed play on her CD player, depressed the clutch, shifted into first, and rolled out onto the interstate.
She turned the volume up on her radio and began to sing to her favorite Tom Petty album. “Raised on promises, she couldn’t help thinkin’ that there was a little more to life somewhere else.” Her fingers tapped with the rhythm on the steering wheel. “After all, it was a great big world with lots of places to run to.” She reached down to turn the volume up even louder and danced in her chair. “Oh yeah, all right. Take it easy, baby. Make it last all night.” Louisiana would soon be in her rearview mirror, which made her happier than she had imagined this day to feel. She vowed she would never return.
Sam walked into the diner to get a cup of coffee to go. Her eyes were red and her vision blurred from another night of restless sleep. She hadn’t drunk anymore of the whiskey and coke because deep down she knew today was the day to be moving on. She forced herself out of bed with the rising sun. If she hadn’t, she knew she would have curled up in the sheets and slept yet another day away. She looked over at the empty table four and decided to have a quick cup and a bite to eat before she left. It also would be nice to say goodbye to Gentry before she left.
“Hi ya, honey. What can I get you?”
She looked up at the older woman’s voice. She recognized her from the motel office. “Ummm,” she stuttered with surprise. Of course, she didn’t know everyone here or how the motel’s daily routines flowed. But she had come to know only Gentry and Wendy in the diner. “I’ll have a coffee and an order of pancakes.”
“You got it,” Yvette said.
Sam stared out the large window in the front of the diner. She watched the cars speed past on the interstate. The diner was a prime location with nothing more between it and the interstate but a small strip along the exit road. It was time, she was ready to leave Louisiana without any hopes or thoughts of ever coming back. It’s not like she had any idea she would run into Rayne here in Eunice. There were so many small towns around central Louisiana that it was quite doubtful they would be in the same one at the same time. As long as she stayed away from Brennin, she should be fine. Yet there was nothing for her here. Her only draw to this part of the south was Rayne and even that draw didn’t fill her with the desire to make Louisiana home. This wasn’t her place. Sure, the scenery with sunsets over the bayou and moss-covered trees was beautiful but it was small. Too small for her. She wanted city lights, culture, and entertainment. She scribbled another reason on her mental list of why it was good she and Rayne split up.
“The sugar is on the table. Do you want cream?” Yvette asked.
“Yes, please,” Sam replied. “I’m sorry, but where are the other two women I used to see in here? Is someone in the office? I wanted to check out this morning.” Sam really wanted to know about Gentry.
Yvette looked around the fairly empty diner. “I’ll be right back.” She walked to the counter, poured a cup of coffee, and came back to sit down at Sam’s table. “It’s a sad morning around here. When Wendy and Lou came in this morning, there were notes to each of us from our other wa
itress.” Yvette twirled the coffee cup between her hands. “Waitress. She was more than that. Her name was Gentry,” she swallowed the lump in her throat, “and she was family.”
“Notes?”
“Goodbye letters.” Yvette took a sip of coffee.
“She’s gone?” Sam felt a sense of sadness, which felt odd to her. Hadn’t she been crippled with sadness since December? How on earth could she feel more, especially from the missing of someone she hardly knew?
“Yep. Pulled Big Blue out this morning. Poor Wendy was the first to see the letters. She was crying her eyes out when Lou called me to come over. I sent her home to collect herself.”
Sam shook her head. She was lost in the assumptions she actually had a clue as to what was going on. “Big Blue?”
Yvette smiled as if knowing she was confused. She reached out and touched Sam’s arm. “Let me catch you up, honey. Did you ever see that big bus parked in the back of the motel buildings? Looked like a school bus but blue?”
“Yes.”
“That was Gentry’s. She’d been working on that thing ever since I know’d her. Hell, she pulled up in it when she came looking for a job. Back then tho’, it was an ordinary school bus. She spent every minute she was off working on that thing. Damn if she didn’t turn it into a house on wheels. She been pretty much through with it for about two years now. I figured any day she would pull out but I suppose she kept working to save up her money. I don’t know. Don’t figure anybody does tho’. She probably talked more to me than anyone and I be damned if I know much at all.” She took another swallow of coffee.
Sam did too.
“When I saw her planting them camellias, I gave a mind it was coming up. Until then, she had only planted seasonal stuff. She knows good and well I won’t be planting nothing so I guess it was her way of taking care of me.” Yvette wiped the corner of her eye.
“Where did she go?”
“Don’t rightly know for sure.” She pulled a letter from the front pocket of her apron. She ran her fingers across her name written on the front. “Says here she got a job with the park service. I didn’t even know she had applied.”