by L. T. Vargus
She so wanted to savor it that she almost would have preferred just looking at it. Because if she drank it, then it would be gone. She met herself halfway and sipped at it slowly, a giant grin plastered on her face all the while.
But the rules were different at home. Keith would never allow it. She always asked for water.
On one such night out, after the waitress left to fetch their drinks, Claire asked her mother if she could look at one of the menus.
“You don’t need to be lookin’ at the menu,” Keith snapped.
Claire glanced at her mother. As usual, she wore an expression that was a mix of shame and resignation. Claire didn’t know why she expected her to intervene. She never did.
“I thought maybe I could pick something else this time.”
He leaned back against the red vinyl of the booth, a bitter sneer on his lips.
“Aren’t you just Miss Princess Mollycoddle?”
Keith was not very bright. Claire was only ten, but she’d figured that out early on. He had a handful of these little witticisms that he trotted out when the situation fit. She wondered where he learned a word like mollycoddle. It was so bizarrely old-fashioned, and she’d never seen him reading a book.
He turned to her mother.
“This is your doing. No discipline. No respect for her elders. No appreciation for the fact that I slave forty hours a week to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.”
Her mom’s eyes never strayed from where her hands were folded in her lap. She said nothing.
Satisfied, Keith returned to the real source of his irritation: Claire.
“You’ll have the hot dog meal, and if you’ve got any sense at all, you’ll be happy you’re gettin’ fed. Money don’t grow on trees.”
“But all of the kids meals are the same price,” Claire blurted.
This was before she’d learned to think long and hard before she spoke at all.
Her stepfather’s face turned red. Nothing made him angry faster than being contradicted with sound logic.
Claire winced, bracing herself for his blustering. He’d never struck her, though she could tell he had often wanted to. It was like there was an invisible line everyone knew about and skirted around. Her mother would put up with all of his negative comments, his verbal abuse, his need to control the minutiae of the household, but physical abuse would have been one step too far, and they all knew it.
Keith’s meaty hands balled into fists, and he leaned across the veneered table top.
“If I’d been so ungrateful when I was a kid, I would have gone without.”
He extended one of his sausage fingers and jabbed the table.
“And then, when we got home, you better believe I’d get a whoopin’.”
He shook his head, as if not being allowed to whoop Claire was some kind of travesty.
“That’s how you teach respect. A hard hand. But no one will do it these days. Just let ‘em get spoilt instead.”
This last part was directed at her mother again.
Now, seated with Tammy and the other kids from the drama club, Claire was poised to once again order water. But without Keith’s suffocating glare, she suddenly realized she could order anything. Whatever she wanted.
And so, when the waitress pointed her pen at Claire, she barely had to think.
“A Shirley Temple.”
She heard giggling. Were they laughing at her?
Glancing to her right, she caught two girls from the set design crew smirking at one another. Of course they were laughing at her. How lame was it to be ordering a kiddie drink at her age? Why had she done that? It was a stupid move. Childish.
Claire glanced at Tammy — the only person at the table she could really call a friend — but she was deep in conversation with Debbie.
It was a mistake. Not just ordering the drink but being here at all. She didn’t know these people, and they didn’t know her. She was an outsider here just like everywhere else. She shouldn’t have come.
The next several minutes were filled with tense anticipation. What would happen when the waitress returned with her big pink beverage? Would they laugh more? She wished the waitress would never come back. Would forget about them, and then they’d have to start over with a new waitress, and she could order something normal like a Sprite. Clear fluid. Nothing garish to laugh at there. Nothing anyone would notice at all.
The sound of ice cubes clinking in glasses announced the waitress’ presence. As she rounded a corner, Claire’s eyes went immediately to the cherry bobbing atop her stupid drink like a buoy. She stared at the menu in front of her, not having the nerve to meet anyone’s eyes.
The group chattered away as the drinks were distributed. The pink thing was set before Claire, and she held her breath.
No one laughed.
It had gone unnoticed.
Thank God.
Claire allowed herself to breathe again.
And then a single voice rose above the rest.
“What is that?” The tone was almost accusatory.
It was Tammy. Claire risked a glance up at her. She was staring at Claire’s drink, eyes flashing with amusement.
Oh no.
“It’s a…” Claire swallowed, “Shirley Temple.”
Tammy threw her head back and laughed.
“Oh my god! I thought so, but I haven’t had one of those since I was like nine years old!”
Claire watched the bubbles break on the surface of the liquid and wished she could dive in and drown herself in the pink elixir.
Tammy turned to the waitress, who was waiting for her food order.
“I’ll have the chili fries,” she said, then crooked a finger at Claire’s glass. “And one of those.”
Their waitress was an older lady with a perm so tight it looked like a clown wig. She pulled the pen tucked behind her ear and scribbled the new order on her pad.
“Sure thing, honey.”
Tammy beamed when the waitress returned with her matching drink.
“A Shirley freaking Temple! Who the hell thinks of ordering a Shirley Temple? You know what you are, Claire? An iconoclast. I can respect that.”
Tammy sipped at her drink and then held out her glass. Claire lifted hers, and they tinked them together.
“To new friends,” Tammy said.
Claire smiled then, and she didn’t think the grin left her lips until Tammy dropped her off at the end of the evening.
Chapter 7
Present day
By the time Loshak reached the motel in Moapa Valley, the sun had set. What he was really here for would have to wait until morning.
He nosed the car into a parking spot near the front office of the Plaza motel and stared at the building a moment, somehow reluctant to get out.
This was the same place he’d stayed back in 1993. Unlike what he’d seen on his drive through the Strip, this place looked exactly as he’d remembered it. He wondered if he’d get the same room, the same cell to spend his sleepless nights in. Probably not.
He didn’t want to stay here. He wanted to do his business and get back to Virginia. But there was nothing to be done about it. There hadn’t been an earlier flight.
There was something else, too. Something mingling with the guilt still wriggling around in his gut. It was dread, he knew. Dread that what drew him out here was Stump, even if the hard evidence was flimsy at the moment. Part of Loshak knew he’d be here for quite a while, drawn back into a nightmare from twenty years ago. Trapped in this desert wasteland of sun and sand and sin.
Still he did not move to get out of the car. He picked up the Hortons cup, found it empty, and dropped it back into the holder. The donut holes stared up at him through the gaping mouth of their cardboard container, beckoning him. And for a moment, he considered it. He’d power through them, shove all four down the hatch at once, forcing the horror of fake sweetness and stale pastry on himself just to be rid of them. But no. That would be bad for the ol’ pancreas, right
? Right. And if he was going to risk his health for a fast food baked good, it wouldn’t be for this dog food. No sir. He’d opt to kill himself with lemon pound cake from Starbucks or something a little classier, thank you very much.
A shrill electronic jingle startled Loshak from his confectionery daydream. The phone’s screen glowed in the dimly lit interior of the car, showing the name of the caller in bold white text: Darger.
Shit. Should he answer it? He didn’t know. Maybe.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
He counted to three and then jabbed the red IGNORE button.
A fresh wave of guilt washed over him. Christ. He didn’t know why he felt so guilty about it. It was for her own good. Because it was more than just fearing for her safety. More than keeping her from becoming bait for Stump.
He worried it would get in her head. Worm its way into her brain the way it had his. Take up residence. The Stump case was like one of those parasitic wasps. Just stinging you wasn’t good enough. It laid its eggs in you so the larvae could hatch and eat their way out. That’s how it had always felt to him, anyway.
His eyes wandered over to the yellow and red box of donuts riding shotgun. Any remaining urge to choke them down had left him now. He gathered up the box, climbed out of the car, and dumped it in the trash bin on his way inside the motel lobby.
Chapter 8
October 1991
The friendship between Tammy and Claire flourished over the next several weeks and throughout the remainder of rehearsals. But Claire worried that when the play was over, they’d go back to being acquaintances that sometimes said Hi as they passed one another in the hallway.
The weekend after the play was complete, Tammy called to invite Claire to drive into Vegas for a trip to the mall.
“Who’s the ogre?” Tammy asked when Claire picked up the receiver.
“What?”
“The knuckle-dragging neanderthal that answered the phone with a series of grunts.”
“Oh,” Claire made a dismissive sigh. “My stepdad.”
“Does he always sound like that? Like a pissed off cave troll?”
Claire laughed, then said, “Pretty much.”
Tammy picked her up that afternoon, and for most of the ride, they listened and sang along to one of the local oldies stations.
During a commercial break, Claire turned the volume knob down.
“What is it that you need?” Claire asked.
Tammy’s response was one of befuddlement. Fourteen creases formed on her forehead. They knew the precise number because she’d spent an afternoon counting the wrinkles in the dressing room mirror while Claire marked the hem length for Tammy’s dress.
“You mean existentially?”
“No.” Claire chuckled. “From the mall. What are you shopping for?”
Tammy’s expression changed to one of theatrical comprehension. Tammy faces were all like that. One-hundred percent, pushed to the max.
“Nothing really.”
“Oh,” Claire said, like that answer was satisfactory.
But it wasn’t. Why were they going to the mall, if not to shop? She’d seen TV shows where kids talked about going to the mall as if it were a popular hangout spot, but she didn’t think people actually did that in real life… did they?
She was still pondering this mystery when she realized Tammy had been staring at her for the last several seconds.
“Claire, can I ask you something? And I don’t want you to freak out or feel like I’m prying. I just want you to know that you can tell me the truth.”
Creeping fingers of discomfort wormed over Claire’s skin. What was this about? It sounded like it could only be something bad.
“OK,” she said, her curiosity only slightly more intense than her dread.
“Are you an alien?”
Claire grinned, saw that Tammy was only half-joking, and then giggled.
“No. I’m not an alien.”
While some people might have been offended at the implication, Claire knew Tammy well enough now to know that meeting an actual, honest-to-goodness being from outer space would have been her dream come true. It was the furthest thing from an insult coming from her.
As it was right now, Tammy had on a pair of earrings with little green alien faces on them.
“That’s just what an alien would say, you know.”
“Because if I was an alien, I obviously wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
Tammy smirked at her, like she knew Claire was only playing along and trying to pull her leg, but she was also half-hoping it was true.
Of the several malls in Vegas, Tammy chose one away from the strip.
“Too many tourists down there,” she said.
She parked the Mustang in the Macy’s lot, and they headed inside.
Claire was used to shopping with Keith, who would bark at her if she so much as looked at something for too long. In contrast, walking through the store with Tammy was endlessly amusing. Her friend touched everything, purring like a cat as she pet a faux fur coat or holding up a sequined top in front of herself and then shimmying back and forth to watch the shifting sparkles. Sometimes she’d pause and engage in a one-sided conversation with one of the mannequins.
“Oh Barbara, your ass looks fantastic in that pantsuit!”
After testing half the bottles at the perfume counter, Tammy coughed and waved a hand in front of her nose.
“Fragrance overload!” She nabbed Claire by the sleeve and pulled her toward the promenade. “Come on. Let’s go to Orange Julius.”
“What’s that?”
Tammy halted, not minding the glare she received from a woman pushing a stroller that had to move around them.
“You’ve never had an Orange Julius?” She was incredulous.
Claire shook her head.
“That’s it. You’re totally an alien. Undeniable evidence,” Tammy pronounced.
She started walking again. “We have to rectify this immediately. How else can you report back to your planet on the many wonders of planet Earth if you haven’t had an Orange frickin’ Julius?”
At the food court, Claire took her place next to Tammy in front of the kiosk with a giant orange lit up with neon lights. A surly girl with severely drawn-on eyebrows took their order and prepared the mystery concoction in a pair of industrial grade blenders.
Claire sipped at the frothy orange beverage while Tammy watched, waiting intently to gauge her reaction.
“Good, right?”
Claire nodded.
“Tastes like a melted Creamsicle.”
“Exactly!”
At another booth, they procured soft pretzels, and then they sat, sipping and chewing and people-watching.
Claire felt strangely grown-up for once. Something about being in this place, surrounded by people, far away from her mom and stepdad. No one knew her here. Well, except for Tammy. But she could be anyone to the rest of them.
And being with Tammy was like being on a ride at an amusement park. People seemed to notice them. Boys watched them. Smiled at them. Claire was pretty sure they were mostly looking at Tammy, but still. It was like Tammy had some kind of magic magnetism that drew the eye.
Claire studied her friend and realized that part of the magnet was Tammy’s smile. She beamed at everyone. Grinned at perfect strangers as if they might be old friends.
She spent a long time trying to find words to describe that particular sensation she got while hanging out with Tammy. Eventually, she decided that it felt like anything was possible.
Chapter 9
November 1993
Again she watches through woven eyelashes. Concentrates to snuff out the impulses to cry, to whimper, to shake and heave and tremble and jerk.
The dark figure slides into the driver’s seat, and he hunches over the wheel as he cranks the key in the ignition.
The engine hiccups once before resuming its one-note song.
She doesn’t think. Not really. Her mind functio
ns on some primal level now.
She observes, waits, watches. All of her consciousness existing moment to moment. Like a frightened animal.
If he’d seen her movement as he walked to the car, he shows no sign of it.
The dome light was on when he returned — evidence of her opening the doors, of course — but he doesn’t seem fazed by this. Doesn’t seem to notice at all.
His hand moves to the gear shift. Grips it.
He glances back at them then. His expression blank. Almost like he’s not really looking. Going through the motions while his mind resides elsewhere.
It happens so quickly this time that she doesn’t even consider closing her eyes that last little bit before he’s facing the other way again. He doesn’t acknowledge it, in any case. Maybe with her eyelids narrowed, they looked closed. She’s not certain.
He puts the car in drive, and they’re moving again. Gliding out of the lot, away from the building, away from the lights.
The car bobs to and fro as he guides it onto the road, but the movement steadies, and it feels familiar. Oddly calming. Like a ship cruising the seas, riding higher as it accelerates, moving out into dark water.
The deep.
They follow the glowing trail that the headlights blaze for them.
And nothing else moves out there. The night is still. Quiet.
Her elbow prods at Tammy’s ribs again. She doesn’t expect a response, and she doesn’t get any.
But it’s OK. The ride helps her gather her wits. Helps her get ahold of herself.
They will get another chance. She knows it. Wherever he takes them, they will get another chance. Because this car will stop eventually. And that will be it.
She will fight. She will scratch. She will claw.
She will get away or die trying.
They both will.
He clears his throat in the front seat.
“Hey,” he says.