When they were outside, Rosalie felt her body start to unravel, as though she was being released from a wrapping of rubber bands that had encircled her from head to toe.
“You okay?” Alex asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Rosalie said, feeling guilty.
“It’s probably not your scene,” Alex said, as though she should have known as much.
“It’s okay,” Rosalie said, trying to escape her lingering discomfort. “Do they know?”
“That we’re dating? No,” Alex said, keeping her voice low and smooth to comfort Rosalie.
Rosalie was uneasy with the certainty of Alex’s answer.
Alex tilted her head, considering. “They might wonder since I never bring girls around. But I doubt Dan would have asked about you if he thought we were an item. They usually stay out of other people’s business.”
Rosalie nodded. Alex was probably right.
Rosalie wasn’t so terrified of coming out in Ashhawk that she would go to great lengths to conceal herself, but she needed to have some sense of control in her life. She’d had her job, her apartment, Tara, her family, and pretty much everything else taken away from her in the last few months, and there had been nothing she could do to stop it. She was drowning in the desert, desperate to grasp anything that might steady her. Deciding when and how she came out here was the one thing she could control.
Alex hovered next to her truck, hands in her pockets, waiting for Rosalie to work through whatever knot of worry she had tied. She seemed to know Rosalie needed someone to change the subject for her. “Have you looked at the Cocheta property yet?”
Rosalie reeled at the reminder of that particular burden. She shook her head.
“Maybe we should check it out,” Alex offered with an indifferent shrug. “You should at least know what it looks like.”
Rosalie nodded. She’d been putting off a trip to the property. Some irrational part of her was worried she’d find something disturbing there; not a body or another rundown hotel, but some new information about Gran’s life Rosalie realized she knew so little about. Visiting would only create more questions, she was sure.
But going with Alex was better than going without Alex. If she had to face something unknown, she would rather not be alone.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
Alex bobbed her head and gave a fleeting smile. “We can drop your car at Hearth on the way.”
Rosalie nodded, turning to get into her car. Behind her, she felt Alex pause, waiting until she was seated in her car before climbing into the cab of her truck. Alex was watching her, noticing the worry that clung to her like static, trying to figure out a way to conduct it away from her. Yet Rosalie worried about the shock if she tried.
They left Rosalie’s car at Hearth and drove to the other side of town. Rosalie held her breath as they approached the end of the road where her property was situated. They passed a few dilapidated houses, some abandoned, until the road turned to dirt and the buildings ended, as though the desert would eat anything daring to venture farther into its depths. It was impossible to tell where the edge of her property met the wildness of the desert. They were indistinguishable, save for some arbitrary legal line that said Rosalie had rights to some of the dust and rocks and shrubs and not the others. It was funny to think ownership mattered so much to people.
Alex pulled the car to the side of the dirt road and turned off the motor. She seemed to be moving slowly. Probably so as not to spook Rosalie.
To prove how little she needed soothing, Rosalie unbuckled her seat belt and slid down from the cab quicker than usual, as though visiting her mysterious desert property was a task of no particular importance or hassle, like grocery shopping or going to the post office. Her feet crunched on the ground as she took a few steps away from the truck, her footsteps loud in the alarming silence of the desert. She stood straight, back to Alex, and surveyed the land with her hands on her hips. She owned this land. She was in control.
Yet as she stared out at it, she felt her confidence and certainty waiver, as though a breeze was blowing through, touching only her. The land before her was so vast, its sage greens and shades of brown and rust stretching as far as she could see, blending together in the hazy horizon of distant hills and rock formations. She didn’t own all of it, she knew. Only a few square miles. But the ownership wasn’t what made her falter.
Rosalie had the sensation she was about to be crushed. The sky above felt enormous, its bright blue with wispy clouds stretching so wide and thick she felt it would fall on her. There was too much dry, hot air being forced into her lungs, dragging with it the dust from the land. There was nothing to steady herself on, save for a few bony shrubs that would crumble under her weight and rocks that would jab into her weak and delicate skin.
The desert was inhospitable and threatening. She hated it. She hated the burden of owning any piece of it. There was no piece of Gran here. Rosalie realized she’d been hoping to find clues as to what she was supposed to do with the land. Instead, she found only dust and shrubs and a feeling of doom hovering over her and half the town.
Alex drew up cautiously beside her.
Rosalie tightened her stomach. “Looks like every other piece of desert,” she said, pretending to be unfazed.
“Sure does,” Alex said softly.
Rosalie folded her arms across her stomach in a gesture of feigned indifference.
“This particular piece is yours, though.” Alex tipped her head to the side an inch. “That counts for something.”
Rosalie gave a stiff shrug. “I guess.”
She tried to take a few calming breaths but only felt the desert choke her more.
“Not a great spot for a date, though,” Rosalie said, signaling she wanted to leave.
“Where do you want to go?”
Rosalie hesitated, unsure. What she wanted most of all was to hole up in her room, undisturbed by the heavy threat of the land before her. But that wouldn’t have been fair to Alex. Hiding wasn’t a date, and disappearing was the opposite of the apology Rosalie knew she needed to make for being so awkward around Alex’s friends.
“Maybe get some sopapillas?”
“Where do you want to eat them?”
Rosalie shrugged.
“I’d say we can take them back to Hearth, but I know you like to get away.”
“That sounds fine, actually,” Rosalie said, relieved she wouldn’t have to endure much more time spent around the strange people of Ashhawk.
They drove back to the hotel, picking up food on the way. Rosalie offered to pay, but Alex refused. “I like paying for my date’s dinner once in a while.”
Rosalie wasn’t sure she should be comfortable with such antiquated chivalry but decided ten dollars spent on takeout wasn’t worth an argument. She’d put her foot down for bigger things.
Alex pulled her truck around behind the hotel, buying them some privacy from Shelley’s curiosity without the expectation attached to being in one of their bedrooms. Rosalie changed into jeans and a cotton T-shirt, returning behind the building to find Alex had set up a makeshift picnic spread in her truck bed. Rosalie was relieved with the casual presentation. The desert was peaceful around them.
After they ate, Rosalie felt more guilty about her behavior in the bar. She hadn’t even made an effort to get to know Alex’s friends.
Rosalie watched Alex as she bagged up their plates and dropped them over the side of the truck, making a soft splash of plastic against the desert dirt. Alex stretched out and leaned back, grinning at Rosalie. Her posture wasn’t sexual, but it invited intimacy. Rosalie felt like Alex was open to anything.
“Do you ever feel like you know someone but don’t know a lot about them?” Rosalie asked.
Alex smiled. “Sure.”
Rosalie bit her lip. “I feel that way about you.”
Alex adjusted herself, her brow turning in a small expression of concern. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. ’Cept maybe my Social Securit
y number and my complete browser history.”
Rosalie smirked. “I have your Social Security number on file from previous years’ tax documents.”
Alex laughed. “True, true. And my browsing history isn’t that interesting. So I guess anything is fair game.”
Rosalie smiled and took a risk. “What’s going on with your brother?”
“As you could see, he’s almost too gay to function outside Corte del Cuervo. Though the same could be said of me.”
Rosalie’s smile grew tense. “I meant your little brother. Jason, right?”
Alex’s grin wavered. “Yeah. He’s…well, he’s an addict. That’s about all there is to that.”
Rosalie twisted her face into a look of compassion and pity for the pain Jason had caused his family. “Heroin?” She knew its use was widespread throughout the area.
“And meth. Whatever he can get his hands on.”
Rosalie let out a heavy breath. She almost wished she hadn’t asked because now she didn’t know what to say. “That must be so hard,” she said quietly.
Alex gave a slow nod, contemplating her nails for lack of anything else to do.
“That’s why I was in such a hurry to move in here. I couldn’t handle being around him all the time. When he isn’t high as a kite, he’s tweaking out.”
Rosalie was desperate to relieve the tension, so she said, “And here I thought you just liked being around me.”
Alex looked up appreciatively. “That definitely didn’t hurt.”
Rosalie gave another pitying smile. “I’m glad you moved in. But I’m sorry it’s because your brother is sick.”
Alex nodded, wrapping up the heavy conversation with a tense smile. “My turn.”
Rosalie adjusted into a more relaxed position. “Shoot,” she invited.
“When did you first know you liked girls?”
Rosalie bit her lip as one side lifted. She liked this topic among other queer women. There was a sisterhood to their shared experience.
“Well, I could tell you about the first time I kissed a girl and all that boring stuff,” she started.
“Oh, please do.” Alex grinned.
Rosalie sniffed a giggle. “But I think the first big clue was when I was thinking about God or whoever was running the universe.”
Alex tilted her head. “I didn’t know you were religious.”
“I’m not,” Rosalie said. “But when I was younger, I liked to entertain all the different theories about celestial power to see which ones felt real.”
“Did you reach any conclusions?”
“When I was about ten, my dad gave me this book on paganism and other earth-based religions, and I remember reading something about Mother Earth and Father Sky or something like that and thinking that if two beings were actually running the universe, they were probably both female.”
Alex chuckled. “What a good little lesbian you are.”
“I know, right? My first clue wasn’t thinking about how beautiful girls are or how much better I got along with them. I just thought women should be running the universe. And then that sent me into a panic about whether I’d ever get along well enough with a man to sustain a marriage and if he’d let me run things my way…And then I probably got distracted by whatever Christina Aguilera was doing that week and who in my friend group wasn’t talking to whom because they’d cheated another girl out of a good sticker trade or something. You know, more important issues than who was running the universe.”
“Oh, my god, you’re precious,” Alex said, a look of amused adoration on her face. “I don’t know if I can handle how cute you were.”
“I wasn’t that cute,” Rosalie argued. “I was kind of shy and awkward.”
“So were we all at that age,” Alex said with a shrug.
“My turn again.” Rosalie thought for a minute about what she wanted to ask. She felt she’d dug a little too deep with her first question, so she opted for something lighter, but something she’d been curious about for a while. “Do you have girl friends?”
Alex shifted, adjusting herself against the wall of the truck bed. “That depends on what I should call you.” She gave a coy smile.
Rosalie felt something shiver inside her, a nervous giggle coursing through her. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to Alex’s cheek. She liked Alex a lot and didn’t want to date anyone else. She supposed the word for that was girlfriend, but she wasn’t ready for it. It seemed so permanent and serious.
Alex turned her head to the side and met Rosalie’s lips, drawing a kiss out, as though it was sweet, juicy fruit. She let Rosalie’s avoidance slide, and Rosalie was grateful for it.
Rosalie transferred so she was sitting next to Alex, leaning half against the wall of the truck bed and half against Alex. They kissed for a minute, slow and lazy in the warmth of the desert evening. Rosalie felt excitement stir in her belly, but it settled into happiness.
“I do have a few female friends,” Alex said when she pulled back. “But I don’t see them often.”
“Why not?”
“We only get together every few weeks when one of the bars a few towns up has a gay girl night.”
“There are other lesbians in New Mexico?” Rosalie asked, feigning surprise.
“It turns out there are.” Alex grinned.
“Can I meet them?”
Alex squeezed Rosalie against her. “Of course. They’d love to get their hands on you.” She kissed Rosalie again, gripping Rosalie’s side in a tentative squeeze. Rosalie kissed back with an earnest flick of her tongue.
Their kiss escalated until Rosalie felt they were nearing clothing removal. As much as she liked Alex, she didn’t want their first time to be in the back of a truck behind the hotel. It seemed both risky and trashy. She drew back, darting forward to give Alex a sealing peck on the nose.
Alex understood, drawing Rosalie closer to her so they could curl up together in the fading light.
“I want to take you somewhere tomorrow,” Alex said against Rosalie’s cheek.
Rosalie hummed into Alex’s neck, willing to agree to almost anything to keep basking in the warm, protected feeling of being in Alex’s arms.
****
Alex greeted Rosalie with a peck on the cheek. “You look hot, babe,” she said with a grin, body turning toward her truck in its usual spot in the parking lot.
“Thanks. Where are we going?”
Alex jingled her keys. “It’s not super sexy, but I think you’ll like it.”
“Yeah?”
Alex nodded, scanning the parking lot. “I’ve got a contact at a carpet wholesaler a few towns over. They’ve got some remnants that go for real cheap. I thought we could take a look and see if there’s something you like for the lobby.”
Rosalie took a few steps toward Alex’s truck. It hadn’t been what she was expecting at all.
“We can get food and stuff while we’re out, too,” Alex offered. “So it’s still a date.”
“Pretty much anywhere is good as long as I get to leave the property.”
Alex smiled, swung her door open, and hopped up into the cab of her truck, Rosalie not far behind. They fastened their seat belts, and Alex started the engine, pulling out of the parking lot heading down the lonely highway.
They drove past several large casinos. The buildings with their sprawling parking lots sprung up like money-hungry oases with little more than a gas station or drive-thru near them. Rosalie had been in a casino once or twice in her life and had little reason to go in one again. Still, she had a morbid curiosity; why were they the only establishments to flourish in the wasteland of the desert? They did nothing but sully the land and its people with booze, debt, and false hope of riches. Such corruption seemed like it should have no place in the vast, relatively untouched desert. Yet they were the only stable businesses around, save for the diner and she supposed, in a way, Hearth. It seemed unfair.
The carpet wholesaler was a large, stuffy warehouse full of ugly, industrial ca
rpets. The remnant section was well-stocked, but most of the pieces were too small to cover the expanse of the lobby. The few large ones were hideous, and Rosalie was quickly discouraged.
Alex peeled back the corner on a roll of sage green carpet, cut just a few feet bigger than the lobby.
“What about this?”
Rosalie examined it. It wasn’t the first color she would have been drawn to, but maybe that was a good thing since she had no design expertise.
“Will it go with the rest of the lobby?” She couldn’t picture it with the dark wood paneling, worn plaid furniture, and the heavy counter.
“No, but you were planning to redo all that anyway, right?”
Rosalie grew even more hesitant.
“We could take off all the ugly paneling and get covers for the furniture. I can restain the counter.”
“How long would that take?”
“A week. Week and a half,” Alex said with a shrug.
Rosalie felt her resistance peak, and she backed away from the carpet remnants. “That’s a big project...”
“Yeah, but this isn’t too expensive.” Alex tapped the carpet with her foot. “Sheet rock and molding is the biggest expense, plus my time, which you’ve already budgeted for.”
Rosalie nodded distractedly, feeling like Alex was more invested in the hotel’s beautification than she was. It was Alex’s job, after all, but as the owner, Rosalie needed to be on board before any paneling was removed or carpet torn up.
“Is this not what you had in mind?” Alex gestured toward the stack of carpets.
“I don’t know what I had in mind,” Rosalie admitted.
In a flash, she realized—she hadn’t had anything in mind because she had hoped she would secretly magic the hotel out of existence. If the hotel didn’t exist, neither would the ugly carpet or the horrible paneling or her dark, depressing little room with its dated art and yellowed wallpaper.
“Maybe we should go get dinner,” Alex said, as though she wasn’t fazed by Rosalie’s reluctance to pick out a carpet.
“Yeah, I’m kind of hungry.”
“Want to eat somewhere here?”
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