by Susan Wilson
“Yeah. Stand for Ricardo Ayala. We called him ‘Rico.’ He was four.”
Mingo leans his forearms on the windowsill, looks out over the back of the hotel, down on the cabins, over to where the one doggy day care guest is taking in the sunshine. “We done in here? I got one more room to do.”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“Okay. A-ite.”
“Mingo?”
He doesn’t look at her.
“Can I ask you something? And not get you mad?”
“Depends.”
“Why did you do drugs, I mean, if your mother…”
“Was a crack whore? I don’t know. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
If she provides Molly with drugs, isn’t she just like her own father? A small-time drug dealer, someone whose life was a complete waste.
“But you’re better? You’re doing all right?”
Mingo smiles at her, a sad smile. “Girl, we got work to do.”
“What did I tell you about calling me girl?”
“Okay, woman. Get back to work.”
“That’s better.”
Mingo goes out to grab new sheets and towels. Cody starts on the sink, catches sight of herself in the mirror. Mingo said she was fine. She pushes her bangs aside, cocks her head. Smiles at her image. She’s still surprised to see the braces gone, the whiteness of her teeth making them look too big to her, like Chiclets. Fine.
CHAPTER 32
“Listen, I’ll be up a few days before the gala. So I’ll book five days all together.”
“It’s two days shy of a full week.” Skye taps her upper lip with a forefinger. “You know, by the time you come back, that little cabin will be available for a long-term rental if you want to consider staying for a bit longer. Call it a summer vacation. A little R and R.”
“I have a board meeting that week, back in Boston.” Adam shakes his head, truly regretful. “I wish I could.”
As he pulls out onto Meander Road, Adam feels Chance breathing down his neck. “Ready to go home?” The dog makes no reply. Adam rolls down the back window, and the dog, uncharacteristically, sticks his head out and barks. There’s Mingo, on his knees, pulling weeds, Dawg lazing beside him. Adam slows the car down, sticks out his arm, and waves to the boy. Mingo waves back.
What if he did blow off his meetings? Give himself a whole week to relax. A summer vacation. Time spent in a little cabin nestled in a nice scenic crook of a mountain, plenty of time to decompress, to walk the dog, to read something besides the paper, to contemplate the next move. Maybe even see if there are any fish in that little lake. Go for a swim. Explore the little towns and byways of Western Mass. Head up to Vermont. Spend a little more time with Skye. Whoa, where’d that idea come from?
Chance pulls his head in, sits, then flops on the backseat. A great sigh issues out of him, sounding not of contentment, but disappointment.
What exactly is he heading back for? Solitary reheated dinners? Unwelcome pity invitations? Unwanted advances from middle-aged women? But he has responsibilities, important work to be done. Tasks unfinished. Suddenly, Adam is reminded of his former self. The one who proudly never took time off; who sent his wife and daughter to their Vineyard summer house with unfulfilled promises to join them on the weekend. The man who sat at the head of the boardroom table on a Friday night negotiating some power move instead of seeing his only daughter off to her first dance. A man so intense that he finally exploded.
Losing everything had given him a new chance at finding a balance. Gina made no bones about reminding Adam, when he was on the verge of backsliding, that he was a new man. And here he is, blowing off an opportunity to relax, and, let’s be honest, be with someone whose company he does enjoy. She’s not Gina. She’s no substitute for Gina. But Skye has become something he’s lacked for a long time. A friend.
Adam fires up the Bluetooth, tells Siri to call the LakeView Hotel.
“Skye, any chance that cabin is available for the month of July?”
Skye doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
“Book me in.”
* * *
Black Molly is sitting in one of the folding lawn chairs staged around a cold fire pit filled with scraps of unburned paper and cigarette butts. The sound of a soap opera blares from the open door, playing to an empty room. No one is there. Molly’s parents are nowhere to be seen; both the pickup truck and her mother’s ancient Cutlass are gone. Molly’s siblings are out in the woods riding a borrowed four-wheeler. The baritone whine of the ATV’s motor comes and goes as the boys circle the lake on walking paths not meant for all-terrain vehicles.
Molly tosses her smoked-to-the-filter butt into the pit, sits back. “You want a beer?”
“No.”
“Got something for me?”
“I want you to stop harassing me.”
“I want you to do what I ask. A little somepin’ somepin’ for Black Molly. A handful. Nothing more.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can. We’ve been over this. You’re just being a mama’s girl.”
“I’m not going to steal.”
“Guess I ain’t got no choice then, do I?”
“No one will believe you.”
“Sure about that?”
Cody isn’t. Cody isn’t sure about anything. She has stopped searching online for information about the hunt for the driver. She just can’t do it anymore. “I told you: No one will believe you.”
“Bet your mother will.”
“No, I don’t think she will. She won’t believe you over me.”
“Sure she will. I’m your best friend. Don’t friends tell each other everything? Don’t they watch each other’s backs? Don’t they keep their bargains?”
Walking down the road away from Molly’s trailer, Cody has to wonder if she’s just traded one kind of unhappiness for another. The unhappiness of no friends for the unhappiness of a treacherous one.
* * *
“Skye, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I thought you should know that there’s been a break in Randy’s case. They’ve identified the driver of the car.” My mother tells me this in the same tone of voice she might use to let me know that the price of boiled ham has gone down—good news, but hardly earth-shattering.
“I didn’t. Who is he?”
“I can’t remember what they said. Something Polish, or maybe Russian.” In other words, not Irish. Like us. Or like those Randy ran with.
“So, he’s a fugitive?”
“Oh, no. Not anymore. He’s dead. Shot execution style.”
I know that anything my mother might tell me will be corrupted by having come through the sieve of her perceptions, so I thank her for the news and then hop onto my computer.
Stanislaus Prezwieski, a suspect in the slaying of small-time drug dealer Randy Mitchell, was found dead in his car, a black Honda Civic, a single shot to the back of the head. Forensics are testing to see if the weapon used in Prezwieski’s murder is the same as that used in Mitchell’s.
There isn’t much more, the excitement of an execution à la Whitey Bulger is quickly subsumed by more interesting tragedies of the week. A final mention shows up in the Saturday edition. Yes, the same gun was used. So my ex-husband’s killer is out there. The obvious conclusion to draw is that the police were getting close, having Prezwieski on their radar, and he, the shooter, eliminated the problem. As far as I knew from the minimal police investigation, Prezwieski was the only witness to tie him to the crime.
I wonder if I should tell Cody.
* * *
Preparing to leave town for a month is mostly about canceling things—the paper, a long-scheduled physical, a bath for Chance at the groomer’s. Maybe by now the new dog spa lady has shown up and he can get her to do the honors. It’s a good thing Adam has never been an indoor plant kind of guy. The two dish gardens he received as condolence gifts he’s already managed to kill off. The neglected perennial garden out back is weed-choked and will h
ave to fend for itself—as usual. All of that was under Gina’s purview. The irises were just coming up when she went into the hospital for the last time; the daffodils in full glory when she said no to more treatment, the tulips voluptuous on their stalks. The night after the funeral, a sudden cold wind had come up and with it a heavy rain that beat down the summer blooms, flattening them into the ground. Adam stood at the kitchen window that next morning and saw the destruction, the waste of all that effort to break through the soil, to emerge into the light, to spread forth leaves and give birth to such transitory blooms. He’d forgotten to look at them. Forgotten to take a picture and show it to Gina in those last days before she faded into her own transition.
This year the daffs and the tulips emerged again and he cut them all and placed them on her grave. Now the summer flowers of another year are up. Peonies and lilies. The hydrangeas in various shades of blue. He’ll take some to the cemetery before he goes west.
Chance is there, leaning his weight against Adam’s leg. The dog sighs, as if he, too, is thinking of Gina. How is that possible? Adam kneels and wraps his arms around the dog. “You are such a good boy.”
The dog doesn’t disagree.
* * *
There is something different about this departure. I’m used to the efficiency of our travels. I can tell the difference between a quick car ride and a trip. A trip means a bag. A bag that goes into the back of the car. This is clearly a trip, but there are more things put in the back of the car. I can also tell the difference between clothes that Adam wears for work and those he wears for not work. Of course, I don’t really see anything we do as work, which is his word, but when he wears the leash thing around his neck, he’s quieter. When he pulls on those heavy boots, we get to explore the outdoors. Today he’s pulled out both. I’m beginning to catch on. But there’s something else different about this time. Adam is bustling around the house, whistling, but not a Come here whistle. He’s opened the fridge and thrown out all the potential goodies inside. Travesty! Oh no, I whine. He hands me some meat. A leftover slice of cheese. At last we leave the house, Adam following me as I lead him to the car.
* * *
“Hello, Adam.” It’s Next Door Beth.
He really doesn’t want to be rude, but he wants to get to the LakeView before dark, and it’s already taken him more time than he thought to get ready. “I’m kind of in a hurry, Beth. Sorry.”
“So, how are you doing?” She has that sympathetic expression on her face, and he’s a little puzzled as to why she’s giving him that look right now; she hasn’t asked that question in exactly that way for some months. “I know, it’s a hard time, isn’t it?”
For a nanosecond, he doesn’t know what she means. And then he does. He’s holding the bunch of flowers he intends for Gina’s grave, telegraphing his very private intention, a quick visit to tell Gina he’s going away for a while.
And then it hits him: It’ll have been a year at the end of this week. A lifetime and a moment. The “almost a year” he’s been saying has come to its terminus. Tomorrow he pushes into the second year without Gina.
Beth takes a small step toward him. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”
Chance turns around and stalks back to Adam, pushes aside the bouquet dangling from his hand. Bops Adam on the knee as if to say, Come on, we need to go. Adam declines Beth’s invitation. “Thanks, no. I’ve got to get on the road. Look, I’ll be away for a bit.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Beth.” Adam walks over to where she stands on her side of the driveway, takes her hand. “It would be great if you would stop asking me that.”
* * *
I like that lady, but I can tell that there is something about her that brings out the stress in Adam. He stiffens up, kind of like a dog meeting a rival. No, that’s not it exactly. Maybe we dogs don’t have an equivalent. She says Gina fairly often, and each time she does, I feel Adam’s heartbeat alter. His pulse changes. This time, he hurried me along to the car, as if I had to be encouraged to move quickly. In a few minutes, I could sense that he had calmed down. His hand squeezed the skin of my neck gently. It’s okay, boy. She doesn’t mean any harm. I wasn’t sure of the entire meaning of his words, but the slowing of his pulse told me that he was back to normal. I counted it as good that his recovery period was so short. There were times when it took him days to get through one of these stress times. As soon as I recognized that we were traveling west, I felt myself relax, too.
CHAPTER 33
Cody has four rooms to do. Mingo thinks that it’s more efficient if they do all the rooms together, but she’s discouraged him from joining her, telling him that she thinks that doing them separately gets them done faster.
“What ev.” He grabs what he needs from the one housekeeping cart that the business owns, then heads downstairs to do up room 4.
Cody unlocks room 11. It’s late enough in the morning that the guests, an older couple from Michigan with a dachshund named Slinky, have headed out to see some scenery. They are tidy people, here for three nights. No clothes are draped over chairs; the remote is where it belongs. No dirty glasses on the nightstand. The used towels have been hung up, the universal signal that no change of towels is necessary. Ecology-minded tourists. Yippee. Less to deal with.
All of their various and sundry toiletries are neatly arranged on the bathroom shelf. All of their medications, his on the left, hers on the right, nothing more interesting than all too common Lipitor. A blue vial sits in the center of the shelf. Apparently, Slinky has back problems. Tramadol. Pain medication.
It isn’t even in a child-safe vial. Cody pops the top off, extracts two of the pills and carefully sets the blue vial back between the human meds. She slides the pills into her hip pocket, where they mingle with the rest of this morning’s finds: a Vicodin, an Ambien, and a pair of Demerol tablets. The vial of Percocet she found in room 15 had only two left, so she put it back. No one will miss one dose if the bottle contains enough pills, but there’s no way that a guest wouldn’t miss one out of two left in his prescription.
Cody finishes up the room, unplugs the vacuum, wheels the cart to the next room. One more to go.
Unlike the people with the dachshund, this single guest is a slob. Clothes, towels, empty beer bottles, half-empty soda cans strewn on every surface. A pizza box with two slices left in it sits on the floor between the double beds, one of which looks like the occupant had been fighting with the blankets; every pillow, decorative or otherwise, is on the floor and the covers are all twisted up. Cody starts at the perimeter, leaving the bed till last. She hates picking up a stranger’s clothes, but she does, draping them over the back of the chair. She tosses the nasty pizza into the trash bag, the cans and bottles into the recycling bag. She’s sticky and feels disgusting. Her mother has talked about getting uniforms for her, something she says will make her look more professional as she does her work. Cody’s fought the idea, but today, in this mess, she wonders if a uniform wouldn’t be a good idea. Something she could strip off and save her own clothes from contamination.
The bathroom is as bad as she’s expected. Whoever this guy is, he’s got lousy aim. Rubber gloves on. She’s going to ask for a raise. Not just a raise, pay. This bullshit about it being her unpaid job because it’s their living and she’s got to pull her weight has got to stop. Doesn’t she deserve at least some pay? Having her mother buy her whatever she needs isn’t even the same as getting an allowance; not to say getting actual pay for work. She ought to take it up with the Democrats. Never mind raising minimum wage, how about simply getting a wage? This is nothing better than slave labor.
Cody finishes up the bathroom. Nothing more interesting in there than toothpaste and a razor filled with hair. Done, she finally approaches the bed, half-expecting to find something really nasty. She pulls the coverlet off the storm-tossed bed, then yanks on the top sheet to pull it off. Something flies through the air, lands at her feet, its contents spilling out. Like she�
�s playing jacks, Cody scoops up the majority of the pills with one hand, then hunts around the beige carpet between the beds for any that may have gotten farther afield. There’s the vial. She reads the label. She’s got sixteen little tabs of diphenoxylate in her hand. She doesn’t exactly know what it is, but anything with the middle syllable of oxy has to be good.
“Cody.”
At the sound of Mingo’s voice, she nearly jumps out of her skin.
“You done yet?” He leans into the doorway.
She slips the pills into her pocket. “Not quite. This guy’s a slob.”
“’Kay. I’m done. Catch you later.”
She must have some kind of weird expression on her face, because he pauses, gives her a look, like he’s about to ask her something, then just walks away.
Cody drops the amber vial to the floor, kicks it so that it rolls beneath the edge of the coverlet on the other bed, the one not slept in. Like any cheap hotel bed, these are on platforms, with fake headboards nailed to the wall, no underbed. She runs the vacuum between the beds, back and forth, back and forth, sucking up every hair and fleck of lint. She does a really good job, and if these carpets had a deeper pile, she would be leaving a track, but they don’t.
This is a one-off. This will be the only time she provides what Black Molly is demanding. She’s told her that it’s just this once. Just to keep the Secret safe.
* * *
I am standing outside as Adam and Chance pull up into the parking lot, and I wonder if it looks like I’ve been waiting for him. Obviously, I haven’t been. Not exactly. If I’m looking more forward to his arrival than that of any other guest, it’s probably because it gives me something more pleasant to think about than the increasing truculence of my daughter. I look forward to a pleasant exchange, something more substantial than the monosyllabic conversation I have with my only family. A grown-up back-and-forth. Adam and I know each other well enough by this time to actually talk about more than the weather.