by Gae Polisner
“Well, what about a compass and a protractor?” I say, then laugh because I may be useless, but I’m funny.
“As a matter of fact, I’ll do you one better.” She digs inside her bag again then says, “Voilà!” and waves a small gray box at me.
“You did not!” I shove her affectionately. She’s got a GPS in her hand.
“And charger,” she says proudly, pulling out a black cord with her other hand. “It’s the Doofus’s. He’s got like fifty of these because one is not enough. He won’t even notice it’s gone.”
While Jaycee fiddles with the GPS, I page through the travel book so it seems like I’m doing something worthwhile. The truth is I have no idea what to do and no idea what I’m looking for. I can’t even believe I’m standing here in Rochester. I glance around for anything I can see that might be helpful, and that’s when I see it, across the main highway, rising from the center of a small cluster of office buildings. A big blue trapezoidal water tower. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but now I can’t take my eyes off it. I mean, any old water tower, sure. But a blue one that looks like an AT-AT Walker? It seems like a weird coincidence.
I don’t bother to say anything to Jaycee. I mean, how will that fact help us? She’ll just say something that makes me feel dumb. I keep scanning for something more useful.
To our left, the street sign reads East Broad Street, and behind me is Chestnut. In front of us, the large intersection reads Clinton Avenue. Across Clinton, a busy main road, is a gas station, a diner, a KFC, and a Dunkin’ Donuts, and beyond that, a Best Western hotel.
A hotel.
Now maybe I can help. I’m just about to point it out when she says, “Okay, how about we go to the hotel and get settled. Change and pee, and get ourselves something to eat.”
“How about there?” I blurt, pointing toward the Best Western. Jaycee looks, then busts out laughing.
“What?”
“We’re staying at the Sheraton on South Avenue, Nick. Don’t you think I already made us reservations?” She turns the GPS to me and shows me a map with a thick blue line illustrating our route from where we stand to a red star marking the Sheraton Four Points Hotel. Right to the door, practically. I nod, embarrassed for a change.
“It’s not that close, but we can still walk it, I think,” she says, nudging me to move.
As we walk, I wonder how she knew how to do all this stuff, bring the right things, and book us at that hotel.
“The Doofus stays there on business,” she says, doing that crazy mind-reading thing. “There’s a News 10 affiliate station downtown. And he’s got an expense account,” she adds, “which made it easy. I just registered online, got a printed copy. All I have to do is flash the confirmation. They won’t even know I’m not with him.”
“Because I look just like J.P.,” I say sarcastically.
“Thank God, no.” She laughs. “Don’t worry, you’ll stay back. They won’t find out, believe me.” She moves her backpack to her other shoulder and pulls me next to her and starts to walk again. “Trust me, Lennie. I’ve got it all under control.”
We crisscross the streets of Rochester, the GPS lady talking to us in a British accent from inside Jaycee’s front pocket. It amazes me how comfortable Jaycee is, as if she knows the place—like she’s grown up here. I feel like a dope as I stumble along beside her.
“You know, it’s no big deal, Nick, really,” she says, smiling at me. “You grow up in Manhattan, and nothing really intimidates you anymore. Especially with no parents. Or at least no dad for real, and no mom, effectively.”
“What do you mean?” The few times I’ve met her mom she’s seemed nice enough, even if she looks a little country club.
“I told you,” Jaycee says, “she’s a total social butterfly. Always has been. She’d rather play tennis or go out to dinner than sit around doing homework with her kid. Trust me. I rode a city bus to school alone by the time I was eight years old. Maybe seven.”
“It can’t be that bad,” I say, trying to keep pace with her. “I saw her make spaghetti and meatballs.”
“Aberration,” she says. “Put it this way. Yesterday, when I told her I was sleeping at a girlfriend’s this weekend, she didn’t even ask which one. Even though I left on a Thursday. As long as it was a female, she was okay. Having nothing to do with the fact that she has some big news gala with the Doofus this weekend and probably needs to shop for new dresses.”
She tries to sound light about it, but I feel a little bad for her. I mean, at least my mom cares where I’m going. She knows Ryan pretty well; she wouldn’t let me go off just anywhere. And she’d be pissed if she knew that I lied. I take a few large strides to catch up with her again, so that we’re walking shoulder to shoulder. This close, in the crisp, fresh air, I can smell the shampoo in her hair.
“That’s better,” she says, slinging her arm over my shoulder like we’re best buds.
“Man, Jaycee,” I say, trying not to pay too much attention to her arm around me, “you seriously thought of everything. You did a really good job with the plans.” I’m being sincere. She may think it’s easy, but it totally impresses me.
She stops and turns to me, her eyes a crazy cool blue in the bright sun. “Who cares, Nick?” she says. “You can never count on them anyway.”
“Count on what?”
“On plans. I’m just saying. So you might as well not work too hard to make them, because you really can’t count on them at all.”
“Oh,” I say, sounding as confused as I am. “Why?”
She shrugs and starts to walk again.
“I don’t know. Ask Steinbeck. It’s from the book.” She pulls the GPS out and glances at it, then shoves it back in her pocket. “Well, from the poem that the book is named after, really. ‘To a Mouse,’ by Robert Burns, 1785.”
I nod like I get it, but I don’t, which, apparently, she senses.
“Of Mice and Men,” she cues me. “You know, ‘… the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry’? That’s why the book is called that, by the way. You asked before, so I’m telling you. That line is from a poem. It really just means that plans fail. They get messed up. ‘Go oft awry.’ It’s a line from the Burns poem. Well sort of, but not exactly. Actually, the translation to English is ‘the best laid plans go oft awry,’ but that’s not what the real poem says.”
I nod again, doing my best to follow.
“The real poem is Scottish,” she clarifies. “But anyway, the point is, it just means that even carefully made plans get messed up.” She glances at me.
“I get it,” I say.
She busts out laughing. “No you don’t,” she says.
I’m about to argue, but she stops and tips my chin up to look in front of us. We’re standing across the street from the Sheraton Four Points Hotel.
“Come on, Lennie, we’re here,” she says, pulling me toward the entrance.
* * *
Inside, the hotel is pretty fancy. Jaycee directs me to the back of the lobby near the elevators, then checks us in without a hitch. Like she’s a hotel pro or something.
“Get the look off your face,” she says, waving the room key proudly in the air. “I told you it’d be easy. I just said I was his daughter and that the Doofus was parking the car.”
She hands me the plastic card that you swipe in the slot in the door. It makes me think of Mom because, when we travel, she always says how she misses the real keys. The metal kind they used to have, big brass things with weight that felt good in your hand. Mom says everything is plastic now, and sighs when she says it, as if she’s a hundred years old. Still, the key makes me think of her and miss her a little, and wonder about my dad.
As we ride the elevator to the sixth floor, I look at the key and panic and maybe my face goes white or something, because Jaycee holds up a second plastic card and laughs. “No worries, goofball, I told you I’d get us separate rooms.”
The elevator opens, and I follow her down the hall. She stops at room 619
and swipes the card and walks in. I stand in the hall waiting as the door closes behind her. She immediately opens it again.
“Oh, not separate, exactly.” She nods at the door right next to it. “They’re adjoining. That’s yours. But you can come through here.” She pulls me inside, then faces me to a door between the rooms, held open by a rubber doorstop. “See, it opens and closes and locks and everything, but we’re connected like twins in the middle.”
I roll my eyes at her sarcasm, but my heart races and I start to sweat a bit. I mean, it’s weird enough to walk into a hotel room without my family to begin with. I feel like an imposter, or like I’m on some secret mission, which now that I think about it, I guess, sort of, I am. But still. To be in a hotel room with Jaycee?
Jaycee laughs, nudges me into my side, then steps exaggeratedly back into hers and closes the door. She knocks. I open the door, and she busts out laughing.
“Oh brother,” I say.
“Okay, seriously, I’m going to freshen up,” she says when she’s done being hilarious, then closes the door again.
I stand there for a few seconds, then sit on the end of my bed, toss my backpack down, and close my eyes and think.
Now what? I mean, what on earth am I doing here?
I turn on the television and find some local news. They’re going on about the teams in the World Series, about how the series is being played so late in the year. I’m not a huge baseball fan so I don’t really care that much. Plus, it occurs to me that if I watch long enough Jaycee’s stepdad could appear on the screen, which would totally weird me out.
I leave the TV and head into the bathroom. It’s sparkling clean and bright. There’s a marble counter and fluffy towels and those tiny bottles of shampoo that Mom is always oohing at and taking home in her bag. Like what’s so great about a little bottle of shampoo?
I take a leak and stare at myself in the mirror for the second time today, trying to get a grip on the things that have happened so far:
1. My dad has left. According to Jeremy, this is for good, but Jeremy is an idiot and I don’t know who would listen to him in the first place.
2. Scooter is dead. This seems impossible even though I knew it was going to happen. The Scoot has been my next-door neighbor for as long as I can remember, and pretty much my best friend. Scooter is dead. Scooter is dead. I say it two more times in my head to see if I can get it to settle.
3. MaeLynn is selling the house and leaving, so even she won’t be there anymore. She’s been the one person that always makes Dad laugh.
4. I am in a hotel in Rochester with Jaycee Amato and think I may want to kiss her. And I think that she may want me to. No one knows I am here, and Mom would probably kill me if she did.
5. We’ve promised to find Scooter’s dad and deliver a fifteen-thousand-dollar book, and I sure as hell hope that we can.
I turn off the lights, head back into the room, and knock softly on the door to Jaycee’s side. No answer. Maybe she’s in the bathroom.
I go back and sit, stare at the TV and wait. A few minutes later, I tap on her door again.
No answer.
I turn the knob. It’s unlocked. So I open it a crack and peer in.
Jaycee is straight ahead, face-planted down on her bed.
I shake my head at the sight of her. The girl is totally nuts. She’s all hurry up and go, then sound asleep on the job. I guess she must be exhausted. But I’m waking her anyway, because after all, this was her dumb idea. She’s the one who insisted. She’s the one who came up with this ridiculous plan.
I stand at the door for another minute watching her sleep, then push it open and walk in. She’s definitely asleep, breathing heavy, her long black pigtails flat on her pillow over her head like donkey ears.
Her cell phone is on the nightstand. Next to her, her backpack is spilled open, its contents spread out on the bed:
• The Rochester travel book with Post-it notes;
• Scooter’s copy of Of Mice and Men;
• A jar of peanut butter and plastic knife;
• A pair of green Marshall J. Freeman sweatpants, a few T-shirts, and some unmentionables poking out;
• The GPS and a bunch of chargers;
• More troll doll necklaces, neon-pink, rainbow, and blue hair;
• Four Slinkys. Two metal (one original silver and one fancy gold), and two plastic ones (both rainbow-colored); and
• A yo-yo and a few colored elastic bands for her hair.
The girl sure knows how to pack.
I decide she’s asleep for a while, go back to my room and find a pad and pen. I write a note that says, “Going exploring. Maybe I’ll find some clue. Text me when you wake up.” I put it on her nightstand then head out into the hotel to see what I can find.
Downstairs, the lobby is quiet. Beyond the lobby there’s a gift shop and a small sports bar / restaurant. As I walk past it, the smell of French fries makes my stomach rumble. I have a few bucks in my pocket and think about getting some, but then figure I should wait for Jaycee.
I wander down a long corridor past a large meeting room, then a gym, and an indoor pool. The smell of chlorine is strong. I half wish I’d thought to bring swim trunks with me. Next to the pool is a lame sort of game room, with a beat-up billiard table, a Ping-Pong table, and some older video games. There’s also a vending machine, which is a godsend. I put a dollar in and press L9 and a Rice Krispies treat plunks out. I put a few more dollars in the change machine and get myself a bunch of quarters. I play two games of Need for Speed, then head back through the lobby.
Near the elevators, I pass a row of pay phones and find a Rochester White Pages in one of the cubbyholes. I flip to the R’s and search for Reyland, but the only one listed is the same old A. Reyland on First Street. I flip to the front cover—it’s current—then back to the R’s. Not a single other Reyland. I mean, didn’t Jaycee say he grew up here? He must have family, so where are they? Have they all just disappeared? Are there really no other Reylands in Rochester? For some reason, all those R’s sound funny in my head, and a Dr. Seuss sort of rhyme starts to form as I head back to our rooms.
Are the Reylands really rare?
If I find them will they care?
Do they wear their underwear?
In Rochester.
I think it’s pretty good, so I decide I’ll have to share it with Jaycee. Plus, she’ll improve it when she hears it, I’m sure.
Back in my room I put my backpack down, then tap softly on the door between us. No answer.
Crap.
I push the door open again and peek in. Jaycee’s not in the bed anymore.
I call her name. She answers from the bathroom, says she’s not really feeling too well. I go back to my side and sit on the bed. Suddenly, I’m anxious for home.
I walk back into her room and tap on the bathroom door.
“Hey, you want me to get you something?”
“Some ginger ale?” she calls back. “If you can find any.”
I walk to the end of the hall toward the elevators, to look for the sign to the ice machine. I figure there’ll be a soda vending machine there as well.
As a kid, I loved the hotel ice machines and was always fighting with Jeremy over whose turn it was to fill the bucket. “Dump it!” Dad would say. “For Christ’s sake, it’s free! Just dump it and take turns.” I can remember the exact feeling of trekking down the hotel corridor in my pajamas, alone late at night, my parents’ door wedged slightly open with Dad’s shoe. I guess it was one of those first sharp steps toward independence.
I find the ice machine, and I’m right because there’s a soda machine across from it. I dig in my pocket for some quarters then scan down the glass window. Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Tropicana Orange Juice, Grape Hi-C, and three different slots with bottled waters, but no ginger ale. I’m about to pick Sprite when I see it there. I don’t know how I missed it the first time. Second from the bottom in the corner. A Cherry RC Cola.
I mean
, who can resist? I buy two and a Sprite and head back to the room.
Jaycee is back on the bed again, this time faceup, her head propped on her pillow, her hood up over her head. She doesn’t look so great.
“No ginger ale,” I say, holding a can out toward her. “Cherry cola or Sprite?” She points to the Sprite, pops the lid, and drinks. “You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, a little queasy. Maybe I need to eat something. I’m probably just tired. But we should get going already.” She grabs her cell phone and turns it to face me like I can possibly see it from here. “It’s already after one,” she says.
“Hey, I’ve been ready since we got here. And where are we going anyway? I mean, do you actually have any idea?”
“Yeah, I figure we’ll start stalking some Reylands.” She leans over and pulls open the nightstand drawers. “Maybe I can find a phone book…”
“Don’t bother,” I say. “I tried that already. White Pages in the lobby, but no one other than our infamous A. But we knew that already, Jaycee. It’s not like we haven’t been looking. I know you were expecting some miracle when we got here.”
“Really?” she asks, deflated. “I guess you’re right. But we’ll find him. I’m sure we’ll find him here.”
She stands and starts gathering her stuff into her bag. I toss the two cherry colas in the minibar. When I walk back to the bed she hands the Steinbeck book to me, like I should hold on to it instead of her.
“It’s just so weird, Nick,” she says, looking at me with those eyes. “How can he not be anywhere?”
“Don’t know. The dude’s a ghost,” I say.
12
We grab sandwiches at a deli, then Jaycee turns on the GPS and we start our trek toward First Street. We don’t really know anything about the Reylands that supposedly live there. If they still do, that is. Like, whether they’re even related to Guy Reyland or the Scoot. But it’s the only lead we have, so we follow it. We turn right off of South Avenue and left on East Broad Street, then head southeast toward downtown Rochester.