Listen to Me

by Hannah Pittard

  He was standing in the lobby of the sixth hotel he’d walked into since Maggie had passed out in the passenger seat. Not a vacancy at a single one of them.

  The man behind the counter said nothing. He was a kid really, not a man, though his hairline was already receding.

  They were both sweating.

  “Listen,” said Mark. The kid looked hopelessly inbred, which probably accounted for his hairline. Bad genes. Bad genes combined with more bad genes. “I get that I seem like a dick right now.”

  “Can you mind your language?” the kid said. He looked back and forth like it was study hall and any second they’d get caught. “There are children here.” He gestured down the hallway, at the end of which was a large glass wall, fogged and dirty and behind which was an indoor pool. Mark could hear the splashes of water, the cackling of children and adults.

  “Shouldn’t the pool be closed?” Mark said. “Aren’t there hours for things like that?” He didn’t mean it as an accusation. He was curious, that was all. But given how the last few minutes had been going, Mark could handily see how his questions might be misinterpreted as aggressive, especially by an inbred.

  The clerk sighed. He was growing weary of Mark’s presence. “We don’t have the a/c back yet.” He shook his head and let his arms fall to his sides. “The generators give us light and electricity for fans and toasters, but we don’t have the a/c.”

  Fans and toasters. Mark nodded. “And you also don’t have rooms even though the sign outside says you do?”

  “Sir, like I said—” But the clerk was interrupted by the abrupt appearance at Mark’s side of a small wet child, naked but for an inner tube.

  “Mama says to come right now,” the child said.

  There was no greeting, no salutation, no apology, no Excuse me or May I step in for a moment? The inner tube squeaked against the child’s skin, which glistened under the fluorescents.

  “Mama says it’s important there’s something wrong with the pool and can you come now.”

  Maggie would have been able to say for certain how old the child was, but Mark was at a loss. Anything old enough to speak full sentences should probably not have been naked in public. And yet here this child was. Mark put his hands in his pockets. He felt vaguely culpable—like after a dream in which he’d perhaps cheated on Maggie with a faceless woman or, being completely honest, a woman with Elizabeth’s face. A crime. But not a crime.

  “Mama says right now okay that’s what Mama says.”

  The clerk sighed again. Between Mark and the naked child, there was no clear winner, but the child was a guest and Mark was not, and that seemed to settle things.

  “Sir,” said the clerk, but moving toward the child, already sidling away from Mark and in the direction of the pool. “I’m sorry about the Vacancy sign. I’m sorry you were confused. The generator is picking and choosing tonight. You’re not the first. If it makes any difference. We’ve been disappointing people all night.”

  The child was already running across the carpet, leading the way for the clerk. Unwittingly, Mark observed the boy’s heels, on the backs of which were loose and blackened bandages. As the boy trotted, they flapped against his skin.

  Mark slumped forward onto the counter so that his face was immediately in front of a small portable fan. He had nothing to show for his effort and no one to berate or blame for the lack of available rooms. He thought of Maggie and Gerome. He hoped they were both still asleep. He’d wanted to return valiant. He’d wanted to do right by them both—return to the car with a key in his hand, wake Maggie with a kiss to the forehead, which would fill her with feelings of kindness and warmth, which, in turn, even from the backseat, Gerome would sense and—inexplicably to the dog—cause him to feel a sudden rush of affection and wonderful subservience for his male master.

  Without raising his head, Mark looked at his watch. It was almost one in the morning and he was spent. Perhaps he could move the car from the lower lot to the upper one, where they’d at least be under the light of the hotel and its generator. He could leave the car running, blast the a/c until the sun came up. He only needed a few hours of rest.

  He closed his eyes and let the fan blow into his face.

  “Fuck,” he said. “Double fuck.”

  “Sir?”

  It was the clerk again, who’d returned without the child.

  “Sorry,” said Mark. He stood and moved the fan away, as though returning the breeze he’d only temporarily borrowed. “Really, I am. I didn’t mean—We’re just beat, that’s all. Dead beat.”

  The kid appeared not to have heard him. He was acting twitchy, nervous even. Perhaps one of the hotel’s paying customers had left a turd in the deep end. Perhaps the clerk was worried it would fall on him to retrieve the thing.

  Mark turned to leave. But the kid put a hand on his.

  “I know a place,” he said.

  Mark looked down at the narrow fingers on top of his own. They were speckled with eczema.

  The kid was whispering, and he’d leaned in toward the counter and toward Mark so that now the portable fan blew the blond wisps of what was left of the kid’s hair up and away from his scalp. Caterpillar scabs inched across the hairline.

  “What I mean is, I can’t recommend other hotels. It being policy and all. But my brother-in-law’s got a place up in Black Crows Hill, and I know for a fact they still had rooms an hour ago. Lots of ’em.”

  Mark hadn’t heard of Black Crows Hill before, which meant it couldn’t be on 64. But perhaps it was close. A little townlet just a few miles from the interstate.

  “Could you give me directions?” Already Mark could feel himself the hero. His fantasy wasn’t an impossibility after all. He pictured himself walking back to the car, starting the ignition in such a way as to not wake Maggie, and delivering them to a mountainside gem with a generator and running water and clean cool sheets.

  “Policy says . . .” the clerk trailed off.

  “Please,” said Mark. He knew he sounded frantic. Then, thinking perhaps of the wet child or the unsavory feel of the clerk’s hand on his or the idea of inbreeding and incest in general or maybe simply because he missed Maggie at that moment, missed her savagely and needed to invoke her presence, the idea of her presence, needed to confirm her mere existence in his life, Mark said, out of nowhere, “My wife—my wife and I both—we really appreciate anything more you can tell me. The name”—he was whispering now, hoping to show his respect for the policy—“just give me the name, and I’ll find it on my own.” He held the clerk’s gaze. “Please.”

  For a moment, the clerk just stood there, a possible mute. Mark thought he could hear the ticking of a wall clock from somewhere behind the desk, but the ticking was too lazy, too irregular to be marking time precisely.

  Slowly, the boy raised a hand to his mouth, as if to stifle a yawn. The ticking continued. Then, nearly inaudibly, the hand still covering his mouth, he said, “Holiday Inn.”

  “Holiday Inn?” said Mark. He stood up straighter. There was no way there was a major hotel that wasn’t already filled to capacity. The storm—though it had essentially quieted down—had left a bona fide, governor-declared disaster zone in its wake. Just as his parents had predicted it would.

  “No,” said the clerk, nearly hissing now. “Holidays Inn.”

  “With an s?” said Mark.

  “With an s,” he said. “Like lots of holidays.”

  Mark nodded. Of course. Lots of holidays. Every holiday. It was perfect. Simply perfect. He nearly shrieked with laughter. A mongoloid hotel with a mongoloid name in a mongoloid town. Maggie would die. She would just die.

  Mark didn’t even say thank you. Didn’t even need to. The clerk was already on his way back to the pool.

  Their automobile was gone.

  This wasn’t possible.

  Mark was standing next to the streetlamp beneath which he’d earlier parked the car, the car in which Maggie and Gerome had been sleeping. And, here—right here—ju
st where he was standing now, was the very same Wagoneer he’d parked next to. Here were its long dented doors and backyard paint job. He recalled like it was still happening the decision to park next to the Wagoneer despite its ratty appearance because it was the middle of the night and its owners were probably already in bed, probably fast asleep, but more importantly because it was a spot beneath a streetlight. Though the streetlight hadn’t been illuminated, he remembered thinking, In case the power comes back. In case. If Maggie wakes, there will be light. Here the Wagoneer was and here Mark was, but the spot in which their car had been was empty.

  He checked his front pocket. The keys to the car were still there. Next he reached for his phone but—fuck—he’d left it in the car. He put his hands on his head; he was about to start thinking all the worst thoughts. He was about to take a page from Maggie’s book and let his imagination run wild, but just then a car across the lot turned its headlights on. Mark put a hand to his eyes. The car’s brights flashed—on then off then on again.

  It was their car.

  It was Maggie.

  He trotted across the lot, still using his hand to shield his eyes from the high beams.

  She was in the driver’s seat, laughing.

  “What the fuck, Maggie?” he said. “Jesus Christ. I thought—I don’t know what I thought.”

  She rolled down the window and looked up at him, completely unconcerned. “I used the spare,” she said. “Thank god I remembered it. Gerome nearly had a stroke.”

  Mark looked in the back at Gerome who, though lying down, was awake and alert to—if not completely interested in—the action around him.

  “The GPS is broken,” said Maggie. She knocked on the screen at the center of the dash. “Or not working. Or something.” She knocked a few more times. “Worthless.”

  “What were you thinking?” said Mark. He was still standing at the driver’s-side window, still looking in at his wife. “Were you trying to be funny? Moving the car?” He could feel himself getting angry. Or, rather, he felt the right to be angry, to get angry, if necessary.

  “The question is what were you thinking?” she said. “You left us in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere.”

  “We’re not in the middle of nowhere.”

  “With the doors unlocked.”

  “With the doors un—” Mark stopped himself. He couldn’t believe it. After everything he’d been trying to do for her. While she was comfortably asleep. After the six hotels and the imbecilic desk clerks, after all that, she wasn’t even a little bit thankful? She wasn’t grateful? Why was he surprised? She was exactly as she’d been for the past three weeks: scared. And scared, he was realizing now, perhaps for the very first time, of everything. That was it. He was finally starting to see. It wasn’t just nighttime; it wasn’t just the man in the alley and the man in the college girl’s apartment. She hadn’t simply turned scared of the dark. She’d turned scared of life.

  “But Gerome is here,” he said at last. “You were completely safe, Maggie. You must see that?” He felt on the brink of despair; felt very close to losing respect for his wife forever. Please, he thought. Please don’t be as nuts as I think you might actually be. He was lonely in an adolescent way, like he was the last one on the playground, his mother not yet arrived and even the janitor gone for the night. He felt helpless and, god, he felt utterly alone.

  Maggie stuck her arm out the window and took his hand. Was she reading his mind?

  “Yes,” she said. “I do see that. I do, which is why I thought I’d have a bit of fun. Come here.” She pulled at his hand, and he bent down to the window. “Kiss me.”

  He kissed her—nothing dramatic or drawn out, but a real kiss, lip against lip. They both smelled of salt and sweat.

  “At first,” she said, while he was still bent low, still close to her face. “At first I was mad. Then I was scared. Then I was embarrassed for being scared. Then I remembered the key. Then I realized that all of it—my moodiness—was because I was so bloody hot, and then Gerome and I thought it would be funny to move the car—he peed, by the way—and then we called your mom.”

  Mark stood up. Gerome peed? He looked around the lot. But that would mean that Maggie had walked him. Alone. In the dark. In the middle, as she’d said herself, of nowhere. He had a strong desire to congratulate her, to thank her for being so normal, but he worried that to acknowledge it, to point directly at the thing he was so happy for, might make it retreat, might send it scurrying—a newly frightened kitten—under the belly of the car for good.

  “You called Gwen?”

  “We woke her up.”

  He looked at his watch. One a.m. exactly. “I would think so,” he said. “Yes.”

  Overhead, there was a large crack of thunder. Mark ducked, then straightened and appraised the night sky. A waning crescent was very briefly visible but a wind was moving fast and soon, while he stood there watching in fact, the moon was lost to cloud cover. He held his hand out, palm up. No rain. Not yet.

  “Get in the car,” said Maggie. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “I’ll drive,” he said. He opened Maggie’s door and held out his hand; she took it. Gerome watched as Mark patted her on the butt and pushed her around to the passenger’s side.

  When they were both in the car, Maggie hit the lock button. “Just for fun,” she said, poking Mark’s knee. “But look.” She held up her phone. “I can’t get Internet, but I can access the map from the last time it loaded and we can see just enough of the county to get us where we’re going.”

  Now there was lightning over the hotel—a majestic tree branch illuminating the building and its upper packed parking lot.

  “It’s not done after all,” Maggie said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The storm,” she said. “There are about four different systems that Gwen says we’ll be darting in and out of.”

  And now there was thunder and lightning together, and the interior of the car was lit up momentarily. Mark’s hands glowed purple and ghostly on the steering wheel.

  Maggie turned to the backseat. Gerome hadn’t moved. “He’s being so good,” she said. “Because you’re back now.”

  “But what were you talking about before?” said Mark. “Where are we going? What do you mean?”

  “Gwen got online and found a place.”

  “With rooms?”

  “She booked it and everything.”

  Mark was confused. All this time he’d been inside that dump trying, and halfway succeeding, to find them a refuge, and meanwhile Maggie—the woman he’d been so quick to call a loser, the woman he’d thought had forgotten how to function on her own—had been outside making it happen. Yes, sure, with the help of his mother, but still. He put his hands on Maggie’s face.

  “Woman,” he said. He wanted to press into her skin until she could feel his relief in her cheekbones.

  Only three days ago Elizabeth had ended her e-mail with a question: “So what is she, the love of your life?” It was the first time the circumstance of his marriage had ever been mentioned in writing, and he’d deleted it without writing back, troubled that he’d allowed his wife to become fodder for a younger woman’s flirtation. He’d been frightened by the question, frightened by his own hesitancy. And yet, just now, his hands on either side of Maggie’s face, Mark felt confident that it was within his grasp to give up this minor obsession. Elizabeth was nothing. He’d always known. But now he felt supremely and safely sure.

  “Man,” Maggie said.

  She seemed not to mind that he was pressing so hard. He pressed harder still.

  “My woman,” he said.

  “My man,” she said, and now she smiled, and—god!—that smile, that wonderful gap between her teeth. It gave him the same high happiness he’d felt early on in their courtship when a grin or a giggle from Maggie could turn him kingly and strong.

  “I don’t know if it’s dog-friendly,” she said, shaking her face free of his hands fi
nally. “But I doubt they’ll be too particular. Gwen tried calling. No one’s answering but that’s hardly a surprise. Still, that they have Internet and that we could book must be a good sign. They’ll have a generator at the very least.”

  Mark kissed her on the forehead and turned up the a/c. He gestured toward the map on the phone. “You’ll be my guide?”

  And now the rain did start, the slightest sweetest bit of water hitting the windshield and trickling slowly down the glass in Tourettic lines.

  “Seat belt,” Maggie said. She pinched his shirt where it covered a nipple.

  He did as instructed. He liked that she could still be bossy, even in a cute, unimposing way, even about such a frivolous thing. It reminded him of Elizabeth, which was something he’d have to stop letting himself do: be reminded so easily of Elizabeth.

  “You’ll never guess what the place is called,” she said. “Never in a million years. Gwen and I had quite a laugh.”

  Mark put the car in gear and—only after Maggie had indicated the way—steered them toward the exit.

  “Holidays Inn?” Mark said. “With an s?”

  Maggie slapped her knee. “Yes!”

  “Like lots of holidays?” he said.

  “How did you know?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me,” said Mark.

  Now Maggie pointed at the entrance to the interstate. “Take a right here. We get back on, but only for twenty or so miles. Then it’s all boonies and backwoods for this car.”

  Mark took the turn.

  “I just about died when Gwen told me the name,” Maggie said, and for the first time all day—for the first time maybe all year and certainly in the past three weeks—Mark felt that the two of them were in exactly the same place, at exactly the same moment, experiencing everything in exactly the same way.

  15

  And now a pause. A breath. A moment away. Leave the car. Just open the door and step out. Stretch if you must. Stand on the tips of your toes, bend your knees, jump skyward, toward the moon—the little that’s illuminated. Don’t worry about your skin. You have no skin here. This is only the imagination—its senses—that’s taking this flight. Move higher, higher, until you have attained the perfect perspective, the better perspective. Move higher still and look. Look down. Can you see it? Can you see the automobile? Follow the spray of light. It’s moving eastward, through the mountains. It moves swiftly, quietly.