Reality Check

by Abrahams, Peter

  “Know of any motels?” Cody said. “Something…” What was the word people used when they meant cheap? Cody found it, kind of unusual for him. “Reasonable,” he said.

  “The Green Mountain Inn,” she said. “That’s about as reasonable as it gets in North Dover. Take Spring south, left on Governor, and it’s just past Big Len’s Sports Bar. Can’t miss it.”

  Cody went outside. It was much colder now, and windier too, with the snow falling at a sharp angle. He glanced up at the dark mountains rising over the town, then swept the snow off his car again, drove south on Spring, found Governor—blowing snow stuck on the street sign making it almost unreadable—and turned left.

  Governor Street wasn’t like the rest of North Dover. Cody passed a boarded-up gas station, a few run-down houses, a vacant lot. Then, on the other side of the street, came Big Len’s Sports Bar, dark and windowless, a picture of a longhaired guy with one of those bandit-style handlebar mustaches painted on the sign, and below it the words: “Happy Hour Noon to Six.” As Cody went by, the door opened and he glimpsed a football game on a big-screen TV—college football, Cody could tell even at that distance—but what caught his attention was the person coming out. This person, no longer dressed for an outing in the woods, now wore a long black coat and a scarf, but: Townes, beyond doubt. Townes was a senior, seventeen—eighteen at the most—and Cody was pretty sure about the drinking age being twenty-one in every state. But maybe Big Len’s Sports Bar had a separate alcohol-free area, or things were somehow different in Vermont, or—Cody couldn’t think of anything else. He pulled over to the curb and cut the lights.

  Townes leaned against the front of the bar, under an overhang, partly protected from the snow. He lit a cigarette—the end burned bright; he blew out a smoke cloud. At that moment a big black pickup drove out of an alley beside the bar. Townes ran to it, held up his hand, and the pickup stopped. The window slid down and Cody caught a glimpse of the driver—a long-haired man with a bandit-style handlebar mustache. Then Townes stepped in front of the driver’s-side door, his back blocking Cody’s view. Townes made arm gestures, frustrated gestures, possibly angry. He was still making them when the pickup sped off, window sliding up. Townes stood in the street for a few seconds, then moved onto the sidewalk and started walking in the direction that would take him back to campus. Cody made a quick decision, based on nothing coherent, pulled a quick U-turn, and followed the pickup.

  He kept what he thought was the right kind of inconspicuous distance, maybe ten car lengths. After a block or two the pickup turned left onto a side street; no signal. Cody took the same turn. The side street was poorly lit and rutted, the houses small with snow-covered junk in some of the front yards: It reminded him of the worst parts of Little Bend. The plow had been by, but had cleared only a single narrow lane right down the middle, and the snow was filling it in fast. Despite that, and the poor visibility, too, the pickup barreled ahead and Cody could hardly keep up. He leaned forward, concentrating so hard on keeping the car in that yellow-lit tunnel through the storm that he was only subconsciously aware of leaving North Dover, of dense forest on either side, of going up and up.

  The road wound into the mountains. Sometimes the pickup’s taillights would blink out, but Cody soon realized it just meant the pickup had rounded a bend. When he rounded the same bend, the double red glow would appear again, always having gained a little more distance on him. That sequence happened maybe six or seven times. Then the next time, it did not. Cody went around a bend, a ruined farmhouse standing close to the road, and saw, beyond the reach of his headlights, only blackness, no red at all.

  “Damn it.”

  He stepped on the gas—too hard, too sudden—and right away felt the rear end slide, fishtailing to the left. Cody knew to take his foot off the gas and steer into the direction of the skid—had even done it successfully once before, goofing around in a snowstorm, not this bad, the very first day he’d had his car, back in Little Bend—but this time it didn’t work. The rear end kept sliding, right around, completely out of control. Cody shouted something, he didn’t know what, and hit the brake even though that was the very worst thing to do. The car spun three or four times, sliding and sliding, back in the direction of the last bend, careening toward a big tree in front of the ruined farmhouse. Cody squeezed the wheel with all his strength. Then from down below came a shriek, the shriek of rubber on a bare road. The car stopped, just like that, shuddering a few feet from the tree. Cody sat there, still squeezing the wheel, still pressing on the brake. He was shuddering too.

  Had he hit a patch of bare pavement? Cody shifted to drive, engaged the emergency brake, turned off the engine, got out of the car. Yes, a bare patch, maybe caused by the big tree; the wind was blowing from that direction. He circled the car. It looked okay. He was okay. Blind luck. Cody looked around, saw no lights, red or any other color, heard nothing but the storm. He surrendered to the obvious: The pickup was gone. Cody got in the car and drove back to town.

  The Green Mountain Inn turned out to be an ordinary motel of the L-shaped kind, with parking spaces in front of every room, all empty. They had a special midweek rate, $49.95 a night. Cody paid cash for one night, was given the key to Room 11. That lifted his spirits a little—eleven was his number. How dumb could he be?

  Cody carried his stuff into Room 11; an ordinary room of the painted-cement-block-walls kind, not warm, and no thermostat he could find. A hot shower sounded nice. Cody kicked off his sneakers, sat for a moment on the bed, just for a breather. His feet were cold. He pulled them up, tucked them under the bedspread, lay down, only for a second or two.

  Cody had a dreaming thought: I’m going to be late for school. His eyes snapped open and he woke in the cold cement-block room, dim gray light wedging through venetian-blind slats, browned with age; woke and remembered where he was and why. He rose, walked toward the bathroom, couldn’t do that without remembering his knee. Then came other memories, none good, not the recent ones.

  But in the shower he saw his knee wasn’t too bad, just a little swollen, the surrounding muscles less feeble-looking. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Another Coach Huff favorite, especially during the hottest, most bug-infested two-a-days, except that he always mangled it, saying, What kills you makes you stronger. Or, more accurately, What kills you makes you stronger, ladies. Standing in the shower, the water not hot, just barely warm enough, Cody pretended to take a snap from center, turned, quick and precise, and handed off the imaginary ball to a phantom Jamal.

  He dried himself with a towel so thin it didn’t absorb water, more or less just brushed it off. The face in the mirror could go one more day without a shave, maybe two. Cody got dressed, at the same time switching on the TV, a tiny one. There was something wrong with the picture. He fiddled with the controls for a minute or so before realizing that this was a black-and-white TV, the first he’d ever seen. Cody found a news show from a station in Burlington: not a word about Clea.

  Cody packed up and turned in his key, thinking he’d try to find someplace cheaper—wasn’t there such a thing as rooms by the week? That thought, the implications of it, made him pause as he swept the snow off his car. Bad implications, for sure: He forced them from his mind and drove toward the center of town.

  Snow no longer fell, but the sky was gray, the wind strong. Cody headed back down Governor, toward the nice part of North Dover. Big Len’s Sports Bar appeared on his right, and he took a good daylit look: a brick—what was the word? facade?—painted black; a grated window, the glass so dirty he couldn’t see through; and that bandit picture, the colors bright and gaudy. Without much thought, Cody turned into the alley that the black pickup had driven out of the night before.

  It led him around to the back of the bar: Dumpster, a few aluminum kegs, the black pickup, and a skinny dog sniffing at a McDonald’s carton lying in the snow. Cody stopped behind the pickup, read the bumper sticker: THIS TRUCK PROTECTED BY SMITH & WESSON. His father had a small-frame Smith &
Wesson .38, kept it in a shoe box under his bed. Cody got out of the car, walked over to the pickup, peered into the back, saw not much: tire chains, an ax, a six-pack of Bud Light empties. He felt something against his leg, looked down; and there was the skinny dog, wagging its frayed little tail. “Hey, boy.” Cody gave the dog a pat. It wagged harder. Dogs were not permitted in the apartments over the Red Pony.

  As Cody got back in the car—the dog following him all the way—something made him glance up. There were three windows at the top story of the building. The man with the handlebar mustache was watching from the middle one. The painting on the sign out front made him look kind of amusing, like a cartoon character. He was different in real life.

  Cody found a frozen french fry on the car floor, tossed it to the dog, drove off. North Dover, all covered in snow, almost seemed like a different town from the one he’d first seen yesterday; even more beautiful, maybe, but the change disturbed him in some way he couldn’t put into words. He stopped at a convenience store at the corner of Governor and Spring, bought a premade egg salad sandwich and a large coffee, had breakfast in his car; radio on, no news of Clea. When he was done, he went back in, bought another egg salad sandwich, ate that, too, standing by the car. He had a good view of the mountains, all white now, except for that stony summit he’d seen yesterday from the hollow with the dwarfish trees. From here, down in the town, the stony summit seemed very far away.

  Cody drove through the Dover Academy gates, followed the road to the equestrian center. Ike, wearing a plaid hat with ear-muffs sticking straight out to the sides, was at the wheel of a Bobcat, plowing the parking lot. He glanced at Cody, showed no sign of recognition. A few cars sat in the freshly plowed part, none of them official. Cody parked near them and went into the barn.

  Except for the horses, standing quietly—although somehow their presence filled the barn, a physical sensation Cody felt—Mrs. McTeague was all alone. She sat at the desk between the two rows of stalls, packing papers in a cardboard box.

  “Cody, wasn’t it?” she said, looking up.

  “Yeah.” He noticed there were no doughnuts today; he’d been planning on taking a couple out on the trail.

  “Morning, Cody.”

  “Morning.”

  Mrs. McTeague smiled at him, her friendly face looking even friendlier. “Word is you’re looking for work,” she said. Cody was still trying to remember who he’d said that to when she went on: “You seem to be good with animals. Ever worked in a stable before?”

  “No,” Cody said.

  “Not to worry,” said Mrs. McTeague. “Experience isn’t essential—attitude always ends up being a hundred times more important. So what do you say?”

  Cody was confused. “About what?”

  Mrs. McTeague laughed. “Getting a little ahead of myself.

  We’re looking for someone to help out with the feeding, the walking, the mucking out. There’s really too much for one man, and Ike could use a break now and then. Good physical work, Cody, and not always clean, plus it only pays nine fifty an hour to start, but it comes with all the usual Dover Academy benefits, room included.”

  “Um, I, uh,” Cody began, then just blurted out the first thought that came to mind, completely irrelevant. “I thought you were in charge of the search.”

  “Only the volunteer coordinator,” said Mrs. McTeague. “I’m also assistant HR director for the school.”

  Cody took that in, felt no wiser. A job at Dover Academy? He hadn’t come here for a job. But supposing the search took a few more days, even a week, wouldn’t he need money, a place to stay? “Thanks, ma’am,” he said. “Very, uh, nice of you. If it’s okay, I’ll think it over while I’m out there.”

  “Out where?” said Mrs. McTeague.

  Cody gestured toward the woods outside. “With the search,” he said. “Where am I supposed to go today?”

  Mrs. McTeague gazed at him. Light, streaming down from a loft window, glared off the lenses of her glasses, obscuring her eyes. “You haven’t heard?” she said. “They’ve called it off.”

  FIFTEEN

  CODY’S FIRST RESPONSE wasn’t very logical. “You found her?” he said.

  The light still glared on Mrs. McTeague’s glasses, a pearly sheen that hid her eyes. “Oh dear me, no,” she said. “What with all this snow, it’s apparently not realistic to think of finding anything.”

  Cody didn’t get that at all. What difference did snow make if Clea was holed up in a cave, or some cranny in the rocks, as Sergeant Orton believed? Wasn’t that Sergeant Orton’s true belief? He tried to go over their last conversation, Cody standing in the cold beside the cruiser, the sergeant talking to him through the open window. All Cody remembered clearly was Sergeant Orton’s probing gaze. At that moment a realization struck him, abrupt and hard: Sergeant Orton didn’t believe Clea was holed up in some natural shelter—that wasn’t his true belief at all. They were no longer looking for a living person. That was why searching after the snowfall made no sense.

  Cody felt his face growing hot. They were wrong, pure and simple. “Does Mr. Stein know about this?” he said.

  “Mr. Stein?” Mrs. McTeague said, looking confused. “Yes, certainly—a school-wide email went out first thing this morning. Why do you ask?”

  Why did he ask? Because, goddamn it, Mr. Stein had said that Clea was resourceful; bright and resourceful, to quote. And not just that, but she was tough, too, strong and physical, unfazed by things that fazed other girls—and some boys—like taking that long leap at the Black Rocks quarry. Cody kept all that to himself—too complicated to explain, at least for him—and just shrugged.

  Mrs. McTeague reached for the mounted photo of Clea, the one with him missing from the right-hand side, and laid it face-down in the cardboard box. “So,” she said, “about that job?”

  Cody thought: I’m missing from the picture, and now Clea’s missing, period. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m interested.”

  “Wonderful,” said Mrs. McTeague. “Welcome aboard.” They shook hands; Mrs. McTeague’s hand was soft and warm her grip not strong at all. “If you’ll help me load these boxes in my car, I’ll show you the ropes.”

  Mrs. McTeague showed Cody the ropes. “Mostly,” she said, “you’ll just be assisting Ike.”

  “Means muckin’ out,” said Ike, following along behind them, a three-pronged rake his hand. Cody wasn’t afraid of mucking out; he’d done it before, helping Clea in Bud’s paddock at Cottonwood.

  Mrs. McTeague went over the chores: feeding and watering the horses, walking them, answering the phone, fire prevention, a few others he didn’t catch the first time around. “This is the tack room,” said Mrs. McTeague. “The competitive season is over now, but the riders still come to the barn three or four times a week to exercise the horses. They’re responsible for saddling their own mounts, so you don’t have to worry about that. Here’s a list of important numbers, starting with 911 of course, and the vet.” Cody scanned the list. Number three read Chef d’Equipe. Perhaps Mrs. McTeague saw him pause there, guessed his confusion. “That’s the coach,” she said. “But he won’t be around—he’s working with the Argentine Olympic team right now. Ike—why don’t you show Cody the living quarters?”

  “The little room up top?” said Ike.

  “That’s the one,” said Mrs. McTeague.

  “Le’s go,” Ike said.

  Cody followed him toward the door.

  “One more thing,” said Mrs. McTeague. “I’ll need your social security number.”

  Cody knew it by heart, rattled it off. This job, plus the place to stay, had come along at the exact right moment. He had no idea what he’d have done with the search called off. But no matter what—even without this stroke of luck, if that was the right term—how could he have called off his own personal search?

  “Never say it out loud,” Ike muttered as they went outside, maybe to himself. “Numbers kill.”

  Cody said nothing. Ike slowed down to let him draw even, bu
t then when he did, sped up again. He spoke over his shoulder. “Know how to shoe ’em?”

  “Horses?” said Cody.

  “They don’t shoe pigs, do they?”

  “No,” said Cody. “I don’t know how.”

  Ike made a little sucking noise between his teeth. He led Cody past the corral, around the back of the barn, toward a narrow plowed path Cody hadn’t noticed before. It cut through the woods, opened into a clearing, and there stood a small cabin, smoke rising from the chimney, straight up in the still air.

  “They like it,” Ike said.

  Cody took a guess. “Getting shod?” he said.

  “Course not,” said Ike. “How would you like it, gettin’ shoes nailed into your feet? What they like is wearin’ ’em, the shoes.” How did Ike know that? Cody kept the question inside, but Ike seemed to answer it anyway. “Just like us,” he said. “We’re wearin’ shoes. We’re animals.” Ike pointed to the front door. “That’s my door.” He walked around the side of the cabin, past a woodpile, stopped at a second door, much smaller. “This is your’n.” He took out a key and opened the door. “Don’t be forgettin’.”

  “I won’t.”

  Ike turned to him. Cody noticed he was missing a few teeth. “I’m talking about us bein’ animals, what not to forget,” he said. Ike stepped inside, entering a tiny, closet-size entrance hall with a steep staircase rising to the right. Cody followed him up. Ike opened another door at the top, this one unlocked, and gestured for Cody to go in. “Know how to use a woodstove?”

  “Yes.”

  “Easy on the wood. Room heats up quick.”

  Cody looked around. Not hard to see why: The place was tiny, with a narrow bed along one wall, a counter bearing a small square fridge and hot plate against the opposite wall, sink and toilet in one corner, woodstove in the other; hardly enough space left over for both of them to be inside at the same time. Frost coated the windows, and Cody could see his breath. A little wave of happiness took him by surprise: This was the first place he could call his own.