by J D Ventura
As she descended the long, winding slope, it occurred to her she had no earthly idea what she was going to do and that gave her such pause, she pulled over to the side of the road, maneuvering the SUV into a field of tall grass. From her vantage point she could just make out the guards faces through the reeds and bramble. They were laughing and patting each other occasionally on the shoulders. Oh, yuck it up, assholes. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size? She couldn’t say that to them. Could she? Maybe after a Xanax and a half a bottle of wine, but now, in the stark, sober light of day? Her first cold-turkey day was not going as planned.
It appeared from the same tall grass she had driven into, a couple of hundred feet closer to the security office. It was black and moving slowly across the road, even-paced, almost cautious. The two guards emerged from the building. The taller guard held his hand out, as if offering a treat of some sort to the animal. Not altering its speed, or wagging its tail, it came over to the man, who reached out and touched the dog’s head. The canine instantly collapsed. The shorter man went into the building and reemerged with a large green plastic bag with a handle on top, the kind that reminded Claire of bowling ball cases, only much larger and longer. The more muscular of the two men picked up the prone dog and matter-of-factly dumped it into the bag.
Claire’s hands were shaking now. Am I losing my mind? Did I just see what I think I saw? What in the hell is happening right now? She certainly had every right to lose her mind. Where to begin? Her husband was losing his, for starters. For real. She was convinced that, mentis competens or not, some screwed up shit was going down: the night Sam thought they were being followed, the deleted files, him being called back to Washington after being fired. “Claire, it is your husband, Sam.”
And now there were these kids and the goddamn dog these mall cops just threw into a plastic bag like a case of empty Bud Light cans. She thought about calling Stephanie, then thought better of it. Fuck it, I’m calling the goddamn police. Yes! Call the police, Claire. NOW!
With trembling fingers, she pulled the iPhone off her arm and pried it from its plastic sleeve. She dialed 911, not taking her eyes off the guard shack window, behind which the two men were smoking and drinking coffee. The line was ringing. Once, twice, three times. One of the men in the shack put down his coffee mug and lifted a phone receiver to his ear. “Wirt County Sheriff’s Department, what’s your emergency?”
Claire hung up the phone and threw the SUV into reverse and made a U-turn, flooring the accelerator. She got the car to 90 miles per hour before she was satisfied she wasn’t being followed.
She didn’t need to call Stephanie. Or Sam. Or Jessica. No, as Claire drove into Grover, all she needed was a drink. Plain and simple. And, as if God had finally cut her a break, she came upon a low building covered with weathered red barn board, surrounded by a rotted-out front porch adorned with rusted metal wagon wheels. An unlit neon sign proclaimed the establishment “The Broken Spoke.” There was only one other car out front and she parked in front of it. She walked up to the glass front door, which was covered with old newspapers and duct tape, and yanked it open, feeling more determined than she had felt in months.
The interior of the bar was so dark, for a second she thought the building may have been abandoned. But as her eyes adjusted, she noticed a row of mismatched bar stools. A pair of bone white deer antlers rested atop an arch of worn pine framing the bar’s offerings. A shaft of sunlight reflected off the bottles. Through the shifting glare, Claire made out the silhouette of the bartender and, as the door shut loudly behind her, the establishment’s only other patron. A woman.
The bartender, a smallish bald man with red eyebrows and a white beard, dealt her a cocktail napkin. As Claire slid onto the bar stool two down from the woman, the barkeep asked, “Whatcha havin’?”
“Whisky. Straight,” she said. You need to get tested, Claire. Oh, and fuck you if you are actually pregnant. Off to a good start, mommy.
He reached for a bottle and poured her a glass. He looked over her shoulders toward the door. “They with you?” he asked.
She turned to see Beth and Carl Plaskett walking up to the bar behind her. She hadn’t even heard them come in.
“Okay, this is too weird,” said Beth, wearing a leather jacket and dark blue jeans. “I swear we’re not following you!” Carl acknowledged her with a mere nod.
“You know what’s funny?” Claire asked, hoping they detected in her tone her sincere hope they would leave her alone and not ask to sit with her, “I have seen you twice outside of the Village, but never once there. In fact, I have never seen another moving vehicle there that I haven’t been riding in. Isn’t that nuts?”
Much to her relief, the Plasketts’ expressions revealed a shared disinterest in small talk and Carl held two fingers up to the bartender and pointed at Claire’s drink. He soon had two tumblers of whisky in hand and retreated to a two-top in the darkest corner of the bar, behind a tarp-covered pool table and an unplugged jukebox.
“Well, it’s nice seeing you Claire,” Beth said, ignoring the question. “Carl takes his whiskey seriously. Can’t keep him out of this place.” She gave Claire a slight pat on her right shoulder as she walked to the other side of the room to join her husband.
The woman Claire had noticed when she’d walked in was two stools down from her. After a closer look, Claire guessed she was in her early fifties. If she was any younger, by the looks of her, there had been many years of hard living. She was wearing an age-inappropriate juniors halter top. Hot pink. Her bare and considerable stomach muffin-topped over the waist of her faded jean skirt, which was the same color as her liberally-applied eye shadow. She removed a damp hand from her margarita glass, wiped it on her turquoise and rhinestone-studded white leather belt, and held it out for Claire to shake. Her other hand held a lit cigarette, which she pulled way back behind her hair-sprayed head in a polite, if futile, effort to keep her smoke from enveloping Claire.
“Sharon,” she said, grabbing Claire’s hand. “You visiting town? Someone die?”
“Die?”
Sharon pointed out of the bar’s cloudy front window. “The only time people driving a car like that come to town is when someone dies. You know, someone’s kid moved away and then they come back with families of their own to bury mom or dad, blah, blah, blah and then they disappear as quick as they came. Sorry, I’m being nosey. Just tell me to shut up. I’m a little tipsy and I get chatty.” She leaned back and turned her head to the bartender, yelling, “God knows this ginger cue ball ain’t got two words to spare for good ole’ Sharon. Sharon who’s putting his goddamn kid through that community college with the amount of scratch I spend in here.”
Without looking up from his television, he swatted her away.
“Oh, no, nobody died. I live right out of town. In the Village.”
The bartender looked up then slowly averted his gaze. Sharon looked as if Claire had just pulled a live chicken out of her bra. “No shit! At that Frontier Acres or some shit, with the wall and the poh-lease out there in front? I ain’t never met nobody from that goddamn place, not one person, ever since it was built.”
“Um, I’m Claire, by the way.”
“Claire, well, now that’s a real pretty name. Sounds more girly than Sharon. Your name is sweet. Claire, my dear, would you care for an éclair?” Sharon burst into hysterical laughter, then coughed her way back to seriousness. “No joke. I mean, where the hell do y’all go to drink?”
“Let me get this straight. Sharon, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You mean to tell me you have never met anybody else from the Village? It’s been there awhile, right? Like for a few years at least.”
Sharon shook her head no.
“Nah. That’s only been there for two years, tops. Went up overnight. My friend Karen is a real estate broker here in town and she said those houses never even went o
n the market neither. Some out-of-town company sold every house in the place —- to one buyer.”
“That isn’t possible. There are at least 50 houses in there.”
“There may be 50 houses, sweetheart, but ain’t no way there’s 50 families. I figure half those damn houses got to be empty.”
“And what do you base that on?” Claire said, sounding skeptical and a little annoyed.
“The kids.”
“Not sure I’m following you. The kids?”
Sharon took a long drag of her cigarette, and then exhaled an enormous amount of smoke out her nose. It enshrouded them like a fog and Sharon leaned forward, her face so close to Claire’s she noticed the brunette hairs growing out of Sharon’s left nostril.
“I drive the bus, honey, for the only grade school this side of that mountain, public or private,” said Sharon. “And there ain’t a single kid from that place enrolled. Now tell me that ain’t fucked up. Guess they’re all those homeschool weirdos. One less stop for me, I guess. Shit.”
“That is weird” Claire agreed and genuinely meant it. “Hey, Sharon, can I ask you something?”
“Shoot darlin’,” Sharon said, fishing around in her purse for something. “Ask away.”
Claire lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. “Without being obvious, you see that couple over there?” she asked.
Sharon was a pro in barroom body language, and turned her head toward the Plasketts under the guise of not wanting to light her next cigarette in Claire’s face. Once it was lit she turned back to Claire and exhaled out of the left corner of her mouth. “Yeah, what about ‘em?”
“How many times a week do you come in here?” Claire asked.
“Every day,” Sharon said, with jaded pride.
“You ever seen them in here before?”
“Never once,” said Sharon. “Never ever.”
Chapter 10
Claire wasn’t sure how long she had been sleeping in the front seat of her SUV. The day had gone increasingly hazy after the fourth whiskey sour with Sharon. Sharon had ordered them a fifth round, but Claire made polite apologies and a wobbly retreat to her car. She was relieved that she at least had the presence of mind not to drive home, and, instead, had opted to nap it off on the reclined driver seat. Through the steamed-up windows, she watched the Broken Spoke’s neon sign flicker on. It was dusk and the streets of town were quiet. A pickup truck and a motorcycle waited for the nearby stoplight to turn green. A man jogged through the crosswalk. She pulled out her phone and Googled the number for the only taxi service in the county and ordered one.
The cab took 30 minutes to arrive. A black woman named Marcy showed up in a purple Toyota Corolla. Claire got in the back seat and met Marcy’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Her stare was slightly skeptical and Claire imagined the look was inspired by the fact that she was still wearing her jogging outfit, and had a severe case of bleary eyes from the booze and bed-head from her car catnap.
“It don’t start?”
“I’m sorry?” said Claire, wiping cigarette ashes from the armrest of her door and rolling the window down a quarter of the way.
“That’s a pretty nice car you got out of. But it don’t surprise me. British elegance my ass. See this car?”
She waited for Claire to respond.
“Yes.”
“Japanese. My fifth one.”
“Ah, right.”
“Nah, nah, not my fifth Toyota mind you. My fifth Corolla. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. That’s what I say.”
Claire had absolutely no energy for small talk. “You know where the Village is, right?”
Marcy took the hint and broke eye contact with Claire, offering only a mumbled, grouchy acknowledgement.
The fact Sam was calling home tomorrow was the only thing holding Claire together. He always made her feel safe. She drew a heart in the steamed-up window, writing “C+S” inside of it. How old are you, Claire? Her eyes filled with tears, remembering the last time she’d drawn a heart on steamed glass.
It was their first wedding anniversary. They were in Paris. And while she didn’t share Sam’s wanderlust, Claire had always wanted to go to the City of Lights. Several of her friends had gone, and she scrolled through their Facebook posts with a barely contained mixture of jealousy and resentment. There were lots of reasons not to go. For starters, their wedding and honeymoon in South Carolina, where Sam was originally from, had been pricey. Looking back, did they need the caviar station or the seaside golf-course venue? Sam had refused to accept any help from Evie and his parents didn’t have much. When it was all over, they were left with three bread makers and a good deal of credit card debt. She brought it up a few times to Sam — whenever she spotted discounted airfare or attempted, for the third time, to make French macrons – but he’d seemed as interested in Paris as a cat was in playing fetch. Eventually, she shelved the idea.
Then one day, after a particularly tiring marathon of dreadful, soul-deadening meetings at work, she came home to a trail of tea candles leading from the front door to the kitchen. On the counter was a cake and atop it was a tiny plastic Eiffel Tower. She knew immediately.
“No!” she screamed. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat. “When?”
“Tonight. Your bags are packed,” he said, pointing to two suitcases she hadn’t previously noticed in the hallway.
“But, I mean, for how long? What about work?”
“Taken care of. Your boss is in on this. She knows you’ll be taking next week off.”
She was tearing up. It was far and away the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her. She went over to him and they fell into an effortless, loving hug. “I love you so much, Sam Sturgis. But this is crazy. I mean, we can’t just drop everything right now and run off to Paris. What about your project at work?”
“It can wait.”
“What about your niece’s baptism?
“It will go on without us, I’m afraid.” He was smiling, as they broke from their embrace. “Now, let’s get a move on lady. If we miss that flight, our marriage will not survive another year.”
She felt so unprepared. She’d wanted to Google Earth the city. Research where to go. Read up on the capital’s history or check out some sightseeing tours. Maybe get Rosetta Stone for the plane. She settled for a stack of unread New Yorkers from their coffee table and after a short cab ride and an eventless flight, they were in another taxi, heading to their hotel: in Paris!
It was morning the next day when they arrived and the city was everything she had hoped and, surprisingly, nothing like what she expected. She had been abroad before: a business trip to India, a semester in London, a vacation in Costa Rica. But Paris was different. It swirled around her in a dreamy, silky haze, as if seen through the lace of her wedding veil. Muted colors, glorious smells, and a collective eloquence that enchanted her so completely, she leaned her head out the cab’s window like an eager Labrador. The entire city was a hive of beautiful storefronts. Scooters of every color zipped up and down the ancient streets. Cafes brimmed and bustled with stylish professionals and travelling lovers and what she imagined to be a panoply of tortured, smug artists, expressing themselves over warm bread and cheeses and rivers of golden Chardonnay. It was heaven and they had arrived.
Their hotel was a few blocks from the Seine, in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighborhood. “How did you pick this hotel? I can’t believe I didn’t catch you planning this trip,” she said, as the cab driver unloaded their bags from the trunk.
“That’s because I barely planned at all. Thank Google. I just clicked on this section of the city and this was the first hotel I found. It looked cute on the street view, and, well, voila!”
“Sam, that is the nuttiest thing I have ever heard! I love you!” And, as they entered the tiny lobby of the Hotel Bersolys, she quickly realized some sort of magic had guided her husb
and’s hand. It was adorable. A tiny oak and brass bar, with just four red leather bar stools, was to the left. To the right, a dainty front desk with a marble top stood in front of a small wall fixture of mail slots and hanging room keys. A rotating postcard rack sat alongside a ceramic lamp with an olive-green shade and a cloudy pewter call bell. A buxom woman with frizzy blond hair and several beaded necklaces around her plump neck greeted them. “Bonjour!”
Sam positioned their suitcases neatly behind them. “Um, hello,” said Claire. “Bonjour. My name is Claire and this is my husband Sam.”
“Welcome, welcome! I am Clarice. Claire et Clarice. It is fate we meet, non? Do you have a reservation with us, madame?”
Sam stepped forward. “Oui. Sturgis. Mr. and Mrs. Sam Sturgis.”
“Ah, yes. How was your flight, Monsieur et Madame?”
“Very good, thank you,” said Sam, reaching out to hold Claire’s hand.
“For this I am glad to hear,” said Clarice. “I will tell you now you have chosen a very good place to stay. Tres bien! You look very in love, oui? I guess this is your honeymoon, non?” The hotelkeeper’s eyes twinkled mischievously. It was clearly an oft-repeated albeit endearing routine. But it was hard not to be charmed by it. Claire interlocked arms with her husband, grabbing his bicep with her other hand and squeezing it robustly.
“Close! It’s our first wedding anniversary. He surprised me.”
Sam kissed the top of her head, which she now leaned on his shoulder.
“Were you surprised he remembered, or that he brings you to Paris?” They all shared a laugh at this.
“Both!” Claire played along.
After the perfunctory registration process was done, Clarice invited them to follow her to their room. She ascended a steep, narrow staircase leading from the lobby. The stairs creaked under the inn keeper’s considerable weight. She hiked her long black dress up just enough so as not to trip in her sandaled feet. Her heels, Claire noticed, were rough and crusty, like a day-old baguette.Here was a woman, Claire thought, who worked for a living and had little time or desire for a pedicure. Clarice was hearty, plucky and passionate. To Claire, she was the perfect ambassador for Paris. She imagined smoking with her at the lobby bar, imbibing over this woman’s many secrets.