Alice & Dorothy (29 page)

If you stuck your fingers under hot water but pulled them away fast enough when you were doing the dishes, you wouldn’t get burned. That’s how Aunt Emily had been able to rinse them in scalding hot water so they dried faster. It wasn’t some magic trick, as Dorothy had originally thought. She didn’t have super tough hands or a really high pain threshold (she
definitely
did not have that), she just knew that when you were faced with something scalding like straight hot water from the tap, you could pull your hands out of it fast enough that your nerves wouldn’t have time to register pain or danger.

That’s what it was like now, looking at Alice.
Look away
. Could Alice trust her?
Look away
. Of course she could. Could she trust Alice? Well, that was the big question. If she miscued on it, she was liable to burn her hands bad. She was liable to end up like Steve Marsh, 32, long-time employee of The Blue Moon Motel. Because Alice was more than just a beautiful girl who had a drug problem, she was scalding hot water straight from the tap.

And maybe that’s why Dorothy loved her so much, because hot water was something important. Something alive. It was something that you could curl up in with candles and a Stephen King book, and soak the pain of your life away until your fingertips were all wrinkled like the slipped skin on a dead girl, but your muscles were sore and relaxed and the heat radiated out of you like molten steel. So could she trust Alice?

Did she have a choice?

No.
You don’t pick who you love
, she thought.
Love picks you
. Look away.

“Of course you can,” Dorothy said, looking up and meeting Alice’s gaze. “You can trust me to the end of the road.”

Alice leaned over and kissed Dorothy’s ruby lips, full on, their mouths partly open.

Dorothy didn’t look away. She met Alice’s ice blue eyes, head on, and let the molten heat fill her completely.
Love doesn’t look away,
she thought.
Love goes head on, a hundred and eighty miles per hour with its seatbelt off and screaming to holy hell the entire way.
To the end of the road. Dorothy had no idea where that road was headed, but she was willing to go.
Fuck the world. We have each other.

“Come on then,” Alice whispered into Dorothy’s mouth. “Let’s get out of here.”

Dorothy grabbed her bag, and they went.

Across the street, parked far away from the news anchor but still close enough to see the entire parking lot, Rabbit, Eazy and Devon sat in the silver Grand Am and waited. It had taken Rabbit about two seconds to discern that the yellow Volkswagen in the parking lot was indeed his missing car, and now he felt so close to his heroin he imagined he could smell it’s tangy, pissy stink. His teeth were killing him, throbbing in time to his heart beat, so he lit a joint to smoke.

“You fuckin
crazy?
” Eazy waved at the parking lot. “There’s like a homicide investigation goin’ on across the street.”

“Exactly,” Rabbit said, taking a pull and passing it off. “Across the street.” His nerves in his mouth screamed in protest as hot smoke bathed them in filth, but almost immediately the pain receded. He could taste blood and pot, but there was a pinch of Brown in the joint as well, because it was good to mellow you out.

The motel door in front of his car opened briefly, and two women made their way to where the VW Rabbit was parked. They didn’t have much of anything with them. The shorter, brunette woman was carrying a bag and what Rabbit thought looked like a black pillow. The blond was driving. The brunette was watching the police cruisers on the far side of the lot. Then she disappeared into the yellow car as well.

“And here we go,” Rabbit said. He started the car. A moment after the yellow Volkswagen pulled out of the parking lot, Eazy’s silver Grand Am came out of the lot across the street and slid in smoothly behind it.

A few hours and several motels later, Alice and Dorothy weren’t any closer to finding a place to stay. Alice had no I.D. whatsoever, and Dorothy didn’t have a credit card. Now they were driving around in circles trying to come up with another plan, and Alice’s head was starting to hurt. The Hater was murmuring obscenities in the back of her head, but even he seemed like he wasn’t in the mood to cause trouble.

“This is hopeless,” Dorothy said. “We’re so screwed.” It was coming on to suppertime, and rush hour traffic was in full swing. Dorothy’s stomach was growling; they’d driven around all afternoon and not bothered to stop anywhere.

“Naww, we’re alright,” Alice said. “We just need to find another place that doesn’t care whether you trash their shit or not.”

“Which is, like,
everybody
,” Dorothy said.

“Not everybody,” Alice said. “There are a couple cash motels downtown, we’ll check those out. I didn’t really want to go down there but fuck it, right? All we need is a place to crash and maybe smoke a bit, then we can figure out where we’re goin’ from here.”

The rode in silence for a minute, then Dorothy said, “
You said butt fuckin’
.”

Alice looked over at her. Dorothy was stealing sidelong glances back, a small smile playing on her lips.

“Oh god,” Alice said, laughing. “That’s fuckin’ awful.”

“You said it,” Dorothy said. She reached out and turned up the stereo. Rammstein was singing about
Amerika
. “I love this song.”

“Oh wouldn’t you like to know,” Alice said. They were driving in the inner city now, rows of sad old Victorian style houses with boarded windows and dirty looking kids hanging out on the street. Sometimes the houses had tall chain fences around them; the inner city version of a white picket fence was chain link steel and seven feet tall.

“Wow,” Dorothy said. “It really looks like hell around here, doesn’t it?”

“I used to live down here,” Alice said. When Dorothy looked at her, she nodded vigorously. “You bet. Actually just a few streets down. The neighbourhood wasn’t quite this bad a few years ago, but it’s always been shitty. “

“Sounds wild,” Dorothy said, and let it sit there. She stared out the window listening to music and Alice didn’t disturb her.

After a while the houses were replaced with warehouses and strip malls, and then there were a series of motels and fast food restaurants along one side of the road. Alice turned at a set of lights and followed a service road that linked all the motels and fast food places together.

“Any preference?” Alice said.

They drove past a place called Emerald City Motel and Dorothy pointed to the
WE TAKE CASH
half of the sign.

“This looks good,” Dorothy said.

“Good as any other.”

They pulled into the parking lot and Dorothy had a flashback to the last Motel office she had been in, looking for aspirin with creepy Steve who was nice enough to toss her a handful of pills (she still had them) from his own private stash. Steve, who had been butchered by something maybe living inside Alice, maybe Alice herself, for God knows why. Certainly wasn’t drugs, they had plenty of those. Money maybe, but Alice hadn’t said anything about a robbery. The news hadn’t mentioned it either. She kind of thought that if Alice really felt like grinding someone up and spitting them out, she didn’t need a reason for it.

Alice parked the car and then turned to Dorothy. “You want me to come in with you?” she said. “I don’t have any I.D., so it’s gonna have to be you.”

“I can do it,” Dorothy said. “Money?”

“Oh yeah,” Alice said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of twenties. “Take it all, I have no idea how much a room costs. Get us something for a couple days. I’ll run over and grab some lunch while you’re in there.”

“Okay,” Dorothy said. She cupped the money in her hands. “Where did you get all this?”

“Santa Claus,” Alice said.

Dorothy looked down at her feet. Then, wordlessly, she stuffed the wad of bills into her pocket. At the last moment Alice snaked a hand out and grabbed Dorothy’s wrist. It was all Dorothy could do not to scream.

“What do you want for lunch?” Alice asked softly.

“Wh-whatever you’re having,” Dorothy said. That dangerous serenity had returned to Alice’s face. Dorothy shrank away from the look; from her touch.

“I’ll getcha somethin’ good,” Alice said. Then she slid her fingers into Dorothy’s pocket and grabbed a stray bill. Her fingers pressed into Dorothy’s thigh as she slid them out of the girl’s pocket, but her other hand lingered on the girl’s wrist.

“Sounds good to me,” Dorothy said.
She did it. I have the proof in my hands, right here. We spent this money last night and now we have it back again because she robbed Steve after she butchered him.

Alice withdrew her hand, and the Dorothy popped out of the vehicle. She made her way around the car, jamming her fists into her pockets as she moved toward the motel office door.

“Hey babe?” Alice said suddenly. Dorothy turned back to her.

“What?”

“Thanks,” Alice said. “For everything.
I love you
.”

The words were like warm hands cupping Dorothy’s face. She suddenly felt like such a heel for ever being afraid of Alice; for ever doubting anything more than her loyalty. Why did she have to keep telling herself Alice was a good person? She could see it now, on her face, plain as day. She wasn’t dangerous, not to Dorothy anyway.

That look she was afraid of was insecurity, and Dorothy had seen it plenty of times on her own face. That look you got when you loved someone but you weren’t sure if they loved you back or not; feeling balloons of warmth but also icy pins lining the walls of your heart. When it was even money they’d tell you they loved you or they’d tell you to fuck off, and all the while you were whispering
I love you
into a pillow because they might leave if they heard you say it.

She rushed to the car and grabbed Alice’s face in her hands. “I love you,” she said back, and kissed Alice deeply. “
I love you so much
.”

Alice smiled, her upturned face like a bowl of sunshine to Dorothy. “I’m gonna go get us something to eat,” she said.

“I’ll be here,” Dorothy said. “I swear.” She stepped away from the car, and Alice backed out of the stall, smiling broadly. She flashed a little finger wave from the car then hit the gas. Dorothy waved back. She’d cast her lot with love, for better or worse.

Dorothy turned then, and skipped into the Emerald City Motel. The office was a large, open area with seating and coffee tables piled high with old newspapers and Time magazines, and in one corner was a double desk with computers and a sign saying INTERNET ACCESS FREE WITH ROOM RENTAL. On the other side were a row of telephones and a magazine stand filled with tourist pamphlets. The walls were green and yellow; the ceiling was a different kind of green. There was a young woman behind the desk who smiled when Dorothy walked in, but otherwise the room was empty of people. She was pretty but tired looking, and at first glance Dorothy took her to be ten years older than she appeared on closer inspection.

“Not a problem,” the woman said through her teeth. Her smile seemed painted on. “There is a deposit of a hundred dollars, then it’s forty dollars per night. Can I sign you up?”

“Ohhh-kay,” the woman said. “Do you have some I.D.? I just need to make a copy for our records, then that will be eighty dollars for two night’s rental plus a hundred dollars deposit that you’ll get back at the end of your stay.” She didn’t say what she really meant, which was
you’ll get it back if you haven’t destroyed the room or stolen all the towels out of the place.
She didn’t have to.