Perfect Little Town (2 page)

-10-

The waitress presents the bottle to Ron, who holds it in his hands like a new baby and affirms that she brought the vintage he requested.

Mary-Elise finesses the corkscrew, expertly withdraws the cork, then pours a little wine into Ron’s glass. 

He swirls it, sniffs, says, “No, something’s off.”

“What?” Jessica asks.

“Here, smell.”

Jessica inhales a whiff.  “Vinegar.”

Ron says, “This wine’s spoiled.  Do you have another bottle of the Côtes?”

“I’m sorry, this was our last.”

“Then just bring the Bordeaux.”

-11-

Jessica smiles when the waitress presents her entrée.

“Tell the truth,” Ron says.  “You got the chicken pot pie just because it was forty dollars.”

“It’s an intriguing price for such a simple dish.”

Outside, it still snows, impossibly harder than before, and with the waitress gone, they have the restaurant all to themselves.

“Looks good,” Ron says, pointing his fork at Jessica’s dish.

The chicken pot pie barely fits on the plate, the crust perfectly gilded, steam rising through tiny holes in the center.

“I’m so hungry,” Jessica says, piercing the crust with her fork, scooping out a bite.  “My God, worth every cent.  How’s yours?”

Ron swallows a bite of his penne pasta with scallops and clam sauce.

“Unreal.  You know, if we had to go through all this shit today just to have this meal, it might actually have been worth it.”

He lifts his glass, and as he tilts it up, wine running down his throat, eyes shut with pleasure, trying to think of a toast to make, Jessica gasps.

Ron looks across the table, sees blood pouring down his wife’s chin, two fishhooks dangling from her bottom lip.  She spits something onto the table—a half-inch black oval that he mistakes for a rock or a seedpod until it scampers away.

Other roaches crawl out of the pot pie, and Ron instinctively stands and steps back, noticing now that more than fishhooks and roaches fill the pie.  Mixed in with the carrots and potatoes and chicken, shards of glass glint in the candlelight.

Jessica vomits on the floor, and Ron feels the urge as well, his mouth watering heavily.

He helps his wife to stand and they back away from the table, Ron wondering what might be lurking in the pearl-colored clam sauce of the dish he already took two bites from, decides not to even contemplate it.

Jessica trembles, tears streaming down her face.

“Calm down, baby.  Let me look.”  In the lowlight, he sees that one of the hooks has barely lodged.  “I can get this one out right now.” 

Delicately, with surgeon’s hands, he works the hook out of the corner of her lip.

“This other one’s really embedded.  I think the barb’s under the skin.”

“My tongue,” she cries.

“Let me see.”

She sticks it out, and even in the poor light, Ron can see the deep slice halfway up the right side of her tongue.

“Jesus, it’s bad.  Do you think you swallowed any glass?”

“I don’t know.”

“All right, stay here.”

“Where are you going?”

“To hurt somebody.”

“No, wait.”  Her mouth has already begun to swell, blunting the sharpness of her consonants.

“Why?”

“Let’s just go find the sheriff.”

“No, fuck that.”

Ron rushes toward the back of the restaurant, his fists already clenched as he kicks open the metal doors.

The kitchen stands dark.

He says, “Anybody in here?”

-12-

They arrive at the front desk of the Lone Cone Inn, find the same stodgy clerk who they spoke with earlier in the day leaning back in a swivel chair, engrossed in a paperback romance.

“Excuse me?” Ron says, the clerk startling.

“Yes?”

“Where’s the hospital?”  He gestures to Jessica, holding a burgundy cloth napkin over her mouth.  “My wife needs medical attention.”

“I’m sorry, we only have a clinic, and it’s closed.”

“No hospital?”

“Nearest one’s thirty miles away, and as you know, the passes are closed tonight.”

“Okay, how about a sheriff?”

“Yes, but I’m sure his office is closed as well.  It’s almost nine.”

“What’s your name?”

“Carol.”

“Tell me, Carol, what do the residents of this town do when they need an officer of the fucking peace?”

“Did something happen?”

“Yeah, something happened.”

“I guess I could try Sheriff Hanson at his home.”

“Really?  I mean, I don’t want to put you out or anything just ‘cause someone put glass and hooks and roaches in my wife’s fucking dinner and almost cut her tongue in—”

“It’s not her fault, Ron.”

Carol lifts the phone, dials a number, after a moment, says, “Arthur?  Hey it’s Carol.  I’ve got the couple from out-of-town standing here at my desk, and I think they need your help…I don’t know…yeah, I think so…okay.”

She hangs up the phone.

“He’s coming down.”

“Thank you,” Ron says.  “Now we were hoping you might have some other good news for us.”

“Like what?”

“We’ve had a really rough evening, and we need a…”

She shakes her head.  “I’m sorry, we’re booked.”

“I’ll pay double.  Triple.  I don’t—”

“Sir, what do you want me to do?  Kick someone out?  I’m sorry, there’s no vacancy.”

-13-

They sit in the leather sofa by the fireplace, Ron holding Jessica, running his fingers through her hair, thinking they should be sitting in this lobby under completely different circumstances, cuddling by the fire with glasses of wine, musing on what the future has in store.  In those rare moments when his mind cleared of all the things he needed to do, he’d come close to admitting to himself that despite all the money he and Jessica were accumulating, they were sacrificing the primes of their lives—him for the superrich and the ultra-shallow, that elite class who could drop seventy-grand to buff a few dents out of their noses, Jessica for faceless pharmaceutical companies in pursuit of the next billion-dollar drug.  Between the ninety-hour workweeks and all the Saturdays in the office, even in those fleeting idle moments, he had to remind himself to look around and enjoy what he had, to tell himself how good he had it—the Lotus, the collection of ancient single malts, the four point two million dollar view of the Valley from his Mulholland mansion.

“I’m gonna need something for the pain,” Jessica whimpers.

“Soon as we talk with the sheriff, we’ll head down to the Benz.  I’ve got Lortab in my suitcase.  Jess, can you hang here on your own for just a second?”

“Why?”

“I want to go upstairs and check on something.”

“Please hurry back.”

He moves through the empty lobby, the walls adorned with stuffed, dead animals—an elk head over the hearth flanked by coyotes, a large brown bear standing on its hind legs, encased in glass, birds of prey frozen in mid-flight from wires in the ceiling.

Ron takes the steps to the second floor two at a time, emerging into a long corridor warmed by light from faux-lanterns mounted to the wall between the doors.

He walks a third of the way down the corridor and stops.

He approaches the nearest door, leans in, his ear pressed against the wood, hears only the bass throb of his heart.

Three rooms down, he drops to his knees and looks through the slit between the bottom of the door and the hardwood floor—darkness. 

He stands, knocks on the door, no answer.

Goes to the next door and knocks even harder.

Pounds on the third.

“
Is anyone on this floor?
” he shouts.

-14-

The desk clerk glances up as Ron storms over.

“You wanna tell me what the hell’s wrong with you?”

Her eyes widen and she sets her book down spine-up and rises out of her chair.  Short, heavy, late-fiftyish, her big eyes magnified through the thick lenses.

“I don’t care for that tone of voice even a little—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you don’t care for.  I just came down from the second floor.  It’s empty.”

“No, it’s not.”

A noise like a distant explosion briefly derails Ron’s train of thought.

“The rooms are all empty and dark.”

Jessica rises from the couch, coming toward them now.

“Did it occur to you that our guests are sleeping?  Or perhaps having a late dinner out?”

“Every single one of them?  Why won’t you give us a room?  What have we done to you to—”

“I told you.  I don’t have any rooms available.”

Jessica reaches the front desk, stands beside Ron, says, “What’s going on?” with her swollen lisp.

“They’re fucking with us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Baby, I just walked up to the second floor.  There isn’t a single room occupied.”

Jessica focuses a smoldering gaze on the clerk.  “Is that right?”

“Of course not.”

“Show us.”

“Excuse me.”

Jessica leans forward, lowers the napkin so the clerk can see the fishhook still embedded in her bottom lip.

“Show us.”

“I don’t have to show you any—”

“Bitch, I am an attorney, and I will make you a solemn promise right now.  When I get back to LA, the very first thing on my agenda will be to call the top law firm in Denver, hire the meanest motherfucker on the letterhead, and sue your ass and this honkytonk piece of shit hotel for every last fucking cent.”

Ron feels so sure the desk clerk is on the brink of tears, it surprises him all the more when she leans forward and smiles at Jessica, her lips parting to speak.

The lobby doors squeak open, drawing everyone’s attention. 

He wears a voluminous black parka dusted with snow, a sheriff’s star embroidered onto the lapel, smiling as he shelves his hat, clumps of snow dropping on the hardwood floor. 

“Evening folks,” he says, striding toward them.

“Oh, Arthur.”  The desk clerk bursts into tears.  “They’ve been so mean to me.”

The sheriff arrives at the front desk.  “What are you talking about, Carol?”

“This woman has been verbally abusive.  Called me a cunt.  Threatened to sue—”

Jessica says, “Wait just a—”

“You’ll get your turn.”  To Carol:  “Tell me what happened.”

“I tried to explain to these folks that we don’t have any room avail—”

“She’s lying!” Ron yells.

“Ya’ll need to take a walk,” the sheriff says, motioning toward the front doors.  “Right over that way.”

Ron holds up his hands in deference, and he and Jessica backpedal toward the entrance.

The desk clerk points at Ron.  “And that gentleman went up to the second floor and started banging on the guests’ rooms, screaming so loud I could hear him from down here.  I’ve had numerous complaints.”

“And then his wife started swearing at you?”

“Him, too.”

“What’d he say?”

“I don’t remember exactly but he used the F-word a lot.  They both did.”

Ron sees the sheriff reach across the desk and squeeze Carol’s hand.  “I’m sorry, Carol.  I’ll handle this.”

“Thank you, Arthur.”

The sheriff puts on his Stetson, turns, and advances toward the Stahls, a hybrid of a sneer and a scowl overspreading his face.

He stops, the steel tips of his boots two feet from the tips of Ron’s sodden sneakers.

“Sir, did you go upstairs and disturb the guests?  Swear at—”

“I can explain—”

“No, don’t explain.  Just answer the question I asked you.  You and your wife do these things?”

“There isn’t a soul in this hotel but the four of us in the lobby, and that woman won’t sell us a room.  Please.  Just go up and look.”

Sheriff Hanson tilts his neck, vertebrae cracking, says, “Sir, you’re beginning to make me angry.”

“I’m not trying to make you angry, officer, I just—”

“Sheriff.”

“What?”

“Sheriff, not officer.”

“Look, we’ve had a terrible few hours here, Sheriff, and we’re just—”

The sheriff moves forward, a good four inches on Ron, backing him up against the wall, his breath spiced with cinnamon Altoids.

“You will answer my question.  Did you do the things Carol said you did?”

“You don’t understand, she’s—”

The sheriff pinches Ron’s nose between the nostrils, fingernails digging into the cartilage, tugging him along toward the doors, kicking them open with his right boot, Ron losing his footing, the sheriff shoving him completely across the sidewalk into the foot of snow that has piled up in the empty parking space. 

He hears Jessica say, “Don’t you fucking touch me.”

“Then walk.”

She runs over and helps Ron sit up in the snow, his nose burning, both of them glaring at the sheriff who stands under the canopy of the Lone Cone Inn, smoothing the wrinkles out of his parka.

“Take a guess what’ll happen if I see either of you again tonight?”

“You’ll throw us in jail?” Jessica mocks.

“No, I’ll beat the shit out of you.  Both of you.”

Jessica scrambles to her feet and marches over to the sheriff.

“You see this?”
she screams, pointing at her bottom lip.

“Yeah, you got a fishhook in your lip.”

“Your little restaurant over there—”

“I don’t give a shit.  You’ve blown through all my good will.  Now I own a blazing hot temper, and you’d do well to get out of my face right now.”

“Please, we just—”

“Right.  Now.”

Ron has rarely seen Jessica ever back down, but something in the sheriff’s tone convinces her to retreat from the sidewalk—maybe the possibility that she might get slapped or worse.

“Let’s go, Ron.”  She bends down, gives him a hand up, and he slides his arm around her waist as they start into the street. 

Jessica glances back over her shoulder, yells out, “This isn’t over!  You know that, right?”

“Best keep walking!”

-15-

“How’s the pain, Jess?”

“Bad.”

They trek down the middle of Main in the single set of tire tracks.  Jessica walks ahead of Ron, crying, but he doesn’t dare attempt the distribution of comfort.  He made that mistake the last time she was passed over for partner, and like an injured animal, the fear and sadness instantly metastasized into rage.