“
Um, hey. Good hotel pick,
by the way,” I joked. “I was thinking we could put our beds beside
each other and race down the hallway…might cost a couple of bucks
extra though.”
He grinned. “Are you coming
on to me?”
I wasn’t but I felt heat
come to my cheeks anyway. I rolled my eyes. “What do you
want?”
“
Just checking up on you,”
he said defensively.
“
That’s…considerate. What’s
wrong with you?”
The glaze left his eyes for
a second before he laughed it away. “OK, suit yourself. Thought you
may have wanted some company.”
Was he coming on to
me
? I narrowed my eyes,
studying him. I can’t say the thought didn’t entice me. But aside
from his languid gaze, I couldn’t pick up on anything different. It
was just Dex. Standing seductively in the doorway of my seedy motel
room (OK, so you can see why I would naturally jump to such
conclusions).
And suddenly, while this
dialogue was going on inside my head, I realized the situation had
become awkward. At least for me, anyway. Dex didn’t seem disturbed
in the slightest.
Regardless, he said,
“Anyway, we’ll be setting off at 8AM tomorrow. The town of Red Fox
is about a two or three hour drive from here. Just be ready and
primped and all that before then.”
“
Do you think I’m gonna get
much sleep…or primping…done in this place?”
He laughed. “Princess, I
don’t care. See you in the morning.”
And with that he spun
around and walked to his room next door. I heard his door close. I
slowly shut mine and felt incredibly alone. And miffed. Princess?
Who did he think he was?
I turned and nervously eyed
the bed. I decided to sleep on top of the sheets that
night.
CHAPTER FOUR
The day was already hot and
arid, even at 8AM. The hotel manager said they were having an
unseasonably warm fall and we would probably approach the upper
nineties later that afternoon. As I stood outside by the Jeep and
waited for Dex to finish up paying for the rooms, I welcomed the
impending heat. I think it was the Pacific Northwestern in me; most
of the year we were enveloped in depressing dampness so I soaked up
every warm opportunity I had.
The sun sat loftily above
the mountains, its sharp light clearing the cobwebs from my foggy
head. I was running on very little sleep. When I wasn’t freezing
cold from the room’s air con which just wouldn’t switch off, I was
dreaming about bedbugs and/or some coyote zombies. After last
night’s “incident” (and I’m sure there will be many of them) I
convinced myself coyote zombies were an actual thing.
It wasn’t long before Dex
emerged from the office and made his way out towards me. He had
black shades on, a plain black tee shirt which fit him perfectly
and his black cargo shorts. Against the dry backdrop he bared a
resemblance to an emo Man in Black.
“
The desert seems to suit
you, Mr. Cash,” I said, smiling. He didn’t smile back. He went
straight for the back of the Jeep and started riffling through his
bag in the trunk.
I peeked over as he
frantically started dumping stuff everywhere, searching for
something.
“
Is everything OK? Did your
credit card not go through?”
There was no way I could
afford to pay for us.
He quickly shook his head.
“That’s all fine.”
He sighed loudly and stood
up, his hands pressed against the sides of his head. The next words
out of my mouth were going to be ‘what is it?’ but there was
something hostile about his current crisis. I decided not to say
anything and see what would happen.
I bit my lip, looked away
at the mountains and kicked up the dust on the ground with my
vintage cowboy boots.
He exhaled again, almost
like he was begging me to say something, then quickly turned and
ran back into the hotel. He went past the lobby, I guess to his
room.
It was obvious that he had
forgotten something. I looked in the back where his bag had
expunged its bowels. Things were scattered everywhere, but as far
as I could make out, all of the camera equipment was present. And
he had packed several pairs of underwear (boxer briefs, in case you
were wondering. I know I had been).
If we had our gear and were
able to pay for the hotel, I wasn’t sure what he was freaking out
about. So, I just leaned back against the Jeep, the hot exterior
already singing my skin, and waited. I was determined not to freak
my own self out just because Dex had lost something important.
Lately, when I found myself getting panicky over other people I
started reminding myself that it wasn’t my problem.
“
We’ve got a problem,” Dex
said as he came out of the building, his jaw stern, eyes hidden by
the shades.
My heart did a few slow
thumpa-thumps. Spoke too soon.
“
What?” I asked
slowly.
He pointed to the door.
“Nevermind. Let’s just get going. Can’t do anything about it right
now.”
I exhaled and shook my head
at him as I got in the car. He didn’t notice.
I waited for him to say
something but five minutes into the drive, he seemed more
interested in popping his CDs into the player. As he fumbled for a
Deftones album, I caught a shimmer from his left hand. I looked
closer. He had a friggin’ ring on his ring finger. It looked
exactly like a wedding band.
My heart went thumpa-thump
again. Only the feeling was much more devastating than anything
else that caused my chest distress in the last 24 hours.
Did Dex get married over
the last few weeks? I didn’t even know he was engaged - he had
always referred to Jenn as his girlfriend.
I felt stupid and naïve
and, also, a bit sick. I couldn’t help my feelings. It was now
obvious that I liked him a lot more than I had let myself believe.
If he was married now…ugh. I just felt like it was all over. My
despair surprised me.
I think he must have
noticed the sudden weight of my mood because he gave me a curious
look.
“
What? I know you love
Chino.”
I shook my head slowly
(though yes, I did love the Deftones’ singer) and nodded at his
left hand. How could I have not noticed it yesterday?
He looked down at it and
wiggled it around in the air. It was hefty platinum ring and looked
handsome on his long fingers.
“
Ah, you like it? I’m not
much of a ring man but I thought it looked passable.”
“
When did you get married?”
I said, my voice a little squeakier than I would have
liked.
He raised his glasses on
top of his head and stared into my eyes. His own looked red and a
bit wired. He searched me earnestly for a moment before a smile
slowly broke across his wide mouth.
“
You’re kidding right?” he
asked.
I didn’t know. I shrugged,
confused.
He laughed and put his
sunglasses back on.
“
OK kiddo, I guess now’s the
time to fill you in on some things.”
Yes, please.
He reached into his pant
pocket with his other hand and fished around for something. I
watched, still, but my heart was doing summersaults
inside.
“
Put out your hand,” he
said.
I put out my right one. He
took my left one instead, flipped it palm down, and slid a ring
over my own ring finger.
I looked down. It was a
pretty silver ring with a solitary pear-cut diamond on
it.
I didn’t know what to say.
Or think. What the hell was going on? I felt the tiniest flicker of
a shameless, hopeful thought forming at the back of my
head.
“
Now we are betrothed,” he
announced, which only caused the flicker to flame.
“
Ummm….,” was the only
response I had.
“
Funny, I thought you’d be
more into it than that,” he joked. I stared at the ring, then at
him and then at the ring again.
“
This isn’t exactly filling
me in on anything. I would have remembered if we had gotten
married,” I finally managed.
“
Well, it would depend on
how drunk you were.”
I gave him an impatient
look. The flame was going out.
He smiled at me and shook
his head. “OK, well here’s the thing. We’re going to have to be
married for the next couple of days. Hope that’s OK with you. And
if it’s not, tough tits.”
“
Why?”
“
The house, the people we
are staying with in Red Fox, the people with the ghost problem, are
a devout Christian couple.”
“
I thought they were Native
American…”
“
They are. But converted to
Christianity, I guess. Anyway, the only way they said they’d let us
stay with them is if we were married. And so I told them no
problem, we were. Been married for three years.”
This was not going to go
well. I was a good liar when I had to be, but I always got the
feeling that people could see straight through me. It was probably
a confidence thing.
Not only that but Dex and I
were not even a couple. I didn’t see how anyone would possibly buy
that we were husband and wife. This scheme seemed cooked up out of
a
Three’s Company
episode and we all knew how those ended.
“
You’ll be Perry
Foray.”
“
That sounds way too much
like Perry Farrell,” I said.
“
Then it’ll be easier for
you to remember.”
He turned his attention
back to the dry, endless road and turned up the stereo as if to
signify the conversation was over. I will admit that I was feeling
a lot better about this scenario than the other scenario (that he
had gotten married to Jennifer), but…
I reached over and turned
down the volume. He looked ticked but I figured if we were fake
married, I could start acting more like a bossy wife.
“
What was the other thing?”
I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t
know.”
I sighed. “You lost
something. Said you’d tell me about it in the car. We are in the
car. The marriage thing obviously wasn’t it. So what was it? Are we
getting divorced now too?”
He briefly bit his lip. If
I could see his eyes, they probably would have been roaming
fretfully.
Finally he said, “Yeah.
Well, it’s not a big deal.”
“
You said it was a
problem.”
“
It’s my
problem.”
“
Well,” I couldn’t help but
smile. “Now that we’re married, your problem is my
problem.”
A wry tug at his lips. “Oh
is that how relationships work?”
“
I hear the good ones
do.”
He nodded, looking serious,
and said, “I forgot my medication.”
His medication. Dex’s pills
that kept him at an even keel. Least, that’s how I understood it.
As I said earlier, all I knew was that he was bi-polar or something
akin to that but I had yet to really understand what that meant
with him.
“
Oh. OK. Can’t you go to a
drugstore and get a refill?”
“
No,” he said
simply.
“
I’m sure if they called
your doctor they could do a transfer or something.”
“
No, not these
pills.”
Uh huh. Not only did he
forget them but they seemed to be ultra top-secret medication as
well. Why did everything have to be so difficult with
him?
“
Are you going to
be…OK?”
He shrugged, which didn’t
really assuage my fears.
“
I don’t know. I’ve only
been on these pills, well, since we last saw each
other.”
“
Did I drive you to new
medication?”
“
You could say that.” It
didn’t seem like he was joking.
“
Gee, thanks,” I said,
mildly hurt. Though this was nothing new, it didn’t help to hear it
from him. What was it about me that drove people up the
wall?
He gave me a quick smile.
“Don’t flatter yourself, kiddo. There was a lot going on and
anyway, I think our whole, uh, situation, was enough to cause
anyone to re-evaluate things. Didn’t you start to question whether
you were losing your mind after the lighthouse? You know, almost
dying at the hands of a…thing?”
Before I had time to think,
I said, “Yeah, but you were losing your mind way before
that.”
He stiffened at that
remark.
“
I’m sorry,” I said quickly.
“I…”
He raised his hand to shut
me up.
“
The point is,” he
continued, “I thought I should be in a better frame of mind if we
were to continue to do this whole fucking circus. So, no, I haven’t
been on them long enough to miss a dose and know what happens if I
do. But if it’s anything like before, it shouldn’t be that big of a
deal.”
I still felt
uneasy.