A
fter leaving Graceland, Dale was only able to make it to Nashville before her eyes started playing tricks on her. She doesn’t like to drive at night. All of the lights make her feel like she’s playing a video game. Her depth perception is off. She gets dizzy. And so she’d found a Red Roof Inn just off the highway. The room reeked of smoke and something else she couldn’t quite identify, and she was too excited to sleep. She had taken her last Ambien the night before, and she knew if she didn’t do something, she’d be awake all night in that stinky room.
Next door to the motel was a bar, a small quiet place. She sat down at the bar and ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey. The bartender silently brought her a Bud Light and a shot of Jameson, which she’d thrown back quickly. Energized by the heat traveling down her esophagus, she slammed the shot glass on the bar and took a long pull from the beer. “Another one, please,” she said.
The guy sitting next to her was eating a Philly cheese steak, and the smell of onions and peppers filled her nose, tickled her brain.
“That good?” she asked the guy.
He chewed slowly and nodded.
“I’ll take one of those too,” she said to the bartender, and smiled at the man.
He was older than she was, maybe forty. He was wearing a cowboy hat and a plaid shirt. The snaps were pearly. Suddenly, she imagined what the sound of them unsnapping would be. She could almost hear the rhythmic pop, pop, pop.
She ate half of the sandwich and drank another couple of beers. By the time she did the next shot, the guy had moved closer to her. Close enough that she could smell Old Spice cologne mixing with Irish Spring on his skin. Close enough that she could imagine what it would feel like to touch the bristly hairs on his chin, those pearly snaps on his chest. She was drunk and leaning into him when he suggested they go back to her motel.
“Whatcha doing in Nashville?” he’d asked.
“I’m a writer,” she said as he tore at her clothes. “A biographer. I’m on my way to do a very important interview,” as his teeth tore at the strap of her bra.
Afterward, when he was gone, she’d drawn a bath and soaked. Her back stung; he hadn’t been as gentle as Troy. She sank into the water and let the heat massage her shoulders. Her skin was still tender; Troy said it could take two weeks or more before the tattoo healed.
She had almost passed out in the bathtub and had to coax her body out of the warm water and into her sweats.When she went to pull the plug in the tub, she gasped. At first she’d thought it was dirt, but while she knew she was probably a little dusty from the road, she certainly wasn’t this filthy. Then, as she peered closer at the black flakes swimming in the water, she realized what had looked like dirt was actually hundreds of tiny words. Sam’s words. She felt panicked, breathless, wondering if this guy had somehow managed to tear the tattoo right off her back. She yanked off her T-shirt and stood facing away from the mirror, cranking her head around to see her reflection behind her. Her heart was pounding, her hands shaking. But the tattoo was still there. It hadn’t gone anywhere.
Scabs.
Troy had told her this might happen, the scabbing, but she had no idea it would look like this.
This morning, despite a terrible hangover, she wakes up early, intent on getting to Columbus by dark. No more distractions. No more men. She spreads the map out on the ugly geometric bedspread. Unless something terrible happens with her car, she is pretty sure she’ll get to Vermont by Friday. She traces the journey with her finger. Columbus. Then Buffalo. Then Vermont. She is so close.
Outside, it is overcast and muggy. She’s ready to go north, to get out of this sticky weather. She puts on a clean T-shirt and balls up her sweatpants. The yellow dress peeks out of the corner of her duffel bag, and she smiles. She touches the soft hem and thinks about what she’ll say, what
he’ll
say when she finally gets there.
F
inn is in the garden, checking on the plants. He and Alice are going to try an experiment; Finn read that sometimes you can force the flowering of the female plants. In nature, they begin to flower when the days start to have twelve hours of light and twelve hours of darkness. He figures that if they cover the plants at exactly twelve hours after sunrise, then uncover them twelve hours later, then they can trick the plants into flowering. And the quicker they flower, the quicker he’ll have some bud. He knows it’s probably not too smart to call attention to the plants, and a bunch of grocery bags flapping in the wind might be sort of suspicious. So he’s not going to do it with all of the plants, but at least a few. He doesn’t want to sell the stuff for Christ’s sake. He just needs to have enough to help him get to sleep. The stuff from Muppet is gone.
As he examines the plants he thinks about his mother’s garden at home, the virtual jungle out beyond their back deck.
Most days after school Finn would go home, change into his wetsuit, and head out to the beach until dinnertime. Because his parents both worked at home, somebody was always at the house. He was the opposite of a latchkey kid. Sometimes he envied his friends whose parents worked all the time, if not their freedom then at least their ability to be alone. The only way he could get any peace and quiet was to go surfing. Except on Fridays.
On Fridays his mother did the grocery shopping, both for their house and for her weekend catering gigs. His father had a weekly chiropractor’s appointment on Fridays. And Franny had ballet every day after school, including Fridays.
Finn’s dad kept the fridge stocked with beers (and he never counted them), and there was always some really good Greek cheese and olives, something left over from the previous night’s dinner. On Fridays before he went out surfing he’d help himself, popping the cap off a Sam Adams and making a plate of cheese and olives, taking everything out to the deck. He’d love to sit there in that wild jungle of plants. The smell of jasmine and hibiscus was so thick it could almost make you high.
After he’d finished the beer and the plate was covered in olive pits, he’d get his board out and lay it across the outdoor table where they ate dinner most nights. He always had a bar of Sex Wax on him—he’d ruined at least two loads of laundry forgetting to take it out of his pocket.
He was methodical about this process. He’d saved for an entire school year to buy the long board. It cost six hundred dollars, custom built by a guy who worked out of his garage down on Newport. He was pretty sure this was kind of Zen, because when he was waxing his board, his head was in such a quiet place. The rhythm of it was like the rhythm of the waves crashing onto the cliffs below. With the plants breathing all around him, it was a sort of nirvana.
But after Franny died, his mom stopped taking care of the garden.
All those plants she’d fussed over for years, she just forgot about. And something about those wilting leaves, about the heady scented flowers curling in on themselves made his stomach roil.
He remembers coming home from school in late November and bringing an entire six-pack out to the deck, not bothering with the cheese or olives. His appetite was shot. And something about that garden gone to shit made him so pissed off he could hardly see.
He’d uncoiled the garden hose from the side of the shed and turned it on full blast, looping the hose under his arm, walking the periphery of the garden. He’d watered every plant, drenched every leaf. But when none of the plants so much as nodded their droopy heads in acknowledgment, he’d taken off down the path to the beach with his board, leaving the water running, the hose spitting and writhing like a snake. By the time he emerged again from the water and made his way back up to the house, the entire garden was flooded. He’d thought he might be able to save the plants, but instead he’d just killed any of them that had even a remote chance of survival.
This wasn’t his job, he kept thinking. This was his
mother’s
garden, and she’d just let it fucking die.
T
he recipes in the cookbook swim across the pages. She doesn’t want to cook for Lauren. She really wishes Sam had told them not to come. The timing is terrible, and she can’t quite figure out Lauren’s agenda either. Clearly, Monty wants to see if Sam is making any progress with his book. But Lauren didn’t have to come. The idea of her needing fresh air is almost ludicrous. Every time Mena imagines Lauren, she has a dirty martini in one hand and a cigarette in the other.What on earth are they going to
do
with them for two days and nights? Mena is grateful to have the excuse of rehearsals. Sam will have to fend for himself the first night anyway. And the idea of them staying here, in Finn and Franny’s room of all places, makes Mena’s skin crawl. She had made Sam be the one to ask Finn if he’d be willing to give up his room. She didn’t want to be the bad guy. She was always the bad guy with Finn. And amazingly, Finn had been easy. He said he’d pitch a tent and camp out at the far end of the property. Do some exploring.
Finn even seemed excited about it. She hadn’t seen him show this much enthusiasm about anything since they got to Vermont. He’d asked her to help him find the sleeping bag and the Coleman lantern. He’d gathered up all of the parts to the tents and ridden his bike into town to get batteries for the radio, which he asked to borrow from her kitchen. She almost wished she was going to get to go on the camping trip instead of being stuck here tomorrow night.
She’s looking forward to going to rehearsals tonight. They’ve been working on the scene when the Old Man reveals that Eddie and May are half brother and sister.When May starts drinking tequila straight out of the bottle, telling Eddie that she doesn’t love him anymore. Mena’s bruised from the violence of the scene. Lisa keeps telling her she doesn’t have to go all out with it during rehearsals, that she’s liable to break some bones, puncture a lung for Christ’s sake. But there’s something so satisfying in the screaming, in the hurling of her body against walls. What Lisa doesn’t understand,
can’t
understand, is that May acts the way Mena feels. May is her rage. Her sorrow. Simplified.
She decides on
spanakopita
and
xoriatiki,
her mother’s Greek salad. It’s elegant but easy. And hell, she won’t be there to listen to Lauren complain about it anyway. Sam said he’d order out, but the only place to get takeout is the Hi Boy, which serves subs and pizza. She’s pretty sure Lauren would have a lot to say about that.
She wonders what Sam is going to show Monty. She wonders if he has anything to show. She’s not sure if he’s writing while she’s at rehearsal. It’s a subject she doesn’t dare broach.
She knocks on Finn’s door quietly and says, “Tell your father I’m headed out to the grocery store. I’ll be back in about two hours.”
“Yep,” he says. Alice is over again, and she can hear her humming along with the music. Her voice is so pure, it makes Mena’s knees feel soft.
Alice comes to the door and opens it.
“Hi, Mrs. Mason,” she says. And when she smiles, Mena looks hard for that quality, that something, that is Franny.
D
ale gets to Buffalo earlier than she had planned on Thursday afternoon and as she checks into the motel, she sees a glossy pamphlet with a picture of Niagara Falls on the front sticking out of a brochure stand by the door.
“Is this close?” she asks the boy working behind the desk. He looks about fifteen with a bad overbite and acne. He’s playing solitaire on the computer.
“Fifteen, twenty miles or so,” he says without looking away from the screen.
“That’s it?” She had no idea that she’d be so close to Niagara Falls. This was where her mother and father went on their honeymoon. Her mother accidentally dropped the camera and broke it when she slipped on a rock, but she was able to salvage the roll of film and the two pictures on it. The first one is of her father looking out one of those coin-operated binoculars at the crashing falls in the distance. The second one is of both of her parents. Her father’s arm is draped over her mother’s shoulder. She’s looking up at him, smiling. He is gazing straight into the camera, looking smug.
She grabs a Mountain Dew from the vending machine outside her motel room and drinks it in a couple of big swigs. She doesn’t even bother dumping her stuff in her room. She just gets into the Bug, studies the map on the back of the brochure and heads back out. She rolls the window down and pops the only non-Books on Tape tape she brought into the tape deck. She’s feeling so happy, she sings out loud the whole way; she doesn’t care who hears her or sees her.
It’s incredible.The sound alone makes her feel alive, but the view of the crashing falls, the smell of the wet air ... it’s almost too much.
A woman next to her on the observation tower is tying her son’s shoe, struggling to make a double knot as he wriggles and squirms and fusses. There’s a toddler in a stroller next to her, and she’s carrying a baby in a backpack.The baby has dropped her pacifier. A man Dale assumes to be the father is preoccupied with his video camera battery. Dale picks up the pacifier and hands it to the woman.
“Thank you,” the woman says, popping it into her own mouth to clean it off and then plugging up the open mouth of the baby.
Dale peers down below at the crashing water.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” the woman asks.
Dale nods, speechless.
“You should take the
Maid of the Mist
tour,” the woman says.
“What’s that?” Dale asks.
“The boat,” she says, pointing to something below them. “It goes along the river and right next to the falls. It’s amazing.”
“Is it expensive?”
“Twelve dollars or so, I think. But it’s worth it.”The woman smiles at her. “My husband and I came here on our honeymoon. Three kids later, we still come back every year. Hey, would you mind taking a picture of us?” she asks Dale, and hands her a camera. The family gathers together, smiling, and she shoots.
She tries to imagine her parents returning here. She imagines how her life would be if they’d been that kind of couple. If they’d been this kind of family.
A boat trip under Niagara Falls isn’t in her budget. But then again, neither was an entire week in Little Rock. It’s only twelve bucks. She checks her watch. It’s still early. She considers the alternative: going back to the motel, watching some crappy movie and lying in bed awake, her insides all jumpy. She hasn’t slept right since Columbus. She’s been like a kid on Christmas Eve ever since she got east of the Mississippi.
She takes the glass elevator down to the landing and is given a blue plastic poncho, which she dutifully puts on with all the other tourists. And then she stands in line. A long, long line. The tour is supposed to be only a half hour long though, so she figures even if she doesn’t make the next boat, she’ll still be able to get back to the motel before dark.
On the boat, she is overcome by the grandeur of the falls. It’s one of those rare moments when the beauty of the world is almost too much to bear. She’s only felt this way a few times in her life: the first time she saw the ocean and on the only trip her family ever took to the Grand Canyon. It’s the same feeling she got the first time she read a Sam Mason novel. And when Troy finished tattooing the last word, the one near her spine. It’s a sort of trilling feeling, a quivering that starts in the pit of her stomach and extends outward. She imagines that this must be what it feels like to be in love. Your heart so full you could cry.
By the time she gets off the boat, her plastic poncho beaded with water, she is completely exhilarated. Exhausted, but exhilarated. Maybe she will sleep well tonight, even without the Ambien. And by tomorrow she will be in Vermont.
She buys an ice-cream cone before she makes her way back to her car. It’s peppermint, the kind she would always get at Thrifty when she was a kid. Her footsteps are light, she’s humming to herself, and she doesn’t care who hears her, who sees her.
She opens the door to the Bug and plops down into the seat, sighing. Happy.
But something’s wrong. At first she can’t figure it out. It’s like looking at those pictures they always have in kids’ magazines. . . two seemingly identical photos, and you have to figure out what is different in the second photo. It takes her several moments to figure it out.
The buzz that had been sitting in her stomach like a purring kitten suddenly turns sharp, violent, and she feels like she’s going to throw up.
Her backpack
. Her backpack, with the aerial maps of Gormlaith, the info about Quimby, the articles she’s collected, the Books on Tape and the signed first edition of
The Hour of Lead.
Her laptop. Along with a hundred dollars in emergency cash, her last four tampons, and a king-sized Kit Kat bar. All of it is
gone
.
She leans her head against the steering wheel and starts to cry. She cries so hard, it feels like her throat might explode. A few families walk past, pulling their children close to them, shielding them from her. This only makes her cry harder.
All that joy, all that bliss is suddenly sucked out of her like water down a drain. And then her mind is reeling, putting pieces together, arranging, rearranging, trying to make a clear picture.
Her stomach roils. She is dizzy.
God. It makes sense now. Maybe Sam knows that she’s coming. Maybe he’s known all along.
She’s heard that you can track the IP numbers of people who visit your Web site. Maybe the publisher keeps an eye out for people who visit their authors’ pages too often. God, she’s probably been on Sam’s page fifty thousand times. Her heart is racing, her hands unsteady. Maybe they’ve been reading the letters she sent to Sam as well. That would explain why he hasn’t responded. They’ve probably confiscated them.
But she only told a few people about where she’s going. The hairdresser in Phoenix. The guy who sold her the Bug. The Bug!
She grips the steering wheel, clamps her jaw down until her teeth start to grind. Maybe the Bug catching on fire wasn’t an accident at all. Maybe they’ve been trying to stop her all along.
Troy
. Jesus, was it a coincidence that he was there, in the Walmart parking lot, or was he waiting for her? She should have suspected as soon as he asked to come to the motel the first time. Guys don’t want to spend
time
with Dale. And Jesus, Jesus, Jesus ... he might have told someone about the tattoo. He was the one who kept encouraging her to get one. This way there would be proof. Indelible on her back. Why would he do this to her?
They probably tracked her all the way to Niagara Falls and took her stuff so she couldn’t get any farther. She wonders if they’ll be waiting for her in Vermont.
Then again, she thinks, maybe Sam doesn’t know at all. Why would they tell him? If they did, she knows he would defend her. He’d tell them that she’s just writing her thesis.That she’s not some crazy stalker. She needs to get to him before they do. He’ll explain everything.
She is shaking so hard now she can barely see. And when the acid creeps up her throat she knows it’s too late to stop it. She opens up the door of the Bug and vomits pink peppermint ice cream all over the pavement.