Chapter Five
Save the Cat—when a main character does something early in the narrative to demonstrate that they are, in fact, a hero in the story.
The weather has been truly next-level terrible. We’ve congregated in a very small group in the lobby to listen to Alice play the keyboard while Ruth sings. Ruth is wearing a short sequined dress that I could believe she bought last week or wore back in her waitress days. She has a bright-red flower pinned into her curly black hair, and bright lipstick to match.
Alice is wearing her usual sedate style. Apparently she doesn’t think a motel lobby performance rates sequins.
Even in her nineties, Ruth’s voice is beautiful. Time and age give every note a haunting tremolo, and her rendition of “At Last” makes my heart swell.
She’s reaching the crescendo of the song when the motel lobby door opens in from the courtyard, and Nathan comes in.
Right as they get to the part about love coming along.
No.
I reject that instantly as my eyes lock with his, as my heart crashes hard into my breastbone.
“There’s smoke coming from somewhere,” he says.
The last few notes of the song fade out, and I look at him. “Smoke?” I stand up. “Here?”
Elise, who was sitting on the couch with Emma on her lap, displaces her daughter gently and stands up.
“No. Toward town.” He holds the door open, and I move past him, heading outside.
It’s still hot as hell, and the wind, dry and thin, is blowing an acrid scent in the direction of the Pink Flamingo. When Nathan gets nearer to me, I realize he smells strongly of alcohol.
I look at him closely. His face is weathered, deep grooves bracketing his mouth, and there’s a specific hollow look to his eyes. He’s hungover. I don’t know if he was out or in his room drinking alone, and I don’t know what to do with either scenario. Right now, it’s definitely not the most important thing.
The residents fill the courtyard, and all of us look off into the distance.
Sirens start to wail, filling the air.
My pocket buzzes, and I take my phone out. I notice Elise doing the same. There’s a banner alert going across the screen with an exclamation point.
Evacuation Level 3— Go Now !—issued for parts of Riverside County.
I click the map and see that the alert encompasses the northern part of town. Residential buildings and all the big-box stores, schools, doctors’ offices.
Another alert comes through immediately. Level 1— Be Ready .
That’s for the southern part of town. Old town, with its charming historic main street. The older houses, and my motel.
Shock makes my hands shake and my movements clumsy as I open the local Facebook page to try to get a sense of what’s going on, while at the same time Elise opens a local news stream.
“The fire started at an apartment complex, and because it’s so dry and the wind is so high today, it spread immediately to another complex next door,” she reads out.
It’s still seven miles away from us, but the high wind and the extreme heat makes my stomach feel hollow with terror.
My residents don’t move quickly. Most of them don’t drive. I start catastrophizing about what will happen if we lose this place. If we have to evacuate, I’m piling everybody into my car. I know Elise will take hers. We won’t leave anyone behind.
“I’m going to go back to my unit,” she says. “I just need to ... We’re going to have to pack things.”
She runs back into the lobby, takes Emma’s hand, and leads her outside and toward their unit. I can’t quite parse the emotion I feel in that moment. Elise is being strong for Emma. The way she cares for her daughter makes me so conscious of an empty pit in my stomach. Of pain I try to forget.
I look away, and I think about my boxes of books in the closet. My clothes. It would be sad if I lost all the copies I have of my books. But mostly, everything I have is replaceable. Pictures are digital, and anyway ...
This place. This place is what matters to me. The people in it. I don’t need things. I need to make sure everyone here is ready to go and that they’ll be safe if we have to evacuate.
This is my home.
Even if it’s 123 degrees. Even if it’s on fire.
I chose this place, and it’s my home.
That echoes inside me as I start to go around the rooms, knocking on every door. By the time I make it halfway through, the courtyard is mostly filled with residents looking at their phones.
There’s a level of anxiety in everyone. Though not Alice and Ruth, who are looking around with interest more than anxiety.
I can hear helicopter rotors overhead. There’s a large one flying over the mountains, headed our way, with a bright-orange bucket being hauled beneath. Full of either retardant or water, I’m not sure.
If there’s a lake around here with enough water in it for them to use, I would be surprised.
“Do you need help?” Nathan asks, observing the scene.
The temporary guests are particularly filled with anxiety, but I know they can just put their suitcases in their cars and drive off. It’s not the same for them as it is for those of us who have made our homes here.
“Nothing is happening right now,” I say. “Though I do have concerns if we have to leave. Because ...”
“The older ladies,” he says.
“ They don’t have any concerns,” I say. “ I do.”
Smoke is starting to roll in our direction, and the blue sky is rapidly turning a yellowish gray.
“I need to get back in the air-conditioning,” Alice says. “I don’t have a smartphone, so I imagine you’ll keep us from burning to a crisp?”
“Yes,” I say. “I promise no one is getting burned to a crisp.”
Elise returns from packing and sits at one of the bistro tables by the pool, keeping an eye on her phone, watching for evacuations, watching for more information. The smoke has turned into an oppressive cloud. It’s too early for the sun to go down; the yellow, acrid smoke is simply blocking it out. The air is thick. It isn’t only smoke, but ash. Like being surrounded by a campfire you can’t escape. There is nowhere to move. Nowhere to go.
My eyes burn, and my lungs ache.
The fear I feel for my elderly residents intensifies.
Even if we don’t have to evacuate, how can we withstand this? It’s like being in hell.
“Everyone needs to get inside,” I say.
I make a move toward where the residents are sitting in the courtyard. “Get inside. All of you. If we need to evacuate, we’ll get a notice, but we can’t sit out here breathing all this in.”
“It’s bad enough that it isn’t like the motel ventilation is going to keep the air clean,” Jonathan says.
“Maybe not, but it might minimize the amount of ash you’re breathing in.”
“No,” says Gladys, planting herself firmly at the center of the courtyard. “I want to be able to see it. And I don’t have a view out my window.”
“We can’t really see anything from here,” I say. There’s a glow over on the horizon, far too close in my opinion.
“If you really want to, you can sit in my room,” Nathan says.
I’m surprised by the offer, but I feel like I shouldn’t be.
Yes, he can be difficult with me sometimes, but he has consistently been good to the older ladies. He’s consistently ... decent.
It’s like herding chickens, but I get Ruth to go to Alice’s unit and sit with her. Lydia and Wilma are finally persuaded to at least get into the lobby. Albert didn’t need to be told twice; he was off in the AC before I asked anyone to go.
Jonathan and Joseph leave begrudgingly.
But Gladys stands rooted to the spot, a strange light in her eye, and I recognize I’m contending with a lifetime of worries and fears that are manifesting in this moment. It isn’t that she doesn’t trust me, but something happened in her life to make her feel the need to be vigilant now.
“You can’t stop a fire,” I say to Gladys gently.
“I need to watch.”
Her voice is trembling, and she’s beginning to waver.
Then two things happen at once. She begins to fall, and Nathan moves into position, catching her in his arms and scooping her up off the ground.
It’s effortless. I’ve observed his strength in an aesthetic way many times, but this is the first time I’ve really seen it employed. He sweeps Gladys into the lobby, and I follow.
“We need to call a paramedic,” he says, laying her gently on the couch.
Elise races in after us, her phone pressed to her ear. “I’m already on with dispatch,” she says.
Emergency services are slammed, but paramedics arrive within fifteen minutes, taking her vitals and giving her oxygen.
Everything is fine, and their best guess is that she essentially had a panic attack and fainted when her breathing became too shallow.
Elise is sitting on a stool behind the counter, tears silently falling down her cheeks. “Three of the apartment complexes are completely gone,” she says, wiping at them. “My cousin Solis and her husband lost everything.”
“They can come here,” I say. “Her and her whole family.”
“I’ll tell them,” she says.
Currently, I have five empty rooms, and I’m thinking of what we can do to house people who are displaced.
In addition to the rooms, we also have the courtyard, which is a safe place for people to camp out if need be.
I keep watching updates. The fire began in a residential space. Two apartment complexes and a housing development burned to the ground within hours. Then the elementary school.
It starts to get darker, cooler, but the wind doesn’t stop. Off in the distance I can see an orange glow, and I know it represents so much loss.
On social media, people put out calls for places to shelter those who lost their homes. I respond, and within an hour, we have eleven families at the motel.
Nathan doesn’t wait for me to delegate tasks to him. He’s organizing people and supplies and giving orders to people who look on the verge of panic. He’s keeping them busy, I realize, making them feel useful, while not overtaxing them.
“I’ll make some food,” Albert says, reminding me again why I like him.
Nathan joins in food prep but also gets some of the kids to help.
I make a list of supplies I think we might need and go into the closet where I keep toiletries. Nathan appears with a duffel bag. “Can I help carry supplies and distribute them?”
I nod. “Thank you.”
I fill the bag with shampoo, washcloths, toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, and other amenities, and Nathan carries it out for distribution.
Soon, the courtyard is filled with the smell of food and the sound of people talking, laughing, even though it’s more because of trauma than anything being significantly funny.
We have showers, and between everybody there are enough clothes to go around. We’re able to start laundering the dirty clothes people were wearing when they arrived. By the time we’re done settling everyone in, it’s one in the morning, and the fire is still burning.
We’re still on alert.
“I’m going to stay up,” I say to Elise. “You go be with Emma. I’m sure this is ... terrifying for her.”
“It’s terrifying for everybody,” Elise says. “I don’t have to leave you alone.”
“I’m fine.”
Though I realize I’m not fine as soon as I find myself alone. It never occurred to me that this life could be threatened. The new life I made here. That I worked so hard for.
That means so much to me.
It’s been my safety. My shelter. I wanted to leave all my darkness behind in LA, and this ... It makes me realize there’s darkness everywhere.
I wipe at a tear on my cheek, and I try to keep it together. I haven’t lost anything yet. So many people here have. Everything. I have to keep perspective.
“You did good.”
I turn and see Nathan standing there.
“Thanks,” I say. “And thank you for helping.”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“You were actually in the military, right?” I ask.
Yes, I’ve read his bio.
He nods. “Yes. I was.”
“I could tell. You were very calm. Very organized. Even though you were very hungover.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh and might be a groan. He sits down at the table next to mine. Not too close. “Yeah.”
“You make a habit of drinking alone?”
I mean it to sound light and amusing, but it doesn’t.
“Sometimes,” he says.
“I just ... I thought you didn’t procrastinate.”
“Procrastination, self-medication—what’s the difference, really?”
“Good question.”
It’s so strange to me. That this man has now been in my life off and on for more than two years, that I know what he does, but nothing about the substance of him.
It feels like there’s something connecting me to him, but also like there’s a wall between us. I’m not sure which feeling is more real. I can still see the orange glow past the secure courtyard of the Pink Flamingo. The sky feels low. Heavy. There’s grit on the bistro table from ash.
“I love this place,” I say. “The people here have been amazing to me. This is just killing me.”
“You can replace things,” he says.
I look over at him. “Yes. Thanks for that. But it isn’t easy. It’s more than things; it’s everyone’s sense of security.”
“I get that. I’m just saying, when everything is terrible, you can at least be grateful that it’s something that can be rebuilt.” Yet again, he isn’t wrong, even if the way he says it is annoying.
I want to push him. I want to know more about him. I don’t know if it would build the wall higher or tighten the tether.
“I imagine, having been in the military, this doesn’t really faze you.”
“Not really.”
“I just mean because you are philosophical about it.”
“Are you asking me if I saw terrible things? Because yes. Of course.”
“Right. I just think that it either gives you perspective or ...”
It makes me wonder if that’s why he drinks. Maybe that’s why he writes military thrillers. Sometimes I wonder if I write romance because I’m trying to go over the things that went wrong in my own. Though that’s pretty well-worn ground at this point. I know for a fact I’m trying to reassure myself that happy endings can still exist.
“Or what?” he asks. “You didn’t finish your sentence.”
“I didn’t really finish my thought ,” I say.
“I thought you were a wordsmith,” he says.
“That is why they pay me the medium bucks, yes.” Sometimes, though, something feels too heavy to put into words, and even if I don’t know what it is right now, there is something heavy sitting between us.
“You were fantastic tonight,” I say.
I can still hear helicopters flying overhead. The smoke is so thick, so intense, my throat is dry, and my eyes burn, but I can’t bring myself to go inside. I feel like I have to hold a vigil here.
People are sharing rooms and sleeping in the lobby. People who have just lost their homes, and I feel like I want to keep watch for them.
“So were you,” he says.
I don’t have anything salty to say to that. I just want to take the affirmation that I did something right in a crisis.
I didn’t fold in on myself. I didn’t disappear.
“You should get some sleep,” he says.
“Are you concerned about me?”
Our eyes meet and hold. I want to move closer to him, but I don’t. I’m afraid of what would happen if I do more than I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t, so I stay there, rooted to the spot.
“You look exhausted,” he says.
He doesn’t say it in a way that offends me. There’s concern underlying his words.
“You were the hero today,” I say. “You should go get some rest.”
He shakes his head. “I was in the military, remember? I’m happy to keep watch for a while. You go get sleep. Tomorrow ... There’s a lot of extra people in your motel. There’s going to be work to do.”
He isn’t wrong, and I feel exhaustion roll over me in a wave.
“Right. Well. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
As I go into my room and climb into bed, then check my phone one more time to make sure I haven’t missed any new evacuation updates, I reflect on how aspects of today felt similar to the last emergency I survived.
The one that stole part of myself. The one that changed everything.
This is different. But it reminds me of those feelings all the same. It reminds me of loss and despair on a profound level, wreathed in smoke and flame this time.
But tomorrow I’m going to get up, and I’m going to be the hero in my own life. The one I need. That is the perk to being single.
I’m not going to wait for somebody to rescue me.
It was great to have Nathan here. Being the hero.
But I can be one too. For myself and for everyone I love.
I go to sleep determined about that.