Chapter 9
SLOANE
The shower is lukewarm at best and the water pressure is what I'd describe as aggressive dripping, but I stand under it for twenty minutes anyway. It's the only place in Duster that gives me a little comfort.
My arms are shaking from shoveling, my lower back has a deep, hot ache that pulses when I bend, and my hands are raw with a blister forming on my right palm from the pitchfork.
I also have sunburn from the walk to the farm and my nails are chipped.
Every single one of them, destroyed in a single day.
There's not a salon within fifty miles of here that could fix them.
At least I have two days a week off so I can go back to LA and sleep in my own bed, get pampered and eat nice food. The promise of forty-eight hours of normalcy every week is the only thing keeping me from lying down on this bathroom floor and not getting up.
I smell my arm. Soap. Good. No more pig manure and straw and sweat. Maggie doesn't seem to notice the smell. She moves through it like it's normal.
Checking the bathroom and the dresser drawers, I look for a hairdryer, but there's nothing.
Irina hasn't packed one because why would she?
Every hotel has a hair dryer bolted to the wall and she probably assumed wherever I was staying would have the basics.
The Dusty Rose Motel does not have the basics.
All it has is a Bible and a grudge against modernity.
She hasn't packed slippers either, which means I'm walking barefoot on a carpet that feels like it hasn't been deep-cleaned since the building was erected. It's slightly sticky near the bed and I don't want to know why. I curl my toes and try not to think about it.
I towel my hair as dry as I can and look at myself in the bathroom mirror.
My face is pink. My nose is peeling. There are dark circles under my eyes and my lips are dry.
I decide it doesn't matter how I look. Nothing matters in Duster.
What I really want to do is stay in this room and cry, but I need food.
I had soup and bread for lunch, which Maggie served at a table on the porch without ceremony or conversation.
Some kind of vegetable thing with lentils.
But that was six hours ago and I've burned more calories today than I normally burn in a week.
What I really want — what I would give anything for right now — is a huge sushi platter.
Delicious, clean sushi, and a cold glass of Chablis. That's what I deserve after today.
But I'm in Duster and they don't deliver here, so the diner it is.
I put on clothes. This is its own challenge because soon I'll run out of things to wear.
Irina packed two pairs of shorts and I've worn one today and it's currently on the bathroom floor smelling like manure.
Tomorrow I'll wear the other pair and after that I'll need to do laundry but there's no laundry room at the motel.
I'll need to find a laundromat somewhere in town.
I open the envelope of cash my father left me and the bank card he set up for traveling, which is a basic thing with a laughable daily limit. I don't want to carry my designer purse around here at night, so I put some cash in my pocket.
The diner is two blocks down Main Street, past the general store and the post office.
I pass a bar called The Watering Hole, which has its door propped open.
Three men on stools, all wearing baseball caps, look in my direction.
I keep walking. The evening air is still warm but the worst of the heat has broken.
A pickup truck drives past and honks its horn at me.
The general store is closed but I slow down to read the window. Groceries, hardware, bait, notary public, and — I squint — nails by appointment, Wednesdays only, ask for Gail. I think about my chipped nails and then I think about getting a manicure in a shop that also sells bait and I keep walking.
There are a few trucks out front of Ruthie's Diner and an old man is sitting on a bench by the door with a cup of coffee.
He greets me as I push inside. There's a long counter with stools, booths along the windows with red vinyl seats, and a pie display case with three pies in it, and a chalkboard menu on the wall behind the counter with handwriting that changes color every few items. It's quiet compared to this morning.
Perhaps their dinner is even worse than their breakfast.
Ruthie's behind the counter — a woman in her late fifties, maybe sixties, with silver-streaked hair pinned up and an apron that says RUTHIE'S across the front in embroidered cursive.
She looks me up and down and whatever she's thinking, she keeps it to herself.
The woman's got stamina; she served me coffee this morning and she's still here.
"You're back," she says. "Sit anywhere." I take a booth by the window and Ruthie follows with a laminated menu. "How's your first day in Duster been?" she asks.
"Riveting." Be nice, Sloane, I remind myself. I'm going to be eating here for the next two months. Pissing off the woman who controls my food supply is not a smart move, so I manage a smile. "Sorry. It's been fine. Long day."
She doesn't react. "Specials tonight are meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans, or chicken fried steak with corn."
I flip open the menu. Burgers, sandwiches, fried everything, more burgers. The salad section has two items and one of them is a side. It doesn't matter what I order. None of it is going to be what I want and all of it is going to come on a plate the size of a hubcap covered in gravy.
"I'll have the special," I say. "The meatloaf. And a glass of white wine, please."
Ruthie frowns at me. The younger waitress behind the counter — a girl in her twenties with a braid — glances over.
"We don't sell alcohol," Ruthie says.
"You don't —" I glance at the menu again. "At all?"
"You ever been in a diner before today?"
I don't answer.
"Of course you haven't." She tucks her notepad into her apron. "If you want alcohol, you'd have to go to The Watering Hole." She pauses, and the corner of her mouth twitches. "They won't have fancy wine or champagne though."
The girl with the braid snorts into her hand and turns away.
Great. No wine and no coffee that doesn't taste like asphalt. I'm about to add "no dignity" to the list when a flash of light comes from the family in the booth across the aisle. The teenage daughter has her phone out and it's pointed at me.
"Hey," I say. "What are you doing?"
She lowers the phone half an inch. "What?"
"I just saw you take a picture. Delete it, please."
She blinks, widening her eyes innocently. "I wasn't. I was messaging my friend."
"You were texting your friend with the camera pointed at my face?"
She shrugs, which infuriates me, so I get up from my booth and reach for her phone. "Let me see —"
The father is out of his seat so fast his coffee cup rattles. He's a big man in a flannel shirt and he steps between me and his daughter.
"Don't you dare touch my kid's phone. If she said she was messaging a friend, she was messaging a friend. Maisy doesn't lie."
I roll my eyes and huff. "Oh, come on. She clearly was."
"That's the woman who drove into Dawson's pig pen," his daughter says, as if that makes me fair game for photos.
The father narrows his eyes at me. "You're the one who hit Maggie's place?
" He straightens up to his full height, which is considerable.
"Maggie Dawson is a friend of mine. She's a friend of everyone in Duster.
And folks around here don't take kindly to someone who drinks and drives and destroys a good woman's livelihood. "
The diner has gone quiet. Every head is turned. Ruthie is still standing by my booth with her arms folded.
"Okay," she says, moving between us. She puts a hand on his shoulder. "Sit down, Fred." Then she turns to me. "I think it's best if you take your food to go."