Chapter 56
MAGGIE
Ipull the truck into the Dusty Rose lot and it's nearly full, which I've never seen — people stranded somewhere between here and Bakersfield with nowhere else to land. The old motel is having its busiest night of the decade.
Sloane goes to grab some clothes from her room, and I cut the engine and get out too.
"I've heard so much about this place," I say, following her. "I want to see it for myself."
"Okay. Your funeral." When she opens the door, she stops dead on the threshold. "Oh, no," she says. "Oh, no, no, no."
I come up behind her and look over her shoulder. She left the window open.
The room is brown and everything is covered in dust. The carpet, the bed, even the walls.
"I wanted to air it and forgot to close it before I left," she says faintly, picking a T-shirt off the chair. She shakes it, and a cloud comes off it. She puts it down again, defeated. "I couldn't sleep in this even if I wanted to."
"Well, luckily you don't have to." I open the closet and it's the one clean thing in the room.
"At least I had the sense to put most of my clothes away," Sloane says, pulling a few things off the hangers.
The white T-shirt she's holding is immediately stained by her fingers, two grubby prints right across the front.
She looks at them, then at her hands, then holds the shirt up to me like evidence.
That sets me off, and she starts laughing too. It's the stupid helpless kind of laughter that feeds on itself and it takes me a while to recover. I look around at the disaster and sigh. "Well, bring whatever's clean and we'll deal with the rest another day. Is the reception still open?"
"Yeah, I should tell them." She grabs a few items, closes the window, then straightens her shoulders like she's bracing herself.
I follow her to reception, because I know the woman, Patty, and I have a feeling Sloane's about to need backup.
Patty's behind the desk doing a crossword. She looks up over her glasses as we enter. "Sloane Archer." Then she turns to me. "And Maggie Dawson. Isn't that something. Well, I've had a parade of disasters through these doors today but you two just took the trophy."
"I'm so sorry to bother you," Sloane says. "I left the window in my room open during the storm. By accident. And it's — everything's covered in dust. The whole room. I feel terrible."
Patty sets down her pen. "You left the window open."
"I wasn't thinking. I'm so sorry."
"During a blowing dust advisory." Patty frowns. "Honey, where I'm from, you close the window when the news tells you the desert's about to walk into your house. Even my dog knew to come in."
"I know. I know. It was stupid."
Patty sighs. "That's going to be a cleaning charge.
Deep clean, all the linens, the carpet. That dust gets into everything.
" She writes something down. "I'll work out the amount tomorrow but I can't get your room cleaned anytime soon.
My cleaners are run off their feet — every checkout's a disaster, half these people tracked the whole desert in with them. Day after tomorrow at the earliest."
A sock slips out of the armful Sloane is carrying and lands on the carpet. She bends to pick it up, and as she straightens, a pair of underwear falls from the top of the pile. She catches it against her thigh, red-faced, and tries to tuck both back into the bundle.
"That's fair. Of course." She pauses. "Is there — I don't suppose there's another room I could move into tomorrow?"
"I can't promise that. We're full and then some — half these people drove into the storm like fools and now they're stranded waiting on Hector to fix their cars.
Sandblasted windshields, clogged air filters, one fella seized his whole engine.
Hector's one man with one shop, so they're not going anywhere fast." She shakes her head.
"God help me, I've got people sleeping in a room with one bed and a cot I dug out of storage.
There's not a spare pillow in this building. "
"Right. No, of course."
Patty shrugs. "You're welcome to borrow a bucket and some rags and do it yourself if you can't wait, but I'll be honest with you, that's a two-day job for one person and I don't even have clean sheets for you."
"Okay." Sloane nods, absorbing it. "Okay. Thank you. And I really am sorry. I should've known better."
"Yes, you should have," Patty says. "Anywhere you can sleep in the meantime?" Her gaze shifts to me. "Maggie?"
"Yes, she can stay with me for a couple of nights, so there's no rush on the room."
"Mm," she says, which could mean anything. "I guess that's sorted then." We turn to go and she calls after us. "Give your mom my best, Maggie."
"Will do, Patty."
Outside, Sloane lingers by the truck. "Maggie. Are you sure about this?" She glances back at the motel and lowers her voice. "Your mom's going to come by. Luis, Dale, Cassie. Everyone's going to see I'm there. You said yourself there are no secrets here."
"But now we have a perfectly innocent explanation," I say. "Your room's full of dust, the motel's full, and I've got a spare room." I open the truck door for her. "Nobody can argue with that. And as far as Mom's concerned…" I hesitate. "She already knows we kissed."
Sloane stares at me. "No…"
"I'm sorry, but even if I hadn't, she'd have worked it out. I was all over the place after you left for LA that weekend and I had to tell someone." I sigh. "That's all she knows though. I said it was a mistake, which I truly did tell myself at the time. No one else will find out though."
"Oh god." Sloane closes her eyes. "She's barely tolerating me as it is. This is going to push her right over the edge."
I shake my head and put a hand on her arm. "Mom won't tell anyone. And no, she's not delighted, but it's my life. She knows that."