4. Miles
4
MILES
“ W hat the hell?” I ducked my head and looked out the windshield. I finally made it to Brookdale. After the nonsense with the airport, it probably would have taken less time to drive the entire way.
But what I was looking at was straight out of a rom-com movie. Small towns didn’t festoon swags of greenery across Main Street in the middle of the year. That was something they did at Christmas.
But I was staring right at an Easter egg and green shamrock laden swag of vines draping from light post to light post. I slowed and I turned left as the GPS instructed.
I cruised well below the speed limit, gawking at the decorations. The same purple and green poster appeared on businesses’ doors. I pulled into an open parking space and got out of the car. The wind was sharp and much colder than I would have expected for this time of the year.
Shrugging down into my sweater, I toughed it out and crossed the sidewalk to read the poster.
Emblazoned in neon colors against a field of green were the words Spring Events in Brookdale . I shot a glance up and down the street. There weren’t too many people out walking around. And those who were shrank down into their winter coats.
Rubbing my hands together, I blew hot breath on them. Damn. Was it getting colder?
Sunday afternoon, the high school drum corps performed at the grand opening of the new gazebo in town square. Where the hell was the town square? Wednesday afternoon starting at four, they were hosting shamrock rock painting, also at the gazebo. There was an asterisk next to this listing. Weather permitting. Otherwise, the rock painting would be held at the library.
I checked my watch. Four ten. It was too cold to do anything outside. I needed to find the library. Before I left, I scanned down the other scheduled events. There was everything from a Saint Patrick’s Day Parade to an Easter Egg hunt, with multiple events throughout the weeks.
Rubbing the chill out of my arms, I dashed back to the car. The heat roared to life as I started the engine. I entered the Brookdale Library in the GPS and wasn’t surprised to find I was only a block away.
Inside the library was warm and cozy. Maybe that had more to do with the old house the library occupied than anything else. I wandered from room to room taking in how they combined built-in shelving along the walls with modern, practically industrial shelving in the middle of the rooms.
Reading nooks with overstuffed chairs were near every window and in other almost hidden locations.
A studious looking young woman with thick glasses smiled at me. She had an armful of books. She resembled a cartoon character of a librarian the way the top of her cardigan was buttoned and with sturdy, functional shoes on her feet. “Can I help you?”
“I was looking for the rock painting,” I mentioned.
“You must be new in town,” she said.
I gave a noncommittal nod. I was new in town, but not in the way she was thinking.
“If you want to follow me, I’ll show you where the community room is.”
I followed her around a corner, down one hallway, down a flight of stairs, down another hallway, and into what was obviously a modern construction addition. At the end of another hall of doors, like classrooms in a school, she pushed through a set of double doors into a veritable party.
Music played over a speaker in the ceiling, and kids ran between people and tables. There was a row of folded tables with painting stations and piles of rocks.
“Have fun,” she said as she turned and left.
There were people from a range of generations, from kids to the elderly. A table set aside from the painting stations was covered in cookies and a punch bowl. I was here to meet people and get a feel for why my team hadn’t been able to make headway on securing properties.
“Welcome, hi. “I’m Mayor Dan. Come on in, paint a rock.” He was a few years older than I was. He extended his hand and I shook it.
Before I had a chance to really say anything, he was off like a social butterfly. I decided to paint a rock and keep my ears open. Maybe I could get a pulse on this town so I could formulate the next step.
Icy wind slapped me hard in the face as I stepped out of the library a little over an hour later. I pulled my coat collar up and tried to hide from the wind. The cold outside was a sharp contrast to the welcoming warmth of the event inside the library. Brookdale did not match what the numbers on the spreadsheet had told me about this place. Sure, it might be economically depressed, but the people had a strong sense of community.
I had been welcomed, and no one knew me.
This was the kind of place tourists would eat up with a spoon. I might need to meet with my team about making some adjustments to the plans, but if anything, that little rock painting party cemented my resolve that Brookdale was the location I wanted.
I knew it was cold, but the sudden swirl of snow flurries caught me off guard. I cranked up the heat and navigated back toward Albany. A little snow late in the spring wasn’t unheard of. The road leading to the freeway was dark. In the daylight hours, it had been pleasant enough, but in the dark with the snow, it was a pain in the ass.
I fumbled with the voice memo on my phone. “Fuck.” was the first thing I managed to record. The road needed to have fewer turns in it so I could do what I needed. A shoulder on the side of the road would have been helpful so I could pull over for a moment to start my recording. I didn’t remember it being so narrow on my drive in.
The GPS instructed me to turn. This was not familiar at all. The road to Brookdale had been a relatively straight shot from the freeway exit. There had been curves in the road, but there was no way this was that same road. And it wasn’t the sudden snow that was confusing me. I’d be fine as long as the fucking GPS didn’t get me lost in the countryside.
It was another thirty minutes before the road I was on intersected with the road I should have been on. I turned left, and about a mile later, I could see the freeway on-ramp, gas stations, and a hotel. I pulled into one of the gas stations and topped off the gas tank.
“You aren’t planning on driving in this, are you? I just got a call from the owner. They told me to shut down and go home,” the clerk said as I handed over my credit card to pay.
“For a little snow?” I asked.
“It’s not a little snow. Haven’t you been following the news? They’re saying we should expect one of those polar vortex cyclones.”
“When is it supposed to hit? I’ve got a flight to catch in Albany.”
The clerk shook his head. “No, you don’t. They are already shutting the airports down. It was on the news.”
I didn’t believe that it was going to be that bad. After I slid back into the car, I pulled out the phone to check the local weather. I saw that I had missed an alert. My flight was canceled. Maybe this storm was something to take seriously.
I considered driving all the way back to the city, but every bit of news and social media was in a panic over the impending storm.
As I pulled out of the gas station, the snow began falling in a thick white sheet. Fine, I could take a cosmic hint. I pulled into the motel parking lot. There was a line inside. I guess I wasn’t the only person seeking refuge.
The clerk worked at top speed even though the people in front of me in line moaned and complained. The woman in front of me stepped up, and the clerk’s face fell from their forced fake smile to horror.
I didn’t figure out that they were out of rooms until the woman crossed her arms on the counter and put her head on them. I could tell from the way her shoulders were lifting and falling that she was crying.
The clerk suddenly had their phone pressed to their ear. The expression on the young man’s face didn’t look promising.
The woman’s head popped up.
“Okay, they can get you in. You have to give them your credit card number to hold the room.” The clerk handed the phone across the counter.
If this place was out of rooms, would the hotel on the other end of that call have anything left? The woman in front of me needed to speed things up. I wanted a room for the night too.
“Thank you, thank you!” She wiped tears from her face, and with a rattle of keys in hand, she ran out the door.
“I’m so sorry, but?—”
“Yeah, you’re out of rooms. That’s pretty obvious. Any chance the place you called for her has anything?”
The young man grimaced and shook his head. “That was their last room. There’s a town about twenty minutes west of here. They have a hotel. I can call to see if they have any vacancies.”
“Brookdale?” I asked.
“Yeah, there. I know it’s out of the way. But there’s nothing south of us with any vacancy, and frankly, Brookdale is closer than anything north of here.” His eyebrows went up.
I let out a long breath. “Um, if that’s my best option, can you give them a call to make sure they have a room?”
I tapped my fingers against the counter while he made the call.
“She’s got plenty of rooms available. Always does. You might want to get moving ahead of the storm. I’ll give her a call and let her know you’re on the way,” he said.
“She won’t need a credit card to secure the reservation?”
He shook his head. “It’s an old-fashioned kind of place. She’ll have a room, don’t worry.”
“Okay, thank you,” I said as I headed out.
“Drive safe. It looks like it’s getting worse out there,” the clerk called out after me as I headed back out into the snowstorm.