chapter two #2
Room eight is dark. I stick the key into the lock. I haven’t been to a motel with actual keys instead of magnetized cards
in years. Leaning against the door, I push it open. A wave of musty air whooshes over me, and I hop backward in case a herd
of rodents decides to stampede out. When no rodents attack, I turn on the light.
Yellow fluorescents flicker on overhead and illuminate a bed that’s piled high with twenty or so garish throw pillows: striped
square pillows, round polka-dot pillows, a few plaids, others with prints or birds or flowers or elephants. Some have fringe.
One is paisley with velvet trim. It looks as though a rogue seamstress stole upholstery from several dozen old ladies’ living
rooms and then stitched them into pillows. She then went on to decorate her orange prison jumpsuit with flower appliqués.
I kick the door shut behind me and carry my collection of three-ounce toiletries to the bathroom. All the fixtures are 1950s lime-green. I dump the toiletries beside a shell-shaped green sink and try not to notice the circle of mold around the taps.
I know it’s too much to hope for a minifridge. Even if there were one, I bet its contents would be a decade past their sell-by
date, and I’d spend the night with food poisoning, vomiting on the hideous throw pillows—which couldn’t hurt their appearance
but would hurt their odor. I check the motel room drawers and cabinets anyway and find a Gideon Bible, one gold earring, and
a white sock. Everything I touch is coated with a layer of dust. The carpet is sticky. One very short night, I tell myself. I’ll leave as soon as it’s light out again.
First, though, I need food before I’m tempted to gnaw on the throw pillow that features an embroidered still life of a fruit
bowl.
And then I’ll call Mom.
Leaving the room, I lock the door to protect my precious toiletries. A man combs through the parking lot, kicking at the piles
of discarded clothes and poking in the bushes. I hurry past him, and I slip my hand into my pocket and relock my car doors.
Twice. Mine is the sole car under the streetlamp. It looks on display, a shiny please-steal-me exhibit. But obsessively locking
and relocking it is the best I can do.
I leave the car to its fate when I see there’s a diner across the street, the Moonlight Diner. It’s lit up with every holiday
decoration possible: plastic blinking Santas, jack-o’-lanterns, American flags with neon fireworks. I trot across the street
toward the gleaming beacon that promises French fries, pancakes, and milkshakes in a veneer of kitsch. Also a point in its
favor: Moonlight isn’t spelled Moonlite. There are still no cars moving in either direction, though a few pickup trucks, Cadillacs, and old station wagons are parked
by meters—all expired.
The diner looks open. I can see a few figures through the window, hunched over their coffee mugs and dinners. It reminds me of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, except with a lot more neon.
I open the door and walk inside. The bell over the door rings. Every person in the diner turns his or her head to look at
me. A man who’d been stirring his coffee freezes midstir. All conversation ceases. Only the diner’s jukebox churns out any
noise, a tinny drumbeat and a singer wailing out a song that I don’t recognize. I feel like a deer caught in neon headlights,
and I freeze, too.
“Table for one, or do you want to make a new friend?”
A woman in a waitress uniform crosses the diner toward me. She plucks a menu out of the hands of another customer. She looks
more like she belongs in a business suit than the checkered Dorothy Gale dress with apron that she’s wearing. Her black hair
is slicked back, model-like, and her makeup was expertly applied to highlight her almond eyes. Her rich brown skin is so perfect
that she looks poreless. Her voice is smooth, almost mocking, with a hint of a New York accent. I feel rumpled in comparison.
“One, thanks,” I say.
“Anywhere you want.” She waves at the tables and hands me the purloined menu.
I pick a booth by the window, away from the stares of a trucker guy who is halfway through a greasy cheeseburger, a kid who
has three sundaes in front of him, a woman in a pink tracksuit who doodles on her place mat, and a man in a thick winter parka
who huddles by the air conditioner. I open the diner menu in front of me both to read and to block their view of me. All the
dishes are named after cosmological objects: the eclipse éclair, the solar flare flounder, the meteor meatloaf. They’re printed
in the curve of a crescent moon.
Despite my menu shield, a woman slides into my booth. “Welcome to Lost!”
I am not in the mood to make pleasant conversation with random overly friendly strangers. Not that I ever am. I don’t want to hear about which relatives are visiting, what the weather will be like tomorrow, or why I’d look much better if I didn’t dye one strip of hair white.
For the record, it isn’t white; it’s colorless. I am keeping it stripped of all color until I decide whether to dye it blue,
pink, or purple.
Or maybe it’s merely cowardice, not indecision. I know my office won’t approve of blue, pink, or purple hair. Clients come
in, and we are told repeatedly that we represent the professional face of Daybreak Consulting Services. But they can’t object
to white hair, or they’d have to censure our CEO.
Regardless, whatever this woman wants to chat about, all I want is food and sleep—and a decent excuse not to call Mom until
morning. “I don’t mean to be rude, but . . .” I begin.
“That’s what people say when they’re about to be stunningly rude.” The woman smiles to soften her words. “Just came over to
offer you a little advice.”
I have to concentrate on not rolling my eyes like Tiffany.
The woman is older, about sixty, with a face that’s unmemorable. Not pretty, not ugly, just pleasant. She has laugh lines
around her brown eyes, and she wears tasteful gold earrings. She looks like the kind of woman who has raised two children
and both have turned out well-adjusted. She leans over the table, as if to impart confidential information. “Order the pie.
You’ll like it. They have an assortment of last slices.”
This isn’t what I expected her to say. I touch the white stripe in my hair and twist it around my finger, a nervous tic that
I haven’t bothered to stop. “Last slices?”
“You know, the slice that’s always left behind because no one wants to take it,” the woman said. “Victoria, slice of the rhubarb!”
“Girl wants to be alone, Merry,” Victoria calls back. “And she needs protein. It’s important to keep your strength up when you’re in a new place.”
“You never worry about my strength, Victoria,” the trucker says mournfully.
“Can you still lift your ass out of that chair?” Victoria asks.
He demonstrates.
Victoria applauds sarcastically. “Eat your food and quit complaining.” She picks up a coffeepot. “Decaf tonight. Raise your
mugs if you want some.” Several customers raise their mugs. The diner seems to have relaxed again. Still, no other conversations
have started up.
It’s probably my mood, but it all feels a little off, as if the banter were staged for my benefit, as if they’d normally sit
in silence.
“I’m Meredith,” the woman across from me says. “Folks here call me Merry. It’s on account of the fact that I like to smile.
Also, it’s the first two syllables of my name.” She smiles again, and I think she must be sitting in an odd patch of light.
She has glints of light on her arms and a soft haze around her hair.
“I’m just passing through,” I say. The kid at the counter continues to stare at me. And the trucker is shooting me looks between
bites of his cheeseburger. Grease clings to his beard.
“Ahh, staying at the Pine Barrens. You’ll want to avoid room twelve.”
I nod in mock seriousness. “Dead bodies?”
Merry laughs and then sobers. “Just stay out of twelve.”
The waitress Victoria swings past and drops a plate of steak and mashed potatoes in front of me. “But I haven’t ordered . . .”
I begin to say.
Merry leans across the table again and says in a stage whisper, “Don’t argue with Victoria. She knows what your body needs.
Besides, that’s New York strip steak. You won’t see that here every day.”
I am going to say that I’d wanted a soup or a simple sandwich, but my stomach yawns and I don’t have the energy to argue anyway.
A steak in a diner can’t cost that much.
This isn’t L.A. I cut a piece and put it in my mouth.
My eyes instantly water as pepper fills my sinuses and tickles my throat. I swallow and cough.
“Guess it didn’t need that additional seasoning,” Victoria observes.
“Told you,” a man says from the kitchen. “Came preseasoned. If you’d let me taste it earlier, I could have told you what seasonings.”
“You’re not licking uncooked beef.” Victoria swings a finger over everyone in the diner. “And none of you are listening to
this conversation.”
“No, ma’am,” the trucker says. He focuses on his food with intensity.
Merry reaches across the table and pats my hand. “You finish your dinner, honey. We’ll talk more later, when you’re ready.”
She slides out of the booth and saunters toward the back of the diner. I watch her disappear down a hall and think I see the
odd haze of light following her, but then I decide that I must have imagined it.
I eat quickly. The faster I eat, the sooner I sleep, and the quicker I leave here. The potatoes are cold and have congealed
into solid lumps, but they’re thick with garlic so I eat them anyway. Driving must have made me extra hungry.
The other customers keep glancing at me.
I pretend I don’t notice.
Merry doesn’t return—the diner must have a back door. I’m glad. I don’t want any more conversations tonight. I’ve had my fill
of this town already.
Finishing, I look up to catch the waitress’s eye . . . She is watching me, waiting. “Check, please,” I say. I fish my wallet
out of my purse and take out my credit card.
She shakes her head. “Your cards are no good here.”
“Oh, sorry.” I hadn’t noticed the lack of credit card signs. I don’t carry much cash, but I should have enough to cover a meal at a diner, even a steak. I look through my wallet. “How much?”
“It’s on us,” the unseen man in the kitchen pipes up.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” This diner can’t possibly serve many tourists. Plus my job may be soul-sucking but it pays me enough
for dinner.
“Your money’s no good here. Barter system only, and you have nothing we need,” Victoria says. “You can pay next time, after
the Missing Man explains the rules.”
I feel a chill. I don’t like the certainty in her voice when she says “next time,” and I don’t want to know what she means
by “rules.” Also, what kind of diner doesn’t take money?
“I don’t know ‘the Missing Man.’ And as I said, I’m just passing through. I won’t be back.” Leaving my table, I cross the
diner and press a twenty-dollar bill into Victoria’s hand. “Steak was great, even with the extra seasoning.”
Victoria follows me as I flee to the door. All the customers are staring at me again. “You need to talk to the Missing Man,”
she says.
“I need to get some sleep,” I say. “Long drive tomorrow.”
I bolt out of the diner and across the still-unused street. Not a single car drove past during the entire meal. Crossing through
the parking lot, I spot yet another wallet on the ground. This time, I leave it there.
Ahead, the forbidden room, room twelve, is lit from within, but its shades are drawn.
At my motel room door, my hands shake as I fumble with the key. I shoot a look back at the diner, its bright lights and garish
decorations lightening the dark sky. Above, a fat moon has risen. It hangs above the neon diner sign. Every crater seems to
glow brighter than I’ve ever seen it.
I let myself into the room and lock the door behind me, shutting out the town, the diner, the moon, and the road home.