Chapter 12 #2
“More bookstores to browse. More books to buy.” I smile.
“But I can’t help but feel like Sierra is still partially my responsibility. I owe it to my mother, regardless of what I want.” He gives me a squeeze, holding me tighter and tighter. “Let’s get back in the van.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” I shiver. Back in the van, after de-icing our eyeballs and eyebrows, we stare at the map on Dean’s phone. Four hours to Caribou and we need to figure out a place to stay the night.
“Is there like, a Holiday Inn Express?” I ask.
Dean pans around the map. “There is not, like a Holiday Inn Express.”
“What about a regular Holiday Inn?”
“Nope.”
“A DoubleTree?” I suggest.
“Nada.”
“Best Western.”
“There’s two in Canada. Do you have your passport?” Dean looks at me expectantly.
“What about La Quinta?” I ask.
“Try again.”
“Okay, well, what is there?”
“Ralph’s Motel,” Dean reads from the screen.
“Do we have any other options?”
“Unless you want to sleep in the back of the van. Ralph’s has 4.3 stars on Google Reviews. That’s gotta count for something in your book, right?” Dean asks.
“Yeah…let me read the comments.”
He hands me the phone, and I hold it close to my face to get a better look at the photos. Lots of wood paneling. Funky quilts. “There’s snowmobile parking.”
“We’re in a Chrysler Town and Country, Madeline.”
“This person says they got bed bugs from here!” I exclaim, vetoing him and handing the phone back. “No way.”
“That was four years ago, and one comment. Things have changed, look how many comments say the place is clean. We don’t really have much of a choice if you want to be close for the concert. Let me just call.”
He presses the button to give the motel a call, and I listen to the jazz holding music with him on speakerphone. A crackly voice picks up. “Hello? This is Rhonda.”
Dean clears his throat. “Hi, yes. I’d like to book two rooms for…just tonight, please.”
There’s a thick pause while Rhonda clacks on her keyboard. “For how many?”
“Two. There’s two of us,” Dean clarifies for her.
“Two rooms,” I add.
“We only have one room left. It sleeps two.” Rhonda says.
“Are there two beds?” I pipe up.
“Yes, there’s two beds. Two doubles.” Rhonda’s country drawl is becoming exuberantly apparent.
I nod and Dean tells Rhonda we’ll take it.
“You have to pay by credit card now,” She says.
I read my credit card number off to Rhonda, and she accepts it. “Check-in is at 3.”
“We won't be there until 5, at least,” Dean explains to her.
“That’s fine. Just ring the bell if I’m not at the desk.”
“Well, Rhonda fucking lied.”
I’m standing in the doorway of room 106, staring at a single queen bed. “Unless there’s another bed in the closet or something.”
Dean walks over to the small sliding door, and glides it open as if there really could be another bed in there.
Much to my chagrin, there is not. He returns to the entrance to bring in his duffel bag.
He lifts and sets my suitcase up on the dresser.
“Well, I guess you’re stuck with me,” He remarks, shrugging off his coat and hanging it neatly in the previously empty closet.
I press my lips together and don’t say anything.
This is not the ideal scenario—I’m petrified that Dean might realize how truly unhinged I am.
But how bad could it be? He’s seen the tote bag.
He’s watched me sanitize a menu. It’s not like he’s completely in the dark.
I like Dean. He likes me. What’s there to worry about?
Standing in the doorway, I watch him move about the wood-paneled room, his tall, brooding figure throwing shadows across the wall.
A sliver of sunlight splashes across the bed, in from the small, sliding window in the front of the room.
After inspecting the complimentary coffee maker, aligning his shoes in front of the dresser and plugging in his phone, Dean sits in the only armchair, running his fingers along the pilled fabric.
He looks up at me. “What? Are your shoes stuck?”
“No.”
I set my tote bag on top of the dresser.
It’s weird sharing this time and space—the post-check-in, pre-meal hour—with Dean, especially after last night.
To say I’m used to, and accustomed to, settling in on my own isn’t an exaggeration.
He hasn’t been there to watch my routine of scrubbing my hands and face, aligning my pill bottles on the counter, and counting my postcards from Andy this whole trip.
But I do it, anyway, for fear that if I don’t, it’s all I’ll think about all night.
I dig my bar of soap that I’ve been toting between inns and hotels out of my suitcase, and flick the light switch in the bathroom on, and while I’m skeeved out by the dirty grout in-between the countertop tiles, the given towels look freshly bleached.
After tying my hair up, I wash my hands and face, and pop the bar of soap back into the box once I’m finished.
Making my way back to my suitcase and tote bag, I toe my shoes off and align them next to Dean’s.
I fish out my antidepressants and antipsychotics out of my tote bag and take one of each.
I always take them before dinner if I can help it, even though I don’t need to take them with food.
I arrange the labels face out and leave them on the dresser.
Digging deeper, I pull out my postcards and count them. Four, just as there should be. The Waverly Inn. The Monarch Resort. The Pic-a-Lilli Pub. The Belladonna. And Andy’s letter.
“What are you looking at?” Dean asks.
“My postcards,” I answer, flipping them around, putting them back in their Ziploc sandwich bag for safe keeping.
“Can I see?” Dean stands and walks up behind me, peering but not prying over my shoulder.
I take the postcards out, leaving the letter in the bag, and hand him the stack.
He sifts through them, carefully handling each, reading the messages before he flips to the next one.
Dean doesn’t say anything about them, but he hands them neatly to me and I lock them away in their baggie.
“Do you want to get ready and we’ll find something to eat before the concert?” He asks.
“Yes, please.” I go back to my suitcase and think about what to wear tonight.
I select my last clean sweater—the black one with the white pearl beads on the collar—and my last clean pair of blue jeans.
I’ll have to see if I can find a laundry facility somewhere…
or I’ll just wash them in the tub. I leave Dean sitting in the armchair, playing the daily crossword.
In the bathroom, I adjust my ponytail and I stare at my face in the mirror.
Even though I look less ghostly than I usually do this time of winter, I still feel like my face could use some color.
Flashes of Dean’s hands on me turn my cheeks pink in no time.
I change my sweater and pants and fold my old clothes neatly in a pile and place them on the counter.
I walk up to the doorway and push the door open just a crack to get a peek at Dean. He’s right where I left him, legs crossed, dark hair falling over his forehead, eyes focused on his phone. He looks like something holy and untouchable.
I want to plaster my hands all over him. He looks up from his phone, and I step out from behind the door.
“McKinney. You look beautiful.” Dean’s voice is scratching in a way I’ve never heard before.
He grins and I want him to swallow me whole—I don’t even know what to say.
It’s probably been years since someone’s called me beautiful.
It makes my heart ache in a bittersweet way.
He stands and in two strides, he’s handing me my tote bag. “You ready?”
“I’m ready.”
While I was ready for the lackluster food at the Pic-a-Lilli Pub, I wasn’t ready for the sheer volume of people who would be there. After eating, Dean and I wade through the already gathered crowd surrounding the stage. We reach the middle of the crowd when Denny Twenty, the band comes on stage.
Dean stands behind me, only a hand on my shoulder.
I keep my eyes on the dark, moving figures fifty feet in front of me.
A man picks up his guitar, the rest of the band following suit, a spotlight turns on, blinding the crowd.
The microphone squeals with feedback as the guitarist picks it up from the stand.
“To Andy,” Denny says, and the crowd roars. “Who taught me in more ways than one.” The opening chords of Andy's song, I WAS HER LOVER, begin. It’s been ages since I’ve heard this song—and I know it by heart. It’s easily Andy’s most human song and Denny’s gravelly voice does it a unique justice.
The lines that always hit me the most are towards the end of the song. I mouth them as Denny sings them. “You say, ‘Where’ve you been all my life?’/ I tell you, ‘You are my muse, not my vice’/ What’s the difference? You ask / What’s the difference when you’re gonna be in a casket?”
Andy wrote those lines after a fight we had well before he died about whether he could name the album after me.
Now that he’s gone, I question the difference between a bad habit and a source of inspiration—although Andy’s point rings true.
It doesn’t matter when you’re dead as a doornail in a casket.
We sway to the hypnotic guitar riffs that make up the end of the song, and the next song is an original roots revival Denny Twenty I don’t recognize, but it’s just as good as Andy’s music.
This song is mellow but rhythmic and it makes me want to dance—rightfully so, the rest of the crowd is already bopping and swinging.
The band plays more of their own music, and then some more of Andy’s songs, before doing a cover of Cars and Telephones by Arcade Fire.
It’s an interesting song choice, as it’s not explicitly indie-folk rock or something that Andy played on tour.
The band harmonizes well with Denny, the small crowd hums quietly, absorbing his energy.
Denny does a solo cover on the acoustic guitar, and Dean’s grip on my shoulder tightens. He’s moved by Denny’s grating vocals and performance, but I just feel like another soul adrift in the crowd, watching the figures on the stage from someone else’s eyes.
“Andy wrote this song for his wife.” It’s not until I hear my name come out of Denny’s mouth that I zip back up into my own body. “Wherever you are tonight, Madeline, this song is for you.”
I gasp as Denny sings the opening lines to Madeline, and my heart sinks a thousand feet straight to my feet, through the floor, into the bedrock of the Earth.
This song always hits me like a freight train, barreling at me, hundreds of miles per hour, unable to change its course until it’s far too late.
And usually, it’s Andy I can’t help but picture in the song lyrics.
But as Denny sings, all I can think about is Dean, and the way he’s draped across my shoulders, holding me steady in the darkness, notes of the harmonica solo filling the air.
In the past, I’d be crying by now, drowning in a river of existential quicksand about my own mortality.
When Dean looks at me, he sees me. The last stanza comes at me like a fireball from a flamethrower.
I'll never forget you,
I know it'll be hard
Since there's no one else around,
I'm insane enough to think that
there's more to life than this
(Get a move on now, Madeline)
I’ll never forget you, Andy, but you’re right. There’s nothing like a crowd singing your song, your name on their lips. There’s more to life than this.