“How can you be happy about this?” she said. “Are you trying to get us locked up?”
Manny looked at her like she was insane and smoothed the wrinkles out of the newspaper. “We’re not gonna get caught,” he said, sullen. “I’m too smart for those country pigs. They talk a big talk but they ain’t coordinating shit. They’re telling the press cause they gotta make it look like they’re doing something.”
The more he talked, the angrier she got. Her throat was tight with all the words she wouldn’t dare say to him. She turned away and pulled a loose string from the hem of the bedspread.
He flicked her hard on the back of her head. “Don’t you turn away from me. We’re supposed to be partners. You wanted in on what I was doing, and this is just part of the package.”
A part of her melted at the word partners. It was what she had wanted, so much more than what she had thought possible for someone like her, a discarded girl with a made-up name. Manny had found her, given her a life, and taught her what he knew. She owed him. But she had too much to lose to get locked up on account of his vanity.
“If we get caught,” she said, dead serious, “I’ll never forgive you.” For a tense moment, Manny merely looked at her, the way he sometimes did when he was provoked but did not want to be seen losing control. She waited to be hit, or shoved into the bedspread so hard she couldn’t breathe. Instead, Manny picked himself up off the floor, took a shower, and didn’t speak to her for a week. After that she was more careful with her opinions.
“Cheer up, Kitty, we’re going for a ride,” he said one morning after he’d decided to start speaking to her again. He stripped the sheets away from her.
“Where to now, then?” she said, hoping he would say they were heading somewhere far from Austin to wait out the hype around the Texaco Twosome. They had kept a low profile hiding out since the write-up in the paper, but she needed more distance between her and Austin County.
“Oh, just wait and see,” he said as he folded one of his shirts into a perfect rectangle.
After they’d packed up their few things and eaten at a stand that served patty melts and fries and Cokes and nothing else, they headed south on Route 77 from Giddings down through Schulenburg, then cut southwest at Hallettsville. He was keeping a wide berth from Austin, at least. They had just passed through Yoakum when she thought she saw the filling station where Manny had taken her out for the first time. She wasn’t sure why, but the sight of that place lodged a pit in her stomach. As they approached Cuero, Kit saw billboards leading up to a motel called Clifford’s Hollywood Palace, each one boasting a different celebrity. Mae West folding forward, her bosom spilling out, Come up and see me sometime, why dontcha? Elvis mid-swivel, snarling, Come on down, and thank you very much; Little Richard crouching over a piano, black dash over his lip, a bird’s nest on his head: Good Golly! Come to Clifford’s! The closer they got, the edgier Manny seemed. His voice ran dry, and he ate his lemon drops by threes, like nuts.
The air was thick with rotten eggs. Kit pulled her T-shirt up to cover her nose and mouth.
“What the shit is that smell?” she asked.
Manny started looking for his exit and switched on his brights. “That’s sulfur carried over from the oil field in Luling,” he said. “That’s the smell of money.”
An hour and a half after they had left Giddings, Manny stopped the car under the porte cochere of the motel advertised on the billboards and led her inside. The reception office of Clifford’s Hollywood Palace was the prettiest room she had ever seen, pretty enough to disperse the anxious feeling in her gut. The ceiling was painted gold, with a complicated chandelier dropping from its center. The carpet was primary red and hatched with marks from a recent cleaning. Three walls were mirrored, and Kit felt pleasantly disoriented seeing all these versions of herself. She followed the line of her profile, flat short forehead, broad nose, full lips, and a squared-off chin. Thick, haphazard braid that was so coarse it held itself together. The padding of puberty had melted away, and the contours of her face looked as if they had been carved and sanded out of soft wood. She didn’t see a pretty girl, but she liked what she saw. She had a fighting face.
The receptionist looked like a bellboy in his cream suit with green velvet trim and brass buttons. He broke into a studied smile and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to Clifford’s Famous Hollywood Palace. Here for a romantic getaway?”
“As a matter of fact,” Manny said, hanging his arm on her shoulders, “it’s our honeymoon.”
Kit shifted slightly away from Manny. He had only ever presented her as his daughter. Why would he change the script now? She glanced over at him, and he seemed irritated, like she should just go with it. She forced a smile across her teeth.
After sizing Kit up briefly, the receptionist clapped.
“Congratulations, you two. I’ll put you in the James Dean suite. Comes with a complimentary bottle of bubbly.”
Manny bristled. “Uh-uh, no way, what else you got?”
The receptionist seemed to take this personally. He sucked in his cheeks and took a measured breath.
“We have several rooms,” he said, running his finger down his list. “But I can assure you, the Dean is the best available.”
Manny shook his head. He didn’t like pushback.
“I don’t want that room. James Dean was a fag and a loser, okay?” he said as if it were common knowledge. “What else you got?”
The receptionist pulled the ledger toward him and smirked. “Maybe you should ask her where she’d like to stay. James is very popular with the ladies.”
Manny lunged over the counter and grabbed the receptionist by his velvet collar. The man shrieked and looked ready to cry. Manny leaned in. His hair had come out of its ponytail and brushed the receptionist’s cheek.
“Why are you making this so hard for me?” Manny said.
Kit shrunk away from Manny’s thin-skinned reaction. Once he had been slicker than oil; now he seemed a slave to his impulses. She wanted to peel out of there and find somewhere new to stay, but she knew she had to smooth things over and bring Manny back to Earth.
“I think what he’s saying, sir,” Kit said, “is that he wants a room with tits.”
The guy rubbed his neck under the collar and chuckled nervously.
“Right,” he said. “We should have something that fits that description.”
She read the ledger upside down and fished a tenner out of Manny’s pocket, slipping it to the receptionist.
“Dolly Parton’s available. We’ll take that one.”