She waited at Rand’s base camp, propped on the workbench under the awning while he gave his statement. She clenched and unclenched her toes—her sneakers felt too small, as if her bones were spreading yolk, as if someone had picked her up and dropped her. She wanted to leave. Leo was holding forth with several guys over by the parked vehicles and she waved experimentally to see if she could catch his attention. Get him to take her away, back, somewhere. After a moment she gave up. The shade under the awning deepened. If only she could vanish—lose herself like some dummy sidekick. Except then she’d feel even more alone. She sank her head to her knees. Within seconds, it seemed, Leo rematerialized, his arm around her shoulders. A mole winked on his neck. His breath on her face was like chicory crossed with carnations, a smell chemical and latent. But at last her wait was over. Into the day’s furnace with her. Then into his white truck which ferried her through the dust and gravel to an enchantment of empty blacktop. He drove fast and silent. An oncoming motorcycle whined by like a mosquito on steroids. A minivan glissed into sight then swept alongside and seemed to hover briefly before passing—Leo thought she was staring across at him. I don’t envy you, he said. Finding out like this.
She nodded. The breeze sifted the needles on a stand of spindly pine. A tourist trading post then a gas station emerged by the side of the road—tricks, she thought. Ruses to convince her the truck wasn’t rolling in place while the surround peeled like rind. More beguilements when Leo banged a right into the motel parking lot. The grounds appeared devoid of vegetation. The single-story cinderblock structure, topped by a low-slung roof and with one filmed-over window like a newt eye peering dimly from each of its seven rooms, created an effect of dormancy. It was as if the place were rooted below ground and hadn’t taken yet. He parked next to her car and rested his hands near the hillock where his jeans rose over his crotch. You want I can go in with you, he said.
She let herself from the pickup and slammed the door. Her image blotted its shiny surface and then the truck revved out of the lot, taking her reflection with it.
She entered the room. Double bed with threadbare coverlet and knotty-pine walls. A clutch of nickels and pennies on the dresser. Yesterday’s underclothes heaped on the floor in a study of conjugal squalor. On the other side of the flimsy wall, Jane’s room. Marilyn crumpled onto the bed and rummaged in her mind as if through a toolbox—she needed to call Jane’s family, say the right thing. But only a sprawl of scaffolding and ingeniously placed mirrors appeared. She curled onto her side. Last night she’d played her part well, had taken no small role in broadcasting an ardent thwucking of the headboard against the panelling. As if to say, Here lies the passionate duo. What lies, she thought now. Sweat pushed above her upper lip and she licked at it. She felt as if she’d been rushing for days and weeks and years and now the rushing had stopped.
Miraculously, she slept. Merciful blackness. And woke to Rand hunching through the door. I know, he was saying into his handset. Thanks, me too, I can hardly believe. Yeah, she did. Drained them. Fuck yeah. To the last breath.
Then he was off the phone and right back on again with a similar script as he paced the floor. She got up. She folded her clothes and in the bathroom zipped her toiletries case. She got it—the elites drew together to protect against the know-nothings who might close off sites and shutter shops dealing in services for the technical sort. She understood too the need to exhort and extol, to tell each other they were very sorry but look how brave their endeavor was, to not quit now. What might she contribute to all this? she wondered. I’m glad you’re safe, Rand. Sorry now? Sorry as I am? While she had questions for Rand, the questions she had for herself were larger. She closed the bathroom curtains. She peed and flushed and cried into a towel. She flushed again and splashed water on her face then slit open the door. No, he said. Another passage, a new one. No idea how far back it goes.
She clicked the door shut again and knocked her forehead against the wood until black spots rashed her vision. When she finally re-emerged he was quiet, lying on the bed. Tears leaked from his eyes. After a moment he spared her a glance—all it took for her to go to him. Though his embrace was limp, she was grateful enough to hate herself. She clung to him for a moment. Then she bungled from the room, bashed her bags in the back seat of the car and jammed the key in the ignition, her self-loathing a wizened pea that kept shifting and irritating but also soothed since it was hers, all hers. At least something was.
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