The van part’s easier this time at least, and I make sure not to park in any gravel.
The clock on the dash now reads 4:00. I cut the headlights and we’re left in the fluorescent glow of the Seaside Inn. “This is it,” I say. I’ve been growing more and more anxious the closer we got. This is not a place I had ever hoped to visit with my brother, one of the exotic dots on the maps that the two of us used to talk about going to before the accident—the Forest of Knives, Longsheng Rice Terrace, the Great Blue Hole of Belize—but here we were.
“It’s a motel,” he says from the back.
“It’s a nice motel.” I peer out the windshield at the squat two-story inn painted a faded blue. Rows of doors stare out at us. At one end stands a small office with a vacancy sign in the window and big script letters fixed to the top letting us know that this is the Seaside Inn. Even though it’s actually a couple of miles from the sea.
“Why did Will send you to a motel? Does he want you to get bed bugs?” Matt wrinkles his nose.
“Because,” I say, unbuckling. “It’s significant to our relationship.” I go around the side of the van and press a button, and the ramp drops down.
“I thought we were going to a ballroom or something. Like for a school dance. ‘Atlantis was the theme of the night,’” he recites. “Sounds sufficiently cheesy for high school.”
“It was. A school dance, I mean.” I roll Matt backward until his wheels are flat on the asphalt. “Sufficiently cheesy too,” I admit.
Even though I know he can do some maneuvering himself, when I push Matt toward the office, he doesn’t complain about the help.
Go to our place and ask for the key. There you’ll find the next clue from me.
A cowbell clangs overhead when we enter. A man with a walrus face and a sweaty yellow button-down looks up from a crossword puzzle. His hefty jowls give way to an eager grin. “Welcome, travelers. What can I do you for? We’re offering garden-view queen-size beds for thirty percent off this week. And”—he hides his mouth behind his hand conspiratorially—“if you drive a hard bargain I could probably throw in some free Wi-Fi.”
“Thanks.” I try to look grateful. “But actually, we’re not here for a room. We’re here for a clue.”
The man’s blond eyebrows pinch inward. “A clue?”
I’ve been hoping he’d know right away what I was talking about. It feels silly to explain. “Yeah. See, my boyfriend, he came up with this scavenger hunt for my birthday. I’m on the second clue and I’m positive he meant for me to come here. He told me to ask for a key and that would lead me to the third clue.”
“Well, I’ll be.” He lays the pen down over his crossword puzzle. “A real-life treasure hunt.”
“Yeah,” says Matt, pouring on his tricky sick-kid charm. “It’s a real humdinger, isn’t it?”
I slap the back of Matt’s head and smile back at the man, who points to Matt and walrus-grins back. “Sure is, kid, sure is!”
When he stands up, his stool screeches across the floor. “Loretta’s the day manager. She might have left a note or something. Let me check in the back.” The man trots his girth to the back, where I hear rummaging around.
“What?” Matt answers my glare. “I’m just saying. I have not seen a doozy such as this before. Nosireebob.”
I snort. Just a little.
“What room did you say?” The night manager calls.
“I—I didn’t.” Ask for the key. Right. Will expected me to remember the exact room number, because of course he would remember it. I think back to that night. We’d been dating seven months. I wore a strapless pink dress. My mom had taken me to the mall a week before. She never took me shopping. Between Matt, my private school tuition, and my parents’ dwindling bank accounts, there was really no room for frivolous purchases. But this dress she’d bought me wasn’t on sale. It hugged my hips and had what felt like a thousand rhinestones on the bodice that shimmered when I walked. I adored it like I hadn’t adored anything that I’d ever owned. I felt beautiful and that feeling was reflected in the way Will looked at me.
I pictured the night. We’d dropped Penny off at her house first even though mine was closest. We’d grown accustomed to this routine ever since Will and I had started dating. She didn’t say anything when we both gave her hugs and made sure she got inside, but I think she knew what was about to happen and was too nice to comment. That was Penny for you.
I close my eyes, remembering how my palms were sweating when we pulled into the parking lot. My heart beat quicker than a hummingbird’s as I waited for Will to come back with a key. And I kept thinking how I loved that dress.
“I’m not sure of the room number,” I say. “But it’s on the first floor, the third door from the right when you’re facing the building.”
More shuffling. A few G-rated substitutes for curse words. “Nope, I don’t see anything.” He lumbers back to the counter. “Ah, now, don’t look disappointed like that. I can’t stand to see it from you both.”
I look down at Matt. He has his lower lip jutted out in a deep frown. “What are you, Tiny Tim?” I mutter through clenched teeth.
“Is the room, that one that I described,” I say. “Is it occupied?”
He arches and peers into the back room, squinting his eyes. “No, no, doesn’t look like it is.” Now it’s my turn to look pitiful. Not that I feel guilty. If he knew the whole story, he’d feel plenty bad for me.
He scratches his head. “I suppose it can’t hurt for you to take a quick look-see,” he says.
He goes back to retrieve the key, then dangles the flimsy credit card–size thing in front of me. “Say, what are you doing here in the middle of the night?” he asks. “This isn’t the boyfriend, is it?” First I see him glance at my bulky cast and bandages. Then he looks down at Matt. I have a grudging respect for the lack of judgment he shows about the fact that my beau might be in a wheelchair.
“No!” Matt and I both shout at once.
The man holds up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. None of my business. We just don’t usually get much excitement this time of night and now here we are with a real live treasure hunt.”
“Sure, yeah, well,” I say, sliding the key from its spot on the counter. “You know what they say—‘the early bird gets the worm.’” My patience for this sort of banter is waning, so with a few more pleasantries, we take our leave of the portly night manager of the Not-So-Seaside Inn.
“You know,” Matt says, as I wheel him down the covered first-floor walkway. Cheap aluminum blinds are drawn over each window. The only noise is the freeway and the whir of a vending machine fan. “My mind is starting to paint an unpleasant picture as to why we’re here.”
“Then you might want to tell your mind to put down the brush.”
We arrive at the third door from the right. The same nerves that I felt that night all rush in on me at once. It takes me two tries to get the key into the lock. It clicks open.