“Come on,” he said, getting out of bed and looking for his sneakers. “We'll buy a candy bar and then go look for some change in cars.”
“Do you think we should do that stuff anymore?”
“Well, we could write down the license numbers this time. That way we'll know who we have to pay back.”
When he had finished tying his shoes, he stood up and looked down at the straight white part in her hair. “You're not sorry we didn't go back to camp?” he asked. The idea made him nervous.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Are you kidding? I'd rather starve.”
Before they left she made him comb his hair and gave him a wad of toilet paper to put in his pocket in case he had to blow his nose. She had noticed him wiping his nose on his shirt-sleeve, but she hadn't said anything. What had there been to say?
Outside, it was dusk. There was a smear of gold in the sky where the sun was setting, and the air was turning cold. The boy looked up into the dark wood, but he couldn't see anything. Still, he thought, there might be something there, watching them. It might not mean them any harm, but it might still be watching.
Many of the motel rooms now had cars parked in front of them. As they walked past they could see the shadows of ordinary people moving behind closed
curtains. A faint, confident television voice predicted more sunny days.
They didn't notice the old woman with pink hair pushing a broom along the balcony. She leaned over the railing and looked down at them as they passed beneath her.
The streetlights came on as they crossed the dusty parking lot toward the restaurant attached to the motel. They thought they would buy a candy bar there and then walk down the main street again. They were afraid to look for change in the cars parked at the motel.
The restaurant was almost full. As they waited at the cashier's counter for an old woman to pay her bill, the boy watched a man eating a steak. The man had cut the whole thing up into little bits. He was putting them rapidly into his mouth, chewing all the time. The boy looked away.
In Turkey he and his parents would sometimes eat at a café that had set up tables on the sidewalk. A hissing gas lantern had hung over a big charcoal grill. In the white light small boys and girls with dark serious faces walked among the tables offering single roses or squirts of perfume from brightly colored bottles.
He wondered now if they looked so serious because they were hungry.
His father had always waved them away. He had explained that if you bought something from them you were a sucker.
When he and the girl went to Turkey, they would
have money and they would buy. Their hair would be damp with perfume, and they would eat from a table heaped with roses.
The old woman seemed to be taking forever. She had hooked a cane over her thin arm and was fumbling with a black purse rubbed white around the edges.
The girl was watching her closely. At first he thought she was looking at the candy beneath the glass of the counter, but then he realized that she was watching the old creased hands plucking at the purse.
The woman took out a motel key and handed it to the cashier.
The cashier copied the room number from the tag onto a charge slip, and then pointed out where the old woman was to sign.
“Thank you, Mrs. Grogan,” said the cashier, snapping the carbons out of the packet of slips. She gave a yellow receipt to the old woman and then looked at the boy. The girl had already drifted away and was studying a rack of postcards.
“Did you want something?”
“No,” he said. “No, not yet.”
“Did you see that?” whispered the girl when he joined her. She pulled a card from the rack that said Barnesville was the cherry capital of the world and looked at it hard. “She showed them her key and charged it. She put it on her motel bill.”
He knew what she was thinking, and shook his head very slightly.
“She's a grownup. An adult.”
“So what? We've got a key, haven't we? We could say our dad sent us to have supper and to charge it, if they ask.”
“I don't know. They might want to call him or something.”
The girl put the card back in the rack, and her eyes swiveled to a baby in a high chair who was pounding a plate of spaghetti into mush with his spoon.
“I'm really hungry,” she said.
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They sat down at a table near the window. The waitress who brought them their menus was biting her lip to keep from smiling. She had long blond curls hanging down in front of her ears. He couldn't see what was funny, and didn't look up from the menu when she came back with two glasses of ice water.
“What would you folks like?” the waitress asked. They ordered hamburgers, french fries, and malted milks. They tried not to look at the prices.
“Would you like some pie?” the waitress asked. “The pecan is special tonight.” She winked at the boy, and he wanted to say no, but the girl nodded.
“Yes, please,” he said.
The paper place mats were printed with puzzles and games, and while they waited they took turns
working them with the stub of the pencil from the little brown notebook. The puzzles were really for little kids, but they did them, anyway.
They had a race to finish the hardest puzzle. It was a maze.
“I'm done,” said the girl.
The boy looked at her. He was only halfway through. “Hey,” he said. “You don't even have a pencil.”
“I used my finger.” She leaned over so she could look at his place mat. “Yes,” she said. “That's the way I went, too.”
He couldn't understand what he was grinning about. In a few minutes the cashier would be looking at them and wondering what they thought they were trying to pull, and he was grinning so much his mouth hurt.
When the food came they ate quickly because they were hungry. The boy couldn't finish his pie. He pushed what was left across the table and went to find the bathroom.
It was very fancy. When he backed away from the urinal it flushed all by itself because there was an electric eye built into the walls of the stall. It made him nervous to have stepped into the beam without realizing it, but when he found he could make the urinal flush over and over again by passing his hand in front of the beam, he felt better. It was watching him, but it wasn't very smart.
When he came out of the bathroom, he saw the
girl wasn't sitting at the table. She was standing by the cashier's counter. The old cleaning woman was holding her by the sweater and talking to the cashier. The girl kept shaking the fat hand away, but each time she did, the woman grabbed at her again.
Something had gone wrong.
The boy sidled over behind the rack of postcards. He began to study them intently. He was very still. He thought a person might walk right by and not see him.
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The girl could see that the cashier didn't want trouble. She was young and pretty. She bit at her soft lower lip with tiny, perfect teeth. She kept fingering their key with her white fingers and trying to think while the old woman jabbered at her.
“There wasn't any luggage when I cleaned in there,” said the old woman, pointing at the key. “That's why I checked back when I saw them leave. They spent the afternoon in the same bed. At her age.” She looked at the girl, her tiny mouth puckered with satisfaction and disapproval. “I don't know what this world's coming to.”
The girl felt her knees starting to shake. She didn't think she could stand what was going on in that woman's head. It was dirty and grubby in there, and she didn't want the old woman thinking about her.
“My dad is really going to be upset about this,” she said as calmly as she could. She tried to get the cashier to look at her, but the young woman wouldn't do it.
“Where's your boyfriend?” demanded the cleaning lady, shaking her arm.
It was disgusting to be touched by her. There were patches of old-person sweat under the arms of her sleeveless dress.
“Don't touch me. My brother went back to our room. He's sick. When my dad gets ⦔
“Brother nothing. If you were my daughter I'd smack your bottom.”
The woman had talked about her bottom. She had actually said the word. The girl felt so sick with rage and shame that she could hardly breathe. She suddenly wanted the boy very much, but she was afraid to look for him. It would be awful if they caught him, too.
“I think,” said the cashier finally, “we'd better talk to Mr. Anderson about this.” She looked at the girl for the first time. “I'm sorry,” she added. “We have to be careful.”
The girl didn't understand what she meant. What did they have to be careful about?
The cashier called over a waitress to take her place behind the counter. It was their waitress. Her eyes were big, and she wasn't smiling. The girl couldn't look at her. She let them lead her out of the silent restaurant. Someone scraped a knife against a plate.
Outside, she knew she should try to run. The cleaning lady was old and the cashier was wearing high heels. She could get away easily; but she couldn't run,
she could barely walk. She had been caught, and she had never imagined what that would be like. Before, she had been happy. She had been crazy-happy, and had felt so light and airy that she had thought nothing could touch her. Now the old woman was pulling at her sweater and thinking bad thoughts about her. They clung like tar. She was wading through the dust of the parking lot, and it was so thick she could barely move.
Behind the desk in the motel lobby was a young man as neat and clean as a new piece of furniture. He seemed to have been waiting for them. He leaned forward politely. His eyes flickered.
“Some problem, Hazel?” he said to the cashier.
“You bet there is,” said the old woman. She talked as if her words were punches, rocking back and forth, jabbing at the girl.
The girl tried to think of what she might say. She knew she wasn't going to give up. She wasn't going to be what the cleaning lady said she was. She would talk until they stopped believing her, and then she wouldn't say anything. She would never tell them her name. Her mother would never know. She couldn't let that happen.
“Miss Hendricks, is it?” said the man. He had flipped through a registration file and was holding up a white card. His face was carefully neutral. “Where are your parents now?”
“They're at the garage. Getting the car fixed. That's
where our luggage is, too. The car broke down when we were leaving this morning, that's why we didn't bring the luggage back. I thought my mom told you all about this.”
The old woman with pink hair made a loud noise through her nose. The man coughed to cover the sound. He looked uncertainly, first at the girl and then at the cashier. The girl began to hope that he would believe her, at least for a while. She didn't know why it was important, but she wanted him to believe her.
“Well, that's right, I think. If you could just tell us the garage.”
“I don't know the garage. Can't we just wait until my dad gets back? He's really going to be mad.”
“I'm sorry, miss. Of course we can wait. Mrs. Purse just wants to be sure. Isn't that right, Mrs. Purse?” He looked at the old woman and she turned a mottled red. Even her fat upper arms.
“What about the boy?” she said, her voice tight. “I saw a boy, too, coming out of that room.”
“Boy? What boy?” asked the man.
“My brother ⦔ the girl began, but the man dropped the card on the desk as if he didn't want to touch it any longer.
“According to the registration there is a party of three in that room. Is that your mother and father and you?”
He looked at her very hard. Somewhere outside, a car alarm went off, but no one paid any attention.
They were all looking at her, and she didn't know what to say.
The old woman grabbed her arm again, triumphant. “There's just her and her boyfriend. There ain't any luggage. Just a paper bag with tampons in it.” The woman made a disgusting noise with her mouth.
The girl thought she was going to cry. It was because the old woman had gone through her bag and found the tampons. She looked at the cashier, but the young woman looked ready to cry herself. That frightened her more than anything.
A second car alarm went off. In the motel lobby nothing moved but the man's eyes, darting from the old woman to the cashier, and finally to the girl.
He jumped when the fire alarm began to shriek. High and warbling, the sound was almost too loud to hear.
“Damn. Hazel? Check the parking lot. Keep her here, Mrs. Purse.” He pointed a finger at the girl as he came out from behind the desk. “You're in trouble,” he said.