Outside Beauty

The sun was fully up by the time Maddie woke up. We bought snacks and used the bathroom at a gas stop, then filed back to the car and got settled in again, driving for hours and hours. Marilyn eventually got comfortable enough behind the wheel to go faster on the open highway. By late in the afternoon, we’d made it through all of Iowa, singing every song we knew and playing countless rounds of Why? with Maddie to keep her distracted.

  Finally, Marilyn said, “I have to go to sleep. Everybody keep your eyes open for a cheap motel.” There were approximately one zillion cheap motels, so it didn’t take long to find one.

  chapter seventeen

  WE ENDED UP IN EASTERN Nebraska in extended-stay accommodations, the kind of place where some people lived for months at a time. Old men sat around outside chain-smoking, the smoke billowing from their noses as if they could not be bothered to put their mouths through the effort of opening. One man spit about once every thirty seconds. Another chomped a wad of gum as big as a plum. Every so often he concentrated on blowing huge bubbles that the other men watched with interest and occasional admiration. After an especially big bubble one or the other would nod and say, “Uh-huh, brother,” or “Good one, there, boy.”

  When we went into the office to pay, the manager seemed surprised.

  “We don’t get many young ladies here,” he said. “Not many Orientals, either.”

  “Is it dangerous?” I asked.

  “No, but we got a lot of men here. And they got some rough edges.”

  “As long as it’s not dangerous,” I said.

  “Oh, no. But they spit and such. Sometimes they spit tobacco. It’s not pretty.”

  Our room was dim even after we turned on the lights, and the two-burner gas stove was marred with streaks and drops of dried brown gunk. Near the stove was a little basket holding several razor blades. A faded note read If you spill anything sticky, make sure to scrape it off. Scraped-off dried brown gunk lined the edges of a couple of the blades. Another small sign, on the wall near the stove, read IF YOU ARE DRUNK, PLEASE USE HEAT WITH CARE.

  Marilyn took out a cigarette and tried to light it on the burner. The flame leaped up, and I smelled burnt hair.

  None of us even undressed. We just plopped down on the bed and fell asleep. Our sleep schedule was all messed up, and we ended up waking around two a.m. Lakey got up first and woke the rest of us. I heard crickets singing happily all around. Our mother used to shake her head at the chirping of crickets. “It’s all about procreating, girls,” she’d say. “That whole racket you hear.”

  When we walked out to leave, three old men were sitting outside, one of them asleep right there in the chair. I recognized them from earlier. They must have spent their entire lives sitting outside talking and sleeping. I could feel the two awake men watching me as I walked to the office and dropped the key to the room in the mail slot. They scratched their noses, smoked their cigarettes, blew their bubbles, scratched their chests, and just generally shifted their eyes among the four of us like we were scenes on a television set.

  Once inside the car, I saw that a pick-up was parked perpendicular to ours and was sticking out a bit. I knew Marilyn would have trouble getting out of the space.

  “Shelby, can you get out and tell me if I’m too close to the pick-up?”

  So I got out and watched. “Stop!” I cried out. “Stop, Marilyn!” I waved my arms in the air.

  She opened her window. “What is it?”

  “You’re going to be about an inch away if you keep going.”

  “An inch is fine. As long as I don’t hit it.”

  “It only looks like an inch to me. It might be less,” I said. I felt the eyes of the old men on us. A light turned on in the office. “Marilyn, hurry!”

  “How can I hurry when you say I’m an inch away?”

  She brought the car slightly forward and to the right. Then she jumped the curb and my heart stopped. Fortunately, she stopped right away and didn’t go far. I walked to the window. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “No, but I have to do this. There’s no other choice.”

  “Do you want me to try?”

  “No, I’m going to do it because I have to.”

  So I stood by watching as she backed up again.

  “About three inches!” I called excitedly.

  She backed up slowly. The men outside clapped. The third one had woken up and was also watching. The motel manager had stepped out in his pajamas. I felt my face grow hot. We weren’t very competent at running away.

  Once the car was free, I got back in. Marilyn looked like she was going to be ill. But she was a stronger person than I’d thought, not that I didn’t think she was a strong person, but I think I thought that she wasn’t especially strong and that maybe she didn’t think she was strong at all. That’s what I thought at that moment, anyway. She put the car in forward and drove off. She looked at me and said, “Mom says never let it bother you when a man stares at you.”

  “Yeah, but they weren’t staring at you because you’re pretty,” I said. “That’s what she meant.”

  “That’s not what she said,” Marilyn answered.

  We made our way back toward the highway in silence, the car creeping along in the dark. I turned around to check on my sisters, who had been wide-eyed and silent throughout all of this. Maddie looked terrified. I wondered whether she was even more scared of us right now than of Mr. Bronson. “Sweetie,” I said to Maddie. “Sweetie pie.” I took off my seat belt and reached in back to stroke her cheek.

  She burst into tears. “I’m scared!”

  “Why don’t you ride in back, Shelby,” Marilyn suggested.

  She pulled over, and Lakey and I traded places. “Maddie, let’s play Why?” I said.

  She was quiet for a moment, then squeaked out, “Why?”

  “Because it’s a fun game.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, uh, because I like it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you like it,” I said.

  She smiled a little at that. “Why?”

  “Why do you like it? You’re the only one who knows.”

  “It’s fun,” she said. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Game over.”

  “Let’s find a grocery store. I’m starving,” Marilyn said.

  “We could just go to a restaurant,” I said.

  “We’re saving money, remember? Anyway, what restaurant would be open at this hour?”

  “Denny’s.”

  “I’ll tell you what, if we see a Denny’s first, we’ll go there; if we see a grocery store first, we’ll go there.”

  Right at the edge of town, Marilyn spotted lights. “Hey look! There’s a grocery store.” She pulled into the nearly deserted parking lot.

  “Should we bring all our money?” I asked her.

  “We better—we shouldn’t leave it in the car.”

  Maddie said, “I’m scared to go out this late.”

  Lakey added, “Me too.”

  For all I knew, we were already wanted by the FBI, or whoever looked for runaways. I imagined our faces on a wanted flyer. I felt like the one time I went skiing with my friend Nancy’s family. I’d felt excited and scared at the same time, like I did and didn’t want to ski down the hill below me.

  Marilyn took both Lakey’s and Maddie’s hands and walked across the parking lot with me following. I kept my hand in a pocket to protect my money. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down, but with my eyes closed, I saw a police officer arresting us. I opened my eyes. I was a big mess inside. I was sure everybody in the world was looking for us.

  Once when my mother was dating the owner of a health food store, he put us all on niacin, which made my whole face tingle. Right now the cool air-conditioning hitting my face as the automatic door slid open made my cheeks tingle. Even my face was nervous.

  The cashier looked at us with open surprise. Marilyn hardly glanced at him, just got a cart and began wheeling. The girls turned to me to hold hand
s. We walked into the produce section. I felt eyes on me and turned around to see a security guard and the cashier standing nearby. They pretended to be checking out some coconuts as Marilyn filled a plastic bag with apples.

  “I guess oranges, too,” I said.

  “Okay,” Marilyn said. “Anything you girls want? How about yogurt?”

  “It might spoil in the car,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess crackers and cheese would be better. You look like you’re going to be sick, Shelby.”

  “What if the police are already looking for us?” I said in a low voice.

  Maddie cried out, “It’s the middle of the night!”

  The security man said, “Is there anything we can help you with?”

  “No, thanks,” Marilyn replied firmly. “We know how to shop.”

  We walked to the cracker aisle and got four boxes of Ak-Mak flatbread, which was made from whole wheat. Our mother made us eat Ak-Mak whenever we wanted crackers. She would buy four boxes, so we each had our own.

  We also got cheese, bread, tuna fish, sardines (which our mother thought had magical health qualities), mayonnaise, Coke for Marilyn, instant coffee, a jug of distilled water, and paper cups.

  I didn’t really feel so nervous any longer. In fact, it was kind of fun to be shopping in the middle of the night. But Maddie still seemed terrified. She squeezed my hand hard. When we got to the checkout aisle, the cashier was watching the security guard talking to a man who looked drunk—he could barely stand straight. One year when my mother decided she wanted to develop her mind, she bought a subscription to Psychology Today, and I read an article about how the dead of night was a frontier to some people, similar to the way the western United States had once been a frontier. You learned a lot when you had a mother like ours. So here we were on the vast frontier, shopping.

  The cashier said, “Running away?” and smiled at Marilyn.

  For a second she looked stricken, and then she smiled in return. “Right,” Marilyn said. “We’re going to the Bahamas if you want to come.”

  “I wish,” he said.

  As we walked back to the car, I noticed that Maddie’s cut-offs had grown soaked—she’d wet her pants. When we got to the car, I said, “Sweetie, don’t worry, we’ll change your pants.”

  Marilyn dug through the trunk for new pants and underwear for Maddie. We got her changed and Marilyn said, “Shelby, stay in back with her.”

  “Maddie, do you want me to keep sitting in back with you?” I said.

  She didn’t answer for a few moments, and then she nodded.

  “Do you want me to sit in the middle?” I asked. Sometimes she liked that.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “Does anyone mind if I crack the window?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Are you hot? I’ll open mine, too.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “Maddie, it doesn’t bother me.”

  But she didn’t say anything more.

  Marilyn looked at me in the rearview mirror. “I don’t feel guilty for getting you away from Mr. Bronson,” she suddenly said to Maddie.

  Lakey piped up. “I hope he croaks.”

  “Lakey!” Marilyn said. “It’s bad luck to say things like that.”

  “I don’t believe in bad luck,” Lakey said. “I hope he croaks.”

  I said, “What if we grow up and have kids just like us?” Everybody laughed except Maddie. Marilyn handed each of us a box of Ak-Mak and one package of cheese. I ripped open my food and couldn’t stop eating until there was only one cracker left in the box.

  Marilyn hunkered over the steering wheel. But once we got going on the highway, she sped up to fifty miles an hour. That was a positive sign.

  For the next several hours, I took off my glasses and stuck my head out the window for as long as I could stand it. When we passed the first sign that pointed us toward Colorado, Lakey shouted out, “We’re almost there!” I knew we still had a ways to go, but with the wind hitting my face, I felt like nothing could happen to us as long as we were all together. But I also knew I’d felt the same way before my mother’s accident. I rolled up my window at last and leaned back in my seat. I put my glasses back on and felt my tangled mess of hair. My mother always made me carry a comb when we traveled. But she wasn’t here. Even though I thought that Marilyn and I were the grown-ups, maybe Marilyn thought I was one of the kids. That would make her the only grown-up and even lonelier than she already felt.

  I slept restlessly. I dreamed I was reaching, reaching, my arms stretched out in front of me, reaching so desperately that my muscles ached, blood pouring out of the ache, and then I was on the beach, the sand sparkling. Then, awake; or maybe not. Driving in the dark. The stars like flashes of the dream I could no longer remember. Reaching. For something. Except there was no dream now, so I was left with reaching. Awake. Asleep. Awake. Asleep. Awake. The more I reached the more I ached. And finally the ache became this: These were some of the best years of my life. Right here. Now. Maybe Mr. Bronson was right, and the future would hurt me. But I wanted it anyway. That was something Mr. Bronson wouldn’t understand. An explosion of lights to the south: a factory, lit by fluorescent lights on a flat plain. For some reason I felt pure happiness wash over me at the sight. The explosion of lights seemed like a miracle. I wanted to see Mr. Bronson so I could tell him what that felt like. Then I was dreaming again. . . .

  When I next woke up, a cigarette hung from Marilyn’s mouth. She took it out and flicked it over the ashtray. I imagined all that smoke whirling down into her lungs. I wondered whether she was destined to be like our mother, living in the universe where beauty meant everything.

  “What are you looking at?” Marilyn asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  An ash flew backward and landed on my shirt. But I didn’t say anything, because if she had to smoke, she had to smoke.

  I looked at the map we’d bought at a gas stop in Illinois. “We can make it into Colorado today. But I don’t know how far we’ll get before you’ll need to sleep again.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “Denver’s still hours away.”

  “Let’s have some coffee.”

  We filled a couple of paper cups with water and instant coffee. “Hold your breath and it won’t be so bad,” Marilyn advised me.

  I held my breath and glugged down the mixture, including the ground coffee. Oh, man. Oh—man—oh—man—oh—man. Once you breathed, it tasted wickedly awful. I ate my last cracker. Maddie was eating her cheese, meticulously tearing off one string at a time.

  She leaned on me. “Can we buy a house?” she asked.

  “For three thousand dollars, we can’t even buy a barn,” Marilyn said. “Plus, you don’t have your money, so we don’t even have three thousand.”

  “I hope Mr. Bronson croaks,” Lakey said.

  “Stop saying that,” Marilyn scolded.

  “Really?” Maddie pulled at my hair. “Really we can’t buy a house?” I hardly dared to breathe. She was pulling my hair! Only my Maddie pulled my hair. I was ready to let her pull it all out if she needed to. But she gave it one last tug and looked directly at me. “Really we can’t?” she asked again.

  “Really,” I said. I was silent for a moment. Then I said, “I hope they don’t tell Mom that we’re missing. It’ll only make her worried.”

  “I was thinking about that,” Marilyn said. “But we had no choice. If we’re going to be together, we had to leave.”

  Nebraska was so flat, we sang Bruce Springsteen’s “Badlands,” except we changed the words to match the terrain: Flatlands, you gotta live it every day, let the broken hearts stand, as the price you’ve gotta pay.

  When we finished the chorus, we fell apart because nobody knew the words. Instead, we kept singing the chorus over and over. Boy, did we sound bad. Suddenly, Maddie was laughing hysterically. That made me laugh, and then Marilyn and Lakey started laughing.

  By the time w
e crossed the border into Burlington, Colorado, around noon, Marilyn and I were practically drunk on coffee. We resorted to our store of memorized songs, singing “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” at the top of our lungs and “Puff the Magic Dragon” for about an hour. Then we got lost for another hour trying to avoid the midday traffic heading to Denver.

  “Where did they put Interstate 70?” Marilyn kept saying. Then she decided to take Interstate 25 because 70 seemed to have disappeared. Then we found a rinky-dink highway and headed west.

  Once I knew we were going in the right direction toward Larry’s cabin, I studied Marilyn’s profile carefully from the backseat for signs of fatigue. It was late afternoon by now, and she’d been driving for twelve straight hours, with only short gas station breaks to stretch her legs. “Why don’t we find another motel, Mare? You’ve got to be exhausted by now.”

  But she just glanced at me in the rearview mirror and smiled over at Lakey. “Really, I feel fine. In fact, I’m really wired now that I know we’re so close. Let’s just keep going, okay? I promise you guys I’ll stop if I get too tired.” And we were all so anxious to get there, we didn’t argue any further.

  When we at last reached Montezuma, Colorado, around dinnertime, Lakey cried out, “This is it! We’re in the right town. I know exactly how to get to the cabin.”

  “How are we going to get into the cabin?” Maddie asked out of the blue. Nobody spoke at first. How had we not considered that?

  “We’ll have to figure that out when we get there,” I finally said. “We may have to break a window, but we can pay Larry back later.”

  “Do we have enough money for a window?” Maddie asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “We could buy a lot of windows.”

  “Hmm,” Lakey said. “I don’t know exactly how to get there from here, but I know how to get there once we find his road. The road is called Mountain View. And his cabin is above an Indian reservation.”

  Marilyn stopped for gas. We’d been using full-service stations so far, but I guess the thought of paying for broken windows got her worried about money again, so we filled up the tank by ourselves. All four of us got out and stared at the whatever it was called—the big thing that held the gas hose.