A Room on Lorelei Street

  And where Mama’s chopped-up conversations leave off, Grandma’s controlling ones begin again. Ones that seem to have truth. She only slings hash. She’ll never make it. She’ll come crawling, and they’ll take her back. But there is no “back.” No room. No stars. There never has been. There is only the room on Lorelei Street.

  Come back, Beth. Start fresh. Be a good girl.

  But she is not a good girl. Even Carly says so.

  “How’s that for starters?”

  The chair doesn’t answer.

  And then there is the constant hum of Reid. Louder now because of Carly. Reid, unbuttoning her blouse. You’re beautiful, Zoe. So soft. Reid. Touching her breast. Kisses. Tender. Only fifteen. Only looking forward, when she was only looking back.

  The air conditioner shuts off, and the silence buzzes in her ears.

  She looks at the empty seat across from her.

  The bell rings.

  Group is over.

  Forty-Six

  “What’s wrong?” Zoe flies out of her car. “Is it Kyle?”

  Uncle Clint breathes deeply, shakes his head, winding up his way to speak.

  “Uncle Clint! What is it?” Zoe fights panic rising in her.

  “No, no.” He pats his hands in the air like he is putting out a fire. “Nothing like that.”

  But Uncle Clint never comes to the diner. He has never waited in the parking lot for her before. It’s something. Maybe “nothing like that” but something worth bringing him to town and interrupting his dinnertime. Zoe tightens, draws in to herself. They stand between her car and the groaning oil pump on the edge of Murray’s parking lot. He shifts his feet and rubs his left forearm with his hand.

  “I just need to talk to you, Zoe. About keeping this room.” She waits, letting her silence percolate through him, letting the pause relay that it’s no business of his. He brushes his hand over his thin, closely cropped hair. “You wouldn’t do something stupid like quit school, would you?”

  She relaxes. “You came here for that?” She is almost touched. Is someone finally concerned about her? “I’m fine, Uncle Clint, and no, I’m not quitting school, and yes, I am keeping the room.”

  “What are you trying to prove, Zoe? Smoking? Moving out? We know you’ve had it hard, but what does any of this prove? You trying to get back at your mama?”

  It’s there again. Even with Uncle Clint. It’s really not about her or whether she might quit school. It’s what it’s always about. “Mama? Does everything have to be about Mama? For God’s sake, Uncle Clint! Can’t it ever just be about me?”

  Uncle Clint moves closer and tucks his chin to his chest. “Don’t go raising your voice now, Zoe—”

  “I’ll raise my voice if I want to!” She throws her hands over her head. “I’ll raise it so all of fucking Ruby hears!”

  Uncle Clint stiffens. “Your grandma’s talking about calling you a runaway. Calling the police so you’d have to go home.”

  Zoe folds her arms and leans against her car. “Really?” She leisurely draws out the word and smiles. “Whose bluff do you think she’s calling? Wake up, Uncle Clint. She won’t call. Do you think she really wants the police to see what they’d be sending me back to? Come on. Think it through. I have.”

  She turns to leave.

  “No matter what, your mama is family. Don’t you think you owe her that much? To see her through some tough times? Families—”

  “I know, I know! Families stick together. Give it a rest, Uncle Clint. What? Have you been going to Grandma’s school of guilt? What did she have to do to get you here? Threaten to send Kyle back to Mama?” And knowing the spoken name of her aunt is the period to all conversations, she throws out, “And if families do so damn much sticking together, where the hell is Aunt Nadine? Couldn’t she take any more of that sticking together?”

  He puts his open palm out and sighs. “The keys, Zoe. She wants the keys.” With his other hand he gestures over his shoulder. She sees Grandma sitting in his car. An arm hangs out the window with ribbons of smoke rising from a cigarette pinched lightly between fingers of a dangling hand. So comfortable. So sure.

  Zoe’s fingers curl into her palm. Nails dig into flesh. “When hell freezes over,” she says in a low voice. “You lay a single hand on this car and I’ll break it.” She yanks her purse from the front seat and slams the door. “And I don’t mean the car!”

  Uncle Clint shakes his head. “I don’t know you, Zoe.”

  She stops and looks full into his face. “Of course you don’t. How could you? You haven’t had the time.” It’s said as a fact, almost kindly but it cuts just as deeply. She can see it in the wrinkling of his eyes. She would ease the words, backtrack if she could, because Uncle Clint is a kind man, a soft, quiet man manipulated into something beyond his understanding, but there isn’t time, and another glance at Grandma’s dangling hand spreads heat like a fire past her temples.

  “Go home, Uncle Clint. You’ve never been part of this. Don’t start now.” She leaves, working her way across a parking lot that stretches and lengthens with each step. Miles and miles of asphalt because she will never get far enough away. Never.

  Grandma watches her. Every step. She knows. Grandma holding her with her eyes. Needing her. Families stick together. Grandma holding on because she needs Zoe. Holding on because Zoe owes her. So much owing. Owing for dark eyes and dark hair that tie Mama to Daddy forever. Owing for growing in a place Grandma thought she owned. Zoe always owing. But now…only just now, thinking there is some other owing, too. Zoe owing herself. Owing herself more than anyone ever allowed. Owing and taking, now. A room is not much. It is not arms holding you. Not a breakfast cooked from scratch. Not a filled seat in a bleacher. Not a phone call or a kiss goodnight. Not much at all.

  She pushes open the glass door of Murray’s and rolls up close to the wall. Out of sight of Grandma, not yet in sight of Murray. She grips her sides and a jumble of remorse and rage collide somewhere in between. No words form in her mind, only a blind swirl of wants that explode in different directions. It presses her breaths against her ribs in uncontrolled jumps. Jumping breaths like she is seven years old.

  “Zoe?”

  Her eyes freeze on Charisse’s.

  “You okay?”

  She sucks in, controls her breaths. Okay? She hardens her chest, refusing a jerky breath waiting at her ribs. Hardens, so there is no jump at all. Controls, so her words come out smooth. Narrows her eyes to shut away her soul. Zoe, owning her air, owning her space. The hardening spreads upward to her mouth, and a thin smile lines her face. “Of course I’m okay, Charisse. Just breathless from running.” She doesn’t explain more. She doesn’t have to.

  She pushes past Charisse, who is still staring, and begins her shift. She works, she delivers, she balances. She smiles, she returns, she wipes. There is nothing else to do. She pushes fish tacos for Murray’s sake, though she has never tasted them and never will. She regularly walks past the front window and looks out, keeping her car safe with her eyes. Anchoring it there with her will.

  “Miss? Is it too late to change my order to a Philly?”

  She doesn’t check the order. “Yes. Too late,” she answers.

  She doesn’t keep track of her tips, and at her break she doesn’t count them. They are not enough.

  They will never be enough.

  She sits on a wooden crate in the alley behind Murray’s and draws deep on her cigarette. A remnant of light still brushes the sky a deep royal blue but darkness is seeping into the corners. She hears rustling behind the trash bins. Rats come alive with darkness. She blows out a gust of smoke and listens to their tiny secret sounds. Rustling, rasping, scratching, scratching, scratching. Echoing. They surround her, along with the sour smell of old garbage. The last swath of blue disappears, and the sounds grow louder. Darkness spreads like ink through the alley, and not a single star in the sky shows to make a difference. She sits in the darkness, listening, then mashes the butt of her cigarette in the grave
l and returns to finish her shift.

  She checks the car first. It sits undisturbed, illuminated with yellow and red neon and the sometime shadow of the working pump. The slashing light sparkles on the chrome, like shooting stars. Stars on a starless night. She pushes away from the window. When hell freezes over. Ninety dollars isn’t that hard to get.

  The evening rush that wasn’t becomes the dead calm that is. Murray disappears into the stockroom, and Charisse tops off water for her lone customer. Zoe cleans up the table from her last customers and thinks that Murray will soon let her or Charisse go for the night. She tries to look busy.

  And then.

  The sleazebag comes in.

  Charisse looks up, but Zoe knows where he will sit. Always.

  “What will it be for you tonight?” she says cheerfully.

  He bites. Encouraged. A smile and tilt of her head. Easy.

  “What’s your special?”

  “Fish tacos,” she says, pouring him some water.

  “That all?” His clumsy hands paw at the glass, and his lips suck at the rim almost daintily. She notices flecks of white in his thin starch-stiff hair when he tilts his head to sip. He sets the glass down and wipes his mouth like he is swiping foam from a beer. His eyes never leave her.

  Her stomach convulses. Only a little. “That’s all.”

  He orders his usual, sirloin with a side of slaw. The steak is tough, and she watches the chewing work a glistening line at the corner of his mouth. A forkful of coleslaw is shoved in alongside the steak and the line grows. She thinks of the fat wad of bills in his pocket. He could have ordered the filet. He could have anything he wants with that much money.

  He leisurely finishes his meal, buttering his biscuit slowly, so every surface is covered. It oozes onto his stubby fingers, and he licks them with his lizard tongue. Zoe watches and he enjoys the attention, buttering up another one, this time asking for some of her sweet marmalade to go with it. She obliges.

  When he is finished, she adds up his bill and slides it across the counter. He picks it up and pulls a five from his wallet. He reaches to set it on the counter, but she stops his hand with her own. “Are you all talk…or some action, too?”

  His pupils shrink to pinpoints and his cheek twitches. Two gusts of breaths and his mouth finally works free.

  “Plenty of action. I save the talk for after.”

  “Then save your money for after, too.” She shoves the five-dollar bill back to him. “I’m taking off early. Meet me out front in two minutes.”

  Forty-Seven

  A room is not much. It’s not a remembered birthday. Not fresh sheets or a greeting at the door. Not a packed lunch or being wakened for school. It’s not a hug or interested eyes. It’s not a name pronounced correctly, the only name that kept you in this world when you were a peanut to be flushed away. A name that made the angels throw a party. A room is none of those things. And a room is surely not forgiveness. Forgiveness for growing, being, speaking, and breathing. Just a room.

  Not much at all.

  The motel lamp is dim. A low brown glow spreads a layer of dirty light across planes and edges of a room she can’t define. She closes her eyes. A half thought. More of a knowing she tries to get hold of, pin down. So what. It’s not like I’m a virgin. A half thought with filmy words that she squeezes and turns.

  The light is clicked off, and only a sliver of green neon slashes through a draped window.

  She thinks on the room. Her room. Not on the musty, colorless carpet beneath her feet. Not on her grease-stained dress falling to her ankles. Not on the meaty hand that cups her breast, or the clammy lips at her neck. The room. She thinks on that.

  Beautiful, Zoe.

  Soft, Zoe.

  Yes, Zoe.

  Zoe.

  But she doesn’t say his name. She doesn’t know his name. The room. A bulldog. Space. Air. A thousand stars all her own. The room is what holds her.

  It is over quickly. She is grateful for that. Grateful. Clothing is gathered. Keys plucked from the nightstand. Her purse tucked back beneath her arm. Soon they are in his car headed back to the diner. A slip of time that lives in a dream world. Hardly there.

  He pulls in next to her car and jumps out. He runs around to open her door, but she is already out, rummaging for her keys. He reaches into his hip pocket for his wallet.

  “What kind of tip do I owe you?”

  She wishes they had taken care of it back at the motel, but she couldn’t speak then. Now it is easy. “Ninety,” she says. He pulls out a hundred dollar bill and tucks it in her palm.

  “Worth every sweet penny,” he says. He bends to kiss her cheek, and she hardens her bones into place, forcing them to stay put. It is the least she can do for the extra ten.

  He gets in his car and leaves, pulling the air with him, gray exhaust left in its place.

  She waits there, the oily fumes holding her. She grips the bill tight so it wrinkles, crinkles, shapes to her fist. Crinkling, wrinkling. Her car. She should go to her car. Crinkling. But her legs don’t move. Murray’s neon sign crackles and snaps. The pump groans. It’s all the same. Crinkling.

  But it’s not.

  What the hell is so different? The yellow sign glows, flattens her into place, and the pump groans. Details swell. But then it’s not the sign or the pump at all. It’s a glance. A fragment. A second look. Beyond her circle of yellow. Beyond the oily fumes.

  She sees him.

  Carlos.

  Standing at the door of Murray’s.

  How long has he been there?

  A dead weight pulls at her lungs. She forces a step. And another. Until she is an arm’s length from him.

  “Carlos—”

  He smiles. A quick, jerky smile she hasn’t seen before. “Just stopped by for a late dinner.” His hand brushes through his hair, wipes at his chin, and then is shoved into his pocket to keep it still.

  “Right. You told me. I forgot.”

  “Yeah. Just dinner. No big deal.”

  His words don’t match the stiff movement of his lips.

  “Carlos—”

  “You don’t need to explain.”

  She doesn’t. She is floating, hovering somewhere outside herself. A hollow distance that can’t be measured. Far, but as close as skin to skin. She looks at his eyes.

  She reads them.

  She recognizes them.

  They are her eyes. Her own eyes.

  Her own eyes looking at Mama.

  The hollow distance cracks with the fumbled jingling of her keys. The car. The door. The key. She drives, but she doesn’t go home.

  Forty-Eight

  Black meets black. Moonless sky touches earth and aqueduct. Only low rumbling and a dusting of light on steel beams proves the snaking water is there. Her shoes are gone, kicked loose somewhere in the gravel. A breeze rustles the mesquite, a clattering of leaves, a voice in the blackness.

  Never say never. I learned that two lifetimes ago. So will you.

  Her foot finds cold steel, and she understands. Can finally root into the feeling. The comfort a cold white bathtub holds. A step. Another. Her feet feeling the way. And voices. Voices twining in with the rumble, the air pushing them up.

  What the hell you looking at?

  Nothing, Mama. Nothing.

  Six inches of steel that can’t be seen. Air rushing up her legs. Rushing up. Pulling down. A step. Her arms at her sides. No stretching for balance.

  You’ll never make it.

  No more steps. Just cold steel curling into her toes. Cold smooth steel, numbing, like porcelain. But not enough. Carlos’s eyes travel through the black. She sees them again. Sees herself.

  Never say never.

  Her hands slide up to her arms. She is cold.

  Never say never. Grandma is right. She is always right.

  The echo hits her in the face, nearly pushes her from the beam.

  What Mama wouldn’t do for a drink.

  What I wouldn’t do for the room.
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  A choking gurgle comes from her throat. She feels the clammy lips at her neck, the paw at her breast. She needs to wash her crawling skin.

  What I wouldn’t do.

  Just like Daddy…just like Mama.

  Her fingers loosen on the bill still in her fist. Loosen, a cold finger at a time, and the bill flutters like a black butterfly into the rumbling below.

  You’ll come crawling back.

  But she is never coming, never crawling. She can’t. There is nothing to crawl back to.

  “Zoe,” she whispers into the night.

  “Zoe,” a word thrown to the breeze, wanting to catch somewhere, but her whisper is lost to a moonless night, and there is no one else to hear.

  She closes her eyes and takes another step. So black mixes with light. Up becomes down. Chaos becomes calm. Being becomes not.

  Just like Mama.

  Just like Daddy.

  Never far enough away….

  Forty-Nine

  Opal adjusts the For Rent sign in the window. It’s been over a week. She’s not worried. Someone will take the room. She’s read three pairs of eyes, and one leads the rest. She steps back and surveys the room. Zoe’s things are gone. The room is as it was before. Exactly as before, except for the stone bulldog. The bulldog had to go.

  A car door slams.

  “She’s here! She’s here!” Opal squeals. “I knew it! I could feel it in my bones! I read it in her eyes!” She leans out the window and sees a slight blonde girl standing near a car at the curb. “I knew she was coming! I knew!” She clasps her hands and makes a final sweep of the room.

  “Is there anything you can’t read in someone’s eyes, Opal?”