“God, just one, I hope.” The woman pulled a wallet out of her designer purse.
I gave a pointed look at the framed article from Quirky California that we kept on the wall next to the room keys.
“So…,” I said, flipping through the registry. “We have the Grease room, the Tom Cruise room, the Viva México room, and the Gilligan’s Island room available.”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“As a heart attack.” That was a Marge phrase that I had to use surprisingly often around there.
The woman wrinkled up her nose. “Gilligan’s.”
Gilligan’s Island was this show from the sixties that Marge loved.
“Great,” I said. “Just don’t light the tiki torch—”
“Tiki torch?”
“Tiki torch.” The woman nodded, and I turned the registry around for her signature. “That’ll be thirty-nine dollars.”
I ran her card, then turned around to the row of tiny hooks behind me and grabbed the key for Gilligan’s Island. I slid it across the counter, forcing my lips to go up. “Here you go.”
She held the keychain between two fingers, like the plastic etched with a number five (written in Sharpie, because we were classy like that) carried multiple diseases. I wanted to tell her that poverty wasn’t catching, but I just leaned across the counter and pointed to my left.
“If you just go to the sliding glass door to your right and cross the patio, it’s the room directly in front of us. There’s an ice machine and a couple of vending machines down this hallway.” I motioned to the left of the reception desk, where the light was dim to hide how bad the stains in the carpet were. “And the pool is open until ten.”
“Thanks,” she muttered. I kept smiling until we had two inches of sliding glass door between us, then I leaned back in my chair and groaned.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the screen door open. “What a bitch,” a voice said.
Josh stood in the doorway, looking thoroughly entertained. The sun behind him was bright, outlining him like a woodcut, all sharp, jagged lines and invisible details.
“Hey,” I said. He stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind him. “Who’s the bitch—her or me?”
He laughed. “Her, of course.”
He was wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, so I couldn’t tell if he still had that haunted look in his eyes from Saturday night or just the dazed one from the diner. He seemed better, though. As he walked toward me, my brain kept chanting, Don’t look down, don’t look down.
“You were way too nice to her,” he said, nodding toward Gilligan’s.
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to be stuck in Creek View, either.”
Josh sighed. “Yep.”
Central California was a veritable no-man’s-land: this was not the California of people’s dreams. We didn’t have a music-video world of palm trees and sandy beaches that we frolicked on under the sun. I mean, there were more items on the McDonald’s Value Menu than there were things to do in Creek View.
“How’s the Sky today?” he asked. It was this old thing we used to do, him asking me how I was, me answering with a corresponding weather condition.
I tilted my head to the side, thinking. “Hazy,” I decided.
“Why so?”
“Um…” Was I seriously thinking about telling this guy my problems? “Well, I think my brain’s gone all fuzzy from the lack of air-conditioning in here.”
“So…” Josh’s eyes swept over the walls. “Nothing’s changed since I’ve been gone, then.”
“Well, more stuff’s broken. And the pool has suffered greatly. It missed you,” I said.
“Glad something did.”
His words hung in the air, their weight an almost tangible thing. I wanted to say, No, Josh, everyone missed you. We talked about you all the time. But I’d have been lying. When people left Creek View, everyone who stayed took it as a personal offense. Like you’d gotten all bougie or something just because you wanted to live in the kind of place where you could get a Frappuccino without driving fifty miles. But in his case, it wasn’t like that, not exactly. He hadn’t left a void so much as taken a break. There was no doubt he’d be back someday.
Thankfully, Marge saved me, so I didn’t have to figure out a way to lie well.
“Josh? Is that you?” she called. Her room-slash-office was down the hall, and if she wasn’t there, she was either by the pool or lying on the couch in the lobby, filling me in on the latest celebrity news.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said.
Marge shuffled in, wearing one of her muumuus and patting at her burgundy hair. It was supposed to be red, but every time she dyed it, the color ended up more purple than anything else. She was a few years older than my mom, a Midwest transplant who couldn’t get enough of the California sun, even when it was punishing. She’d said opening this motel had been her dream. I thought Ohio must have been pretty bad if opening up a motel in the armpit of California was your dream.
“Look at you,” she whispered. She was beaming, her eyes suddenly glassy. “Come here, hon.”
Josh limped over, and she threw her arms around him, pressing him to her thick body. She reminded me of a mama bear, all hulking and protective. It was how she was with all her employees. I couldn’t even count how many times she’d helped me with college applications and schoolwork. This was different, though. Marge’s son had been in the Army, gone to Iraq. He’d died—in Fallujah, I think. Ever since Josh joined the Marines, she’d been obsessed with getting him back home.
“I prayed for you every single night,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Every single night.”
I busied myself with the guest register so that I could look away from Josh’s balled-up fists against Marge’s back and the way he’d squeezed his eyes shut.
When my cell rang a second later, I grabbed it and slipped outside, grateful for the excuse.
“Hey, Chris.”
“Hey, hey. What’s up, chica? You sound all depressed.”
I kicked at the weeds pushing up through the brick walkway, stomping on them as if they’d committed some terrible offense. “It’s been a crappy morning.”
“Just remember: you’re getting the eff out of here in T minus sixty days!”
When we were freshman, Chris and I had promised each other that we’d be the ones to get out—we called it our Sacred Pact. We nagged each other all throughout high school, when one of us wanted to be lazy or give in to giving up. Whenever I liked a boy, Chris had been all, The pact! The pact! Because, of course, romance was bad for GPAs. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that Chris started the pact once it became clear Dylan was never going to fall for him.
“Yeah, but, you know. Creek View still sucks,” I said. Each day felt like I was walking on a sidewalk full of cracks and I had to keep jumping around so that everything wouldn’t collapse.
“Which is why we’re going to Leo’s,” Chris said. “Tonight. Get ready to get down, know what I’m sayin’?”
Leonardo’s was this Mexican restaurant about a half hour away that turned into a local dance hall every Friday and Saturday night. It was mostly reggaeton and hip-hop, and everyone went because the drinks were cheap and they didn’t card. I went because Chris’s cousins were the DJs, and they always played stuff you couldn’t help but dance to.
“I don’t know, Chris. I’m wiped out. Amy is late as hell, and I gotta help my mom with some stuff.”
“You say that every time. And then I practically have to pull you off the dance floor to go home. Besides, Ricardo said he wanted to say hey since he couldn’t come to graduation.”
“Chris, I’m not—I repeat, I’m not—going on a date with your twenty-eight-year-old cousin.”
“Dude. It’s not like that. He just—”
“I’m tired. Like, I-want-to-sleep-forever tired.”
“I’ll buy you as many virgin strawberry margaritas as you want.”
“You can’t buy something that’s fre
e,” I said. Chris helped the restaurant with its accounting in exchange for free food and booze. He had all kinds of little deals like that around town.
“Don’t hate because of my mad math skills. Come on. You’ll wish you’d said yes when you’re in San Fran and I’m in Boston.”
And, really, you couldn’t say no to that. “Fine. My car’s not working great, so we have to take your dad’s truck or I’m staying home and watching Friends with my mother.”
“That’s pathetic, Sky. Pathetic. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
We hung up, and I waited to go inside until I heard the glass door open, then I went back into the lobby, watching as Josh and Marge walked toward the pool. Every few seconds, she would look up at him, shake her head, and beam. They’d gotten really close after he joined the Marines, and I’d seen letters from him come to the Paradise every now and then. Once I’d even heard her on the phone in the middle of the night—I’d known it was him because of the questions she was asking. She cried for a long time after they’d hung up. Now I was wondering if that had been after he lost his leg.
A car pulled up in the driveway, and I checked the customer into the Grease room (a road tripper who wanted to stay at our place because it was so “random”), and then went outside to where Josh was sitting by the pool in the shade of a stand of tired-looking palms. His prosthesis was stretched out, the sunlight glinting off the thin metal, and he was absently rubbing his thigh. I didn’t know how much of his leg he’d lost—he was wearing long board shorts—but I wondered if he was in pain or if touching the stump was compulsive. I steeled myself against feeling horrified or grossed out, but those feelings never came. It was just so … it gave me the same feeling as looking at a Dalí painting, where everything is upside down and inside out. Surreal.
“Where’s Marge?” I asked, pulling one of the creaky lawn chairs over.
“Bitching to Gil that he has to cut down those branches.” He pointed to where the orchard trees were beginning to slither over our wall.
“Never a dull day at the Paradise,” I said.
He smiled, his eyes on the water. Seeing and not seeing it. “I’m gonna clean the pool when the sun goes down a bit. You still swim every day?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I try to keep the leaves out, and sometimes Chris comes over and does the thing with your pool tools, but he’s not as good as you.” I bumped my shoulder against his. “Glad you’re back.”
“Yeah.” His eyes were far away again, and he was fiddling with his fingers, pressing against each nail.
I didn’t know what made me do this, but I turned to him and said, “Do you want to go dancing with me tonight?”
His jaw kind of dropped, and I stumbled over my words, trying to explain. “I mean, with me and Dylan and Jesse—that’s her boyfriend—and Chris. At Leonardo’s.”
I suddenly remembered about his leg, and my whole body broke out in this embarrassed sweat. “I mean, we don’t have to dance. It’s just, I thought maybe you were bored as hell and … never mind. It was a dumb idea. I mean, I don’t even know if I’m gonna go.”
I took off my sunglasses and wiped the lenses with the bottom of my tank top, just to give my hands something to do. What was I thinking, inviting Josh to go dancing? He probably thought I was an idiot.
“That’d be cool.” He looked down at his leg. “I don’t know about dancing, though.”
I laughed, more from relief than anything else. “Okay. Do you want us to pick you up?”
“How about I pick you up?” He pointed to his leg. “I need a little room when I’m in the car.”
“Oh. Duh. Okay. Um.” Someone rapped on the glass door, and I jumped up, thankful for an out. A middle-aged couple waved me inside. “It’s one of the hourlies.”
Josh shaded his eyes and looked toward the door. “Is that dude a sheriff?”
I raised my hand and waved. “Yep. The woman sells real estate up near Hanford—they’re here every Wednesday and Friday.”
“I wonder if he takes her out to lunch after,” he said.
“Yeah, I don’t think so. He doesn’t strike me as the romantic type. Anyway, I better go in.”
He stood up, wincing a little. “Dude looks like he’s in a hurry.”
I laughed as I went back to the lobby. A half hour later, after I’d told Chris I was hitching a ride with Josh, Dylan was texting me, asking if one-legged men turned me on. I looked out the window at Josh. He was shirtless, his dog tags glimmering in the sun, and there was a tattoo on his back—the words Semper Fidelis in dark, Gothic letters that moved up and down with his muscles as he worked.
I texted her back: Shut up.
JOSH
Why did I say I’d go? I’m gonna look like an idiot. This isn’t the kind of stuff they help you with in rehab. There aren’t fuckin’ dance lessons for gimp Marines. I couldn’t even dance when I had two legs. Remember when Gomez decided that he wanted to make his wife a video of our squad doing Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” routine for Christmas and so we all had to learn it like a bunch of homos? (Don’t say homo, Josh, you tell me. That’s fucking bigoted.) Still, you have to admit, we looked like a bunch of homos. You asked a medevac to film it with the crappy camera you bought off one of the translators in Kandahar and somehow the video ended up on YouTube, so we were kinda famous for a week or two. When I get home from the Paradise, I decide to watch it, don’t know why. Just need to. Guess Sky asking me to go dancing made me think of it—this shitty video was the last time I danced on two legs. Last time I danced, period. I find it on my computer and even though the video’s all wobbly, it’s like I’m right back there. I’m off to the side, fucking up the dance and laughing so hard and Sharpe is getting way too into it and Harrison is wearing the bra his girlfriend sent him to help him get off on thinking about her. At the end we all just start dancing like idiots. I’m doing some cowboy rodeo thing and you’re pretending to slap my ass and Gomez is humping the floor like it’s his wife or something. And here I am sitting alone in my room in the States, cracking up and it feels so good to laugh, man, but then the laughing turns to something else and before I know it I’m on my feet and punching the wall, which hurts like a bitch, but I do it again and again until my mom opens the door and says, Jesus Christ, Josh, and then slams it closed. My knuckles are bleeding and the video is finished. We’re frozen on the screen. And now I’m looking at Sharpe and you, posing like trannie models, and at me with my two beautiful goddamn legs and it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t make any fucking sense that you’re both gone. How can you do some dumb dance like that and then not exist anymore?
chapter four
“Mom, please. You can’t sit here all night. Come on. I made you the pasta you like—the squiggly kind. And a salad.”
She didn’t even look at me, just kept her eyes glued to the TV. CSI was on, and they were cutting up a body while calmly discussing the atrocious rape-slash-dismemberment of the victim.
“My ride’s gonna be here any minute, and I really need you to eat something before I go.”
She reached for her cigarettes, but I darted out and grabbed them. In our house, cigarettes meant a day when Mom couldn’t stop thinking about Dad and how he’d gotten into his truck that night when he should have let someone drive him home. They didn’t help her forget. They helped her remember.
“You’ll get wrinkly. Then George Clooney will never have sex with you.”
Her mouth twitched, but she beckoned for me to give the cigs back. “Don’t you have to finish getting ready for your date?”
“It’s not a date.”
It wasn’t. It was … a thing. An outing. Whatever. What was I thinking, going dancing? It was wrong to leave her, but just being inside there for too long made my chest feel like someone was pressing against it as hard as they could.
I heard Josh’s truck roar into the little patch of dirt in front of the trailer that served as our driveway, Kid Rock blaring. My face reddened as I imagined myself in Josh’s truck,
looking like some girl he’d picked up for the night.
Mom looked at the door, as if she could see through it. “That Chris?”
She knew it wasn’t. Chris didn’t listen to loud music, and his dad’s old Chevy sounded nothing like Josh’s flashy truck.
“Josh. Did you want bread or—”
“Josh Mitchell?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.”
I put some ranch on her salad and threw the bottle back in the fridge, then dished out her pasta.
Mom frowned. “Maybe you should stay home tonight.”
I heard the door of Josh’s truck slam shut. There was no way I was canceling on him, even if these past few hours with my mom had worn me out more than my whole shift at the Paradise.
I reached over to squeeze her shoulder. “Why don’t you give Crystal a call? I bet she’s babysitting Seanie for Dylan tonight. You could go over there for a bit.”
Crystal was Dylan’s mom. Their trailer was practically across the street from ours, and other than a few of the women at work, she was my mom’s only friend.
Josh knocked on the door.
“I won’t stay long,” I said. “And I’ll have my cell if you need anything.”
Mom pursed her lips, and her eyes slid to the TV. She grabbed the remote and turned it back on. When I opened the door, Josh was leaning against our rickety railing, his hands in his pockets. Only a few tiny beads of sweat near his temples gave away his difficulty getting up the steps. Even so, I had to admit he looked good. He wore long cargo shorts and a plaid button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled, his sunglasses in his front pocket, and a Marines baseball cap. I was sort of angry at him for looking so good. Because this wasn’t a date, and I was suddenly wishing—against all my better judgment—that it was.
He smiled. “Hey.”
The sun had just gone down, so the sky was purple and the first stars were coming out. It was a warm twilight, an exhalation after the intense heat of the day. Creek View almost seemed pretty.
“You found me.” I frowned. What a stupid thing to say. Of course he’d know where the trailer park was, and it wasn’t like it was a particularly complicated neighborhood to navigate. Was it the leg thing that made me so dumb or was it that he was standing on my doorstep, which was strange enough in and of itself?