Listen to Me (11 page)

The parking lot was unlit. She looked up and out the sunroof. Above the car—she could just barely make it out—was a streetlamp, but the streetlamp was dead.

She checked the door. Hers was unlocked. She sat up a little straighter and then checked the driver's side and the backseat. Also unlocked. She didn't want to panic, but she did want to scream. Anger, fear, fatigue: Who could say for sure what she was feeling. All of them? None of them? She was simultaneously filled up with and emptied out of emotions. She thought about hitting the glove compartment, but that would be a punishment only to her hand. And the thing she wanted to punish—the person who had abandoned her in an unlocked car in the middle of nowhere—was currently and conveniently MIA.

She did the next best thing to hitting and screaming. She closed her eyes, clenched her fists, gritted her teeth, and visualized her own skull exploding. She imagined little pieces of cranium sticking to the upholstery of the roof, sliding down the inside of the windshield. Protoplasmic fibers splattered against the rearview mirror. Chunks of cerebellum landed on the dashboard. Her medulla dangled limply from the passenger headrest. She stayed like this until she heard a tiny buzzing at the base of her brain, and then she released herself. Except, she wasn't released. Because now her heartbeat was racing, which necessarily engaged her anxiety, and she found herself suddenly clawing at the lock button in a sloppy and erratic sort of way that reminded her out of nowhere of climbing up a pool ladder when, as a child, she'd once managed to convince herself—though she knew it to be a pure impossibility—that piranhas had materialized in the deep end.

She pushed the button. The sound of the doors sealing themselves against the night filled the car with a hollow
thwunk.
Gerome stirred, but nothing more.

In the glove compartment there was a tin candy box the size of a matchbook. In this tin candy box there was a mixture of square-shaped breath mints and circular yellow pills. She took a deep breath and exhaled the air slowly. She did not reach for the box. Her former therapist had trained her well enough so that she didn't need to take one every time her nerves clicked on. Sometimes—like now—it was enough just to know they were there. Lemon-colored ellipsoids interspersed neatly with small white squares. It was enough just to imagine them and all the good they could do to her central nervous system if she so chose.

Also in the compartment was an emergency first-aid kit. Its contents were geared more toward animals than humans—large bandages, strong sedatives, at least one legal barbiturate—and not at all toward practical survival, which meant there wasn't a flashlight, which was the only thing Maggie truly wanted at that moment.

She cracked her neck. She was starting to notice other things about her current situation. The car key, for starters, was not in the ignition—she felt for it, just to be sure—nor was it in the center console, and the car itself was warm. In fact, the car was very warm, and she was warm, and Gerome—now she heard it more distinctly—wasn't just snoring; he was panting. Mark had left the two of them in an unlocked car, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a heat wave. It was possible he'd finally lost his mind.

She reached behind her seat and pulled out a half-filled water bottle. She took a sip and then poured a little into her cupped palm. She wiped it onto the fur under Gerome's ear and then around his neck. Gerome moaned and flipped himself gently so that his belly was exposed. She poured a little bit more onto her hand—she dared Mark to say something about the leather; she just dared him—and then rubbed it along his abdomen. Gerome stretched, but still he made no move to stand. She put the back of her hand under his chin. His heartbeat was fast, but he was fine. This was simply a dog's body's way of cooling itself.

At least Gerome wasn't dying back there. At least he wasn't dead because—

And then for a half second—no, less than a half second, a nanosecond, a piece of time so fleeting there's no way truly to prove it ever existed except through the memory of the thought—Maggie imagined the satisfaction she might feel if Gerome had a heat stroke and died. She imagined the permanent regret with which Mark would be forever saddled. She imagined the upper hand she would have for the rest of their lives. But then immediately—almost immediately, because the nanosecond exists and existed—she felt intense guilt for having used the fantasy of Gerome's death as a way to inflict a make-believe punishment on her husband. Dear god, she was turning perverse. Maybe there
was
something irreversibly wrong with her.

She wanted to roll down a window or crack the door, but she couldn't risk exposing herself. She leaned forward, cupped a hand to the windshield, and looked out. The parking lot was full of empty cars and trucks—or what she assumed were empty cars and trucks. Who knows? Maybe the lot was filled with women in similar situations—women lousy with despair, lousy with anxiety; women stifled by the heat and by their fear and by their own lousy husbands. Ha! If only there were other women in the night . . .

Imagine the things they could say to one another . . .

Imagine the stories they could tell . . .

Imagine the comfort they might feel to be so safely ensconced in such a large number of the same sex . . .

But there were no other women.

There were only cars and trucks. And they were all parked, just as theirs was, in what appeared to be a large paved ravine surrounded on all sides by tall dirt banks. Maggie gazed higher and, doing so, noticed that, in the distance, up and beyond the dirt walls, there was light. A muted glowing light. Pale and lemony, just like her pills.

          “All I mean,” said Mark, “is that it makes no sense.”

He was standing in the lobby of the sixth hotel he'd walked into since Maggie had passed out in the passenger seat. Not a vacancy at a single one of them.

The man behind the counter said nothing. He was a kid really, not a man, though his hairline was already receding.

They were both sweating.

“Listen,” said Mark. The kid looked hopelessly inbred, which probably accounted for his hairline. Bad genes. Bad genes combined with more bad genes. “I get that I seem like a dick right now.”

“Can you mind your language?” the kid said. He looked back and forth like it was study hall and any second they'd get caught. “There are children here.” He gestured down the hallway, at the end of which was a large glass wall, fogged and dirty and behind which was an indoor pool. Mark could hear the splashes of water, the cackling of children and adults.

“Shouldn't the pool be closed?” Mark said. “Aren't there hours for things like that?” He didn't mean it as an accusation. He was curious, that was all. But given how the last few minutes had been going, Mark could handily see how his questions might be misinterpreted as aggressive, especially by an inbred.

The clerk sighed. He was growing weary of Mark's presence. “We don't have the a/c back yet.” He shook his head and let his arms fall to his sides. “The generators give us light and electricity for fans and toasters, but we don't have the a/c.”

Fans and toasters. Mark nodded. “And you also don't have rooms even though the sign outside says you do?”

“Sir, like I said—” But the clerk was interrupted by the abrupt appearance at Mark's side of a small wet child, naked but for an inner tube.

“Mama says to come right now,” the child said.

There was no greeting, no salutation, no apology, no
Excuse me
or
May I step in for a moment?
The inner tube squeaked against the child's skin, which glistened under the fluorescents.

“Mama says it's important there's something wrong with the pool and can you come now.”

Maggie would have been able to say for certain how old the child was, but Mark was at a loss. Anything old enough to speak full sentences should probably not have been naked in public. And yet here this child was. Mark put his hands in his pockets. He felt vaguely culpable—like after a dream in which he'd perhaps cheated on Maggie with a faceless woman or, being completely honest, a woman with Elizabeth's face. A crime. But not a crime.

“Mama says right now okay that's what Mama says.”

The clerk sighed again. Between Mark and the naked child, there was no clear winner, but the child was a guest and Mark was not, and that seemed to settle things.

“Sir,” said the clerk, but moving toward the child, already sidling away from Mark and in the direction of the pool. “I'm sorry about the Vacancy sign. I'm sorry you were confused. The generator is picking and choosing tonight. You're not the first. If it makes any difference. We've been disappointing people all night.”

The child was already running across the carpet, leading the way for the clerk. Unwittingly, Mark observed the boy's heels, on the backs of which were loose and blackened bandages. As the boy trotted, they flapped against his skin.

Mark slumped forward onto the counter so that his face was immediately in front of a small portable fan. He had nothing to show for his effort and no one to berate or blame for the lack of available rooms. He thought of Maggie and Gerome. He hoped they were both still asleep. He'd wanted to return valiant. He'd wanted to do right by them both—return to the car with a key in his hand, wake Maggie with a kiss to the forehead, which would fill her with feelings of kindness and warmth, which, in turn, even from the backseat, Gerome would sense and—inexplicably to the dog—cause him to feel a sudden rush of affection and wonderful subservience for his male master.

Without raising his head, Mark looked at his watch. It was almost one in the morning and he was spent. Perhaps he could move the car from the lower lot to the upper one, where they'd at least be under the light of the hotel and its generator. He could leave the car running, blast the a/c until the sun came up. He only needed a few hours of rest.

He closed his eyes and let the fan blow into his face.

“Fuck,” he said. “Double fuck.”

“Sir?”

It was the clerk again, who'd returned without the child.

“Sorry,” said Mark. He stood and moved the fan away, as though returning the breeze he'd only temporarily borrowed. “Really, I am. I didn't mean—We're just beat, that's all. Dead beat.”

The kid appeared not to have heard him. He was acting twitchy, nervous even. Perhaps one of the hotel's paying customers had left a turd in the deep end. Perhaps the clerk was worried it would fall on him to retrieve the thing.

Mark turned to leave. But the kid put a hand on his.

“I know a place,” he said.

Mark looked down at the narrow fingers on top of his own. They were speckled with eczema.

The kid was whispering, and he'd leaned in toward the counter and toward Mark so that now the portable fan blew the blond wisps of what was left of the kid's hair up and away from his scalp. Caterpillar scabs inched across the hairline.

“What I mean is, I can't recommend other hotels. It being policy and all. But my brother-in-law's got a place up in Black Crows Hill, and I know for a fact they still had rooms an hour ago. Lots of 'em.”

Mark hadn't heard of Black Crows Hill before, which meant it couldn't be on 64. But perhaps it was close. A little townlet just a few miles from the interstate.

“Could you give me directions?” Already Mark could feel himself the hero. His fantasy wasn't an impossibility after all. He pictured himself walking back to the car, starting the ignition in such a way as to not wake Maggie, and delivering them to a mountainside gem with a generator and running water and clean cool sheets.

“Policy says . . .” the clerk trailed off.

“Please,” said Mark. He knew he sounded frantic. Then, thinking perhaps of the wet child or the unsavory feel of the clerk's hand on his or the idea of inbreeding and incest in general or maybe simply because he missed Maggie at that moment, missed her savagely and needed to invoke her presence, the idea of her presence, needed to confirm her mere existence in his life, Mark said, out of nowhere, “My wife—my wife and I both—we really appreciate anything more you can tell me. The name”—he was whispering now, hoping to show his respect for the policy—“just give me the name, and I'll find it on my own.” He held the clerk's gaze. “Please.”

For a moment, the clerk just stood there, a possible mute. Mark thought he could hear the ticking of a wall clock from somewhere behind the desk, but the ticking was too lazy, too irregular to be marking time precisely.

Slowly, the boy raised a hand to his mouth, as if to stifle a yawn. The ticking continued. Then, nearly inaudibly, the hand still covering his mouth, he said, “Holiday Inn.”

“Holiday Inn?” said Mark. He stood up straighter. There was no way there was a major hotel that wasn't already filled to capacity. The storm—though it had essentially quieted down—had left a bona fide, governor-declared disaster zone in its wake. Just as his parents had predicted it would.

“No,” said the clerk, nearly hissing now. “Holi
days
Inn.”

“With an
s
?” said Mark.

“With an
s,
” he said. “Like lots of holidays.”

Mark nodded. Of course. Lots of holidays. Every holiday. It was perfect. Simply perfect. He nearly shrieked with laughter. A mongoloid hotel with a mongoloid name in a mongoloid town. Maggie would die. She would just die.

Mark didn't even say thank you. Didn't even need to. The clerk was already on his way back to the pool.

Their automobile was gone.

This wasn't possible.

Mark was standing next to the streetlamp beneath which he'd earlier parked the car, the car in which Maggie and Gerome had been sleeping. And, here—right here—just where he was standing now, was the very same Wagoneer he'd parked next to. Here were its long dented doors and backyard paint job. He recalled like it was still happening the decision to park next to the Wagoneer despite its ratty appearance because it was the middle of the night and its owners were probably already in bed, probably fast asleep, but more importantly because it was a spot beneath a streetlight. Though the streetlight hadn't been illuminated, he remembered thinking,
In case the power comes back. In case. If Maggie wakes, there will be light.
Here the Wagoneer was and here Mark was, but the spot in which their car had been was empty.