The Right and the Real (8 page)

Two police cars were parked across the street at the convenience store, which made me both nervous and reassured. Would they notice me? Maybe it didn’t matter. I parked on the outer edge of the lot and then I shifted a few boxes to the front and stretched out on the backseat, using my pink comforter and pillow for bedding.

Even with my clothes on and tucked under the comforter, I shivered from cold. Sounds of cars pulling in and out, their doors banging, made me uneasy. I buried my head under the pillow, but that gave me a crick in my neck. Finally, I must’ve drifted off because a couple of guys yelling at each other about cream-filled doughnuts jarred me awake.

“Dude. I dibbed that one first,” a voice shouted.

I peered through the window, staying down so they wouldn’t see me. Two guys in Oregon State sweats wrestled and laughed over a box of doughnuts. I watched as they got into a little gray Honda and drove away.

I plugged in my iPod, found my well-worn copy of Laurence Olivier’s biography in my dance bag where I kept it for those times I was early to class, and read by the light of the streetlamp. The next thing I knew, it was dawn and the book was pressed into my cheek, probably leaving a mark.

“Ow, ow, ow!” I said, rolling my head around, trying to loosen the stiff muscles in my neck. If my breath was half as bad as my mouth tasted, I felt sorry for anyone who got within ten feet of me.

I stepped into a puddle when I climbed out, soaking my right sneaker, and splashed across the lot toward the Doughnut Shoppe.
Inside, I washed my face in the bathroom and tousled my hair with a little water. I’d forgotten my toothbrush, so I used my finger, but it did absolutely nothing, and I still felt totally gross.

“What can I get you?” asked the girl behind the counter.

I ordered the dollar-ninety-nine special. Sitting on a stool at the counter, I tore off tiny pieces of a blueberry muffin and forced myself to eat them. It was fresh, the coffee inky, and the crossword puzzle someone had left behind impossible. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, and my tap dance class didn’t start until nine, but I finished my food and left anyway, tucking one of my precious dollars under the saucer for a tip.

When I stepped inside from the windy, rainy cold into the warm, almost humid foyer of Bright Lights Studio, the familiar odor of floor polish, wood, and sweat enveloped me like a hug. No matter how chaotic things were in my life, the hushed voices of parents, the monotonous tones of ballet teachers calling out positions, and the soft tinkling of the piano always relaxed me.

I walked past the toe class where Liz and Megan spent their Saturday mornings, and I peeked in. I picked them out of the row of ballerinas standing at the barre, listening to Madame Zubrinski. If they saw me, you’d never know it. They both had the still, concentrated look of all the rest of the dancers in the class, and their gaze never shifted from Madame’s face.

Ballet at school was really simple stuff, and I enjoyed it, but when it had been time for me to go up on toe shoes here at Bright Lights, I’d decided to give it a miss. I wanted to be an actress, not a dancer with messed-up feet. Sometimes I envied my friends’ grace and dedication, though. Hard work had gotten Liz early acceptance at Oberlin
too, and I was still waiting to hear about drama school. Assuming I could even figure out a way to go if I got in.

I stopped by the office to make sure my classes were all paid up for the quarter because the last thing I wanted was for one of my dance instructors to take me aside and tell me I owed the school money. Luckily Dad had paid for me through the end of March. What I’d do then, I didn’t know. Dancing on Saturday mornings was practically my religion.

After class, I had taken a shower in the changing room and was getting dressed when Megan and Liz rushed in and grabbed their stuff out of their lockers.

“We’re late for the ballet matinee with my grandma,” Liz explained, rushing out.

“Have fun,” I said.

“We will,” Megan called as she ran after Liz, who was probably halfway to the car already.

I spent all afternoon on one of the Coffee Klatch computers, surfing the web. By the evening, I had a whole pile of printouts on cults and religions that I wanted to mail to my dad. I’d gotten a bunch of different envelopes from the dollar store, and I tried to make it look like it was correspondence from people he knew or business letters, and not from me, so he’d open them. Once they were addressed, I walked to the corner mailbox and dropped them in.

I’d also found a company on the web who would send in a team to rescue people from cults, and I called from the pay phone at the café. What did I have to lose?

“Hello,” I said, when a man answered the phone. “I’d like some information on your services.” I explained about my dad.

“No offense, but you sound kind of young. How old are you?”

“Why?”

“Well…” He stopped talking, and a hacking, wet-sounding cough filled my ear. Yuk. “Sorry. Bronchitis. As I was saying, our services don’t come cheap.”

Figures. “How much?” I asked.

“Three thousand for the capture. Plus expenses. Six thousand a week for deprogramming. Usually takes one to six weeks.”

“Oh.”

“Still interested?” he asked.

“I guess not.”

“Have a nice day.”

“Yeah…thanks,” I said, but he’d already hung up.

When I came outside, rain poured down in sheets, and by the time I was behind the wheel, my drenched body shook with damp cold. The Doughnut Shoppe had seemed safe enough, so I parked there again. It took me a while, but eventually I fell into a really light, dream-filled sleep. In it, I wandered around in a snowstorm without a jacket. When someone knocked on the window, I sat up fast, totally disoriented. I peered through the glass. Two uniformed police officers motioned at me to join them.

I pulled on my coat and climbed out. “Hi,” I said.

The cops stood there like a pair of blue salt and pepper shakers—exactly the same size, shape, and posture. It wasn’t until the one on the left spoke that I realized she was a woman.

“You living in this vehicle?” she asked. Her voice was deep and gravelly, not like a cigarette smoker, but like after you’ve had laryngitis and it’s still sort of raspy and almost sexy. She was definitely Pepper.

The cold air shocked me awake fast. “Ummm…no.”

“Runaway?” asked Salt, stepping forward. He peered into the SUV, shining his flashlight on my stuff. “What’s with all the boxes?”

“Oh, those? That’s just my stuff,” I improvised. “I go to…to Southern Oregon U, and my dad’s moving, so I had to drive home and pick up some of my things from the house to take back to the dorms.”

The woman officer met my eye. “So why are you sleeping in the parking lot?”

Good question.

“Oh, yeah…well”—I tried to keep my voice as casual as possible—“I was supposed to stay at my boyfriend’s house, but somehow we got our wires crossed, and I can’t get ahold of him. I’m heading back to Ashland as soon as it gets light. I didn’t want to drive through the mountain pass in the dark.”

“Right,” Pepper said. I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not.

“I thought it was safer than driving five hours at night,” I explained. “Sleeping here didn’t seem like a big deal.”

“A girl alone in a car is always a big deal,” she said.

“Yeah…I guess.”

The weather gods chose that moment to do me a huge favor, and a gust of icy wind ripped through the parking lot. The light drizzle turned into a driving rain, and I put my hands up to shield my face from the stinging drops. “It’s only for a few hours,” I yelled over the wind.

“Well,” said Salt, grabbing hold of his hat to keep it from flying off, “make sure you’re gone in the morning.”

“I will.”

“And lock your doors,” added Pepper.

I dove into the Beast and huddled under my comforter, wide awake, for a long time. I couldn’t afford to be questioned by the police again because they might ask for ID and discover I was only seventeen and my dad’s house was less than three miles from here. They’d probably take me back to him, and if he said he didn’t want me, they’d ship me off to my mom’s in Los Angeles. Somehow I doubted they’d care that the last time I lived with her, not only had she been arrested for shoplifting beer, but they’d also found stolen lunch meat tucked under my Big Bird T-shirt. I had to find somewhere besides my car to sleep.

ON SUNDAY MORNING, I PULLED THE BEAST INTO
the grimy parking lot of the Regis Deluxe Motel. It was more like a strip of narrow spaces with faded white lines than an actual lot, and most of them were empty. McDonald’s and Burger King wrappers fluttered around, accumulating in little piles by some dead-looking bushes near the front doors. V
ACANCY
flashed in the window, but both the
C
s were burnt out. Below it was the sign that had caught my attention.

CHEAP WEEKLY RATES
FRIDGE INCLUDED

I got out and made sure all my doors were locked and set the alarm. I didn’t want the two guys in greasy jean jackets who were huddled together against the wind, smoking cigarettes, to get any ideas. I had to pass them, but they stared without comment.

Inside, stale smoke had permeated the peeling wallpaper, leaving it yellow-stained. And when I walked by a dead palm tree near the door, it reeked of urine. I prayed the rooms wouldn’t be as gross as the lobby. A sign said to ring the bell, so I tapped it quickly and then
wiped my hand on my jeans. A thick tree trunk of a man lumbered out from the back.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

I glanced around, looking for the owner of the voice because it sounded exactly like Marilyn Monroe, but we were alone. It had to be him. He wore two gold hoops in his ears, and a silky pirate blouse, but he was no woman. The handlebar mustache was a dead giveaway.

“Ummm…,” I said, studying the
MOTEL RULES AND REGULATIONS
sign on the counter so I didn’t stare at him. “I’d like to see a room.”

“See one or rent one?” he cooed.

“Rent?” I said.

“I have a strict no-runaway policy, darlin’. You eighteen?”

“Yes,” I lied. “But I don’t have a credit card.”

“I only accept cash up front. You got it?”

“I can get some from the ATM.”

“Follow me.” He sashayed down a threadbare carpeted hallway. His round, bald head balanced on his shoulders like a golf ball on a tee. “Name’s Stub, by the way.”

“Oh. Okay. Uh…Jamie.”

One lightbulb lit up the middle of the hallway, and an exit sign glowed over a doorway at the far end. “We recently installed security bars on the ground-floor windows,” he said, like it was a selling point. He led me into what amounted to an eight-by-ten-foot box. The walls were a dirty gray-white, and there was a metal-framed cot under the window with a filthy-looking, stained bedspread. There was also a dilapidated dresser, a table that leaned to one side, a rickety-looking chair, and a lamp.

Stub opened the bathroom door, and the odor of rotten eggs wafted into the room. “Smells a bit,” he said, “but I cleaned it myself.
That’s about it. It’s two-sixty-five a week, utilities are included, but if you bring a TV, it’s an extra six bucks tacked on. So, you want it?”

I couldn’t believe my choices had come down to this room or my car. The scary thing was the motel was giving me flashbacks to second grade and places my mother and I used to live in. She’d ramble on about the elusive
man that would change her life forever,
while we ate Cheerios with water for dinner. As far as I knew, the closest she’d come to finding her handsome prince was my dad, and she’d screwed that up royally.

I hadn’t seen my mother since she and that slimeball ran off to Hollywood, but there was one thing I knew for sure. I was not her, and I would never become her. Even if I did have to live here for a while.

“I know it’s not the luxury you were expecting,” Stub said, “but will it do, sweetheart?”

“Ummm…can I think about it?” I asked.

“Sure. But these rooms go fast.”

I didn’t believe him, but I should have. “Okay.” I tried to smile. “Thanks.”

He pointed at a door under the flickering exit sign. “You can go out that way,” he said.

I pushed through it out onto the pavement, gasping for fresh air.

After hogging the pay phone for four hours, calling every ad for a roommate on Craigslist and striking out, I was back to say I wanted the room, but Stub had rented it out already.

“You don’t have anything?” I asked. At this point I’d have been willing to take a supply closet if the door locked and I had access to a bathroom.

“Well…,” he said. He smoothed the ends of his mustache with his fingertips and thumbs like a villain in an English pantomime. “A room on the third floor just opened up, but I haven’t cleaned it yet.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, afraid some other homeless person would come in and snap it up before I could.

I didn’t think I’d ever fall asleep in the smelly, damp room, but I must’ve because a sharp rap like gunfire made me bolt upright in bed, confused about where I was.

“Yo! John, open up,” said a man in the hallway.

Was he knocking on my door or the one across the hall?

“Dude, it’s me.” He lowered his voice a little. “I got your money, and I need a hit, man.”

I stared through the darkness at the door and saw shadowy movement in the gap at the bottom where it didn’t quite meet the dirty carpet. I wanted to tell him to go away, but my voice was caught in my throat, stuck there by fright.

“It’s me, dude. I got something you want,” the man said, louder this time.

When I didn’t answer, he yelled for me to open up. “What the hell is wrong with you? Come on, Johnny. I need to see you. I got your money.”

“Go away,” I croaked, but he didn’t hear me because he’d given up being patient and was now thumping hard with heavy fists. My heart raced. The door rattled under the blows. I’d checked the deadbolt at least six times before going to bed. I couldn’t see if the chain was hooked because the streetlight that bled through the single dusty window was so dim, but I was sure I’d fastened it. What should I do? Maybe hide in the bathroom. But then I’d be trapped if he got inside.