Check in at the Pine Away Motel (ARC)

by Katarina Bivald

  It’s hard to worry about things you can laugh at, and MacKenzie was better than most at seeing the funny side of things.

  There were two key events that fall, taking place at roughly the same time. The first was a letter sent to the Pine Creek Gazette, complaining that teachers were free to spread homosexual propaganda in schools. Just imagine the author’s surprise when he found out that The Color Purple was available in the school library. And that the students were free to borrow it!

  The letter was signed Normal and proud.

  “No one in Pine Creek is normal,” MacKenzie said. “Though we’re proud of that, of course.”

  The second event took place in town, or at least that’s what Hank claimed. Two women who had come to his café for lunch suddenly—entirely without warning, and completely in the open—started kissing. Just leaned across the table and started it!

  “Obviously I kicked them out,” Hank told anyone who would listen. “You can’t be carrying on like that while people are eating lunch. They kicked up a fuss, of course, claiming they’d been discriminated against and threatening to sue me. But old Hank here wouldn’t give in. It’s not about discrimination. You just can’t sit there, kissing like that, right in front of everyone.”

  “Hank,” said MacKenzie. “You know we’re all on your side here. I just wish you could explain this to Derek and Stacey, too. That way, maybe I wouldn’t have to watch him stick his tongue down her throat all the time.”

  “That’s completely different,” Hank said, but fondly. He liked MacKenzie.

  “Of course,” she said. “At least they’re normal and proud.”

  “I can’t believe I missed it,” MacKenzie muttered later, once we were back at the motel. “Pine Creek’s queer population doubled, and I wasn’t there to see it.”

  That was how it began.

  One afternoon a few weeks later, MacKenzie treated me to milkshakes and burgers at Hank’s. She worked off the bill by working there, that is. She had done far fewer shifts at Hank’s since she started at the motel, but she still enjoyed putting on her waitress uniform and going around, refilling people’s cups with the coffeepot. The real waitresses were willing to tolerate her as long as they didn’t have to share their tips.

  MacKenzie and I drank our milkshakes, and three men sat at the bar complaining about the coffee and the gays.

  “Even if you paid us to drink this goddamn coffee, it’d be daylight robbery,” said one of them.

  “I’m all for Measure Nine, because I’ve got two sons. The day someone tells my son that it’s okay to be gay, I’ll hit him in the jaw,” said the other.

  “Jesus, Hank, what century did you brew this coffee in?” said a third. And then: “You know what the problem with gays is? They don’t reproduce, which means they need to recruit. They’re gonna recruit ten percent of our kids. They’ll convince my grandkid to become a homosexual.”

  “It’s not that I’m prejudiced,” the first man reassured the others. “I’ve got nothing against anyone. I think everyone knows that. But it’s not the same with gays and dykes.”

  One of the men nodded in agreement. The other pulled a face—he had just taken a sip of his coffee.

  “Who cares what they think,” MacKenzie muttered. “They’re dumb enough to drink Hank’s coffee.”

  But we left soon after that.

  Chapter 24

  Pine Creek Through My Eyes

  Interestingly enough, town is still the next point Michael decides to grapple with.

  I don’t think he has any idea how to approach it, but he gets an unexpected hand from Camila. She sits down at his table in the restaurant—I think of it as his “usual” booth now—and bashfully tells him that she wants to do “something” with the rooms at the motel.

  “But I need some moral support,” she adds. Then she looks up at Michael, touchingly unsure of herself, as though she doesn’t quite know where the limits of their friendship lie—nor how much she can ask of him.

  “I thought you hated the motel,” Michael tells her, surprised.

  “I was drunk! It was just…weird to be back.”

  “And now you want to fix it up?”

  Camila looks down at her coffee. “It’s MacKenzie,” she eventually says. “She had to run this place while I was away. And now she’s all alone. I just want to do something to help her.” A stubborn look has appeared on her face. “Whether she wants it or not.”

  Michael glances from her to the computer screen, and for a moment, I think he’s about to get back to work or add something to his list. That’s when he sees the point about viewing this dump of a town through my eyes.

  “Shopping trip to Pine Creek?” he suggests, and Camila flashes him a grateful smile.

  He packs up his things, and thirty minutes later, they are standing side by side on Elm Street. Michael’s car is parked nearby; they decided to use his for their shopping trip because it has the bigger trunk.

  They start at the most expensive home-decor shop, purely because it’s on Elm Street. The canisters and jars are all gleaming white and invitingly arranged, so that we can really feel how empty our lives are without glass jars labeled pasta and rice and grains. Everything seems to be shouting: This could be your home! Your life could be organized and coordinated and full of artfully arranged blankets in tastefully contrasting colors!

  The blond woman behind the counter was in our class at school. In terms of the hierarchy back then, Tiffany was right in the middle, but aiming squarely upward. I think she might even have dated Derek for a while before he moved on to Stacey—her fifteen minutes of high school fame. Now, she radiates the slightly superior self-confidence of someone who truly believes that she has a perfect home.

  Michael and Camila don’t recognize her. They’re too focused on the cushions, in various shades of cream and lime green. But Tiffany is watching them with unconcealed curiosity. They’re the only customers in the shop, so she has plenty of time to stare.

  Michael picks up a small cushion that seems to have been made more for decoration than for comfort. “Do you want the motel to be one of those places with a billion cushions that you have to move off the bed before you can get in, and even then you can’t find a proper pillow?” He looks down at the pile in front of them. “Because if you do, I’m not sure there are enough here. We’ll need hundreds of cushions.”

  Camila studies the price tag. “Maybe not.”

  “There has to be something I can do…” she continues, though she doesn’t get any further before Tiffany butts in, her curiosity getting the better of her.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but aren’t you Derek’s little brother?” She gives Michael an admiring glance and then adds: “Tiffany. We were in the same class.” She moves on to Camila as though she is trying to size up the competition, but a confused crease appears between her perfectly shaped brows. “Weren’t you…? Your name was…”

  “Camila,” she says quickly. “I’m Camila now.”

  Tiffany looks as though she is about to argue, but there is so much she wants to know that she decides to move on. “Are you a couple? I always did think you were gay.” She turns back to Camila. “You, too, of course.”

  She is clearly more interested in Michael than Camila. “So have you moved back to Pine Creek?” she asks, a hint of hope in her voice.

  “We came back for Henny’s funeral,” Michael says, but if he thinks that respect for their grief will dampen her curiosity, he is very much mistaken. “We’re staying at the motel,” he adds.

  “The motel! Right, of course. With MacKenzie Jones. She’s a dyke, isn’t she?”

  Michael and Camila turn and leave the shop.

  The last thing they hear is a desperate “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course!”

  * * *

  “Well, that went well,” Camila mutters. They don’
t stop until they are several blocks away, confident that Tiffany hasn’t followed them. “I guess it was a dumb idea.”

  Michael rubs his eyes. “Not as dumb as mine,” he says, though he doesn’t explain what he means.

  “Do you remember what we were like when we were kids?” Camila asks.

  Michael’s laugh is short and harsh. “A bunch of losers and outcasts,” he says.

  “God, yes, but also… You know how there’s a really clear distinction between the popular kids and the losers at school? I never understood why we weren’t the tough, popular ones. MacKenzie always made it feel like it was a conscious decision not to hang out with the others. Like being a loser or being popular was something you could choose. She created some kind of wild, free, crazy bubble around us, where absolutely anything could happen.”

  She did, I think.

  “Not just MacKenzie,” Michael adds. “Henny did it, too. She used to look at me like I was more interesting than Derek.”

  Camila nods. “She was the first person I came out to.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing. She just started to think of me as a woman, and that was that.”

  “You should’ve said something to us, too.”

  She shrugs. “I wasn’t ready.”

  Michael nods.

  “You saw her…before she died?” Camila asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “I wish I had, too.”

  Michael is quiet.

  “What was she like?”

  “She was…perfect. Just…perfect.”

  I shake my head. “No one is perfect,” I say.

  “Had she changed?”

  “Yes and no,” Michael says. “In one sense, she was exactly the same as always. Like she had just been waiting for me here. I know she lived her own life and had her own experiences, but that was how it felt. She was like my rocks—timeless.”

  “Well, MacKenzie has definitely changed. Jesus, hanging out with her was like being caught up in a tornado.”

  That doesn’t sound entirely positive, but I know what she means. Overwhelming. Intoxicating. Engulfing.

  “She was always so tough and invincible,” Michael adds.

  “Exactly!” I eagerly agree.

  But Camila shakes her head. “No. She was human, too. She was freer and braver and more open than anyone I’d ever met. But now she seems so resigned. All she does is work. I thought that if I could do something with the motel, she would get drawn into it. I just want the old MacKenzie back.”

  I do, too, Camila.

  “I wish I could’ve protected her from life,” she says. “She doesn’t even want to talk about Henny, but I know she’s thinking about her all the time.”

  Michael seems to strike “talk to MacKenzie” from his Remembering Henny list. It’s probably just as well. MacKenzie can be pretty nasty when she doesn’t want to do something.

  “Come on,” he says. “We just need a new plan. I don’t think starting at some trendy home store was the right approach. What we need is a secondhand shop. We shouldn’t try to make the motel into something it’s not. We should…improve it slowly.”

  Camila still looks dejected.

  “This time, we’ll look in the window first,” he continues. “And if we see anyone who seems even remotely near our age, we leave immediately, all right?”

  Luckily, the first secondhand store they find is run by a friendly woman in her fifties. She looks just like the shop she runs: chaotic, and wearing a dress made from chintz-like fabric.

  The shop is much bigger than it looks from the outside, or else the woman has just ignored the laws of physics by cramming in as much as she possibly can. One corner is dedicated to furniture, and dining tables and mismatched chairs jostle for space alongside old wingback armchairs and a huge black leather sofa. Another section is filled with hundreds of pictures. A chaotic mix of cross-stitch embroideries, framed nature prints, and portraits of long-dead people. Camila starts there and has soon jokingly bought three pieces of embroidery, all featuring uplifting phrases.

  Now that she has bought something, she really lets loose. Shopping bags quickly fill up. Michael brings the car over, parking it outside, and patiently carries everything out to the trunk. The woman behind the counter looks incredibly pleased.

  “You’ve taught him well,” she says in a loud theatrical whisper, with Michael still in earshot. “Exactly how a man should be.”

  Camila buys a pile of white lace tablecloths, two mismatched vases, a couple of floor lamps, some table lamps, and a small walnut bedside table.

  “Be careful with that,” the woman warmly warns Michael.

  Michael carefully packs everything into the car. The autumn sun is shining down on him, and there is a group of kids nearby, pretending to be football heroes. Three of them are wearing green Oregon Ducks shirts. On their backs, a huge number eight in yellow, and above it, the player’s name: Mariota. The Oregon Ducks’ legendary quarterback. Michael smiles to himself as he loads the furniture into the trunk, and then he pauses and watches them thoughtfully.

  When he heads back inside to fetch the rest of Camila’s shopping, he has an absent look on his face. He’s mulling over an idea, I can tell.

  Camila has already paid for everything when the woman says, “Maybe you could use this fantastic old bar counter, too. Traditional handiwork, and it’s been given a good coat of white paint, as you can see. The man who bought it got married soon after, but unfortunately he and his wife had very different ideas about what was important in a home. The bar was the first thing to go. But just look at all of the beautiful detail!”

  “I don’t think we need a bar.”

  “It’s actually an old bureau, so it would work wonderfully as a desk, too. For your office, perhaps?” The last part is directed at Michael, but it’s Camila who is thinking about her big, impersonal office and the hulking great monstrosity of a desk currently in it. She looks longingly at the simple elegance of the piece in front of her.

  “I’ll give it to you for a great price.”

  Buying it would be a real extravagance. I’m sure Camila can hear Juan Esteban lecturing her on how unnecessary it is to waste money on things the guests won’t even see.

  “I’ll take it,” she says.

  * * *

  On the way back to the hotel, Michael is deep in thought about his new idea. He helps to carry everything up to the office while he waits for Camila to decide where she wants it, but it’s clear that his mind is elsewhere. He quickly excuses himself, picks up Derek, and drives back into town. Derek talks constantly as they drive.

  “Detergent. That’s what I’d really like to find. Everyone needs detergent. And having the right brand name is less important than with stuff like shampoo or conditioner. I learned that the hard way.”

  They turn off by Elm Street. Derek doesn’t need any encouragement to keep talking.

  “I once got hold of a big consignment of detergent. A whole pallet. A few boxes of fabric softener, too. I worked my way through town, going house by house. And I did it during the day, you know, when the wives are grateful for a bit of company. Coffee, Derek? Come in, Mr. Callahan. That’s all I heard. And they all bought it, too. I gave them a good price, and my margins were pretty decent. Fabric conditioner thrown in for free if you bought enough. Then the same guy I’d gotten the detergent from made me a new offer. Shampoo and conditioner. A pallet of each.”

  Derek shakes his head at the memory. “What a goddamn mistake that was. I should’ve known. None of those women…” He stiffens up. “Hold on. Where are we going?”

  Michael parks outside our old high school. An ugly pale-blue building. It doesn’t seem to have changed since we were there, except that everything seems smaller now: the parking lot, the two-story main building, the entrance to the principal’s office, and the
teachers’ lounge.

  “What are you up to?”

  “Derek, this is ridiculous. You can’t hide from Coach Stevenson forever. You may as well get it over and done with. What’s the worst that can happen? He yells at you a little?”

  “A little? I can tell you never played football in school.”

  Michael climbs out of the car, opens Derek’s door, and takes a firm hold of his arm. The football field and the gymnasium are to the right of the school, and as you approach, it quickly becomes clear that the school building itself is much less important.

  The school may look the same as it did fifteen years ago, but the football field has kept up with the times. New floodlights. New bleachers—nothing more than stainless-steel benches with no roof, but that’s all you really need. People turn up at the school’s games regardless of the weather. The grass is freshly cut, the lines brilliantly white. No one has bothered to maintain the running track around the field.

  Coach Stevenson’s office is right next to the field.

  “Derek Callahan Jr.”

  The voice surprises us, and both Michael and Derek jump. They look incredibly guilty as they slowly turn around.

  “Don’t you try to get away from me now,” the voice says. “I might be older than you, but I’m in damn good shape.”

  “Hi, Coach Stevenson. Nice to see you after so many years.”

  “Don’t distract me, Michael. I’ve got plenty to say to your good-for-nothing brother.”

  He still shakes Michael’s hand when he holds it out to him.

  “Come on, Coach. Say what’s on your mind. I’m ready.” Derek smiles disarmingly, but it doesn’t work. Coach Stevenson has been training kids for thirty years, and there isn’t a trick in the book that he hasn’t seen before. He is immune to any attempt to escape his fury.

  “Those shirts you sold me were worthless.”

  “They were great quality!” Derek protests. He throws his arms up in the air, as though he is offended by the very thought that he, Derek, would sell him something worthless. “I got you the right amount. The right names and numbers. All spelled correctly.”