Check in at the Pine Away Motel (ARC)

by Katarina Bivald

  The woman from the secondhand store nods. “I told you they couldn’t have anything against us. But the motel, well, that’s different.”

  “Not part of town,” the woman next to her agrees. “It’s high time someone says what we’re all thinking.”

  “And he does look handsome in his suit.”

  “I remember him in his football uniform…”

  Both women smile nostalgically.

  “Ask Sheriff Ed how many times he’s been called out to the motel.”

  “That’s not fair!” I protest. “Most of them were because of you!”

  “Ask how many rules the motel has been allowed to break, while every other business has had to follow every last regulation Washington can come up with.”

  His eyes scan the eagerly nodding crowd.

  “I’m not going to keep you for much longer. I’m a newbie in politics. I’m happy to admit that, but even I know that being forced to listen to politicians drone on for hours is the worst. I’m more interested in hearing what you think and feel. So, if you have any suggestions about things we could do better or just want to contribute to our campaign for a more moral approach to business, I’ll be at the table all evening. Swing by. Say hi. Have a coffee.”

  The hall erupts into applause, and once Derek leaves the stage, people crowd around him to praise his pleasantly short speech. Women smile, men thump him on the back, and several stop to chat.

  It’s Stacey who spots them first.

  She tenses up and unwittingly grabs Dad’s arm, something that makes both of them look unbelievably guilty. Through a gap in the crowd, I catch a glimpse of MacKenzie, Michael, and Camila.

  I don’t know how long they’ve been here or how much they heard, but judging by their faces I would probably say: more than enough.

  They are standing at the very back of the room, awkward and unmoving, despite the fact that they are in the way of anyone trying to get to the cloakroom or the information table by the doors.

  “Excuse me,” a woman says, pushing past them to get to the petition. People have formed a line to add their names to the list.

  Camila gazes helplessly around the room. “Shouldn’t we…do something?” she asks, and both she and I turn to MacKenzie as if we’re hoping for a miracle.

  “Say something!” Camila pleads.

  But MacKenzie shakes her head. I don’t know whether she even realizes she’s doing it. She instinctively takes a step back.

  Eventually, it’s Michael who reacts. “I’ve got a thing or two I’d like to say to Derek,” he mutters.

  He gently but firmly pushes MacKenzie to one side and then elbows his way over to his brother.

  Derek is in the middle of a conversation, but Michael doesn’t care. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouts, not seeming to notice that everyone around them has stopped talking.

  “This isn’t the right place…” Derek begins, smiling tensely.

  “I think it’s the perfect place. Have you lost your goddamn mind? Why are you attacking the motel? You like MacKenzie. You were her friend. You used to work there, for God’s sake.”

  All around them, people have paused to eavesdrop on the argument. One man has even stopped with his coat half on, one arm raised in the air.

  “Since when did you care about morals?” Michael continues. “You love sin. You’re an expert in it.”

  “He’s just kidding,” Derek says, grabbing Michael’s arm and trying to pull him off to one side.

  Michael angrily breaks free. “And you two!” he shouts at Dad and Stacey. “After everything the motel has done for you! How can you just stand there and listen to this bull? You’re both staying there, for God’s sake.”

  That spurs Derek into action. He forgets that he is a calm, reasoned politician these days. “And you’re perfect, of course? First you butt into my life and tell me I need to do something with it, then once I actually do, you show up and criticize what I’m doing?”

  “Don’t you see how insane this is?”

  “What is it that’s so insane, Michael? Please, tell me. Is it that people might vote for me, or that I might be able to make a difference? Or maybe it’s the fact that I could be good at something other than playing football.”

  “What’s insane is that you’re pretending to be some kind of conservative dream politician. Complete with the supportive wife by your side.”

  “At least I married my childhood sweetheart.”

  “And you did a damn good job of that, didn’t you? It’s not like the two of you lived happily ever after, did you?”

  “Happier than you and Henny.”

  That’s when Michael punches him.

  His fist hits Derek square in the jaw, but then he seems to freeze in shock. He shakes his hand.

  “That’s enough,” Mr. Callahan snaps furiously at Michael. “You’re causing a scene. You…”

  He doesn’t make it any further before Derek launches himself at Michael. Both men fall to the floor. They roll around by Mr. Callahan’s feet, until eventually he has to jump out of the way to avoid being knocked over.

  Michael and Derek continue to brawl in front of half of town. Chairs fall over as people rush to get out of their way.

  “Do something!” Camila shouts. She and MacKenzie have pushed forward to the first row around the fighters.

  “I think Michael’s holding his own pretty well,” MacKenzie mutters, stubbornly folding her arms.

  Eventually, Mr. Callahan manages to grab an arm, and someone else takes hold of another. The two men are pulled apart. Stacey helps Derek to his feet.

  He tries to brush the dirt from his jacket and smiles apologetically at everyone around him. “Just a little difference of opinion,” he says. “Normal brotherly love.”

  “Go to hell!” Michael shouts.

  * * *

  The windshield wipers struggle against the heavy rain as we drive back to the motel. The car’s headlights only reach a foot or so in front of us. The whole world feels like it’s underwater. MacKenzie is driving calmly and carefully.

  Michael is sitting by the passenger-side door, and I’m not entirely sure who he is talking to when he says, “I’m an idiot. I really tried to give this place a chance. I thought if I could just see it the way Henny did, then… I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought things might be different this time.”

  “They still could be,” Camila tells him. “Don’t forget the party I’m going to throw. That’s more important than ever now. We’re going to prove to them that…”

  But Michael continues as though he hasn’t heard her. “I only spent three days with her as an adult, but somehow I thought that it meant something. Like I could learn something from her. But do you know what I should’ve remembered? That she always chose this town ahead of me. That’s what I should have focused on.”

  “Of course it meant something,” Camila says.

  “I was crazy for coming back here. What did I think was going to happen? Everything would suddenly be fine, all of life’s mysteries would reveal themselves, and our past would no longer matter? Like I’d become someone new just because I pulled up outside.”

  “You loved her. It isn’t crazy.”

  “You don’t understand. I couldn’t, I don’t know… Jesus Christ, Camila. I had to know.” Now that he has started, he can’t stop. “I left here, but I still lived half my life here. Like that film, Sliding Doors. Except I was aware of it the whole time, and that made it worse. No matter what I was doing, that half of me was constantly whispering about a different life. I could smell tomato and rosemary plants on a warm summer evening, picture a backyard, a barbecue, Henny and her closest friends. And sometimes, at night, if I was someplace new, at yet another motel or in a sublet apartment somewhere, I could only get to sleep if I imagined I was in that house we could have had, in a
comfortable double bed, next to Henny.”

  “And then you came back,” Camila tells him. “You got to see her again.”

  “I couldn’t stay away any longer. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. I just woke up confused in reception one day, and there she was. Everything was right again.”

  “Michael, that’s beautiful, not crazy. Right, MacKenzie?” Camila places a hand on MacKenzie’s knee. “Tell him it’s not crazy.”

  “Don’t look at me,” MacKenzie replies. “I agree with him. He was crazy for coming back. What the hell did he think would happen? They spent one weekend together. That’s all. And you’re just as crazy if you think you’ll ever get this town to accept you.”

  * * *

  Once MacKenzie has dropped off Michael, she lazily parks outside the motel and heads straight up to our apartment. Camila and I hurry after her.

  We arrive just in time to see her on tiptoe, trying to reach her suitcase from the top of the wardrobe. Camila hesitates, then reaches up and lifts it down for her.

  “I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be helping you with this,” she says. “What are you doing, MacKenzie?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m leaving this place.” She throws a couple T-shirts into the case. “Do you know what I did while everyone else was watching Michael and Derek? I looked at the petition. They’d filled several sheets!”

  “Don’t go.”

  “I told you I’d leave you in the end.”

  “Me, yes. Not the motel. This is your home.”

  “You said it yourself: It’s just a black hole that sucks the energy out of everything. You could work here your whole life and never achieve a thing.”

  “I was wrong. I forgot that I was happy here, too. We were friends. For a while, I was free here.”

  “I can’t handle going through this again.”

  MacKenzie throws a few sweaters into her suitcase, a couple pairs of jeans, and the first things she can grab from the closet. Then she heads into my room and rummages through the photographs on the floor. She picks two, takes them back to her room, and puts them into her suitcase. The images facing down.

  “But…you stayed after Measure Nine. And all the other votes they pushed through. You even stayed during the marriage vote, and you must have known we’d lose that.”

  “That was different. After Measure Nine, I never cared.”

  “So that…that must mean you care now?”

  “No.”

  Camila moves in between MacKenzie and the suitcase. “Come on,” she says. “Talk to me. Help me understand.”

  “You care, Camila. But you’re not going to win. They’re going to break your heart, and there’s no damn way I’m going to stay here and watch.”

  “MacKenzie…”

  “I mean it.” She gently pushes Camila to one side, slams the lid of her suitcase shut, and carries it down to the car. She throws it into the passenger seat.

  “MacKenzie, stop.”

  MacKenzie pauses. She studies Camila with something that looks a lot like grief.

  “It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself,” Camila says. “You love this motel. And you like me.”

  MacKenzie holds a hand to Camila’s cheek. Hesitates. Pushes back a lock of hair, damp from the rain. “I told you not to care about me. I warned you.”

  With that, she climbs into her car and drives off. Just like that.

  * * *

  Michael is still awake when I get back to the cabin. The light above the table where he is sitting is the only one turned on, and it mercilessly illuminates his weary face. There is a half-empty bottle of whiskey in front of him.

  “She just drove off!” I angrily blurt out. “Threw some random clothes into a suitcase. But it must be temporary, right? She’ll be back. MacKenzie could never leave the motel for good. Not really. Not forever. Right?”

  Michael buries his face in his hands, and I lose my train of thought. He looks so abandoned that I don’t want to force my problems onto him. Instead, I move over and place a hand on his shoulder. Outside, everything is dark. Night has settled like a damp blanket on top of our world.

  “You’re not going to leave, right?” I ask, but as the words leave my lips, I question whether I really believe it.

  MacKenzie left.

  “I can still make you all happy,” I say, but I don’t know whether that’s really true anymore.

  I wonder… Would they have been happier without me? Would it have been easier for them to move on if I had been strong enough to leave them behind?

  The thought hits me so hard that I have to sit down on the bed.

  They don’t need to stay here. They could move on with their lives. Maybe Michael was right. Maybe there’s a big, exciting world out there. Maybe it would have been kinder to them. MacKenzie and Camila could have gone off to be happy together if Camila hadn’t felt my presence and thought she had to stay when MacKenzie left.

  It should be easy to give up someone you can’t have. I imagine it’s a bit like dying. Once you’ve been rejected enough, you realize it’s no longer worth clinging, and then…you give up. Close your eyes, stop breathing, move on, free.

  Though, of course, I’m not very good at dying, either.

  If only I had disappeared when I was cremated.

  That probably would’ve been best.

  And maybe…maybe my ashes could have been scattered in the wind. That way, in a small sense, I could still have come back to them.

  Not in a creepy way, of course.

  But I could have transformed into MacKenzie’s very own sunshine, someone who followed her around and never left her side. Like when she drives all night and sees the sun come up. Jesus, she would think, is it that late? But it would just be me messing with her. Or a wind that ruffled Camila’s hair. Made her slightly less perfect and got her to laugh.

  Maybe I could have just dissolved in water, and that way I could have rained down on Michael. Not a cold, horrible rain. A summer rain. Nice and warm. He would smell fresh grass and realize the air had suddenly become easier to breathe, and everything would be quiet other than the sound of raindrops on puddles.

  That could be me.

  Chapter 44

  Celebration

  After the results came in, Pat and Carol threw an impromptu party to celebrate. Their living room quickly became unbearably warm from all of the bodies crammed inside. I barely knew half of the people there, however much they claimed we had been fighting on the same side. It was the first time I ever experienced the power that victory and free food have over people.

  The adults didn’t seem to notice the temperature, not after all the chilled white wine they had drunk. Their faces grew redder and redder, and more flushed with victory.

  “I told you they wouldn’t manage it,” said a woman I hadn’t met before. She was wearing a No to Measure 9 badge and was holding a wineglass in one hand and a miniature burger in the other. “The people of Oregon will never accept it.”

  “The light always wins out over the darkness,” someone else chimed in.

  They were right, and now they could get on with their lives. They had helped us. We had won.

  I found the others in the kitchen: Pat and Carol, MacKenzie, Camila, and Michael. They weren’t celebrating.

  Pat and Carol had invited everyone who had been involved in some way in the No to Measure Nine campaign. It was a hastily organized affair; they hadn’t been planning to celebrate at all. I think they had suspected what the rest of us didn’t yet know: that election day and the result itself were things to be endured alone, rather than celebrated as a group. The fact there had even been a vote was a loss in and of itself. Not even the positive outcome could erase the memory of our neighbors, colleagues, friends, and absolute strangers fighting for the other side. We had seen it, and our eyes couldn’
t forget.

  I wondered what visions were playing out in front of MacKenzie’s eyes. All I could see was her face the day we saw Cheryl wearing her Yes to Measure 9 T-shirt.

  “Fifty-two percent!” someone shouted from the living room. The Honorable Heterosexual Housewives really were keeping spirits high.

  Eventually, we were the only ones left, alone among the empty, abandoned wineglasses, the empty trays and dirty napkins. A date wrapped in bacon had been forgotten on a plate, and the last bite of a mini pizza had been dropped on the rug.

  “We’re moving away,” Pat suddenly announced to MacKenzie.

  “We didn’t want you to hear it from someone else,” said Carol.

  “It’s a nice town,” Pat went on. “But we’re not really from here, so we don’t have any relatives or family… There’s no reason why we need to live here.”

  “Come visit us if you’re ever passing through Portland.”

  “Sure,” said MacKenzie.

  “It’s just not the same here now.”

  MacKenzie nodded.

  “You guys go home,” said Carol. “We’ll tidy up here.”

  I gave MacKenzie an uncertain glance. “You want to find something to do? Want to go somewhere?”

  MacKenzie bent down to pick up the piece of pizza from the carpet. “I’m working at the motel tonight,” she said. “See you tomorrow. At least school goes on like normal.”

  I nodded.

  None of us said what we were all thinking. The liberal cities like Portland and Eugene were what had narrowly saved us from catastrophe. Fifty-two percent was the state average.

  In MacKenzie’s Pine Creek, there was no reason to celebrate. In this town, sixty-four percent had voted in favor of the measure.

  Chapter 45

  Thing 1…

  I’m sitting on the hill by the motel, looking down at the parking lot.