“You sleep,” I say. “I’ll keep you company for a while.”
Chapter 46
Proud Home of Anti-Gay Ballot Measures Since 1992!
The vote took place in November of our last year at high school, and though nothing was the same afterward, life and school went on.
Michael and I continued to see each other, but we didn’t tell anyone else. I don’t think he wanted to admit there might be something to keep him here, and I didn’t want to tell MacKenzie that the vote had brought us together. Still, I think she knew. I could never hide anything from her.
MacKenzie was almost always working at the motel. She attended enough classes to graduate that year, but no more than the absolute minimum, and she didn’t seem to care about any of it. I found myself wondering whether she even cared about me.
She still turned up outside Dad’s house from time to time. “Come on, Henny,” she said like always, but there was no joy in her voice. She was no longer driving Cheryl’s old car, and there were rumors in town that she had given it back by driving it into Cheryl’s fence. By that point, she was driving a rusty old wreck that started on good days and refused on others.
One day in February, she came to pick me up. She was chatting away like normal, and she even laughed. But something still felt different. It was as if there was an invisible wall between us, a new limit to our friendship that had never been there before. Every conversation contained an unspoken sense of this is as far as it goes.
Looking back, I probably should have knocked down that wall. Smashed it to pieces. Forced her to cry and shout and break something. But I was too young to realize that sometimes, real friendship isn’t about respecting your friends’ wishes.
We drove toward the motel. The pines were weighed down with snow, but as we parked and the engine fell silent, I heard water dripping from the roof of the motel. Spring was coming. And there was a new addition to the motel’s patchwork sign.
“What do you think?” MacKenzie asked, gesturing up toward it.
The sign read Oregon—Proud home of anti-gay ballot measures since 1992!
* * *
I know I should have destroyed that wall between us, but I’m grateful that MacKenzie did at least have Camila. Because Camila had also changed. When I saw them together at the motel, I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was different about her, but looking back, I think she felt freer in the spring following the vote than she ever had before. It was like she said the night before the funeral: she had discovered that there were other LGBT people in town. I often noticed her gazing at MacKenzie the same way MacKenzie looked at Pat and Carol.
Who knows? Maybe Camila was a braver friend than I was. Maybe she didn’t care as much about invisible boundaries. What I do know is that they both spent most of their time at the motel, and that when the old MacKenzie came back to me, it was with a plan that involved us all.
At the time, Michael, Camila, MacKenzie, and I were together again, repainting the rooms at the motel. This was in May. Michael had received his admission letter from a college in California, but we never talked about it. For everyone else in school, there was only a month left until freedom. More importantly, prom was just three days away.
Somehow, MacKenzie managed to convince us to use prom to make a statement. Michael and Camila would attend together, and so would MacKenzie and I.
“You can go as a gay couple,” she said to Michael and Camila. “And Henny and I can go as dykes. It’s not exactly like any of us have anyone else to go with,” she continued, waiting to see whether I would protest. I found myself glancing at Michael, but neither of us spoke. “And I’m guessing you don’t care if our idiotic classmates think we’re gay?”
MacKenzie made the idea sound so simple, but as we stood outside the gymnasium a few days later, I think she felt just as nervous as the rest of us. She was uncomfortable in her dress, and I stood next to her in my tux. We had drawn lots to see which of us would wear the tuxedo, and I had won. Though maybe that’s not quite the right word for it. I think we both wished it had been the other way around. Michael and Camila were right behind us, both wearing tuxedos, too.
The room fell silent as we entered. An entire sports hall of shocked teenagers was left speechless by the sight of us. All we could hear was the ropy old sound system blaring out Eve 6’s “Here’s to the Night.”
“I brought a flask,” MacKenzie whispered over her shoulder. “If it all goes to hell, we can always get drunk.”
Chapter 47
Under the River
The protesters are still outside. I guess that means Cheryl still hasn’t made up her mind about Camila’s offer. I can’t see their faces through the drizzle, which is making them into a murky, menacing cluster on the other side of the road. Here to remind us that we’ll never belong anywhere. They’ve already managed to drive MacKenzie away, and now Camila is going to sell the motel.
We thought we could choose to belong here and create our own alternative community around the motel. I naively thought that it actually made us stronger, more liberated somehow. Because we didn’t care about what people in town said. Because we knew how it felt to be on the outside, so we could really help people who needed it.
But I was wrong. Now that MacKenzie is gone, the motel is nothing but asphalt and concrete again. It’s a building, nothing more. It can’t protect us.
I go to see Michael first, then Camila. I tell them both the same thing: “Leave if you want. I won’t try to stop you again. Do what you have to do to protect yourselves.”
I know I won’t be able to follow them. I’m as trapped here in death as I ever was in life. And I can’t bear the thought of being here without them.
I walk the familiar stretch between the cabin and the motel and cross the parking lot. Before I can stop myself, I glance over at the protesters one last time, immediately regretting it. I don’t want the image of them to be etched in my memory when I disappear. Paul is still working on the veranda. The calm sound of his hammer follows me all the way to the river.
I walk straight out into it. The icy water surges around me, but I don’t feel a thing. I sink beneath the surface. Anything to get away. The world above is distorted. From here, everything seems to glitter, but it also looks so fragile. The drizzle forms rings on the surface above.
Become one with the water.
If I could just dissolve right here, I could rain down on them later. I wouldn’t have to stay and watch them go their separate ways. They would be freer without me.
Time passes.
All that happens is that the branches of the silver birches become darker and more depressing as afternoon edges toward evening. I’m bored long before I disappear.
And then I feel angry.
How dare they? They made MacKenzie leave us! Camila is going to sell the motel! How can they stand over there, so self-righteous and evil and… Jesus Christ, is that a fish?
I jump out of the river, still full of anger. Camila was right. We were happy here, and even if MacKenzie and Camila and Michael give up, I’m not going to.
Not yet, anyway. Not until I know that I’ve done all I could.
And they’re definitely not going to make me spend my time surrounded by disgusting fish.
* * *
I have an idea, but I’m not sure it’s going to work. It’s worth a try, in any case. I wait all evening, and as the clock approaches two in the morning, I stride toward town.
The distant glow of the streetlamps on Elm Street guides me, and once I’m there, I have no trouble finding Cheryl’s house. It’s two in the morning, and the place is dark and quiet.
Good.
But it’s actually pretty hard to move through a strange house without any lights on. The darkness is so compact in here. The clouds break and a faint pool of moonlight finds its way in through the window, but that doesn’t really h
elp.
I have no idea how burglars do it. I manage to walk into an umbrella stand and am halfway through a huge chest of drawers when I realize that I can only see the top half of my body. The way my lower half vanishes into what must be polished wood would be alarming if I wasn’t so focused on my task.
I step away from the wall and see the faint outlines of my legs beneath me. That’s better.
The bedroom is on the first floor. No surprises there. It’s actually quite easy to find by following the sound of Cheryl’s husband’s snores.
The electronic digits on the alarm clock glow eerily in the darkness: 2:07. I bend over her and whisper, “You don’t care about the motel anymore. You want to take up a new cause. There are so many other unchristian issues to deal with. But not LGBT people,” I quickly add. “Something else. I don’t quite know what. But you feel like it’s time to move on from the motel.”
I repeat the same words several times, hoping that they have somehow managed to penetrate her subconscious. “You’re bored with the motel. The issue is overplayed. You don’t care about the motel. There are other things you want to do. The motel isn’t interesting.”
But then I pause. She looks so…vulnerable in her sleep. She is wearing baby-pink flannel pajamas, and her pillow has left a crease on her cheek. Her hair is sticking up in all directions. Right here and now, she seems younger than when I first met her. I think back to hot chocolate and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“The real Cheryl is in there somewhere,” I say to her. “The one who took care of a couple of lost teenagers and taught MacKenzie to drive and bought a new car just so she could give the old one to her.”
A frown appears on Cheryl’s forehead.
“You’re in there somewhere. You just need to rediscover yourself, I guess.”
She must be in there, I think. Otherwise I don’t know whether I can still love this town.
* * *
I’m more confident when it comes to my next break-in. I’ve learned just to stand by the front door and listen for snoring. Haunting a house with a sleeping man in it is practical like that.
Derek’s snores immediately show me the way.
The moonlight illuminates his shirts and Stacey’s new “proper” clothes. They are in a messy heap on the armchair in one corner and scattered across the floor. Derek is asleep with his mouth open, one arm beneath Stacey’s shoulders.
“You’re an expert at fixing things,” I say to him. “So fix this.”
I say the same thing three times, and then I move on to Stacey. “And you’re too tough and funny to be wasting your personality on pretending to be respectable! You got Dad to throw flour at you, and now he walks around wearing that red coat. He still needs you, and you need the motel.”
I sit down on top of the clothes on the armchair and talk about the motel and Derek’s football career and how much Michael admired him; I talk about Stacey’s toughness, how pretty she was when she was younger, how pretty she still is. When the sun finally comes up, I head home.
Some of that must have sunk in, I think.
Chapter 48
Moats and Drawbridges
I would recognize MacKenzie’s pickup anywhere, so I spot her approaching from a way off.
I’m so relieved that I almost feel like crying. And laughing. And shaking her and asking what the hell she was thinking, disappearing like that. And hugging her. Mostly the last one.
She slows down, indicates a left turn, waves to the protesters, parks in her usual spot, and practically runs over to reception. She enthusiastically waves a magazine in the air.
“Check this out!” she says to Camila as though she had never left.
As she looks at MacKenzie, all the tension and hardness within her seem to disappear. But only for a brief moment, before she composes herself and continues to pull all of her pretty new brochures from the stand.
“Did you know that Mrs. Davies writes a column for the New Yorker?” MacKenzie asks. Her face is deliberately nonchalant. I think she is trying to convince both Camila and herself that she didn’t just leave. “She’s the one who writes In My Humble Opinion.”
Camila looks up from the brochure stand. “The column that always eviscerates everything? Films, restaurants…hotels.”
“Yup!” MacKenzie sounds cheerful. I take a closer look at the magazine she is holding. It’s the latest edition of The New Yorker.
“What has she written?”
“The headline of her column is: “Would Jesus check in here?” She writes that she’s always thought Jesus had some morally sound principles, but that it doesn’t seem like he had much of a sense of humor. He’d be a nightmare guest unless there was a fish, bread, or wine shortage.”
“Great. They’re going to crucify us.”
“I doubt anyone here reads The New Yorker. Anyway, she’s written such nice things about the motel. She says she can’t think of a better place to pine away. The idea of a home might be a modern illusion in these restless times, but she admits that we can all benefit from duping ourselves from time to time. And if any of her readers happens to be Jesus, they’ll also get a ten percent discount.”
She shows Camila the article, and I read it over their shoulders. It is an incredibly nice piece. It starts out mocking and superior, a big-city perspective on a conservative small town, but then she becomes serious, almost despite herself. The ending is warm and honest. She might joke about Jesus being an awkward dinner guest at the outset, but by the closing paragraph, she describes our motel and its collection of damaged individuals as “truly Christian” and “more like the biblical Jesus than anyone she has ever met before.”
Camila smiles weakly as she hands the magazine back. MacKenzie must have seen something in her eyes, because she involuntarily mumbles: “Camila…”
Camila quickly shakes her head. “Don’t worry. You said you’d leave, and you did. No expectations, right?”
“I came back,” MacKenzie tells her. “I couldn’t leave before your party.”
“It’s canceled.”
“And Mrs. Davies’s column reminded me that I couldn’t give up without a fight. I love this motel.”
“The shop owners have been calling all day,” Camila explains. “They aren’t interested in having their leaflets here anymore. But they say that they wish us good luck. That they’re sure I understand.”
“I’m sorry for leaving like that. One of these days, I’ll leave, but I shouldn’t have abandoned you with all this to deal with.”
“You were right. It’s pointless even trying,” she says. “This is what happens when you start caring about things. I should’ve given in right away. Like you. Just left.”
MacKenzie steps forward and takes Camila’s face in her hands. She kisses her. For a moment, Camila tenses up, but as MacKenzie pulls her close, she shuts her eyes and clutches MacKenzie’s jacket. MacKenzie holds Camila’s body against hers and sighs involuntarily.
I’m just about to leave them alone, but as I turn around, I see Camila pushing MacKenzie away. “MacKenzie…” she begins.
MacKenzie glances around. “We can’t talk here,” she says, dragging Camila into the office. She lies down on the sofa and pulls Camila on top of her. “Better,” she says once she has both arms wrapped around her.
I pause in the doorway.
“Tell me about Henny,” Camila says.
MacKenzie stiffens up. “Why? She doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“You never talk about her.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
Camila struggles into a sitting position on the edge of the couch. “Until you left, I’d always thought we were friends at the very least.”
MacKenzie seems touchingly unsure. “We are friends, aren’t we?”
“Friends talk to each other. They don’t just clear of
f like that.”
MacKenzie looks like she wants to say something, but she has no idea what. Her heart is beating so hard in her chest that I feel as if I can see it through her top. Her face is naked and vulnerable. The slightest shift in her thoughts is visible on it, waves of fear and panic and uncertainty washing over her eyes, her skin, the fine lines on her forehead.
“Start with Henny,” Camila tells her. Then she waits. She lets MacKenzie pull her close again.
“I was never in love with her,” MacKenzie explains. “We were just friends.”
Camila’s fingertips push back the stubborn lock of hair that is always falling into MacKenzie’s eyes. “Hardly just,” she says.
MacKenzie takes a deep breath.
“You’re right. There was no ‘just’ about being friends with Henny. She was my best friend. She was always there. Nothing feels right anymore. I don’t know how the world works now that I can’t talk to her. She was like a…compass. I could always find the right direction by talking to her.”
Camila’s fingertips continue to explore MacKenzie’s face. Unconscious, featherlight movements across her forehead, down onto her cheeks and neck.
“She never said much,” MacKenzie continues. “But she had a special way of listening. Focused, natural, like everything you said was exciting and interesting.”
This feels like far too a private moment to be eavesdropping on, but I can’t tear my eyes away from MacKenzie. Years of toughness and self-sufficiency have been peeled away, and I can see the old MacKenzie again, the way she was the summer we built the cabins. The MacKenzie I’ve been looking for all this time.
“She could see right through me and liked…no, loved me no matter how I behaved. Henny was unconditional love and I took her for granted, and now she’s gone.” She closes her eyes. “I loved her, even though I wasn’t as good at listening. I was never as good a friend as she was. I just wasn’t as good a person as her.”
Check in at the Pine Away Motel (ARC) Page 39
