The Pursuit of Miss Heartbreak Hotel

by Moe Bonneau

  “You’re switch as a clam I occurred to you, little mollusk Thumbs?”

  “So switch,” she says, yanking me down into her warm nets.

  I’m a fool moon in her galaxy arms. She teaches me gravity.

  I am lap cat. Hear me purr.

  Like Home

  I’m rocking real slow in a chair by Oma’s bed. She hasn’t woken at all today, hasn’t eaten a thing. I prod at my throat and the hard swelling of my glands. I think I’m getting sick. No shocker after the marathon couple of weeks I’ve had.

  I watch Oma’s chest, rising and falling, the peaceful blips of her meter chiming away. My eyes slowly shut, when my speak vibrates in my pocket and I see Eve’s called, no message left. Strange, I think. Massive.

  I’m about to dial her back, a funny feeling in my gut, when I hear a rustling at the door and look to see Dad standing there, smiling. He strolls over, leaning by Oma’s bed to give her a small kiss on her forehead and to pick up a bottle and capped syringe. “Upping her dose again tonight,” he sighs. “Won’t be long now.”

  I stand and again glance at my speak. I feel Dad watching me and I look up, tuck it into my jeans.

  “Eve?” he asks and I nod, feeling the stiffness in my neck, vaguely wondering how he knew it was her. I swallow, my throat raw. I’m getting sick, for sure. Dad smiles, stepping close to pull me into a bear hug. I hug him back and it feels good, like home.

  “Dad,” I say into the fabric of his shirt. “I think I’m—”

  He nods his head and hugs me tighter. “I know, sweetie. I know.”

  I pull away, look up at him. “Huh?”

  “What?”

  “No,” I laugh. “What were you gonna say?”

  He furrows his brow. “What were you gonna say?”

  “Dad.”

  He smiles, looking infinitely tired.

  “That you’re gay, Luce. That’s what I was gonna say,” and I feel my mouth drop open as a dry, hot laugh escapes from the vast desert of my soul.

  “That’s not what…” I reach up to prod my swollen glands. “Never mind.”

  He pushes my fingers away and presses his own into the rocklike lumps of my throat. He pokes around and finally nods his head.

  “Yep. You also have glands.” I can barely look him in the eye. “And it’s possible you’re getting sick.”

  I nod, then Dad and I, we go quiet and stare down at Oma, my brain working to reconcile the swirling bits of shrapnel ricocheting around. But suddenly it just doesn’t seem to matter. And my thoughts, they dim to a quiet rustle and outside, the dogwood branches beat a steady rap against the window. I feel Dad peeking at me from the corner of his eye, his hands jingling the change in his pocket.

  Such a Dad thing to do.

  “Also,” I say, my voice quiet, “I don’t think I wanna study medicine. I sort of hate it, actually. I wanna do something else. Write, maybe. I dunno.”

  He smiles. “We’ll talk about it.”

  I look at him and he seems so cool, so calm. It occurs to me then, in that quiet moment, how much I love him. How much he is going through losing his mom. And, how hard it’ll be when it’s his pulse on the line and I’m swimming around in his big shoes, saying goodbye to the one person who knows and loves you most in the whole entire world. In the living room, someone coughs and the TV is flicked on.

  “So, it’s not a big deal to you, then? Like, all of it?” And Dad just shrugs, shakes his head. “Well,” I say, taking a breath. “That was certainly an anticlimax,” and he’s chuckling, giving my arm a quick squeeze.

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Marco Polo

  Eve’s on the speak, clip-clop crying. When she answered, I thought someone had hoisted her phone because I almost didn’t recognize her voice.

  She snuffles and heaves, telling how she was at a toaster, but now she’s heeling it home on foot through musty wooded streets. The rest of the world dreams and drools while she walks, clip-clop-clip, drip-drop-drip.

  They invited her out. The other three Pretty Pennies. They said, “EB! Betty-Jack, we miss you! We haven’t seen you in years! We massive feel like you hate us!” They also said, “Don’t bring anyone.” She didn’t know that meant don’t bring me. She didn’t know why she said she’d go. She didn’t know why she went.

  She arrived and there they were, dressed to the nines, tens, and back again, coy and smiling slimy snail-slow grins. They gave her bony shoulder half hugs and quick escorted her, stealth-mode, from the backyard teeming with hormonally drenched toaster-goers to the fluorescent-lit kitchen. They all sat down.

  They said, “We know.”

  She said, “You know what?”

  They stared and stared. A crank clock on the wall cooed Morning Dove O’clock.

  “We’re not the only Jacks who know,” said the Blond One.

  “But you’re safe. The Jacks who saw promised they haven’t spilled to a soul,” said the Black-Shagged One.

  “They came straight to us, as your apples. They knew we’d wanna be the first to know,” said the Two-Timing Brunette.

  But Eve was crickets. She sat still as a rail, petrified wood.

  “You should just come out and spill it,” they said. “Admit what you are.”

  She shrugged. “I really dunno what you want me to spill.”

  “Just admit you’re, like, a lesbian now,” and their pointy-perfect noses scrunched at the word’s unpleasant aroma.

  “Some Jacks scoped you two.” The Blond One was a blur of straw and rouge.

  “And we scoped you together last week at the lake.” The Black-Shagged One’s mug was sketched in blotchy black ink.

  “Those Jacks couldn’t believe it. They spilled you were kissing.” The Brunette was so sharp and bright, she stung.

  Eve just sat there, silent, smarting, imagining our once beatstreet kisses, now infinite galaxies away, shooting through milky ways, dripping white with menace and shame.

  * * *

  Eve’s on the speak, clip-clop crying and I cut a wheel fast, but our connection is shoddy. I’m Marco. She’s Polo.

  Marco? Polo!

  Marco? Polo!

  Marco?

  Her voice crackles on the line and then is gone.

  “I’m heelin’ it to get you. Where are you?” I ask into dead air.

  Call lost.

  I wind and twist and speed around familiar suburban streets, the road’s curves burnt into my skull, a map of my wee-Jack life. I squint into the vivid glare of high-beamed asphalt and imagine I see the silhouette of her back in every mailbox, shrub, and sign I pass. Reception’s three bars too few, my deduction and intuition the only GPS I’ve got. But I’m determined to scope her walking through this dark and hollow night.

  As I wheel, I imagine dramatic confrontation. I imagine retribution. Gale-force winds, I envision I whip through their toaster of entangled twosomes and flip-cupping contestants, to the three Pretty Penny Queenettes.

  “Revolution!” I scream.

  I holler a great howling bawl, a thick and muscled bluetick coonhound, my three masked and ring-tailed raccoon targets scatter and chatter and cower in a looming shadowy corner. In a last-ditch dash for life, the Yellow-Eyed Jack leaps screaming on my skull. The Black-Eyed Jack scurries and spits and hooks her razor-edged teeth in my ankle. The Brown-Eyed Jack surges, viscous threads salivating for my jugular. But each clash-Jack’s met with my Jaws of Life and Death and I lift them high in my crushing crane grip and drop them, tails swishing, claws closing around wind into a deep crank pit of trash-compacting crushers.

  I’m jolted to reality when I scope a frail silhouette. It’s Eve. I roll up slowly beside her, and she raises her skull in bright lights, teary, black streaks slicing down white cheeks, her eyes caught fierce in fright. She softens when she scopes my mug and she chokes, sobbing. I pull off the road and she’s opening the door and sliding into my banger.

  * * *

  Back at my house, Eve craw
ls heavily into my bed. She curls in, feet tangling between sheets and quilt and I sit by her head, wind my digits into her fever-damp hair.

  I kick off my boots and lie beside her. Thick sobs rack through her small, sad frame, and I wrap my worn nets about her ribs. She turns, curling hot and wet into my achy breaky heart cage and I hold her, rub slowly her fire-hot back. Her fists curl in tight clash knots, her thumbs tucked under coiled fingers. Fisherman’s knots. I think I know how to untie them, but I can’t. She shivers and sweats, sweet and yeasty, like baking bread. A swampy thing, she’s moss and secret places.

  A fine dew of moisture fills the space between her face and mine and I kiss her eyelids and wipe her nose. She turns her face from mine. We lie, fitting like cups and saucers, me her spoonful of medicine. I tuck my face in the crook of her neck and breathe her sweet, sad sorrow.

  I rock her soft. I rock her as she drifts and I rock her as she sleeps and I rock her as she wakes, burning like live coals next to me. She lies, lost and adrift, an infinity stretching between us.

  Free Fall

  Eve and I are ghostly hush, chowing granola the next morning when Dad schleps into the crickets kitchen, says he needed his computer, hasn’t done any paperwork in a week. He gets into poking around our abandoned abode, dumping out expired milk, tossing moldy bread. He finally gets hit to our vibe, giving me a concerned, fatherly glance, but I look away. He says it’s time for him to jet.

  Eve shudders slowly to life, her arms wrapping a fortress around her shaky frame. “I’m so sorry to hear ’bout your mum,” she says as Dad is pulling his laptop onto his shoulder, scooping up his keys. He smiles a thin line, deep shadows under his eyes.

  “Thanks, Evie,” he says. He looks at me again, then leaves.

  * * *

  Eve and I, we cut a wheel across town, still hush, and I pull up in front of her house. She pushes open the door, but doesn’t get out. She sighs, sits back against her seat.

  “After all this,” she says, “I think I’m gonna need some time.”

  I wanna throw up. I nod and stare at the taut wrap of leather enveloping the steering wheel.

  “Hey,” she says. I lift my heavy head and see her eyes are leaden and pink and her face is flushed and soft around the edges. I smile weak and my eyes are hot and brimming. But I don’t protest. I don’t scream and yell. I don’t get jammed or kiss her or tell her I love her. I just blink away my tears and look up at the ceiling.

  “I get it. I really do.”

  “Word, Bug,” she says and slides out of my banger.

  She’s miles away.

  * * *

  Dad’s home when I get there and he’s sitting on the screen porch, coat still on, laptop in its case on the floor.

  “You still here?” I say and he nods, pats the couch beside him.

  “Marta and Miles are with the others, they’re grabbing brunch in the city.”

  We sit in silence, green-bellied hummingbirds dive-bombing like fighter jets from feeder to flower and back again. Their wings buzz, a tight, hard noise. I close my eyes and flop back my head. Dad lifts an arm over my shoulders and I lean into the solid weight of him. “So,” he says. “Wanna tell me what happened?”

  And from deep within me, sobs like a freight train rack clickety-clack through my torso, tears pushing warm springs onto my hotplate cheeks. He pulls me close and kisses the top of my head and I tell him my tale as he holds me light, like the catching of a feather from infinite free fall.

  He pulls his fingers through my hair just like Mom used to when I was a wee-Jack and my eyes slide shut and I wonder if she touched him like this, if that’s why he knows how.

  As I’m nodding off, Dad pulls a blanket from the back of the couch over me, sighing heavy. And before I know it, I’m startling awake to the ring of his speak. I peel open my lids and he’s yawning, rubbing world-weary eyes. And then he’s talking and his voice goes soft, strained, and I know right away it’s Oma.

  * * *

  We pull into her drive and there are no other cars. They’re on their way, Dad says. He cuts the engine and looks at me.

  “Maybe this doesn’t make sense right now, but it sounds to me like Eve needs a friend.”

  I shake my skull, clip off my seat belt. “She said she needed time.”

  He pushes open his door. “Well, it’s my opinion we don’t always know what we need. If you really like this girl, you’re gonna have to fight.” And he’s climbing out, leaning in through the open window

  “But that’s all I’ve been doing, Dad. I’m hacked. Spent.”

  He lifts his large, flat palms. “Welcome to love, Jack.” And he heels it inside. I sit for a spell, then flip open my speak to type.

  miss u

  * * *

  Dad and I sit vigil, the nurse perched in her chair by the corner, Dad and I each holding one of Oma’s hands. With my other, I run a finger along Bitsy’s stout little fox-like snout. The Beeps are slow, lifetimes elapsing between each. Her breathing, loud under her oxygen mask, sounds gravelly, pinched, labored.

  And I always imagined that when this happened, I would be floating, watching from somewhere far, far above. But I’m right here, everything in full focus.

  I feel it all. And Oma’s so real, so right now, so painfully real.

  Fifteen minutes in, my speak goes off. I slip it out to put it on silent and see it’s Eve. I stare at the screen, watch as I miss her call. She buzzes back.

  miss u 2

  I slide it back in my pocket and Dad catches my eye. He gives a sad smile, tears rolling gently down his cheeks.

  “Eve?” he says.

  I look at the floor.

  “Go,” he says.

  “No way. I can’t leave you now.”

  But he just shakes his head. “I’m fine,” he says so soft. “Oma loved you kids so much. She always said…” And we’re suspended in a moment, Dad and I. He tilts his head, gestures for the door. “I’d like to say goodbye before everyone arrives. Just me and Mum.”

  “Dad, c’mon. This is crazy.” But he shakes his head.

  “Go. I’m asking you to leave.”

  I watch him, wait for him to change his mind. But I see he won’t. I lean down to Oma and kiss the fuzzy white crown of her head. Take one last look at her face, her hands, the crest of her knees under the blanket, her tiny feet in oversized socks. The gentle, slow rise and fall of her chest.

  I stand, give Dad a hug.

  And I walk away.

  Mission Possible

  I motor to Eve’s. Minutes, eons, light-years go by and I pull into her drive, knowing I better make this count. Knowing this is it, everything or nothing on the line. I don’t know how I know, but I do. I dial her number, and when she answers, she’s groggy and her breath is heavy in the earpiece. Upstairs, in her attic room, I see the gentle breeze of her curtain flapping in her open window.

  I wait. Eve opens the door and steps outside, wrapping her arms and sweater tight around her body as she heels it up to my banger. My headlights illuminate her small frame. I roll down my window. I ask her to cut a wheel with me.

  “Where to?” She shivers in thin pajamas.

  “Cape Cod,” I say. “Truro.”

  She pauses. “That’s, like, four hours away.”

  I nod. I’m Double O Seven, Eight, and Nine and she’s my Mission Possible.

  Eve licks her lips. “If I come with, this doesn’t change anything, Bug. You know that, right? Really,” she says.

  “I’m hit, Thumbs. Whatever you need.”

  “Word,” she finally says. “Let’s jet.”

  Like a Rolling Stone

  How does it feel?

  We cut a wheel into the day’s blinding noon, to old, folksy tunes with raspy vocals and harmonica, strumming guitar ringing clear. The rough, leathery layers of hurt and sorrow peel slow in thin slices off our weary-teary eyes as the sun makes its highest ascent and winks and flashes sharp off the passing bogs and marshes.

  To be withou
t a home.

  We drive and drive and land in an alternate universe. Sunny, bright vacation station, T-shirt stands, SUVs, overpriced seafood shacks, billowing twenty-foot rainbow-colored flags. We score a campsite at a park I remember from larger, long-ago past days and we buy a bundle of wood for a beach fire and some bread and cheese and fruit from a rustic little shop. We unpack. Pole A slides into D and F into B and our tent’s up ’n ’ at ’em and our sleeping bags are thrown in and unrolled like caterpillars.

  Like a complete unknown.

  We heel the short walk through piney wooded trails I remember like dreams, our flip-flops flip-flopping. The sweet musk of bayberry perfumes our path and highbush blueberries speckle the shrubs and we pick and eat. Eve startles, laughing, when an angry swallow swoops low at our heads as we pass her nest and I wrap my nets around her waist and lift her, curly hair jumping, into the salty summer air.

  Like a rolling stone.

  The ocean licks the shore and gulls circle and cry. Family-Jacks pack in under striped and spotted umbrellas, lounging behind glaring shades and wide-brimmed hats.

  We’re quick to the water’s edge with toes dipped in the cold, clear sea and soon we’re walking our warm bellies under and swimming, gasping through the stiff current of small curling waves. Our ice-cube feet grip the sandy floor as it washes away with each coming swell and Eve curls her legs around mine and we shiver and scope a horizon-bound fishing boat. We hold fast, cheek to freezing cheek.

  And you ask, How does it feel?

  * * *

  We sit on our towels by the feet of the rambling dunes. The sand’s massive hot on our thighs as the sun beats ultraviolet relief from the sea’s deep chill still clinging to our skin and soon we start to scat real life. She tells me about the way the Pennies and Nate make her squirm in her skin. About not eating, how thin she got, her weight in actual, legit digits. It spooks me cold.