I watched other drivers pull level with our car, slow down, and stare. And point. And laugh.
I listened to Molly playing road games with Etta.
“Blue car!” Molly shouted.
I glanced in the mirror and watched her pretend to punch Etta on the upper arm. But very, very gently.
Etta laughed. It was such a magical sound. Not that I hadn’t heard it before. Not that I didn’t hear it nearly every day. It was just magical. Every time.
“Boo car,” Etta said.
“Blue,” I said. I used my talking-to-Etta voice. So she would know.
“Boo,” Etta said.
“Blue. Ba. Loo.”
“Ba. Loo.”
“Blue.”
“Boo.”
Molly laughed. “She’ll get it,” she said. “She’s only two.”
“I’m not worried about it,” I said.
I was worried about quite a few things in that moment. But I was not worried about the word “blue.”
When I’d driven as far as I felt I could for the day, I had to stop. I had to find us a motel. And that’s one of the things I was worried about.
I didn’t know this girl. I only knew that her mother never wanted Molly around her little sisters ever again. Still, she’d clearly been good to Etta over an extended time alone.
But to fall asleep in the presence of this unknown homeless teen?
I could have gotten her a separate room. But that would have been twice as expensive. And that went straight to my other worry: Would all these trip expenses fit onto my new credit card? And, if not, how would we get home?
I pushed it all out of my head and stopped at the first place that presented itself.
It was a cheap motel on a vast dirt lot, with a broken neon sign that read STAGECOACH MOTEL, and a flashing VACANCY sign underneath. A massive wooden wagon wheel was secured beside the sign. It looked like a throwback to the old west. A century before I was born. And yet just beyond it, an easy walk away, sat a thoroughly modern strip mall with outlet stores and a big-box department store, and chain fast-food restaurants.
I pulled into the parking lot and found a spot near the office. It wasn’t hard. The place was nearly deserted.
“Oh,” Molly said. “This is as far as we drive today?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’m tired.”
Etta was fast asleep. Car rides had that effect on her. I unbuckled her and pulled her into my arms. Molly held her while I emptied the trunk.
“Whoa,” she said as I pulled out bag after bag. She peered inside. “We’re only going to be gone a few days, you know.”
For some reason I felt defensive about how much stuff I’d packed. I snapped at her. A little bit, anyway.
I said, “Not everybody travels as light as you do, Molly. In fact, hardly anybody does. You must know it’s something of an aberration.”
She looked away. Looked around. As if suddenly fascinated by our surroundings. She didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s mostly stuff I needed to bring for the baby. You need a lot of supplies for a baby.”
Then again, I was talking to the girl who had kept Etta reasonably happy for twenty-four hours on apple juice and goldfish crackers. And imagination.
I handed her the diaper bag, and she slung its strap over her shoulder.
“But seriously,” I said, “did you really walk out of your parents’ house with nothing but the clothes you have on your back now?”
“No,” she said. Still looking around. Still not looking at me. “I packed a few things to take with me. But then they got stolen.”
“Do you have a hairbrush?”
“I used to, but I lost it somehow. A while ago I lost it. I used to take it with me when I went to gas stations to use their bathroom and clean up so I guess I must’ve left it at one, but I swear I looked at every place I ever took it. It’s a little bit of a mystery.”
“Toothbrush?”
“Yeah, but not with me. We didn’t stop back at the crate to get my things. Well. That’s pretty much all my things at this point—the toothbrush.”
I hefted two of the big bags and she took the smaller one with her free hand. And we walked to the office together.
“Where are we?” she asked, still looking around.
“Not sure. But somewhere in Nevada. Past Las Vegas.”
“How did we get past Las Vegas? Where was I?”
“Maybe you fell asleep.”
Actually, I knew she had. I’d seen it.
“Oh. Yeah. Maybe.”
We walked inside.
The rates were clearly posted on the office wall. I was a bit shocked to see that they wanted ninety-five dollars plus tax for a room. It didn’t seem like much of a place to charge ninety-five dollars for. Then again, I hadn’t stayed in a hotel or motel for years. And everything goes up in price.
The desk clerk was a tired-looking man in his forties with thin hair and narrow features. “One room?” he asked, looking at the three of us. As though we were a hard group to figure out.
“Yes,” I said. “One room.”
He slid a form across the counter.
I began filling it out with a pen that dispensed ink in fits and starts as I scribbled. About one letter out of two came out looking legible.
I handed him my credit card.
When I had done my best with the form—I didn’t know the license plate number of my mother’s car by heart—I slid it back.
“I need your car license number,” he said.
“I don’t have it memorized. I could go back out if I absolutely have to. But there are only about three cars out there.”
“We need to know who’s authorized to park in the lot and who isn’t.”
“Oh. I see. You figure my car will be hard to identify. Well, try this on for size. It’s half painted yellow. It’s a midnight-blue Mercedes with yellow paint on one side, and on half the hood. That should pretty much clear up who owns it, right? I mean, what are the chances of two cars matching that description showing up in your lot tonight?”
He furrowed his brow and scribbled a few notes on the form. Handed me back my credit card and a room key. An actual metal key, like in the old days.
“You and your daughters enjoy your stay,” he said.
And we lugged everything outside again.
As we tromped through the dirt to our room, Molly said, “He thought we were a family!” Her voice sounded breathy and excited. As though something miraculous had happened.
“It’s a logical assumption. I’m old enough to have a daughter your age.”
“Yeah. You are. I actually think my mother is a couple of years younger than you. She had me when she was nineteen.”
I winced at the thought. It might be hard to explain why. Or maybe it didn’t need explaining. I don’t know.
“If I’d had my way,” I said, “I’d have had kids when I was in my early twenties.”
“Kids? As in more than one?”
“Yeah. I wanted two.”
“So if you’d had your way you’d have a kid just about my age now.”
“Pretty much,” I said. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Then we had to lug all those bags up a flight of outdoor stairs. It ticked me off. Because the place was nearly empty. So why couldn’t he have given us a room on the ground floor? At least, I think that’s what was ticking me off. Could have been more than one thorn sticking into my side right about then.
“Kind of a long story,” I said as we climbed.
But it wasn’t, really. It was a short one. David didn’t want them. Somehow it was easier to call it a long story rather than admit the truth: it was a story I didn’t particularly want to tell again.
We arrived at the landing, puffing. Or I was puffing, anyway. Etta began to wake up on Molly’s shoulder. I knew it would be hard to get her to sleep that night because she’d napped so much in the car.
I stuck the key in the door. Swung it open into a plain but acceptable room. It had two beds, at least.
“I have a question for you,” I said. “Why did you even tell your mother? I mean, if you knew how she felt about things like that.”
“Long story,” she said.
While we dumped the bags onto one of the beds, I wondered: Was it really long? Or, like my story, simply one she preferred not to tell?
Molly took a thirty-five-minute shower. I know. I timed it.
I’m not sure why I cared. It wasn’t my water, and it wasn’t my gas heating it. For the money I’d paid for the room, she might as well get some value back for the dollars.
Etta was sitting on the bedspread near my hip. Playing with one of the toys I’d brought from home. The one that let her point a big red arrow at different barnyard animals. And then, when she pulled the string, the toy would play a recording of a quack or a moo or a neigh.
I took my phone off the bedside table and checked the bars of reception. I was getting plenty. So I opened the browser. Started typing into the search bar.
“LGBT homeless . . .” Before I could type the word “youth,” the browser suggested it for me.
I clicked. Read the first couple of sentences of a Wikipedia article, which was displayed in the phone equivalent of a sidebar.
“Research shows that a disproportionate number of homeless youth in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or LGBT. Researchers suggest that this is primarily a result of hostility or abuse from the young people’s families leading to eviction or running away.”
I didn’t click through. Instead I read a few more of the search results.
The title of the fourth article down was “LGBT Youth Are 120% More Likely To Be Homeless Than Straight . . .” It cut off there. And yes, the capitalization was wrong. So I thought maybe it was a fringe publication. I looked under the link of the title to see who had published it.
It was Newsweek.
“What’re you doing?” Molly’s voice asked. From very close by.
Her tone was casual, but it still startled me.
She was standing at the end of the bed wrapped in a bright-white motel towel. Her hair was clean and wet, and looked curly and a little bit red. It had red highlights. Somehow that red had been hidden under the filth.
“Oh, nothing,” I said. “Just killing time. Put your clothes on and we’ll walk over to that little mall and get you something else to wear. That way you can wash one set and wear the other while you’re doing it. And we’ll get you a toothbrush and a hairbrush. And then we need something to eat.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s very nice of you.” But her mind seemed miles away. “I’m scared about seeing my mother tomorrow. Is it okay to say that to you? Because it really feels like a problem and I don’t know how to make it not a problem but I thought talking about it might help. Because we’ll get there tomorrow if we’re already past Las Vegas, and so now it all seems really real and really close, and so now I’m getting scared about it, because what if she slams the door in my face?”
“I wasn’t thinking of sending you to the door. Actually. I’ve been thinking about it. And I thought I’d go. Talk to her in advance. If she’s not open to the idea of seeing you, then you never have to face her. We won’t even give her a chance to say something terrible.”
“Thank you,” she said again. “That’s a really good idea. You know how I know it’s a really good idea? Because a second ago I wasn’t even hungry, but then you said that and now all of a sudden I’m starved. Let’s go. I can carry the baby. Let’s eat first and shop later.”
“I can’t eat another bite,” Molly said, “and it’s so good it’s killing me, that’s the tough part, but even so, my stomach won’t let me eat even one bite more. Can I ask the waiter to wrap up this last enchilada and I’ll take it up to our room?”
I’d been staring out the window. Into the pitch dark. Just the lights of a few businesses and a stream of cars along the interstate. I’d been thinking about more or less nothing. Mostly feeling instead.
I was feeling that I needed to go to the restroom. But I was resisting.
“We don’t have a fridge up there,” I said, dragging my mind back to the moment.
Etta was sitting up in a booster chair. Disturbingly wide awake. Her eyes lit up when I looked at her face and she looked back at mine. She was eating refried beans with a spoon, or anyway, she had been. Now she was drumming the spoon on the table, sending bits of beans flying.
“Doesn’t matter,” Molly said, “because it won’t be sitting out long. I only need, like, forty-five minutes or an hour and by then I’ll digest what I just ate and then it’ll be gone.”
“I have to go to the restroom,” I said.
My eyes were still locked with those of my beautiful daughter. We seemed to be enjoying staring at each other. I wondered briefly if we had stared at each other like this before we almost lost each other. Maybe. But I couldn’t remember.
I didn’t want to go to the restroom, because I didn’t want to leave her. I decided I’d pick her up and take her there with me.
I’d been allowing myself to get dehydrated through that long day of driving. And then, once we sat down at the restaurant, I put away about five glasses of iced tea, nursing that bottomless drink like a person dying of thirst in the desert. And it had caught up to me.
But I didn’t want to leave my daughter alone with this girl.
In a way it was silly. Because Etta had already been alone with this girl. Who then gave her back to me.
In another way it wasn’t silly. I barely knew her. Her mental and emotional stability level was a great unknown. She could have been anything. I had no idea why her own mother had thrown her out of the house.
More importantly, I was paranoid now. I had a sort of PTSD over losing her.
“So go,” Molly said, knocking me out of my thoughts.
I rose. Leaned over the table and lifted Etta out of her booster seat.
“She can stay here,” Molly said. “I’ll look after her.”
“She might need to go, too.”
“You just took her before we started eating.”
I paused. Stammered over some lame explanation that never quite came out into the light.
“I just don’t like being apart from her,” I said at last.
And we hurried away. Before I could hear any more of Molly’s thoughts on the matter.
When we arrived back at the table, Molly had her last enchilada wrapped to go. Her face seemed sullen. She avoided looking me in the eye.
The baby still on my hip, I grabbed up the check from the edge of the table.
“I’ll go pay this at the cashier,” I said. “And then we’ll walk back.”
“Fine. Whatever.” But before I could walk away, more words spilled out of her. “You know,” she said, her voice harder now, “if I couldn’t be trusted to take good care of her, you wouldn’t have her right now.”
I sighed. Tried to form my words carefully.
“That’s very true,” I said.
“So then what was that all about?”
“I’ve just been really paranoid since . . . you know.”
“But I would still think you would trust me. I mean, I’m the reason you got her back.”
“It’s not just you,” I said. “Anybody could come along and grab her. And why put it on you to be the one who has to be fast enough or strong enough to keep it from happening?”
“Right,” she said. “Fine. Whatever.”
And I walked off to pay the check. With Etta.
It was after midnight when I had to get up and use the bathroom again. Etta and I were in one bed. I’d finally gotten her to sleep just moments earlier. Molly was in the other bed, over by the window. I thought she was asleep, too, but I wasn’t sure.
I didn’t want to risk waking Etta. And if I dragged her into the bathroom with me, she would definitely wake up.
/> I watched Molly’s back in a thin stream of desert moonlight. It poured into our room through a gap in the curtains. I watched for several minutes, looking for any irregularity. Any movement that would suggest she was awake.
I decided to chance it. Or, rather, I simply needed to.
I literally ran to the bathroom. Used the toilet as fast as I possibly could. Ran back out without stopping to wash my hands. I couldn’t see Etta, who was all lost in the bedsheets. Not in that absence of light. So I rushed over and felt around.
She was there.
I sat on the edge of the bed and let out a panicky sigh. Or, more accurately, the sigh of panic leaving my body. The borderline of crossing back into no panic.
I lay down carefully, so as not to wake her.
“So what was your excuse that time?” Molly asked. Her voice was quiet, probably out of respect for the baby. But also even and sure of itself.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
But I knew.
“I just think it sucks that you don’t trust me. Especially with the baby. When was I ever anything but good to that baby?”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been finding it hard to trust lately.”
She didn’t say another word that night and neither did I. I’m not sure if she slept or not. I wrapped one arm tightly around my sleeping child. And somewhere in the very early morning I might have gotten three or four much-needed hours.
Chapter Eighteen
Molly: Queasy
I had to go into the bathroom while Brooke was in the shower, because I thought I was maybe going to throw up.
I’d been lying on that motel bed with the baby, just sort of nursing this really ugly feeling that was sitting sort of in my stomach, but sort of lower, like I’d eaten a big piece of evil and it had gone all the way down into my intestines but now it wanted to come back up again. Or kill me, I wasn’t sure which.
“I’m sorry,” I said when I got to the bathroom door. “I’m not trying to look or get all up in your privacy or anything and I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to, but I think maybe I’m about to be sick.”
Brave Girl, Quiet Girl: A Novel Page 18
