“I just … I just thought it would be more special this time,” I said. It came out as a hoarse whisper.
Jake let go and sat down on the bench. He looked at me so intently, like he had never seen me before. He sighed heavily. “Maybe you’re right. You are too good. I’m wrong. This is wrong.” He had transformed again, back into something more like a soft, bleating lamb.
I placed my hand on his cheek. “No,” I said. I didn’t want to be too good anymore. “It’s not wrong. You have changed me, you know.”
Jake’s eyes opened wide—with surprise, fear, love? I couldn’t tell. He took my hand away and lowered it to my side. “We should go.”
When we got back to the party everyone was either in the pool or running around dripping wet. Some had stripped down to their underwear.
It wasn’t long before Bradley and a few others saw us. They headed over like lions about to pounce. Right before they reached us, Jake whispered, “I’m really sorry,” and let go of my hand.
Before I could respond, two guys grabbed Jake’s arms, Bradley lifted his feet, and they heave-ho’ed him into the pool with a triumphant splash.
For a minute I thought they’d come back to throw me in as well, and I braced myself for it, but no one did. Jake emerged from the water in total party mode. A girl climbed onto his shoulders and they joined a game of Cherry Drop, screaming and laughing and wrestling each other. He must have known I was watching, but he didn’t glance my way, not even once. It was like I was invisible.
So I left—through the kitchen and out the front door. Jake was just drunk was all. He didn’t know what he was doing. He’d be himself again tomorrow.
I almost ran into someone in the driveway. It was Adrianna about to get into her car. She was completely dry. “I am so done with all of this,” she said when she saw me, sweeping her arms around. “Do you want a ride?”
“No, thanks,” I said, assuming it was a trick.
Adrianna frowned. “You know, Jake’s not all he’s cracked up to be. He’s charming and all, but he’s totally using you. He’s not worth it.”
That made me mad. Who did she think she was? “You just want us to break up, so you can have him,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’m just trying to help,” she said. “You are way better than him.” She got into her car. Before she drove away she said, “We’re not all jerks, you know. People aren’t always what they seem.”
NOW
The noises—explosions, flames hissing and crackling, fire engines screeching, voices wailing ALL DEAD! ALL DEAD! ALL DEAD!, louder than ever, and my own body screaming, all combine into something deafening. How do I get rid of all this noise?
My brain burns. I’m so hot it’s like I have turned into fire. I try to run, but my legs no longer work. They scream, You can’t. You can’t. You can’t.
Shadow. Where is Shadow? I need him. I scream his name, trying to outscream everything else. At first I can’t hear myself, but I keep screaming until very slowly the rest fades and my voice is all that exists. I scream until only a croak comes out.
Something damp and icy covers my forehead, and it calms the fire down. Cool liquid slips down my throat. I swallow.
A voice speaks; it is different from the others—it’s not coming from inside my head but from somewhere outside. I can’t understand any of the words, but the voice is not unkind. A hand touches me. Is it friend or foe?
I desperately need Shadow. I scream again but now my voice is totally gone.
The fire roars back with the incessant din. I don’t think I can stand it a second more; then the ice is on my forehead again, followed by more cool liquid.
It goes on like this—fire then ice, noise then silence, dark then light. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
The next thing I am aware of is floating on a cloud, light as air. I am no longer burning, nor am I ice. Warmth is pulled over me, and my head rests on a puff. It is the softest thing I’ve ever felt.
“Hey. You’re awake.” Not a question but a statement from a squirrelly voice.
My eyes open to an unshaven face and a wide grin with crooked front teeth. The face is young but old at the same time. I’ve seen it before, I’m sure of it. His eyes are intense pools of purple. I smell mint gum, which he snaps between grins.
I take in my surroundings. The cloud is actually a bed. The puff is a pillow. I am in a room. Bits of sunlight poke through a crack in the mustard-colored curtains.
The person gets up from an overstuffed chair in the corner and opens the curtains all the way, spreading beams of sun across the room. Outside is a line of sad, skinny trees, then a parking lot with a few cars, and across from that a small white building with a sign that reads OVERLOOK MOTEL—VACANCY.
I notice the snake tattoo on the guy’s arm, and it comes flooding back to me. The rusty green bike, the supermarket fiasco, the search for Shadow, that girl’s picture in the paper.
I bolt upright. “Shadow! Where is he?”
“Who?” the guy asks, coming over to the edge of the bed.
“My dog. What did you do with him?” I clear my throat. It’s sore and raw.
“I didn’t do anything with him. You were alone when I found you.”
“He was by the bike rack. Your bike was there. You took him,” I accuse. I want him to have Shadow because then I’d have found him.
“I didn’t see your dog. I swear. You were passed out. I brought you here.”
I stare at him. Is he telling the truth? There is something about him that makes me think he is. I vaguely recall a voice, the smell of mint, a warm hand around my waist, something lifting me, falling into softness. And then soothing words, damp cloth cooling my head, liquid coating my throat.
“Where am I?” I ask.
The guy sweeps his arm across the room, as if it were a palace. “Welcome to the Overlook.” He uses a formal-sounding voice in a joking way. “I’m Snake, your host, manager, and janitor all in one. This was the best room I could get you on such short notice, but it does come with a mini-fridge, and”—he pauses for effect—“a continental breakfast of delicious prewrapped Danishes.”
“I have to find Shadow.” I start to get up, but my body shakes too much. My legs won’t let me stand and I fall back on the bed.
“You might want to take it easy,” he says, putting his hand on my forearm. “You’ve been pretty sick.”
I am too weak to fight him off. “For how long?”
“Let’s see, I found you in the middle of the night, then the next day, another night, and now it’s morning.” He calculates on his fingers. “A day and a half.”
“I missed all that?” I raise my arms and notice that I’m wearing a plaid flannel shirt over my sweatshirt.
“You were freezing, so I put it over you,” he says, noticing my surprise.
I feel under the covers. I’m still dressed, except for my shoes.
“You were passed out on the sidewalk,” he says. “Somehow I didn’t think you’d want me to call the police or anything, so I brought you here.”
“Is this … Is this your room?” I ask.
He nods.
The question I really want to ask is, if I’ve been in his bed all this time, where was he?
He seems to understand, because he says quickly, “I didn’t try anything. Honest. I slept in the chair. I hardly sleep anyway, so it’s not a problem. Seriously.”
“I have to go. I have to find Shadow.” I struggle again to get up, easing my legs gently to stand. This time they obey. I start to take off the flannel shirt.
“Keep it,” he says. “It looks good on you.”
I am suddenly aware of how incredibly tired I am, how my feet ache, how tense and sore everything is. I smooth the shirt back down over my arms and ask, “Is your name really Snake?”
“It’s a nickname. I like snakes.” He rolls up his T-shirt sleeve to reveal his full tattoo, a red and yellow snake coiling around his shoulder and down his forearm. “Thi
s is a copperhead,” he says. He pinches his skin around the tattoo and makes it wiggle. He rolls up his pant leg to show a thick brown and white snake with large blue eyes. “This one’s a boa.” He stands straight again. “And I’ve got a rattler on my back.”
He looks like he’s debating whether to show me that one or not. He doesn’t. “I especially like poisonous snakes. But I’m not poisonous,” he adds. “I got these in a more reckless time, when I was a former version of myself. Besides, my real name is Hector, and who wants to be called Hector?”
I sit on the chair and rub my feet. “I’m a former version, too,” I say quietly.
He nods, waits.
I go on. “I’m Blue now. But the weird thing is, I don’t know who I was before Blue.” I stare at my feet, afraid to look him in the eye. I don’t know why I am telling him this. “Where are my sneakers?” I ask.
Snake reaches under the bed and holds up my Converse. Silver tape is wrapped around the front of one, a stark contrast to the dirty red canvas. “The sole was falling off. I gave them a temporary fix. Hope you don’t mind,” he says, handing them to me. “Duct tape, the cure-all.”
There is a pair of socks tucked inside. He must have noticed how smelly and blistered my feet were when he took off my shoes. If he did, he’s too polite to say anything. In fact he hasn’t asked me anything. Like what was I doing passed out in front of a supermarket wearing holey sneakers and dirty clothes, with no money or anything on me. Yet he let me stay here for two nights. He duct-taped my shoes.
Then he says my name. “Blue.” He makes it sound like silk. “That’s beautiful. Blue like the sky. Blue like the ocean. Blue like sadness.”
We are silent. He’s probably waiting for an explanation—a reason. Everyone wants a reason.
“I’m not running away,” I finally say.
He nods.
“I’m going home. To the coast.”
“You’ve got a ways to go,” he says. “You’re on foot?”
I nod.
“With a dog and no money?”
“Well, I don’t have my dog,” I say. “I have to find him. I have to.”
“I’ll help you,” Snake says. “We’ll call the pound as soon as it opens. They’re always picking up strays. You can stay here as long as you like. It’s nothing fancy, but—”
“I can’t pay,” I say before he can finish.
“Don’t worry,” he says.
I can only guess what that means. I’ll have to pay in other ways.
Snake takes me to the motel kitchen, where he gives me juice, boiled eggs, and strawberry Danishes. I eat three of everything. I stare at the door of the lobby, ready to flee if I have to.
“What are you looking for?” Snake asks.
“I … I don’t want to run into anyone. People make me nervous.”
“There’s hardly anyone here,” he says. “It’s not a very popular motel. I can get you your own private room if you prefer.” He glances down at the floor. “I brought you to my room ’cause I was worried you could get worse.” He looks me straight in the eye now. “I didn’t think you should be alone.”
“I can’t pay,” I remind him.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Like I said, it’s not a popular motel. There’s plenty of room.”
“Do you own it?” I ask. He’s way too young to be the owner of a motel, but he seems to have full run of the place.
“Not exactly. It belongs to my uncle. He’s in the military overseas. I’m managing it for him. There wasn’t anyone else to take care of it while he’s gone.” He frowns and goes on talking. “I’m an orphan. My mom died when I was ten. My dad died a few years ago, but I’d already left home by then. He wasn’t a nice guy.” He picks at the Danish wrapper. “And then there was some other stuff.” He bites a piece of Danish, chews, then goes on. “So when Uncle Ryan asked me to run the place while he was gone, there didn’t seem to be any reason not to. I’ve been here a month.” He looks out the window at the parking lot and the line of trees. “It’s not a bad place. It’s quiet.”
Snake tells me he does the reservations, checkins, and checkouts, as well as all the odd jobs—fixing leaky faucets and radiators, painting, stuff like that. The only hired person is a cleaning woman named Constance. “She’s been working for my uncle forever. She’s about a hundred years old,” Snake says. “She can hardly see or hear, so you don’t have to worry about her. She won’t even know you’re around.”
We go back to his room. Even though he said I could have my own room, for some reason I’m scared to be alone at night, which is weird since I’ve been alone all this time. You would think I’d be used to it. But alone in the woods and on the road is different than alone in a motel. Maybe it’s just because I don’t have Shadow. I need Shadow.
“Make yourself at home,” Snake says. “I’ll be in the office if you need anything.” Then he leaves.
I use the bathroom. There is just enough room for a toilet, a rusty stall shower, a mini-sink, and me, but it beats the woods or Porta-Johns or skanky gas stations.
There is a small and scratchy mirror where I get a glimpse of how haggard I look. I have bug bites and scratches on my cheek and neck. My hair sticks out in all directions. I eye the rusty shower. Dare I?
I turn on the hot water as high as it can go. I undress and step inside the metal stall. The water beads down my back like a warm, gentle rain. I crane my neck and let the drops fall on my face. I wash thoroughly, and then I wash again.
When I’m done I pace around Snake’s room. He doesn’t have much. A few books on a shelf. I read the titles: How to Stay Sober, Siddhartha, The Dharma Bums, a book on Buddhism, a kids’ book called The Great Big Book of Snakes and Reptiles, which has lots of illustrations of snakes and alligators, and a spiral-bound song book of folk music.
Propped on top of the shelf are some weird sculptures. The biggest one is a kind of robot. It’s made up of old electronic parts and other things. The body is a square piece of a hard drive, and the thick round head is the shiny disk. The arms are twisted forks, and it’s all held together with wires and chips. There are numbers painted around the head like a clock with wire hands that show that it’s 8:25. I put my ear to it. It makes a tiny ticking sound. It really is a clock. It’s strangely elegant even though separately all those pieces would be useless.
The other sculptures are shaped like a rabbit, a dinosaur, and a snake coiling out of a bucket made from an old computer mouse. There is a small light bulb screwed into its mouth. I push the little switch on the bottom, and a red light goes on. I turn the light off and on a couple of times, making the snake’s mouth blink red. I am impressed by how cool and clever it is.
Then I notice the motel phone on the bureau. It glares at me tauntingly and lures me over. I pick it up and listen to the dial tone. Then without even thinking, I press the numbers of my home landline.
The phone rings longer than it should. I bite my nails. Finally a recorded voice says: “The number you have reached has been disconnected. No further information is available.” I hang up quickly.
Our number has been disconnected? When did that happen? Words, tiny and faint, echo. All dead. My legs wobble. I grab the side of the bureau to steady myself. I take deep breaths and count. In and out. One and two and three and four.
By the time Snake comes back I’ve concluded that the recorded message was because I’d remembered the number wrong. It’s very likely the way my memory is these days.
Snake hands me a cup of coffee along with a bunch of sugar packets and some creamers. “Here. I didn’t know how you took it.”
“Thanks.” I stir in sugar and cream and take a sip. I point to the robot clock and the other sculptures. “Did you make those?”
Snake laughs. “Yeah.”
“They are really cool. I mean, more than cool. They’re beautiful.”
“Thanks. I don’t like things to go to waste, so I make something out of it. Keeps me out of trouble.”
We wat
ch as the robot clock’s hands tick toward nine.
“Do you think the pound is open yet?” I ask.
“Could be.” He looks up a number on his computer, then dials on the phone by his bed and hands me the receiver.
I describe Shadow to the woman who answers. “He’s about forty pounds, silver fur, pointy ears. Friendly.”
The woman puts me on hold, then comes back. “A few dogs were picked up yesterday,” she says. “He could be one of them, I don’t know.” She hangs up before I can ask anything else.
The pound is a few miles away.
Snake’s rattly bike is leaning against the side of the motel. I glance at it skeptically.
“I was using my uncle’s car,” he explains, “but it broke down on the road. Right before I first saw you actually. I had to have it towed here.” He points to the dark blue station wagon in the corner of the lot. I hadn’t noticed it before. It looks just like the car I slept in. How strange.
“Is your uncle Ryan Sanchez?” I ask.
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
I tell Snake about coming across the car on the road and sleeping in it.
“Ha,” he says. “It must be that you are meant to be here.” He grins.
I wonder about the fancy woman’s watch in the glove compartment. Why would Snake have that? But I don’t mention it.
Snake points to his bicycle. “So this is what we’ve got for now. I’m pretty good carrying a passenger,” he says. “Seriously. Hop on.”
The seat is wide and wrapped in duct tape. Snake pats it and shrugs. “I’m addicted to duct tape. What can I say?”
He gets on and balances. “Ready?” he asks.
I stretch my leg over the bike and adjust myself. “Okay.” I lift my feet off the ground. I have to hold on to something to stay balanced, but the only thing to hold is him. I falter a bit and almost fall.
“Grab on to my waist,” Snake says.
I tentatively reach my arms around him and place them on his hips. We ride this way down the road.
At a stop sign, he takes his hand off the handlebars and puts it over mine. It is such a simple touch. He holds it there for a brief second before taking it away and pushing forward again.
Nothing But Blue Page 10
