Speed of Life

by J. M. Kelly

  I’m having those weird half dreams where I’m up and awake, but then I realize I’m still on the bed and sink back into sleep until it happens again. I think my eyes are open, but they’re not, and down I go again.

  And again.

  And again.

  A jolting rap like a car with serious engine knock penetrates my murky sleep. And then there’s the sound of a key turning and a door opening. I roll over and manage to pry my burning eyes open. A short, dark woman with streaks of gray in her black hair is peering through the three-inch gap the security chain allows.

  “You are okay?” she asks in a sharp voice.

  “Yeah, just tired.”

  I stumble to my feet and open the door for the stranger, who comes into the room all bustle and efficiency. She tells me she’s the owner of the motel and that checkout was at eleven. It’s now three-fifteen. The maid didn’t show up today and I’m the only guest, so no one realized I was still here until they noticed the Mustang.

  “No see car from office,” she explains. “My nephew come with mail and ask ‘Whose car?’ ”

  “Oh.” I’m still kind of out of it, and my eyelids feel hot and swollen from crying and sleep.

  “He love cars.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  While I’ve been standing there in a daze, she’s come in and made the bed. She even picks up the candy wrappers I left on the end table, tossing them in the garbage can, making me feel like a total slob.

  “Can I stay another night?”

  “Yes. No problemo,” she says. “You are hungry?” I’m weak with hunger, and she can see it, so there’s no point in denying it. I nod. “Come with me.”

  I slip on my shoes and follow her across the parking lot. She leads me into the little lobby where I checked in the night before and through a door marked PRIVATE. It’s like another world in here. Her apartment is small, tidy, and covered with crocheted afghans. There are dainty little cups in a china cabinet, and everything is spotless. Dust doesn’t even float through the shaft of sunlight coming in the kitchen window.

  She sits me down at a round wooden table, deftly dropping a placemat, cloth napkin, and silverware in front of me. “Agua?” she asks. “Water?”

  “Sí,” I say, smiling. “Please.”

  It’s cool in here, the air conditioning whirring away in another room, and I relax a little. After a few minutes, she puts a plate in front of me. “My nephew,” she says, “he eat all the carne —​meat. Sorry. But here is chile rellenos. Is good too.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t eat meat anyway.”

  She raises her eyebrows at me. “Vegetariana?”

  I nod.

  She purses her lips and studies me like she’s considering something. “I make vegetable tamales for your dinner.”

  “Oh, no,” I say. “You don’t have to cook for me again. This is great.”

  “No restaurant here,” she says. “You eat with me and Ramon.”

  The food smells so delicious, and I can tell there’s no point in fighting her, so I give in. “Umm . . . okay. Thanks.” I take a bite of the steaming chile rellenos and cheese slides off my fork. It’s so good I almost start crying again. And then the spicy heat hits me like I’ve swallowed fire, and my eyes start streaming.

  “Too hot?”

  “No, no.” I gasp, trying not to cough. “It’s great.” Because it is, but oh my God. Every cell in my mouth’s screaming in pain. I try to hide my agony by smiling, but she can totally tell, and she rushes to get me a big glass of chocolate milk.

  “This help.”

  I drink half of it down without stopping, and she laughs. But she’s right, the sweetness cuts the heat, and I’m able to breathe again. She tries to take my plate away, but I say no, I want it.

  “You are sure?”

  “Yeah.” The food is killer, but it’s really delicious.

  She brings me some salad to help cool down the dish. While I eat, we talk. She tells me she’s Mrs. Gomez, a widow, and she owns the place with her nephew. I give her the sanitized version of my story: I’m Crystal, driving myself to college, just another student on the road. She gives me a lecture on driving so far without sleep, and I meekly apologize. It doesn’t stop her from sending me back to my room for a nap, though.

  I’m not sleepy, but I do stink, so I take a long, hot shower. By the time I get out, the window air conditioner has kicked in and it’s icy cold in my room. I watch TV so I don’t have to think about anything real. Around seven o’clock, someone knocks on the door. For one crazy moment I think maybe it’s Amber, that she’s tracked me down, and I leap off the bed and race across the little room.

  Of course it’s not Amber, but I’ve already flung open the door and now I’m face-to-face with a guy who’s about my height, which makes him pretty damn short, but he’s also stocky and barrel-chested with huge muscular arms. God, I’m so stupid sometimes! What was I thinking opening the door? My body tenses, ready for a fight. He’s also a lot older than me . . . maybe forty? His black hair and eyes are shiny, reflecting the light from my room. I’m freaking out inside, but then a tiny bit of relief seeps in because he’s smiling at me.

  “Hey,” he says. “You’re Crystal, right? I’m Ramon. The nephew. It’s time to eat.”

  All the tension dissolves, and I hope he hadn’t noticed I was afraid at first. “Oh, right. Okay.”

  When we go through the lobby, the lady at the desk—​the one who checked me in the night before—​has her attention glued to the TV again and still doesn’t look up. We walk into the private apartment and sit down at the kitchen table. Mrs. Gomez sets a steaming plate of tamales in front of me.

  “Good?” she asks after my first bite, which isn’t spicy at all.

  “Amazing. Thank you so much.”

  Ramon asks a lot of questions about my car, and we’re already eating our ice cream before he runs out of things to say. It’s still light when we go outside and I open the hood, letting him check out the engine. I can tell he wants to go for a ride, but I can’t do it. After last night, I’m too scared to get behind the wheel. What if I lose control and try to fly again? I think I might have to stay here, at this motel, for the rest of my life. Or at least until my money runs out.

  I ask Ramon if he’s got a license and he says he does. I let him drive my car. No one but me has ever driven the Mustang, except for the time Han took us to the hospital, but for some reason, I don’t even care. It doesn’t seem that important anymore. I sit on the curb, waiting for him to come back.

  He’s only gone about twenty minutes, and when he gets out of the car, he’s grinning like Bonehead does when Amber brings him a bit of steak from work. I let Ramon go on and on about the Mustang’s power for a few minutes, and then I interrupt and ask about the motel’s Internet. Until a little while ago, I’d forgotten about my computer and email. Maybe Amber’s changed her mind and wants to come with me.

  “Internet? Sure,” he says. “Free in all the rooms. You got a computer?”

  “Yeah.”

  He can tell I want to go inside, so he thanks me again and adds, “It was really cool to drive your car.”

  “No problem.”

  He goes back to his aunt’s, and I dig the computer out of the trunk and carry it into my room. It takes me a while to figure out how to get online, but once I do, I’m super excited. There is an email from Amber! Han must’ve let her use his laptop.

  When I open it, there isn’t any message, just a bunch of attachments. I click on them one at a time. They’re all pictures of Natalie. The very last one is of the three of us. Me and Amber are in our graduation caps and gowns and Nat’s gotten a hold of my tassel. I guess Mom did get that picture after all.

  Amber’s laughing, looking up at Nat. Our baby’s eyes are wide and full of spark, and I have a look of surprise on my face that’s turning into laughter. As I sit there on the bed more than six hundred miles from my baby, my mind fills with more images of Natalie. It’s like one of those
montage videos on YouTube. First she’s tiny and red with a scrunchy face and baby acne. In the next memory, she looks like a totally different kid. She’s got milky white skin, so pale you can see the veins underneath. Amber’s dressed her in a tiny jumper with strawberries for buttons. My sister holds Natalie out to me, but I refuse her, turning my face away. She must’ve been a few weeks old by then.

  After that, it’s a blur of images playing across my mind. Smiles and spit bubbles, screams and whimpers. Poopy diapers and bare-naked legs kicking in the air. And then I remember last winter when we had the flu and I was afraid we’d die and she’d never know how much we . . . I . . . loved her.

  I quickly try to replace that memory with something better, and a picture of her in that awful red velvet Christmas dress Han bought her makes me laugh. God, she looked horrible in it! I giggle a little, remembering.

  “Look at you,” Han had said. “Aren’t you gorgeous?” He held her up over his head, and she smiled down at him, her big blue eyes wide.

  And then a wave of nausea rushes over me as I remember Han looking up at her with those exact same eyes. Immediately, I want to run to the bathroom and throw up the tamales, but I can’t move. My legs are like lumps of iron weighing me down. I swallow back the vomit.

  “No . . .” I say into the pillow I’m suddenly clutching to my chest. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” But the memories won’t stop now. It’s too late to block them. Once the thought of Han’s blue eyes has slipped through a gap in the brick wall I’ve put up, it starts to crumble fast. Big chunks fall, hitting me in my most tender spots.

  An end-of-summer party at our cousin Jade’s house. Me and Amber walk. It’s only a few streets away and that way we can both drink. It’s hot and she talks me into being a girly girl for once. I borrow a denim miniskirt and a lacy tank-top. We’re all in the dark backyard—​me, Amber, Jade, Han—​drinking beer, smoking pot and cigarettes.

  And then I’m waking up in one of the dank rooms in Jade’s house. And . . .

  Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God . . . This can’t be true. But I know it is. And Han has known it all along and never said a word. He never said a word. He let me say I didn’t know who the father was. And the weird thing is, I’m not sure I did know. I mean, I must’ve because we weren’t that drunk. But until this very moment, I couldn’t remember that night at all. In my head, it’s been dark, and black, and a mystery.

  And then I missed all those periods. One after the other. By the time I was three months gone, I knew, but I kept it a secret until I was almost five months pregnant. One day Amber walked in on me in the bathroom as I got out of the shower. After years of berating her for being easy, I was the one who had carried on the family legacy of getting pregnant in high school. Amber had counted on me to get us out of the family rut, to build us a new life, but I’d let her down.

  I hold the motel pillow as close to me as I can, squeezing it, wondering what to do with this new information. After a long time, some of the shame recedes and I think I know. I fall into a dreamless sleep.

  I wake up in the morning on top of the cactus bedspread, disoriented, hot, and thirsty. I have no idea when I fell asleep or what time it is now. The bedside clock has stopped at 2:45. I know what I have to do, and oddly, now that I’ve decided, I’m okay with it.

  I pick up the phone, and it takes me a minute to figure out how to get the operator. Once I do, I give her the number and wait.

  He answers on the first ring. “Yo?”

  “I have a collect call from Crystal Robbins,” a computer voice says. “Will you accept the charges?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Hey,” I say, unsure where to start. “I’m in trouble.”

  Like he’s done every single time I’ve asked him for help, he doesn’t even hesitate. “Tell me what you need.”

  Chapter 28

  Whenever we’ve needed something for the baby, Han came through. All this time I told myself he was just a nice guy who liked the challenge of scoring stuff for cheap. Now I know why he’s been hanging around, and I owe him, but before I can do anything to make it up to him, I need his help again.

  “Where are you?” he asks.

  “Somewhere in Nevada. In a motel.”

  “Did something happen to the Mustang?”

  “No. Something happened to me.”

  “Shit! Are you okay? If anyone—”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. I’m okay physically. But . . . I can’t drive. I don’t trust myself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. I’m not making sense, but I need your help. I need you to come and get me. Please?”

  “Yeah, of course,” he says. “I’ll get there. What’s the name of the place where you’re staying?”

  I look at the sheet of guest rules and regulations by the phone. “It’s called the Three Cacti Motel. I’m in room eight.”

  I can hear his fingers tapping on a keyboard and then he says, “Okay. I’ve got their website up. Stay right where you are and I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

  “Okay. And, Han?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. I’ll call you back.”

  I sit there by the phone, waiting and feeling stupid. Ten minutes go by, and then fifteen. My underarms go all prickly, and it’s not from the heat. It’s cool in the motel room. My discomfort is more from embarrassment. What was I thinking? I’m about to call him back and tell him to forget it, that I’m fine, when the phone rings. I grab the receiver fast.

  “Do you think you can drive yourself to Reno?” Han asks. “It’s not that far.”

  “What’s in Reno?”

  “My mom’s cousin works for the airline, and she can get me a stand-by ticket for thirty-five bucks.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out slow. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  He must hear the doubt in my voice. “If you don’t think you can, I’ll get to you somehow.”

  “No, it’s okay. I can do it.”

  “I don’t know when I’ll be able to get there, but I booked you a hotel room in Reno for tonight. It’s cheap, but the reviews say it’s safe.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Stay there and wait for me.”

  “I will,” I say. “And Han? Don’t tell Amber, okay?”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  He emails the hotel information so I don’t have to write it down, and we hang up. After I check out, Mrs. Gomez gives me a packet of foil-wrapped tamales for the road. “Drive careful,” she tells me. “Let me know you get to Reno okay.” I promise and she gives me a strong hug.

  The drive to Reno is hot and slow. And startling. When I was driving before, everything was a blur, distorted by emotions and memories. But now, for the first time, I really see the landscape around me, and it looks as strange as if I’ve landed on the moon . . . dusty, barren, unfamiliar. The desert stretches in every direction like an abandoned blanket—​muted browns, golds, and pinks, lonely and bare, but hauntingly beautiful, too. The vast emptiness adds to the ache I already have in my heart.

  I stay five miles under the speed limit and listen to music, making myself sing along to 1950s pop songs so all I can think about are the lyrics and not what’s going to happen when I meet up with Han. I drive so slow and careful that by the time I reach the hotel, Han’s already waiting out front, baking in the heat. I worry he’s a mirage at first, but he waves to me and I know he’s real.

  “How’d you get here so fast?” I ask him once I’ve parked.

  “The first flight I tried had a seat.” He acts like he’s going to hug me, but I step back, afraid to touch him, and he drops his arms. “Let’s check in,” he says.

  He’s only booked one room, but it has two beds, and I toss my stuff on one and he throws his bag on the other. We sit there looking at each other. I guess he’s waiting for me to talk, but I’m not ready.

  “W
e could hit the road now,” I say.

  “Maybe we could chill for a day. I’ve never been to Reno.”

  “Sit by the pool?” I ask, half smiling.

  “Why not?”

  I can’t imagine having time to sit around a pool. I always have so much to do—​work, school assignments, the baby.

  Oh, God.

  Natalie.

  I miss her so much the hole in my heart opens wider. “How’s Nat?”

  “She’s good. I saw her yesterday.”

  “How come?”

  “Amber called to tell me they stayed.”

  More like to tell him her side of the story and win him over. Me and Han sit there for a while, lost in thoughts and awkwardness. I know why he’s here, but I didn’t really explain myself to him over the phone.

  “So how far are we from Kansas, anyway?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I’m not going to school.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I need you to drive me back to Portland.”

  “But what about college?”

  “I don’t know if I’m still going. I have some things to do at home first. And then . . . maybe.” Tears well up, threatening to spill over.

  “Let’s get some food,” Han says, jumping up, his face panicked. “I’m starving.”

  We spend our “rich people’s day of leisure,” as Han starts calling it, in air-conditioned shopping malls and at all-you-can-eat buffets. For a skinny guy, he can really pack away the food. I don’t do too bad myself. Everything’s really cheap in Reno because they want you to gamble, but we’re too young to get into the casinos. There are slot machines everywhere, though, even in the grocery store where we go for pop.

  “You know what I’m gonna do?” I say. “I’m gonna play ten bucks for Mom.”

  We pick a slot machine and Han watches while I play. I’ve never gambled before, mostly because Mom does enough for all of us, but also because it always seemed stupid. At least until I start winning, and then it’s kinda fun.