After a staggered stop in the ladies’ room where her crackers, vodka, and a pill or two made a violent comeback, she floated down the escalator to baggage claim pulling her carry-on behind her, then squinted to find her flight number above the carousels.
The bags dropped. Claire nosed around while she waited for her other bag to make its way out of the bowels of the plane. She searched for the porn star hoping not to find him. Maybe he’d overdosed between the plane and baggage claim. Doubtful he’d have bags. He’d been wearing the same clothes for weeks by the smell of him. He wouldn’t need a suitcase since he never bathed or changed his clothes. She wouldn’t see him again if there was any justice. She’d suffered enough.
Grateful to see her luggage come whooshing down the chute she chucked it off the carousel, pulled both Louis bags behind her, and went in search of the rental car dealer. She took one more glance around. No sign of him.
Things were looking up.
****
The clerk at E-Z 4U Luxury Rentals (where had her travel agent found this place?) looked up, saw her, looked down again and said to the counter, “Can I help you?”
Claire stood in front of him for a few seconds, waited for him to come back up. From the top of his platinum head with its pitch-black roots she guessed he was young. She tapped him on the shoulder.
“I’m up here. You won’t turn to stone.”
He looked up beet faced. “I’m sorry. Really. I’m... I’m new.”
Claire cocked her bare head to one side sizing him up. “It’s fine. You’re not the first. I’m not exactly Halle Berry.”
“Oh God lady. I’m sorry. Really. I—” he squirmed, his eyes met hers.
“I know you are. You and everybody else. Most people want to look away,” Claire said. “I feel the same way when I see that ring in your lip. Can we get on with it?”
His hand went to his pierced mouth. “Yes,” he said his voice a cross between a croak and a squeak.
Claire chuckled to herself while she filled out the necessary paperwork. He fished out a set of keys.
“Will anyone else drive the car?” He cleared his throat.
“No. I do know how to drive,” Claire said. Whatever high she’d had before left after her purge had worn off. It did that quicker now anyway. A lot quicker.
“Standard question. Sorry.” Rental car boy started sweating too.
He made her tense. Between his unintentional condescension, and the map she was trying to read, it was touch and go. She wanted to take another pill. She spread the map out on the counter.
“The damn thing might as well be upside down.” Claire poked at the map, pushing it away from her.
“It is.” Boy turned it right side up.
Claire stared. “What’s the difference?”
Reading maps was another thing Liam had always done. Claire cut to the chase and asked the clerk how to get to the highway she needed. He wrote it out for her on the back of her receipt trying to make up for his earlier lapse with superior customer service.
He insisted on carrying her bags to her car, made like he’d take her arm but changed his mind. His young brow caved in. He looked worried she was ill, about to keel over. Or more likely that she’d complain about him to someone several rungs above him.
“Is there anything else you need?”
“No, really. I’m good. But thank you.”
It was too complicated to explain. She’d been a little rough on him earlier so she tried to be gracious. He was only a kid. She knew she could have milked it, gotten something for nothing. Maybe an upgrade or a gift certificate. That got old. Plus she couldn’t think of anything she wanted. A GPS would make things worse. She had one in her own car. Didn’t know how to turn it on.
When they stopped in front of the nondescript sedan she’d been assigned the clerk put her bags in the trunk. It wasn’t the Mercedes she was used to, but it would do. She had a two-hour drive ahead of her. Small towns were always two hours from anywhere.
After one U-turn, a stop for directions at one rest area, and two gas stations, Claire made it to the correct route. Twenty or so miles farther, another little blue booster, she felt less anxious, able to take notice of the Pennsylvania scenery. Beautiful in its own quaint way. So different than the cosmopolitan West Coast beach town that she was used to. Soon she was in the middle of nowhere—wet rocky terrain that looked straight out of Deliverance. She hoped to Christ she didn’t have car trouble. All she’d need was to get strapped to a tree and forced to squeal like a pig while some inbred hillbilly plucked the banjo in the background.
Alarm gripped her until houses and buildings appeared on the landscape again. She was halfway through the drive, the sky a melting sherbet of pinks and oranges. She’d hoped to beat sundown to her hotel, but it’d be close. She passed a sign that read Fasten Your Seat Belt for the Next Million Miles. She’d been so distracted calculating just how many states that would cover she almost missed the eight-foot tall chicken. She whipped her head around for a better look. Was that papier-mâché? She turned back around just in time to see the two, six-foot dinosaurs. Definitely papier-mâché. She whizzed passed a sign imploring her to Let Jesus Save Your Soul, posted next to Minnie’s—Best Strippers in Town conveniently located next to the Son-shine Assembly of God, to the left of Paula’s Porn Palace, adjacent to Ma and Pa Kettle’s Kristian Kiddie Day Care—“We don’t spare the rod or spoil the child.”
For the next thirty miles Claire drove the pathway to porn or the highway to heaven—depending on your point of view. She could get massaged at Hal’s Asian Hussy’s or prayed over by Susannah’s Saints. Buy a bucket of wings and a lap dance at Mustang Sally’s or join the We Pray for Prisoners prayer group. New Testament Studies or Blow Jobs. Name your perversion or your parish. It was hers for the picking. Claire thought her head would spin off her neck from trying to look at both sides of the road at once. She drove much slower than the rest of the traffic, almost got rear-ended. Twice she about ran into the guard rail.
Her head was mid-spin when she saw him.
She saw the bright green rubber clogs first. He hitchhiked—thumb out. Between the pill, her eyes, the sun, her astonishment, she almost hit him. She slammed on the brakes with both feet. With agility surprising for a fat man he leapt out of the way. Her tires pummeled the gravel shoulder, left a tornado of dust and rock in their wake. Claire came to a violent sloppy stop. Her bald head jerked forward and back with a snap. It took a full ten seconds for her to remember where she was or what she was doing. The dirt settled around her car like volcanic ash.
Had she hit him? Was he dead? She threw open the car door and got out. Cars were whipping past her like nothing happened. He still stood. She’d been rubber-necking not traveling anywhere near the speed limit.
“Are you all right?” I... I... the sun. I couldn’t... are you hurt?” Claire’s chest felt tight.
The porn star ambled over like he didn’t have a care in the world. They met halfway. He took both her arms in his hands. She towered at least a head taller. He gently moved her farther away from the busy highway.
“It’s cool, it’s cool. I’m okay. You missed me. No worries lady.” He shrugged, pulled at his shaggy moustache.
Claire could feel the tears threaten. Her head pound. Why did she have to cry in front of this jackass? She was glad she hadn’t run him over even though he was a pig. But now she wanted him to go away. What was he doing so close to a busy road anyway? If he wasn’t so drugged up he’d probably have better judgment.
“What were you thinking?” Claire paced. “What idiot hitchhikes this day and age?”
“Do it all the time.” Porn star stood his ground on the side of the road. “Never had a problem ’til you.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. You almost killed both of—”
“No, you almost killed both of us.” He’d turned on his rubber heel and headed toward her still smoking rental. “But you can make it up to me.”
Claire scrambled behind him. What’d he just say? Make it up to him? He should beg forgiveness.
“You can you give me a ride.” He walked over, opened the passenger side door. “I’ve been thumbin’ it the whole way. I’m almost there. About ten more miles up the road.” He got in, shut the door behind him.
She jerked the driver’s side door open, bellowed. “What are you doing?”
“Putting my seat belt on. It’s the law.”
“You think I’m taking you somewhere?”
“You did almost run me over. I think it’s the least you can do.”
Was he batting his eyelashes?
She slammed the door shut, took a few deep breaths outside as the traffic whizzed by. Now what? What were her options? She could say no and make him get out of the car. He was obviously a drug addict although he seemed more alert than on the plane. Probably near-death experiences did that to a person. Near death. Right. She’d almost killed him. Claire put her hand on her smooth head and rubbed it back and forth. She should loosen up and take the porn star where he needed to go.
What’s the big deal?
She was driving anyway. It’d take all her good breeding. Well, she didn’t have good breeding. But he didn’t know that. She closed her eyes, thought of him carefully nudging her away from the oncoming cars, like he didn’t want her to get hurt, and got back in the car.
“Where are you going?” She turned the key and started the engine.
“Alex’s Adult World Gift Emporium and Warehouse. Keep going straight. Can’t miss it.” He leaned forward, adjusted his backpack, adjusted it some more. Still not satisfied he shifted it forward, then backward, then sideways. Claire hit the gas, pulled out onto the highway, and fantasized about shoving him out of the moving car.
Where was a banjo plucking inbred hillbilly when she needed one?
Chapter Four
Claire wasn’t on the road five minutes when the snoring started. His mouth hung open like a sea bass on a boat deck, dead to the world. It was all she could do to not cram whatever she could get her hands on down his throat to see if he’d notice. Then she’d have to touch him. She’d almost forgotten about his... appendage... and he stank. She cracked her window and wondered why she’d decided to do the right thing when the wrong thing was acceptable. Her purse sat in the console between them. She glanced at it now and again, daydreamed about the pills in it.
She should be afraid, driving alone in the middle of Sodom and Gomorrah with some drugged-out sex fiend she didn’t know, but she wasn’t afraid. Disgusted? Check. Appalled? Check. Curious? Check. But afraid? No. She thought of Annabelle who’d just turned twenty. If she’d embarked on something this reckless it’d terrify Claire. Yet there Claire was barreling down the highway with... good God... she knew his dick size but didn’t know his name. No clue. Couldn’t remember what she’d heard the suit say on the plane.
“Hey, wake up. Wake up.”
Claire waited a few seconds for him to respond. Nothing. She’d have to shake him. She reached over and shoved him. None too gently.
“Wake up.”
“Wha... huh... whassup?” he grunted and sat up.
“Don’t you talk?” Claire said. “I assume you can stay awake long enough for a five-minute conversation. If I have to drive you, you have to talk. What are you doing in the middle of nowhere?”
“Oh. Yeah, well, that’s cool. A conversation.” He sat up straighter, smoothed his straggly hair. “Shit. Well, I’m here for a signing. I do those all over. My DVDs, old videos and stuff,” he opened his eyes wide, stretched out his squat legs.
“Really? All over? All over where?” Claire said.
“The world,” he yawned.
Claire veered to the left then jerked the wheel back to the right, hard. “The world? Plus the reality show? Are you kidding?”
“Um, no. And some other stuff.”
“But that must be quite lucrative. I mean—”
“Yeah. Quite.” He whistled through the hole where his missing tooth should’ve been. “Are you hot for my money?”
Claire flushed. “You’re disgusting, you know that? As if I’d be interested in—”
“Whoa. There’s my stop.” He gestured to the right.
Claire let up on the gas and went farther up the road where she could flip a U. In her rearview mirror she saw the giant, flashing neon sign for Alex’s. In the dusk, the sky’s pinks and oranges dripped and faded to grays. Claire stopped in front. Seemed like quite the place. A warehouse full of blow-up dolls and movies starring men like him with their clothes off. The parking lot was half full, cars toward the front, semis lined up in the rear.
He grabbed his backpack and opened the passenger door. “Thanks for the ride lady.”
“Wait—” Claire was about to ask his name when she noticed a church across the highway. “What a freaky place,” she pointed. “The strip joints, massage parlors, next to all the churches.”
The porn star laughed. “Yeah, it’s a quirky town.”
“Guess it comes in handy.”
“Handy?”
“The churches.”
“For what?”
“You can commit all the sins you want then confess.”
The porn star’s face rearranged itself, his mouth grim. “I’m not much for confession,” he said.
“Just the sinning,” she shot back.
He unlatched his seatbelt, let it snap into its slot up near the window.
I didn’t catch your name,” she said switching gears, filling silence.
He pointed up at the marquee with a short fat finger. “There it is. In lights.”
Claire peered out the window. In bright red flashing lights, she read—The Last Day for Rob Rhino—her lashless lids keeping time with the blinking bulbs. “Didn’t you just get here? Are you only here for one day?”
“Yes and no. If people think it’s my last day then Alex does better business. Plus it’s a truck route. Most guys are just passing through so they don’t know any better. It’s an old trick.”
“Oh. Clever.” Claire laughed out loud. “I think you’re late. Day’s over.”
“It starts tomorrow. I like to get the lay of the land first. Guess I don’t really need to. I’ve been here lots of times before. I’ll be here for the next few weekends.” He looked out over the giant, tin building with the sun setting behind it. “Alex is cool. We go way back.”
“Rob Rhino huh? Did you make that up?”
“Of course.” He laughed too, his features softened. “What about you? What are you doing here? You don’t blend, if you know what I mean.”
She wanted to say what’s it to you but couldn’t. He’d been amenable to her questions. Her eyes skittered across the highway, taking in the eight-foot cross.
“Getting rid of some deadweight.”
Rob tilted his head to the side, pondering her. “You’re a weird one.” His fat jowls wobbled.
A stinging insult nearly flew off her tongue when he got out of the car shaking his big head with a chuckle. “Well, thanks again. Drive careful.”
“I am careful. It’s the brainless pedestrians.” He shut the car door. She started to pull away when he knocked on the window. She rolled her eyes up and the glass down. He leaned into the car.
“Hey, I didn’t catch your name,” he said.
“It’s Claire. Claire Corrigan.”
“Ah. Well,” he nodded, his heavy jowls wagging. “Claire Corrigan, why are you bald?”
No one ever came right out, asked her directly. She answered, “My husband died unexpectedly. Then my hair fell out. It hasn’t grown back, probably won’t. It’s been a year.” She ran her hand over the top of her scalp. “Not even stubble.”
His already hazy eyes darkened, his bushy too-black brows knit together. He pursed and unpursed his lips. “Bummer. No wonder.” He shook his head.
“No wonder? No wonder what?”
“You’re an addict.”
Chapter Five
> Claire drove so fast she made the bat out of hell look like the little old lady from Pasadena. Rob Rhino. Of course he’d think everyone lived like him—an addict. Those types always did. A deviant scumbag of the lowest order. Her breath came so quick she felt lightheaded.
Claire’d had a full body blowout. She’d rolled up the window so fast the porn pig had to jump backward, snatch his hands away. Her Gucci loafer hammered the gas pedal and peeled out onto the highway, leaving him standing in the gravel, in front of his name in sparkly neon, like when they’d started, lapping up her dirt on the side of the road.
Where the hell was the hotel for Chrissake? She’d been in town for several minutes. The hotel was supposed to be right where she couldn’t miss it. It was dark. Claire was screwed. The Days Inn... the Days Inn... where was it for the love of God? Shit. Finally. The bright yellow sign welcomed her like a beacon at the entrance to the pearly gates. She’d never been so glad to see such a crap hotel.
She was going too fast when she turned into the hotel’s driveway then bottomed out with a thump and a scrape. Perfect. That’s all she needed, damage to the rental car. She idled by the lobby door in a huff. What was the hold up? Then she laughed—a loud crackle from the back of her throat—what an idiot. There’s no valet. Where did she think she was? The Ritz? She grabbed her purse, turned off the car, and headed for the front desk.
****
Still fuming Claire flopped backward on the king-size bed covered with a loud Hawaiian floral bedspread. She landed on her back and kept going sideways, the surface was so slippery. She stopped herself at the edge before she pitched off the side. The room reeked of stale cigarette smoke and French fries. She’d have a word with the travel agent when she got home. She couldn’t believe this fleabag. The nicest place in town? He must be an addict. Then she remembered the eight-foot papier mâché chicken and Paula’s Porn Palace.
Claire leaned over the side of the bed and groped for her purse on the floor. With one arm she dug around ’til she came up with a pill bottle, twisted off the cap, and knocked it back ’til a couple hit her tongue. Thank God. She pulled her out cell phone. Dead like dirt. It was still turned off. She pressed it on, no good. Still dead. She’d forgotten to charge it—again. She sat up, reached for the phone on the nightstand, dialed out.
The Last Day For Rob Rhino Page 2
