Road to Paradise (44 page)

“That looks like a nice place to work,” said Candy. “I could be a waitress. I could deliver drinks.”

“I’ll teach you,” said Lena excitedly. “We both get jobs.”

“Mom, we’re not living in Ely,” said Yuri.

“Why, son? It looks like nice town.”

“Have you looked at a map, Mom? Two hundred miles north, south, east and west, there is nothing.”

“We don’t need anything.”

“How is Dad ever to come and visit?”

The mother scoffed. “The same way he came and visited in Salt Lake. Never.”

“At least he
could
. He could if he wanted to. What’s in Ely?”

“It has a nice spa,” offered Candy. “For the tired businessmen.”

We all giggled. I looked for a gas station. Gina wanted something to drink. “How many miles to Reno?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Check the map. Three hundred?”

“Get out! It can’t be. It’s impossible.”

We pulled into a parking lot, not McDonald’s, but still comfortable, and sprung open the map. Lena took her son to the bathroom. As soon as they were gone, Gina, forgetting about the map, spun to Candy. “I don’t like her,” she said. “I don’t like her, I don’t like her tone, or her ways. I don’t want her in our car. You are so inconsiderate. You didn’t even ask how we would feel taking a stranger with us. You got no respect for us. It’s Shelby’s car, and you didn’t even ask before you invited them in.”

“I knew Sloane wouldn’t mind.”

“She does mind! She minds greatly. She is sick and tired, too!”

“Gina.” That was me.

“You’re taking advantage of her,” Gina continued breathlessly, sticking her finger in Candy’s face. “You’re using her, knowing she can’t say no, doesn’t know how to, and you, knowing that, are abusing her every chance you get!”

“I can, too, say no,” I meekly protested. Gina and Candy weren’t listening.

“Sloane doesn’t mind,” Candy repeated.

“I can’t wait to get to Reno,” Gina said through gritted teeth. “You hear me? I. Can. Not. Wait. We’re dropping you off and taking off. I’m not even staying overnight. Whatever time we get there, we’re barely even slowing down, you’re out, your new little friend is out, and we’re gone.”

“Okay, let’s be reasonable. We’re going to get there late …” That was me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Candy. “I’m stopping at Reno. I’m not
staying
in Reno. Jess there owes me a bit of change. And Jess has a car. But that’s it.”

“What you do after you leave
this
car is your fucking problem.”

“Gina …” That was me again. When did I become so mealy-mouthed, so milquetoast? I’d prefer if they just didn’t talk to each other. Where did my allegiance lie? Who did I side with? I didn’t want trouble. That was me, I’d prefer things a little quieter, with less money dripping through my fingers, less angst, less Erv (God! Much less), less dog and hitchhiking mothers, and bars in tumbleweed towns. That’s how I preferred my life, was that so wrong? Yet in front of me stood my lifelong friend, and the green-streaked, bleached-blonde waif with no bra.

Lena and Yuri returned from the bathroom. “Why are you all standing outside?” the woman asked. “It’s a hundred and twenty degrees. Let’s get in.”

The air-conditioning system in the car was not strong enough to cool the small space with the outside temperature that high and the heat of five hostile people inside.

“No one wants a bite to eat?” I asked. “Burger King has a large play area.”

“No,” snarled Gina. “Let’s get going. How many miles really to Reno?”

Turned out I was wrong; It wasn’t 300. It was 369. Gina got even more sore. It was after six in the evening, though you couldn’t tell from the sun, which burned so hot in the sky over Ely, you’d have thought it was equatorial noon.

No one spoke for a hundred miles. We took a sharp right on U.S. 50—and kept going. It was just us—five of us, alone in the car. No one else on the road, except for the two birds that crashed into the windshield, one inadvertent, but one clearly suicidal, since it was high up and flew down to fling itself unto death. The mountains were spooky large, so too the distances between them and the sky.

The road in the flats between the mountains stretched out like a pencil line, was a hallucination. Occasionally it wound like string through the sunlit hills. I couldn’t help it, despite everything that had happened, I was still thinking, God, how beautiful. How amazing. I can’t believe I’m seeing this. I can’t believe I’m living this. Nevada. Who would’ve thunk it was like this? Not Justin, the skeptical Mormon by the revolving doors. God. It’s unbelievable.

Candy said, “Gina, did you know that Jean-Paul Sartre had to struggle with being an atheist all his life?”

“And this segued from what?” Gina asked. “From Nebraska? Never a good time to let it go, huh?”

“Well, not here,” said Candy. “Anyway, often he would catch himself thanking God for a beautiful day, or for stunning views like these. He said it was a lifelong struggle to remain an atheist,
because the whole world seemed to be made ‘as if’ there were a God.”

“Not much struggle for me. Why can’t you all just look at a mountain, or a leaf without attributing some larger meaning to it? Why can’t it be just a mountain? Why does it have to mean something?”

I watched Lena put her arm around her son, and he didn’t move away from her. She fixed the black greasy hair that fell into his eyes, and he let her, while mumbling, stop it, okay. She kissed his cheek, and he let her, then I caught Candy staring at me with a “
you see
?” expression.

“That’s what you did for me, Sloane,” Candy said quietly.

What did I do for you? I thought, saying nothing, catching Gina’s closed face. I could’ve let her catch a bus. I could’ve done
that
for her. Gina, too.

“Guys, come on, what about Ely?” asked Candy. “I see
nothing
wrong with Ely.”

“Girl, why would you want to live in Ely?” said Lena. “You’re too young. You have to finish high school first.”

So Lena didn’t know. Candy didn’t tell her.

“You have your whole life in front of you,” Lena continued, the lines in her face deepening. Where was Yuri’s father? Why was she still alone? She was fairly attractive. Perhaps it was the Mormons. Perhaps she couldn’t find a match among them, and it made her bitter. Maybe it would make me bitter, too, if I were old like thirty-five or something, with a child, living in Salt Lake. “You know what I was thinking of doing?” she said. “If Reno doesn’t have Nordstrom, I was thinking of taking class, learning how to be casino dealer. That’d be something, don’t you think?”

“It would be,” said Candy. “They tip you good. You’ll have nice customers. And you’ll meet new people. You dress up nice, put on your face, earrings. Men with money will come to your table. You’ll be able to get a nice apartment, support your child.” She smiled at Lena, while winking at me in the rearview. “It’s a really
good idea, right, Sloane?” That’s how she and I communicated. By deciphering the meanings behind our glances in a two-inch by seven-inch reflective strip.

The loneliest road in America must have been misspelled. It wasn’t the loneliest. It was the longest. There were only two towns from Ely to Reno, Eureka, pop. 640, and Austin, pop. 320, a Pony Express town, and as we blew through it, a handwritten poster stuck into the side of the road warned, “C
AREFUL
! S
PEEDTRAP
AHEAD
.” So I slowed down, from ninety to fifty, and sure enough the copper was sitting by the side of the deserted road. Not a thing was open in town, not a store, not a gas station, not a drinks place. There were no other cars, yet the trooper was sitting, trying to catch speeders like me.

“How long to Reno?”

It was interminable. We’d gone less than a hundred miles. Still over two hundred and fifty to go. Gina groaned and moaned, crumpling the map, curling into a corner and whining. Candy sat composed and cramped in the back. Yuri had fallen asleep. Lena was too tense to feel bored; she had her whole life to plan. Candy, too. But Lena was chewing her lips and cuticles.

The sun set in the mountains out of Austin, right in front of us, melting the cement on our distant road. It set so directly in front of my eyes, unfiltered by a tree or a bush, water or a mountain, that I had to stop driving, because I was blinded and couldn’t see.

“Why are you stopping?” said Gina.

“Because I can’t see.” We rolled down the windows, we oohed and aahed.

Only Gina remained in her stone-like masquerade. “It’s the sun,” she said. “You’re acting like you’ve never seen the sun before. Oh no! It’s setting, look! That’s incredible—a sunset. You mean the sun also sets in Nevada? Who’d have thought it? Wow. Is it ever gonna do that again? Because I sure want to be here for it if it happens.”

“Nice, Gina.”

Eventually night fell down around us on the road. There were no towns, no fences, no neighbors, no cars, and no lights. There was nothing.

“Don’t break down, Sloane,” said Candy. “God Himself couldn’t find us here.”

“Why not?” Gina grunted. “There’s nothing but us for miles around. How could he miss us? We’re the only things breathing. A blind man could find us here.”

We entered Fallon around ten in the evening, then rode an hour or more through the black hills, down the dark mountainside to Reno, nested in the valley.

Lights! Electricity! Civilization! The first sign we saw coming in off the road was a billboard for RenoforJesus. “Lost?” the billboard asked. I blew by too fast to read the rest.

There is absolutely nothing in life that Reno can’t make cheaper.

We arrived so late; perhaps we should have come during the day, but at night, the lights were sparkling and after 500 miles of driving through land no soul has been through except to pave the road, I became distracted, lulled into benevolence. Everything was looking good to me, even the shiny casinos. We passed a place called “Adventure Inn.” It advertised “Exotic theme rooms.” I wanted to see them. I thought it’d be fun. Stinger Good Times Bar and Grill had pink neon lights flashing and I said, “Look, Gina, wouldn’t that be fun, so fun, right?” But then in front of Circus, Circus, two down and out guys were sitting waiting for the (very) late bus, both gray and stringy, caps on backward. They looked so broke, like the last quarter they had went on the poker machine on the street right behind them, and waiting for the bus was a futile pastime. Past them was the Wild Orchid Club, “with new girls every night.”

“Where’d they get new girls from, and every night, too?” I mused out loud. No one was playing.

Jess, a friend of Candy’s, ran a local motel, and had told her she’d let Candy stay there, so that’s where we headed. “What’s the name of the place we’re looking for?” I asked.

“Motel.”

“No, I know. What’s the name of it?”

“Motel.”

I couldn’t see her in the rearview mirror. “Are you being difficult?”

“Motel! That’s the name of it. That’s what it’s called. Motel.”

We drove up and down the strip twice, looking. We couldn’t find it. It was all Pines Motel, and Reno Motel, and Gordon’s Motel, and Sunshine Motel. A dozen places, all with motel in the moniker. How would you go about finding the one with just
motel
?

I was so hungry, all I kept seeing was restaurants. “Look,” I said. “Heidi’s Family Restaurant. Pancakes, steaks, omelettes. Maybe we should get a bite before we continue?”

Lena thought that was a good idea. “The boy is hungry.”

For the boy we stopped. I had to go to the bathroom; we all did. We pulled into Heidi’s, parked the car, and ran inside. The boy went to the boys’ room. All the girls piled in to the girls’. While we were washing our hands, Lena said, “Shelby, I need to run to the car for a sec. I forgot my purse.”

“Car’s locked,” I said. “I’ll come with you.” I went out with her. She dropped her cigarettes and all her change in the dark, in the parking lot. I should have helped her, I felt bad, but I really wanted to go inside and order.

“Look,” I said, “you don’t mind, do you, I’m just going to run in, okay? When you’re done, press down the lock and meet us inside?”

“Okay,” she said, without looking up; she was bent over the passenger side footwell. “Could you order me a hot tea with lemon, please? And something for Yuri. Whatever he wants. Milk. I’ll be right there. I just need to—Oh God! Sorry …”

But I was already inside. We all piled into a long booth, the three of us squeezed on one side, in a row like soldiers, leaving the seat across from us for Lena and Yuri. The waitress came, a bloated chick named Daisy. We ordered coffee, Cokes, tea for Lena. “What do you think Yuri wants?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Candy. “Chocolate milk? Apple juice? He’s been in the bathroom a long time.”

“He was saving it up. Like a camel.” We chuckled, so relieved to be sitting down, nearly eating, and in Reno.

The waitress brought the drinks. “You gals ready to order?”

Tilting my head to see around her, I couldn’t quite see the front door. “Well, we’re waiting for …”

“Let’s just order,” said Gina. “They’ll order when they come.” The waitress agreed; we ordered soup, steaks and pancakes and French fries, a burger deluxe and a BLT. Daisy took our menus (“Wait, leave two!”) and left. She brought bread and soup, which we devoured.

Fifteen, twenty minutes had passed.

“What the hell?” said Gina, glancing behind us. “Seriously, maybe something’s wrong with the boy?”

“Well, how would we know? You want to go to the men’s room?”

“You go.”

“
I’ll
go,” said Candy.

“Really?” Gina and I giggled. “Be our guest.”

When Candy came back, she stood at the head of the table. “Sloane, where did you say Lena—”

I must have spilled my drink, gasping, “Move!” shoving Gina so hard that she nearly fell out and onto the floor, as I jumped from my claustrophobic seat and ran through the restaurant into the night. The car was there. But Lena was not. I ran back inside and opened the door to the men’s room. “Yuri?” I called. There was no answer. “Yuri?” I peered in the three stalls. They were empty. Candy was outside in the parking lot. She was standing near my car.

“I don’t understand,” I said, panting. “What happened to them?”

“Looks like they took off,” Candy said, emptiness in her voice the size of Montana. “Unlock the door.”

“Took off? Why? Where?” Her face was hollow, as she got out her Mary Poppins bag. “Took off in what? They have no car. Where could they have gone?”

“I don’t know.” She dropped her hobo bag back on the seat. “Caught a bus? Slipped into one of the casinos? Went to the train depot? I don’t know.” She wouldn’t lift her head.

“Why would they leave like that?” I stuttered. “I don’t get it. Did they take their suitcase?”

“I reckon they did. Open the trunk.” Still not looking at me. She slammed the car door.

Then it dawned on me. “Candy,” I whispered. “Oh, no, Candy.”

I popped the trunk. Lena’s suitcase was gone. I was afraid to look in my suitcase, afraid to look in Gina’s. Candy looked for me.

“It’s gone, Sloane.” She groaned.

“What’s gone?” I said inaudibly. I couldn’t comprehend it.

“Our money. Yours. Mine. Gina’s. She took it and vanished.”

“What? How much?”

“All of it.”

“What do you mean,
all
of it?”

“I mean, all of it. All my money, and yours. I’m assuming Gina’s too. She kept it in the side pocket of her duffel? It’s gone.”

“Maybe she has another stash somewhere. I have a secret hundred bucks in my makeup bag.”

“They took it, Sloane,” said Candy.

“They took my
makeup
money?” I started to shake. I didn’t believe her. I checked for myself.

Then I believed.

Gina found us in the parking lot, Candy standing over me, sitting on the curb, crying.

It was 11:15 at night, and all the Reno lights were on, like it was daylight in the desert. It had taken us 577 miles to get here from Salt Lake. I clocked it on my odometer. In the distance I could see the arc, like Triomphe, proclaiming, “Reno—the Biggest Little Town in the World.” The traffic on Virginia Street was nearly at a standstill. It was dry hot, about eighty. The dirty hubcap of my driver tire was near my flip-flop. Maybe if I cried enough I could wash it off. For a moment I saw myself outside my own body, looking in, seeing me, helpless on the curb, Candy standing sheepish and guilty, and Gina, taking some time, like me, to understand what
was happening, what had happened. That woman and her son took every last cent of our money. We gave her a ride, and she robbed us. It took a while to sink in; that kind of thing wasn’t easy.

At last, the cold reality of the night dawned on Gina. Conversely, as she became enraged, I stopped crying. I wiped my face. She was shouting at Candy, menacing her in the parking lot with wild gestures. “What have you done! You have brought nothing,
nothing
but trouble into my life! God, wake me up from this nightmare! Maybe it’s all a mistake. Maybe we put it in a different place. Maybe we forgot where we put it. Oh my God, what have you done to us!”

She searched the car, front to back, top to bottom, back again, and once more. On the fifth time, I helped her.

Candy stood nearby and all I could hear from her was,
O Lord
my God, I cry out in the night before thee, let my prayer come before
thee, incline thine ear to my cry. Lord, hear my prayer
…”

Daisy the waitress stuck her head out the glass doors. “Hey, gals,” she called, “anytime now. Your food’s getting cold.”

Gina and I, both groping through the car, stopped. “How much’s the check?”

“How much is the
check
?” Daisy repeated slowly, looking in her apron pocket. “Thirty bucks. What, too much?”

We stared at each other. Then we straightened up and glared at Candy. “You got thirty bucks in your pocket, Cand?” I asked coldly.

“I have twelve. And don’t give me your attitude. It’s hard enough. I have enough to pay for what we ate.”

“I have seven,” I said, a notch milder.

“I have eight,” said Gina, “but I’ll be damned before I spend the last money I have in the world on you.”

“Not on me,” said Candy. “On food. For you.”

“Shut up. I’m not speaking to you. You don’t exist anymore. La-la-la.”

“Gina, all right, you know what? I know you’re …”

“You have no idea what I am.” She was head in the trunk, searching.

“I know how you feel, because I feel it, too! But we need to stick together. We have no money. We have nothing.” My eyes were swollen from crying, from salt. “Can’t bail on us now, Gina.”

“Watch me.”

“Well, what are you going to do? Where are you going to go on your eight dollars?”

“Don’t you worry your little heads about me,” Gina said, “I’ll be better off anywhere than with you. God, do you regret it now?” she said to me. “Every single bit of it, every stupid decision you ever made, you regret it now?”

I didn’t answer. I locked up my car, locked that barn after the Russian horse had bolted, even though the car had nothing in it except my Maybelline mascara thrown in the glove compartment. We went back inside. “Daisy, listen,” I said to the waitress. “We don’t know what to do. That woman and her son, they just robbed us, and took all our money.”

“What woman and her son?” She shrugged and gestured for me to stay quiet. “Do I look to you like I give a shit?” she said. “What am I, a genie? Here to fix all your problems? I got plenty of my own, missy. I’m trying to get custody of my kids while their dad is God knows where. All I need you to do is not be my shrink, just pay the bill.”

“Am I boring you?” I said.

“You’re not boring me, I just don’t care. I gotta pay the rent, too.”

“Well, we can’t pay your rent,” I said. “We have seven dollars to pay for our Cokes.”

“What about the soup?”

“Give me a break,” I said quietly. “You’re ready to close, you scraped that clam chowder from the bottom of a burnt pot. Help us a little bit. Let it go.”

“You know how often I hear your little likely sob story?” Daisy said, harshly. “About twice a day, honeybunch. You’re in
Reno
. The things I hear would make God lose faith in man, would make Jesus drink whiskey straight from the dog bowl. I’ve heard it all. Your tale? About five times a week. I was robbed. Someone took
my money. I looked and it was gone. I don’t know what happened to it.”

“Well, I hate to be so commonplace.” I glanced over to Candy, standing at one corner of the booth, and Gina at the other, both eyeing their cold food. “Still, though. We ordered the food when we thought we had cash, and now we have none.”

Daisy rolled her eyes and snorted; she shook her big frame, even her jiggly triceps shook. “What are you going to do now?” she asked. “Call the police? Oh, officer, they robbed me, and then they went and disappeared with all my money, and we got nothin’, can you help us? You gonna file a report? That’ll work. You go on and do that now. Because the police, they never heard that one in Reno.”

“But it’s the truth. That’s what happened.”

She lowered her voice. “So the fuck what? Who gives a shit? What’s the police gonna do? Your money walked, baby, and you go ahead and spend the next four hours at a precinct, getting poked and interrogated. Four hours and a quarter won’t even get you a ride back to your hotel.”

I stepped away from her. I was sorry Gina and Candy were close enough to hear. “Just what I need,” I said. “Down on her luck waitress dispensing advice while the ex-con cooks the short order.”

“Just what I need,” said Daisy. “Sass from a no-pay. Go on,” she said. “Go finish your food, pay me what you have, and get the hell on out of here. I love to work for free, you know. I don’t need to pay my nut, or feed my kids. You just go ahead and eat.”

“Take our few bucks,” said Candy, coming over. “Stiff him on the check.”

“Do you even
see
the guy at the grill? You want to mess with him? Have me lose my job? I’ll have your twenty bucks, whoopde-doo, and then what?”

Candy lowered her voice. “I won’t stiff you,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll come back and pay the bill. I promise.”

Daisy pointed to her face. “Yes, and I have sucker stamped on my forehead. Just eat, go, and stop botherin’ me.”

We sat down to our soggy onion rings, bread moist with mayo, wilted lettuce. “How much did she take?” I asked weakly. “She took about $600 from me.” How in the world did I think I’d get back home on $600? Oh, would to have those problems now—how to pinch pennies on 600 bucks.

“She took about $300 from me,” said Gina. “Maybe $350. Last time I counted before Salt Lake, that’s what I had.”