Story Girl (33 page)

H
E WAS NOT
going to catch me.

James chased me through the parking lot and down the hill to the creek, which I tried to cross but only ended up soaking my right foot.

“Tracy, wait!”

“I need some air,” I yelled.

“I’m sorry.”

“Just forget it.”

“But the other guy started it.”

“His name is Bud. And that’s my father in there,” I yelled over my shoulder. “The man who raised me. I’ve got his blood running through my veins.”

“I know.”

I started tossing stones into the creek and worked my way up to the twigs and larger branches that were scattered about. He joined me at the edge of the water, grabbed my arms and turned me to face him.

“Tracy, I’m sorry.”

“You’re a snob, James.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are.”

“Then so are you, Tracy.”

“I am not.”

“You never grew up wanting to be a chambermaid.”

“But why do we have to judge it?” I asked, angry spit flying into his sweet, handsome face.

“We don’t.”

“Why can’t we just let people be – no matter who they are? Or what they want? Or what they have to do to survive?”

“You’re right – I’m sorry. I guess I was just being defensive – trying to make myself feel better.”

I sat in the creek and started crying.

“Tracy? You’re going to get sick.”

“I can’t trust you now.”

“Why?”

I wiped my nose on my arm, “Because some of us have to thrash around just to stay afloat.”

“Tracy?”

“Forget it,” I said, and threw a twig at him.

He lifted me out of the creek and into his arms where I cried into the exquisite contour of his neck.

“Tracy, talk to me.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“I can’t.”

We both stared down at the creek and let our thoughts swim. The movement of the water was soothing; Nature wasn’t concerned, just gently running her course.

“My grandmother was a prostitute.”

I watched him closely but he didn’t flinch.

“And I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid you were going to judge her. And if you judge her, you judge me. And if you judge Bud, you judge me.”

He flicked his pocket change into the creek.

“Because that’s the world I come from – the world of survivors.”

“I’m not judging anyone, Tracy.”

We watched the water for a few minutes longer until he grabbed my hands and managed me onto his back. I didn’t once struggle as he carried me up the hill and into the front lobby of the motel.

An older woman, slathered in make-up – who I assumed was the old battle-axe – asked if she could help us.

“We need a room,” James said.

“Newlyweds?” she asked.

“Yes,” we said, in unison.

I peeked over my shoulder, hoping we could remain undetected by
the guys
.

“That’ll be seventy-five dollars.”

James handed her a crisp hundred and told her to keep it. I wanted to ask where he got the money but didn’t want to ruin the mood. She smiled and handed us a key and two cold sodas.

“It’s like going back in time here,” he said.

“It’s nice,” I said.

“Yes, it is.”

We snuck across the parking lot to our room, which was only two doors down from my father’s. There was only one bed in this room, a queen that was covered in a heavy beige quilt to match the worn chocolate carpet.

James went outside to inspect the deck and the creek below. I was relieved that he was outside, though his chemical trail was still crackling through the room. The nerves in my stomach were starting to pile up on top of each other – like an exotic troupe of the heebie-jeebies.

I ran into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror – I was in desperate need of a complete overhaul. I turned on the shower, hoping to scrub away old grease and new pounds. The hot water brought immediate relief, like it could even wash away the jitters. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine all the ways my life might
change once we took our relationship to the next level. Would we end up like so many couples before us, struggling to stay together while trying to remain free?

But something was different now. James and I shared the same dream. Perhaps the cosmos was benevolent and wanted to give us a signing bonus or head start.

“Tracy?”

I once again opened my eyes to the sound of his voice, knowing it was far too late to figure every last thing out. I’d just have to go with it.

“I’ll be out in a second.”

“There was a hummingbird out there.”

I wrapped my head and body in huge faded towels and left the warm safety of the bathroom.

“You’re too late,” he said.

“It might be back.”

“Maybe.”

James tried his best not to register my naked body under the towel, but his face revealed too much. He hurried back to the deck, like it was his safe corner after an exhausting round circling an equally matched opponent.

I fell backwards on the bed and stared up at the water-stained ceiling.

“A fish!” he shouted.

He came running in, “A big green-brown fish just did a twist-flip-turn in mid-air.”

I loved how he was like a child, enjoying all the amusements of the natural world.

“That’s great, but the guys are gonna hear you.”

James looked down at me like I was a tempting feast; I rolled over into a ball, certain I contained an excess of calories that would surely weigh him down.

“I’m hungry,” he said.

“I know.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“I’ll go get us some food.”

“Where?”

“I noticed a little Asian place on the walk over. Rice for you and fish for me?”

“That would be nice, or you could catch your own off the balcony.”

I winked at him but he was out the door like a flash, and I thought it was rather charming to discover how nervous he was too. I crawled under the covers, careful not to disrupt the towels.

The sound of flowing water outside the room lulled me again, and I thought about how oddly everything had turned out. My grandmother had supported her family as a prostitute, my father was planning a road-trip to Alaska, and my mother’s own constructs were being so pulverized that she might even end up as a new being – never another thought given to garden sheds nor a hand raised in the service of ironing a pillowcase.

And I’d soon be back in L.A., trying to catch that newly oiled brass ring – something more slippery than a motel fish. We’d all shift our literal geography again, but I knew it was my inner landscape that was changing the most. No one had to stay stuck forever, even if they’d spent a lifetime trying.

I fell asleep dreaming of James. We were lost somewhere in a wasteland, having just survived a terrible storm. The worst was over, but we were surrounded by a space that was vast beyond measure. Neither of us carried a compass and we were unsure what direction to travel.

“Should we split up?” I asked him.

“Why would we do that?”

“Because we could cover more ground, and maybe you’ll find something before I do.”

We both watched a tumbleweed blow across the vista.

“And how would I ever find you again?” he asked.

I thought about his question awhile and then shrugged, “You may not.”

“We’ll stick together then,” he said, irritated.

It seemed as though we were on some kind of desert planet or perhaps we had just come through something like the Great Red Spot, the never-ending crazy storm that rages in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter. I shuddered to think that three Earths could fit within its boundaries. But even in my sleep, I knew I was exaggerating. We were probably just in Nevada.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll stick together.”

chapter
49

A
COLORFUL FEAST
had been laid out on paper plates.

And James was grinning at me like the Cheshire cat.

The drapes were closed, but two candles were burning. I wrapped the quilt over my towel and joined him at a small wooden table in the corner of the room.

“How long have I been sleeping?” I asked.

“Couple of hours, maybe.”

“Where’d you find the candles?”

“Discount store next to the fish place.”

He served me a huge helping of rice, broccoli, and fruit. Then he sat down across from me; I watched him shove chunks of curried salmon and halibut into his mouth.

“How do you like it?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure since everything that I put in my mouth almost instantly dissolved with nerves, and like an idiot, I had to keep swallowing saliva.

“Yum.”

He stopped eating and looked at me.

“Do you want to talk about your Grandma?”

“No, although somehow my mother seems better for it.”

“What’s wrong?”

I sucked in my cheeks and began to study my rice in earnest.

“Tracy?”

“I just think it’s weird that my father’s only a stone’s throw away. Things are just weird.”

“Do you think he’ll move back in?”

“I don’t know. Plus, I’m worried about my sister. She planned all this and ended up going home with her feelings shattered.”

His nails looked manicured in the candlelight.

“Is there polish on your nails?” I asked.

“I went to the spa.”

“Tan?”

He nodded.

“Any insights?”

“She poked me a lot.”

My own chest was tightening and my stomach felt squishy, like I was on the verge of diarrhea. I had to wonder if she’d accused him of being in love.

“Does a facial suit me?” he asked.

“I can’t tell – it’s too dark. Turn on some lights.”

“Believe it or not, the lighting was supposed to be romantic.”

I looked back longingly at the tall lamp near the bed, and knew there was a big switch attached to the cord.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’ve barely touched your food. Aren’t you hungry?”

“I prefer looking at it.”

He watched me while I watched my plate. Though I felt like a jumbo supply of silly, it was just too hard to look him in the eye. While his beauty increased by the second, my own was in the midst of a swan dive.

I had turned into a donut. Foolishly, I had somehow supposed that I could turn it all around before this moment arrived – the glorious touchdown – but James had intercepted me.

And here we were – only a pocketful of inches from a big comfy mattress.

“Tracy?”

I gave him a brief glance and looked down at my food again. This was not the time or place to notice that his neck was just a little more tanned than when he’d left me to my nap. The candlelight was making objects appear a thousand times more attractive than was humanly possible.

“I’m getting sleepy,” I said.

“You just took a nap.”

“Right. And that reminds me – I had a dream.”

“Yeah?”

“We were lost.”

“No kidding.”

I cut my pineapple cube into four smaller ones.

“And you suggested we split up?” he asked.

“How did you know?”

“I had the same dream.”

“You did not.”

“A variation.”

I shook my head at him.

“It’s a running theme, Tracy.” He laughed and had no trouble chewing on another piece of fish, “So what happened?”

I sucked on a red pepper, “I’d rather not say.”

“You gave me a chance?”

“Maybe.”

“I know you did.”

“Are you wearing contacts?” I asked. “Your eyes seem more blue than usual.”

“I thought you couldn’t see anything in here?”

“Must be my vivid imagination.”

He pushed his plate away, like it had been nothing more than a precursor for the main dish.

“Alrighty then,” I said. “Wow, I’m stuffed.”

“You didn’t eat anything.”

“Minor detail.”

“Are you nervous?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

“You’re clutching your fork like it’s a lifeline.”

I dropped the fork and stared down at the soggy pineapple chunks on my plate – praying to every goddess ever conjured that I wouldn’t get hives.

“Look at me, Tracy. It’s okay.”

I looked at him and suddenly wondered about so many things – like especially how he could understand my protagonist so clearly.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I was just thinking about the script. You knew exactly how he longed for immortality. That’s why he was always moving outwards, trying so hard to exceed his own grasp.”

“Because he never felt worthy just standing where he was.”

“Right,” I said.

“And so he goes too far – literally.”

“The sad little space man.”

I giggled but James had turned very serious.

“It’s your story, Tracy. The space boy is you.”

I lifted my eyes to the velvet Elvis Presley hanging crooked on the wall, letting my suspicions sink in, “I know.”

“It’s all you,” he said.

“And it’s you too,” I said.

I remembered visualizing all the different versions of James in the park – the afternoon my father moved into the motel. Somehow, my subconscious had been trying to speak to me through him. And I now knew what he had wanted to tell me. Each and every James had a corresponding Tracy – no matter the age or the station, the source within was always the same. The same source that my space boy had forgotten about – forcing him to seek his worth in the far reaches of the heavens. Forcing me to seek my own even farther still.