The diner was empty when she walked in, a lone waitress reading a newspaper at the bar. Andy went to the ladies room first because her bladder gave her no other choice. She was in such a hurry that she didn’t wash her hands. The car was still there when she came out of the bathroom. No one in a blue baseball cap and blue jeans was peering into the windows. No one was running away with a 1989 Samsonite suitcase in their hand.
She found a booth by the window overlooking the parking lot. She kept the make-up bag between her legs. The menu was giant, filled with everything from tacos to fried chicken. Her eyes saw the words but by the time they made it into her consciousness, she was stymied. She would never be able to make a choice. She could order a bunch of things, but that would only draw even more attention. She should probably leave, drive up another few exits and find a different motel where she didn’t act like an idiot. Or she could just put her head in her hands and stay here, in the air-conditioning, for a few minutes while she tried to get her thoughts in order.
“Honey?”
Andy jerked up from the table, disoriented.
“You’re beat, ain’t you?” the woman from the motel said. “Poor thing. I told them to let you sleep.”
Andy felt her stomach drop. She had fallen asleep again. In public—again. She looked down. The make-up bag was still between her legs. There was drool on the table. She used a napkin to wipe it up. She used her hand to wipe her mouth. Everything was vibrating. Her brain felt like it was being squished onto the point of a juice grinder.
“Hon?” the woman said. “You should probably go to your room now. It’s getting a little busy in here.”
The restaurant had been empty when Andy walked in, but now it was filling with people.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right.” The woman patted Andy’s shoulder. “I asked Darla to put a plate aside for you. You want it here or do you wanna take it to your room?”
Andy stared at her.
“Take it to your room,” the woman said. “That way you can go right back to sleep when you’re finished.”
Andy nodded, grateful that someone was telling her what to do.
Then she remembered the money.
Her neck strained as she turned to look for the car. The blue Reliant was still parked in front of the motel office. Had someone opened the trunk? Was the suitcase still there?
“Your car is fine.” The woman handed her a Styrofoam box. “Take your food. Your room’s the last one on the top floor. I don’t like to put young women on the ground floor. Old gals like me, we’d welcome a strange man knocking at our door, but you...” She gave a husky chuckle. “Just keep to yourself and you’ll be fine.”
Andy took the box, which weighed the equivalent of a cement block. She put the make-up bag on top. Her legs were wobbly when she stood. Her stomach rumbled. She ignored the people staring at her as she walked back into the parking lot. She fumbled with the keys to open the hatch. She couldn’t decide what to take inside, so she loaded herself up like a pack mule, slinging the tote bag over her shoulder, tucking the sleeping bag into her armpit, grabbing the handle of the suitcase and balancing the make-up bag/take-out Jenga with her free hand.
Andy made it as far as the stairway landing before she had to stop to readjust her load. Her shoulders felt boneless. Either she was still exhausted or she’d lost all of her muscle mass from sitting in the car for almost ten hours.
She scanned the numbers as she walked along the narrow balcony on the top floor. There were burned-out hibachi grills and empty beer cans and greasy pizza boxes in front of some of the doors. The smell of cigarettes was strong. It brought back the memory of Laura bumming a smoke off the orderly in front of the hospital.
Andy longed for the time when her biggest concern was that her mother held a cigarette between her finger and thumb like a junkie.
Behind her, a door opened. A disembodied hand dropped an empty pizza box on the concrete balcony. The door slammed shut.
Andy tried to calm her heart, which had detonated inside her throat when the door opened. She took a deep breath and let it go. She readjusted the sleeping bag under her arm. She mentally summoned her father and tried to make a list of things she would need to stop doing. One, stop panicking every time she heard a noise. Two, stop falling asleep in public places. That seemed a hell of a lot easier than it was proving to be. Three, figure out what to do with all of the money. Four, locate another library so she could read the Belle Isle Review. Five, stop being weird, because right now, if the cops happened to follow her trail, the first person any of the potential witnesses would think of was Andy.
Then they’d get Daniela Cooper’s name, and the car details, and that would be it.
Andy looked out at the road. There was a bar across the street. Neon signs filled the windows. The parking lot was packed with trucks. She could hear the faint clink of honky-tonk music. In that moment, she wanted a drink so badly that her body strained toward the bar like a plant reaching up to the sun.
She put down the suitcase and used the key to open the door to her room. It was the kind of cheap place Laura used to book for vacations when Andy was little. The single window looked out at the parking lot. The air-conditioner rattled below. There were two queen-sized beds with sticky-looking bedspreads and a plastic dining table with two chairs. Andy gladly put the heavy take-out box on the table. The chest of drawers had a place for a suitcase. She lugged the Samsonite on top. She dropped the tote bag and make-up bag and the sleeping bag on the bed. She lowered the blind on the window and dragged closed the flimsy blackout curtain. Or at least tried to. The curtain rod stopped an inch before the window did. Light bled in around the edge.
A flat-screen television was mounted on the wall. The cords hung down like tendrils. Out of habit, Andy found the remote and turned on the TV.
CNN. The weatherman was standing in front of a map. Andy had never been so relieved to see a hurricane warning.
She muted the sound. She sat down at the table. She opened the Styrofoam box.
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, a cornbread muffin. She should’ve been disgusted, but her stomach sent up a noise like the Hallelujah Chorus.
There was no silverware, but Andy was no stranger to this dilemma. She used the chicken leg to eat the mashed potatoes, then she ate the chicken, then she used her fingers to go after the green beans, then she used the cornbread like a sponge to clean up any edible pieces of fried chicken skin or green bean juice that she had missed. It wasn’t until she closed the empty box that she considered how filthy her hands were. The last time they’d been washed was in the shower of her apartment. The cleanest thing she’d touched since then was probably the desk in Laura’s secret storage unit.