The Sun Down Motel

“New York? I don’t think so. He told me he was going to Buffalo two days ago. But perhaps his plans changed.” The woman laughed. “I guess you’d know that better than I would, right?”

“Like I say, Mrs. Hess, we may have had a mix-up. We’re waiting for Mr. Hess to check in, but we thought we’d call and ask.”

“That’s all right. Westlake’s scheduling service isn’t usually this concerned.”

Westlake. Viv flipped madly through the phone book. “We try to keep our salesmen organized. Sometimes things fall through the cracks.”

“Well, I haven’t talked to Simon today. If he calls I’ll be sure to tell him to check in.”

“We appreciate that, ma’am. Mr. Hess is always punctual about calling in. I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon.”

Viv said good-bye to the woman and hung up. She ate another cracker. She opened her notebook and picked up her pen. Turning to a blank page, she wrote:

Mr. Simon Hess

373 Fairview Avenue

Salesman for Westlake Lock Systems

She added his home phone number, Westlake’s phone number, and his license plate and car.

And beneath that, she couldn’t help but write:

That was easy.

She stared at the words for a minute. She looked back at the phone book and flipped back through the pages, finding the W section. She was thinking about her father, about the divorce. About the angry meetings with lawyers, about her mother coming home and throwing things, telling Viv she wasn’t good enough.

You probably shouldn’t do this, a voice in her head said.

And then, another voice: I really don’t care.

She ran her finger down the W names until she found the one she was looking for. White. There were a dozen Whites in Fell, but only one was listed as R. White.

Again, easy.

She dialed the number. She didn’t bother getting into character this time.

Again, a woman answered. “Hello?”

“Mrs. White?”

“Yes.”

“Your husband is cheating on you,” Viv said, and hung up.

* * *

• • •

Viv’s head was throbbing by the time she got to Fairview Avenue, driving her Cavalier. She was supposed to be asleep right now; she’d only had a brief nap at eight o’clock this morning. It was two o’clock in the afternoon now, and she felt like she’d never sleep again.

Fairview Avenue was pretty, at least for Fell: bungalows with lawns, trees that would be leafy in summer. Viv drove the street slowly, peering at the house numbers in the gloomy October afternoon light. Number 373 had a car in front of it—a Volvo, the wife’s car.

It was here that she had to admit she didn’t know what exactly to do next. The traveling salesman was supposed to be in Buffalo; she didn’t have a picture of him or know anything about him except where he lived. She had no answers to why he checked into the Sun Down with false names, or what he was doing there when he already had a home in Fell. She didn’t know where he came from or who his friends were. She didn’t know if he had children.

She didn’t know whether he had anything to do with Betty or Cathy or Victoria. All she had was a man’s name and address.

She should probably give up. Instead she parked around the corner, next to a small park. From her window she could see the driveway of the Hess house. She turned off the car and rubbed her face. I should take out my notebook, she thought, and write some notes about what to do next.

She leaned back in the driver’s seat and was asleep before she could finish the thought.

* * *

• • •

When she woke, it was dark. She had a brief, disoriented flash in which she thought it was the middle of the night and she was supposed to be at the Sun Down. She looked at her watch and saw that it was only six o’clock, the early dark of the end of the year. She was shivering, and a cold wind buffeted the car.

She sat up and smoothed her hair, and then she went still.

There was a second car in the Hess driveway. The traveling salesman’s car.

Without thinking she opened the driver’s door and got out. If she hesitated, she would never do it. Go, just go. She walked around the corner toward the Hess house, trying not to flinch as a car drove past her on the quiet street, some nice man coming home from work. She waited until the taillights were in the distance and then she ducked around the side of the Hess house, crouching in the shadows of the garden.

This is crazy.

I don’t care.

It was freeing, this not caring. She was unmoored from everything: family, friends, home, her real life. Even time had stopped having meaning since she started at the Sun Down, the days and nights jumbled into a long stretch that was as understandable as ancient Sanskrit. She looked at people anchored by time—get up in the morning, go to sleep at night, come home from work at six o’clock—as people she politely shared the world with but didn’t understand. Why did people bother? The nights were so long now; it was night in the morning and it was night now. It was all darkness broken briefly by muddled gray light. Even now it could be three o’clock in the morning as she sat in the traveling salesman’s garden. Who was to say it wasn’t?

A light came on in a window a few feet away. Viv sidled toward it, listening. She didn’t hear children’s voices. Somehow it would make things worse to know that children lived with the traveling salesman, like seeing a toddler walk onto an empty road. Move, move, run! If the salesman was who she thought he was, he should live alone with his wife—Viv pictured a pale, wilted woman, long given up on life—and no one else. It fit.

Viv squat-walked toward the lit window, then carefully raised herself to peek into the corner. It was the kitchen, and a woman was standing at the sink, her back to Viv, the water running as she rinsed dishes. She wore pants that were elastic at the waist and a roomy T-shirt. With the practiced eye of a girl in theater, Viv noted that the woman’s clothes were handmade on a sewing machine.

A man walked into the kitchen. He was of average height, average build, trim and clean-shaven with short hair brushed back from his forehead. He wore dress pants and a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and no tie. His face was square, his eyes small and nondescript. The last time she’d seen him, he’d smiled at her with a smile that didn’t fit his face and made her queasy. I guess I’m just that memorable, he’d said. Without a word he put a plate on the counter next to the woman and left the room again.

Hello, Simon Hess, Viv thought.

The woman, she knew, would tell her husband about the strange phone call she got today. The scheduling service that had thought he was in New York. And the traveling salesman would look puzzled and say to his wife, Of course they knew where I was. Why would they call? Perhaps they’d already had this little exchange; a simple phone call to his company would tip him off that someone he didn’t know had called about him. Viv had to move fast.