He Started It

‘Jesus. Go already,’ she says.

I go. If she can handle drunk tourists in New Orleans, she can handle Nowhere, Colorado.

Just as I head out, I stop and look back. Portia has already moved from our table to the bar, and she starts talking to the bartender.

She’ll be fine, I tell myself. If the people in that truck wanted to hurt us, they would’ve done it by now. Even as I tell myself this, I walk back to her.

‘You sure you’ll be okay?’

Portia laughs. ‘I’ll be fine. I promise. Get out of here.’

I leave.

Our room is on the third floor, overlooking the back parking lot. I take the stairs, hoping the walk will wake me up a bit. I’m not exhausted, but the thought of staring at our car for several hours is getting me there quick.

The second-floor landing has a window overlooking the side of the building. Nothing there except a road to drive from the front of the building to the back parking lot. Beyond that, a small green space and a path that leads to the street. This is where I see my husband.

Felix is hard to miss, even in the dark. His light hair and skin still stand out. He’s standing on the footpath, not quite hidden by the trees on either side of him.

What strikes me is the glow. Not the glow of a phone screen, the burning glow of a cigarette.

Felix does not smoke. Never has.

7 Days Left

Instead of marching outside to confront Felix about the smoking, I decide to test him. I wait until he’s done with his cigarette and comes back into the hotel, then give him time to get back to our room. By the time I walk in, he’s already sitting by the window to watch the car. He stands up and stretches like he’s been there for a while.

I lean in to give him a kiss. His breath smells minty fresh with a hint of beer, but I get a whiff of cigarette smoke from his shirt. ‘You smell like cigarettes.’

‘I know,’ he says, turning up his nose. ‘I went out to check the car and walked by a whole group of smokers.’

‘That must be it.’

He takes a shower. I take my seat at the window. Up until I saw him smoking, I had no intention of watching the car half the night. Now I’m too keyed up to sleep.

The thing is, we can’t smoke. We work at International United – International Goddamn United – and they don’t hire smokers. They have far more health problems, which means the company has to pay more for insurance, and we were tested for tobacco before being hired. No-smoking policies are legal and companies like IU enforce it. Felix isn’t just putting his health at risk; he’s putting his livelihood at risk. Then who would have to support him?

His wife, perhaps? The one with the inheritance?

In the time I’ve known Felix, I’ve only caught him in one other lie. Yes, only one, and that was five years ago. One lie is nothing. My family lied on a daily basis. You couldn’t win at Risk without a little lying.

Felix didn’t even lie about anything important, either. Just a bachelor party that got out of hand. I knew about the party, though not everything that happened at it. A more forthright man told his girlfriend about it and she told me.

The smoking is different. It’s not a lie by omission, like what I do. When I told him why I wanted to move to Central Florida, I said it was for work and that was the truth. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

This, on the other hand, is an outright lie. Felix was smooth about it, too – no stumbling, no stuttering, none of the signs I’ve learned to look for. Thinking about this keeps me awake throughout my shift, during which I see nothing. No one goes near our car. I think about my phone in that motel room, wondering if it was Felix who had turned it over and not some unknown intruder. Maybe he’s been lying about a lot of things.

Still up?

Eddie, texting to see if I’m on the job.

I’m awake. All quiet.

He responds with a thumbs-up emoji and says:

I don’t give a shit about those guys from Alabama. I’m just sick of finding our car damaged. Time + Money.

Eddie can be a real asshole, but sometimes he’s the only one who makes sense.

Three hours of sleep is all I get. In part because of my shift, in part because of Felix’s alarm. He set it to get up and walk this morning. I don’t go with him. Instead, I wonder if he smokes when he walks alone.

I wish I never saw that because I don’t want to think about this now, in the middle of our trip. Today I have to think about the aliens. Nikki had never shown an interest in them before, had never mentioned little green men or UFOs. She didn’t even like Men in Black, but all of a sudden she wanted to look for aliens in the middle of Colorado. A place known as the UFO Watchtower had just opened and Nikki drove us there. She was seventeen and knew how to drive, although her license had been revoked because she got too many tickets.

Nikki not only took control of our road trip; she also took control of the music. She liked it loud. As she roared down the highway – as much as a minivan can roar – she blasted her favorite songs by Oasis, Radiohead, and Garbage. Especially Garbage. Her favorite song was ‘I Think I’m Paranoid.’

Grandpa started refusing all pills, even the real medication, no doubt in an effort to sober up and take back control of the trip. Underestimating Nikki was one of his many mistakes. She dissolved the pills in water and he couldn’t refuse to drink that. Not unless he wanted to die.

I sat in the passenger’s seat next to Nikki, my head halfway out the open window. Eddie and Portia were in the back seat, and Grandpa was all the way in the back, not saying a word. The rest of us talked about what aliens looked like.

‘I hope they aren’t green,’ Nikki said. ‘I hate green.’

‘Me too,’ I said.

‘I hope they’re black and blue,’ Eddie said. ‘That’d be cool.’

‘Purple!’ Portia yelled. ‘With trunks, like elephants.’

‘And polka dots,’ I said.

Nikki said no. ‘I hate polka dots.’

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘What about stripes?’

She shrugged.

We ate a mountain of candy, enough to make us sick, and we still ate more. The night before we had pizza delivered to our motel. Nikki also made us call Mom and Dad because, at that point, we didn’t know if the police were looking for us or not. Nikki didn’t think they were, because we were still in the same car with the same license plate and no one pulled us over during the trip. We had a whole conversation about it while eating the pizza.

‘Bet Mom won’t call them,’ Nikki said. ‘She’s not going to put her father in jail.’

‘Dad might,’ Eddie said.

‘No way. He’s not going to make Mom mad,’ Nikki said.

Eddie started to feel sick from all the junk food. He was laid out across one of the seats, holding his stomach. ‘Why don’t we just go home? Why are we even staying on this trip?’

‘We can’t,’ Nikki said. ‘I’m not done yet.’

‘Done with what?’ I said.

Nikki nodded toward the back seat, where Grandpa was knocked out. ‘I’m not even close to being done with him.’

We all looked at her, waiting for more.