He Started It

‘I know. I heard.’

‘Is Eddie awake? He’s supposed to be watching tonight.’

She sticks her head back in the room. The light floods out when she turns it on. Pause. Her head pops back out. ‘He’s not here,’ she says.

‘What’s happening?’ Felix says.

‘You heard her,’ I say. ‘Eddie isn’t in the room.’

‘He’s right there.’

Felix points.

Eddie is across the parking lot, coming from around the back of the building. Dressed, with shoes on, at one o’clock in the morning. He stops when he sees us.

‘What?’ he says. ‘What happened?’

Felix throws up his hands. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to find out.’

‘Where were you?’ I ask Eddie.

‘Taking a walk around the motel, keeping watch.’

‘Didn’t you hear that car?’ Portia says.

Eddie shrugs. ‘What, that music? I heard it. The whole state probably heard it.’

I step closer so I can look at his eyes. ‘You didn’t see the car?’

Eddie is wearing his Duke baseball cap, but it doesn’t hide his blue eyes. The color is so strong, so clear, it looks fake.

‘No.’ He sounds offended, like he knows I’m accusing him of something but doesn’t know what. His eyes don’t move, his pupils neither contract nor dilate. ‘Why?’

I turn to look at Portia. She’s looks at Eddie, who’s staring at me. Everybody watching everybody, like a game of Risk.

We do not break eye contact until Felix speaks.

‘What are you guys doing?’

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘We aren’t doing anything.’

But what just happened is everything.

The van. Same color, same make, same age. Not the same van, though. It can’t be. Grandpa got rid of his the second the trip was over. It’s probably sitting in a junkyard by now.

The last time I was in Grandpa’s van was when we left the desert. It was late. We were all tired and dirty, and we all smelled like smoke.

When I close my eyes and imagine it, I can still feel the heat on my face. From the sun, yes. The desert sun is the strongest I’ve felt, like I was being baked in a pan under the broiler. Day in and day out, the desert will wear you down.

It wasn’t just the sun, though. On that day, the heat came from the fire.

Imagine a giant fireplace, then multiply it times a hundred. You can’t get too close unless you want to lose your eyebrows.

That was surprising enough, but even more surprising was the noise. Fires are loud. The cracking, the breaking, the sound of the flames being whipped up, the small and large explosions as everything that could burn did. I had to scream to be heard.

Do you ever wish you could read minds?

Obviously.

But being invisible would be so much better. Imagine how easy things would be if you could just disappear and reappear whenever you wanted. You wouldn’t have to spend so much time strategizing or building allies and doing everything step by step.

If I could be invisible, I’d know what everyone was saying about me behind my back. I’d know if they thought I was ugly or if my outfit sucked or something. And I’d know what Cooper is up to whenever we’re on one of our breaks. He says he doesn’t hook up with anyone else, but maybe he’s lying.

I’d also know if Mom and Dad were really going to get divorced. I don’t know if it would matter, but I still want to know.

4 Days Left

If I were the tortured soul of this story, I’d wake up screaming because of a nightmare. Inevitably it would have pickup trucks, cigarettes, evil tree carvings, and a dead grandfather wearing a Clemson shirt. Instead, I sleep through the rest of the night and wake up feeling pretty darn refreshed. Invigorated, even.

My morning gets even better when Felix takes a shower. I take the opportunity to steal his cigarettes and replace them with a different brand. Even though I’m tired of this, it’s like I have to stick with it.

You’d think I’d have better things to do with my time right now, given all the weird things that have happened, but Felix deserves this. If he’s going to lose his job because of smoking, he might as well lose his mind along with it.

That’s how aggravated I am with him. Not just because of the smoking, but because he can’t figure out why he keeps misplacing his own things. Here I am, making it as obvious as possible, and he doesn’t have a clue.

When I’m in the shower, I imagine Felix finding that pack and wondering if he’s losing his mind.

This is exactly what happens. I can see it on his face when I come out of the bathroom. ‘You okay?’ I say.

He looks at me, blinks his glassy eyes. ‘What happened last night? What was that car you were chasing?’

‘I wasn’t chasing anyone,’ I say. ‘That music woke me up and I was trying to tell them to turn it down.’

‘You ran out there barefoot.’ He says this like I ran out there naked.

‘I was mad. They woke me up.’ I sound much calmer than I feel. In reality, I am freaking out about what happened. In a good way.

Felix looks like he’s going to argue but decides against it. Interesting. Usually he doesn’t even get that close to arguing.

This morning there is no music outside, no minivans in the parking lot. Just a cold morning in northern Wyoming and a few people who need more sleep. Felix is the only one who makes small talk. He does it as we pack up the car and he does it again when we stop for breakfast.

Since no one else is talking, Felix launches into a description of a true crime documentary series he watched just last month. It involved girls that had been kidnapped, dismembered, and sprinkled around the cornfields in Oklahoma.

No one interrupts.

Felix babbles on, maybe trying to convince himself he’s not losing his mind. He describes the whole documentary, episode by episode. Eventually he gets to the point, which is that the police knew who did it but pretended they didn’t have a clue.

‘Totally shocking,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know until they revealed it. Up until they made the arrest, the media had zeroed in on this one man, a teacher, but it wasn’t him at all. It was a totally different guy.’

‘Wow, honey,’ I say. ‘That sounds like an amazing story.’

Yes, I’m patronizing him. And I’m wondering if he was like this when I met him. It was a couple of weeks after I returned from Georgia, where I’d been to see my mother in prison. I just remember that he was kind and easygoing and different than everyone in my family. But maybe he had always been this annoying and I never noticed.

Eddie pays for breakfast because I paid for the motel. Portia doesn’t even bother offering anymore unless it’s just for coffee or snacks. And gas – she has paid for gas.

Felix talks about work as we walk back to the car. Sherry got promoted, Allan got demoted. Hortense the cow (their department mascot) was stolen by finance, who then traded it to marketing in return for an as-yet-to-be-named favor. Oh, and our numbers looked pretty good this month, but not great.

A month ago I would’ve been right there with him, trading stories and gossip and wondering how the company was doing. A month ago, I went on morning walks with Felix every day before work. A month ago, I was thinking about bills, my weight, my health, and the likelihood of having time to run errands on my lunch hour. A month ago, I had a husband who didn’t lie to me.