The walls were a faded yellow, the flow interrupted by inexpensive, derivative prints of desert scenes. The queen-size bed had a black-laminated particle headboard. The bed was unmade, the gray blanket curled back on the right, and only one pillow had been used. There was a matching dresser with a mirror framed in the same material as the headboard, a small table with a phone, and a twenty-inch television on a stand. Beside that was the small refrigerator he had mentioned, and on a table next to it was the microwave. Directly across from her was the door to the bathroom, and she saw the shower curtain on the tub was pulled back. What looked like two saddle bags were on the floor near the telephone table.
“Your room can’t be worse than this,” he said. “You can hear the roaches crawling in the walls. I’ve actually stayed in some pretty nice ones for about the same cost in the Midwest.”
He opened the small refrigerator and held up a bottle of beer.
“No, thanks,” she said. She was suddenly drawn to the mirror above the sink in the bathroom. “Be right out.” She went in, closing the door behind her.
She stood there gazing at herself. It was always easier to talk to yourself when you looked in a mirror. Sometimes she imagined that it wasn’t a mirror. It was a window, and she was speaking to someone completely different, a stranger, in fact. It was always a more comfortable way to question her actions and her thoughts and analyze her plans.
What are you doing? she asked herself. Where are you going? You really don’t know anything about him. He could be a descendant of Jack the Ripper.
She waited, as if she really believed the image in the mirror would come up with a totally independent response.
Instead, it asked her a question. Weren’t you asking yourself that question the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that day? Where am I going?
What do you want? she asked.
I want what you want, it replied.
She heard Leo knock. Did he hear her talking to herself? Maybe he thinks I’m the descendant of Jack the Ripper, she thought. Statistically, women make up an average of eleven to twelve percent of serial killers in the U.S.
“You all right?” he asked. “I can take you back, Mayfair, if you regret doing this.”
She thought a moment and then turned around and opened the door, facing him.
“Trying to get rid of me already?” she asked. “I thought you were going to be my knight in shining leather and kill all the dragons threatening me.”
He smiled, stepped back, and performed an elaborate stage bow. “At your complete disposal, madam,” he said.
She stepped out. This was it, she thought. She looked at the bed and then, without any further hesitation, began to undress. She didn’t look at him while she did. When she was completely naked, she slipped under the blanket and put her hands behind her head and finally looked at him.
He stood there, smiling but obviously overwhelmed. “What did I do to be this lucky?” he asked.
“Maybe it’s pure serendipity,” she replied.
How shocked Corliss and Donna would be at this moment, she thought. How shocked am I?
He hurried to join her. When he was beside her, he leaned on his left elbow and looked down at her. “I don’t want to rush this,” he said. “Not a second of it. I want to convince myself I’m not dreaming.”
“That’s fine, but let’s be sure to be safe,” she said.
When he had turned back to her, he hesitated again. She saw the caution in his eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“Who are you? What is that
place, Spindrift? You’re not from outer space or anything like that, right? This isn’t Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something, is it?”
She laughed. “Maybe. We’re working on trying to find out. There are fifteen of us right now. We’re all what they call gifted; actually, each of us is one in three million.”
“Why?”
“Our IQs are off the charts. We’ve already done what most people take ten years of schooling to accomplish, some of us having done it before we were twelve. Scared now?”
“No.”
“How come?”