I’ll Meet You There (5 page)

“I need a room.”

My eyes snapped open. I didn’t know how long I’d been out. A woman about my mom’s
age was standing at the counter, drumming her long fingernails on the scratched wood
surface. I sat up, tried to look welcoming.

“Sure. We have a few vacancies.”
A lot,
but who was counting? I peeled myself off the stool, the back of my legs sticking
painfully to the leather seat.

“Single or double?” I asked. I used my professional voice, the one that the girls
who worked at the Hilton had. I knew because sometimes I would call the fancy LA or
San Francisco hotels, just to listen to the way they answered. Marge said my talents
were wasted here, and honestly, I had to agree.

“Single.”

The woman frowned as she looked around at the decorations. The lamps and artwork were
straight out of 1970—all creams and bright orange and brown. My favorite thing was
the tangerine-colored vase with yellow ceramic bees attached to it. It used to be
in the David Bowie room, but I’d found a vase shaped like an electric guitar at Goodwill,
so the bee one ended up in the lobby. Marge had owned the place for two years by the
time I came on, but the rooms didn’t turn into themed extravaganzas until my love
of art and her worship of all things kitsch came together.

I opened the registry to see what we had available. “One night or—”

“God, just one, I hope.” The woman pulled a wallet out of her designer purse.

I gave a pointed look at the framed article from
Quirky California
that we kept on the wall next to the room keys.

“So…,” I said, flipping through the registry. “We have the
Grease
room, the Tom Cruise room, the
Viva México
room, and the
Gilligan’s Island
room available.”

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“As a heart attack.” That was a Marge phrase that I had to use surprisingly often
around there.

The woman wrinkled up her nose. “
Gilligan’s
.”

Gilligan’s Island
was this show from the sixties that Marge loved.

“Great,” I said. “Just don’t light the tiki torch—”

“Tiki torch?”

“Tiki torch.” The woman nodded, and I turned the registry around for her signature.
“That’ll be thirty-nine dollars.”

I ran her card, then turned around to the row of tiny hooks behind me and grabbed
the key for
Gilligan’s Island
. I slid it across the counter, forcing my lips to go up. “Here you go.”

She held the keychain between two fingers, like the plastic etched with a number five
(written in Sharpie, because we were classy like that) carried multiple diseases.
I wanted to tell her that poverty wasn’t catching, but I just leaned across the counter
and pointed to my left.

“If you just go to the sliding glass door to your right and cross the patio, it’s
the room directly in front of us. There’s an ice machine and a couple of vending machines
down this hallway.” I motioned to the left of the reception desk, where the light
was dim to hide how bad the stains in the carpet were. “And the pool is open until
ten.”

“Thanks,” she muttered. I kept smiling until we had two inches of sliding glass door
between us, then I leaned back in my chair and groaned.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the screen door open. “What a bitch,” a voice said.

Josh stood in the doorway, looking thoroughly entertained. The sun behind him was
bright, outlining him like a woodcut, all sharp, jagged lines and invisible details.

“Hey,” I said. He stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind him. “Who’s the
bitch—her or me?”

He laughed. “Her, of course.”

He was wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, so I couldn’t tell if he still had that
haunted look in his eyes from Saturday night or just the dazed one from the diner.
He seemed better, though. As he walked toward me, my brain kept chanting,
Don’t look down, don’t look down
.

“You were way too nice to her,” he said, nodding toward
Gilligan’s
.

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to be stuck in Creek View, either.”

Josh sighed. “Yep.”

Central California was a veritable no-man’s-land: this was not the California of people’s
dreams. We didn’t have a music-video world of palm trees and sandy beaches that we
frolicked on under the sun. I mean, there were more items on the McDonald’s Value
Menu than there were things to do in Creek View.

“How’s the Sky today?” he asked. It was this old thing we used to do, him asking me
how I was, me answering with a corresponding weather condition.

I tilted my head to the side, thinking. “Hazy,” I decided.

“Why so?”

“Um…” Was I seriously thinking about telling this guy
my
problems? “Well, I think my brain’s gone all fuzzy from the lack of air-conditioning
in here.”

“So…” Josh’s eyes swept over the walls. “Nothing’s changed since I’ve been gone, then.”

“Well, more stuff’s broken. And the pool has suffered greatly. It missed you,” I said.

“Glad something did.”

His words hung in the air, their weight an almost tangible thing. I wanted to say,
No, Josh, everyone missed you. We talked about you all the time.
But I’d have been lying. When people left Creek View, everyone who stayed took it
as a personal offense. Like you’d gotten all bougie or something just because you
wanted to live in the kind of place where you could get a Frappuccino without driving
fifty miles. But in his case, it wasn’t like that, not exactly. He hadn’t left a void
so much as taken a break. There was no doubt he’d be back someday.

Thankfully, Marge saved me, so I didn’t have to figure out a way to lie well.

“Josh? Is that you?” she called. Her room-slash-office was down the hall, and if she
wasn’t there, she was either by the pool or lying on the couch in the lobby, filling
me in on the latest celebrity news.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said.

Marge shuffled in, wearing one of her muumuus and patting at her burgundy hair. It
was supposed to be red, but every time she dyed it, the color ended up more purple
than anything else. She was a few years older than my mom, a Midwest transplant who
couldn’t get enough of the California sun, even when it was punishing. She’d said
opening this motel had been her dream. I thought Ohio must have been pretty bad if
opening up a motel in the armpit of California was your dream.

“Look at you,” she whispered. She was beaming, her eyes suddenly glassy. “Come here,
hon.”

Josh limped over, and she threw her arms around him, pressing him to her thick body.
She reminded me of a mama bear, all hulking and protective. It was how she was with
all her employees. I couldn’t even count how many times she’d helped me with college
applications and schoolwork. This was different, though. Marge’s son had been in the
Army, gone to Iraq. He’d died—in Fallujah, I think. Ever since Josh joined the Marines,
she’d been obsessed with getting him back home.

“I prayed for you every single night,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Every
single night.”

I busied myself with the guest register so that I could look away from Josh’s balled-up
fists against Marge’s back and the way he’d squeezed his eyes shut.

When my cell rang a second later, I grabbed it and slipped outside, grateful for the
excuse.

“Hey, Chris.”

“Hey, hey. What’s up,
chica
? You sound all depressed.”

I kicked at the weeds pushing up through the brick walkway, stomping on them as if
they’d committed some terrible offense. “It’s been a crappy morning.”

“Just remember: you’re getting the eff out of here in T minus sixty days!”

When we were freshman, Chris and I had promised each other that we’d be the ones to
get out—we called it our Sacred Pact. We nagged each other all throughout high school,
when one of us wanted to be lazy or give in to giving up. Whenever I liked a boy,
Chris had been all,
The pact! The pact!
Because, of course, romance was bad for GPAs. I didn’t think it was a coincidence
that Chris started the pact once it became clear Dylan was never going to fall for
him.

“Yeah, but, you know. Creek View still sucks,” I said. Each day felt like I was walking
on a sidewalk full of cracks and I had to keep jumping around so that everything wouldn’t
collapse.

“Which is why we’re going to Leo’s,” Chris said. “Tonight. Get ready to get down,
know what I’m sayin’?”

Leonardo’s was this Mexican restaurant about a half hour away that turned into a local
dance hall every Friday and Saturday night. It was mostly reggaeton and hip-hop, and
everyone went because the drinks were cheap and they didn’t card. I went because Chris’s
cousins were the DJs, and they always played stuff you couldn’t help but dance to.

“I don’t know, Chris. I’m wiped out. Amy is late as hell, and I gotta help my mom
with some stuff.”

“You say that every time. And then I practically have to pull you off the dance floor
to go home. Besides, Ricardo said he wanted to say hey since he couldn’t come to graduation.”

“Chris, I’m not—I repeat,
I’m not
—going on a date with your twenty-eight-year-old cousin.”

“Dude. It’s not like that. He just—”

“I’m tired. Like, I-want-to-sleep-forever tired.”

“I’ll buy you as many virgin strawberry margaritas as you want.”

“You can’t buy something that’s free,” I said. Chris helped the restaurant with its
accounting in exchange for free food and booze. He had all kinds of little deals like
that around town.

“Don’t hate because of my mad math skills. Come on. You’ll wish you’d said yes when
you’re in San Fran and I’m in Boston.”

And, really, you couldn’t say no to that. “Fine. My car’s not working great, so we
have to take your dad’s truck or I’m staying home and watching
Friends
with my mother.”

“That’s pathetic, Sky.
Pathetic.
I’ll pick you up at eight.”

We hung up, and I waited to go inside until I heard the glass door open, then I went
back into the lobby, watching as Josh and Marge walked toward the pool. Every few
seconds, she would look up at him, shake her head, and beam. They’d gotten really
close after he joined the Marines, and I’d seen letters from him come to the Paradise
every now and then. Once I’d even heard her on the phone in the middle of the night—I’d
known it was him because of the questions she was asking. She cried for a long time
after they’d hung up. Now I was wondering if that had been after he lost his leg.

A car pulled up in the driveway, and I checked the customer into the
Grease
room (a road tripper who wanted to stay at our place because it was so “random”),
and then went outside to where Josh was sitting by the pool in the shade of a stand
of tired-looking palms. His prosthesis was stretched out, the sunlight glinting off
the thin metal, and he was absently rubbing his thigh. I didn’t know how much of his
leg he’d lost—he was wearing long board shorts—but I wondered if he was in pain or
if touching the stump was compulsive. I steeled myself against feeling horrified or
grossed out, but those feelings never came. It was just so … it gave me the same feeling
as looking at a Dalí painting, where everything is upside down and inside out. Surreal.

“Where’s Marge?” I asked, pulling one of the creaky lawn chairs over.

“Bitching to Gil that he has to cut down those branches.” He pointed to where the
orchard trees were beginning to slither over our wall.

“Never a dull day at the Paradise,” I said.

He smiled, his eyes on the water. Seeing and not seeing it. “I’m gonna clean the pool
when the sun goes down a bit. You still swim every day?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I try to keep the leaves out, and sometimes Chris comes over and
does the thing with your pool tools, but he’s not as good as you.” I bumped my shoulder
against his. “Glad you’re back.”

“Yeah.” His eyes were far away again, and he was fiddling with his fingers, pressing
against each nail.

I didn’t know what made me do this, but I turned to him and said, “Do you want to
go dancing with me tonight?”

His jaw kind of dropped, and I stumbled over my words, trying to explain. “I mean,
with me and Dylan and Jesse—that’s her boyfriend—and Chris. At Leonardo’s.”

I suddenly remembered about his leg, and my whole body broke out in this embarrassed
sweat. “I mean, we don’t have to dance. It’s just, I thought maybe you were bored
as hell and … never mind. It was a dumb idea. I mean, I don’t even know if I’m gonna
go.”

I took off my sunglasses and wiped the lenses with the bottom of my tank top, just
to give my hands something to do. What was I thinking, inviting Josh to go
dancing
? He probably thought I was an idiot.

“That’d be cool.” He looked down at his leg. “I don’t know about dancing, though.”

I laughed, more from relief than anything else. “Okay. Do you want us to pick you
up?”

“How about I pick
you
up?” He pointed to his leg. “I need a little room when I’m in the car.”

“Oh. Duh. Okay. Um.” Someone rapped on the glass door, and I jumped up, thankful for
an out. A middle-aged couple waved me inside. “It’s one of the hourlies.”

Josh shaded his eyes and looked toward the door. “Is that dude a sheriff?”

I raised my hand and waved. “Yep. The woman sells real estate up near Hanford—they’re
here every Wednesday and Friday.”

“I wonder if he takes her out to lunch after,” he said.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. He doesn’t strike me as the romantic type. Anyway, I better
go in.”

He stood up, wincing a little. “Dude looks like he’s in a hurry.”

I laughed as I went back to the lobby. A half hour later, after I’d told Chris I was
hitching a ride with Josh, Dylan was texting me, asking if one-legged men turned me
on. I looked out the window at Josh. He was shirtless, his dog tags glimmering in
the sun, and there was a tattoo on his back—the words
Semper Fidelis
in dark, Gothic letters that moved up and down with his muscles as he worked.