Life on the Level (2 page)

He shuts his eyes and lets out a slow hiss as I slide my hand up and down. He presses his hands on either side of me. He bends his head down so our noses touch.

“Tell me your name,” he whispers. Then nearly whimpers, “Please.”

No names. It’ll make tomorrow so much harder. Instead, I shut him up with a kiss. The weight of him takes my breath away. He holds me by the shoulders and works my lips slowly, hungrily, as if we’ve done this a thousand times before. I wrap my legs around him, feeling him pulse against my belly. He grunts and pulls himself away.

“Damn,” he says.

“Damn yourself.” I turn over onto my side and watch his spectacular ass as he walks across the room to the dresser. He looks over his shoulder. That devilish smile makes my heart race.

He puts on a condom, and returns to me in a mad dash. He buries his face between the curve of my neck and my shoulder, pressing his whole body against me. I dig my fingers into his dark curls and tug until he hisses. There’s the headboard, and I can only think that it’s a good thing there’s not just a wall separating us from his neighbors.

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells me.

I try to laugh it off. I don’t need him to tell me any of that. Guys think its flattery, like it’s something I don’t know, like I’m the kind of girl that needs to hear it all the time. But he repeats it. He holds my face in his hands, smoothing my long blonde curls back and over the pillow. I gasp when he presses into me, when he closes his lips around mine, when I’m so wound up I think I’ll just snap in half.

My other best friend, Leti, likes to tell me that I’m a terrible judge of character.

She’s only half right.

Because this guy between my legs smiles like a nice guy, but he fucks like a wild man.

I call a cab—Uber hasn’t made it to Sun Valley, Montana. The woman on the other line seems confused by my pick-up and drop off locations. I bet they don’t normally get requests to get dropped off at a bar this early in the morning.

“Fifteen,” she tells me.

I wait, hoping my cowboy won’t wake up in those fifteen minutes.

Instead, I walk around his apartment, carrying my clothes with me. There’s a box of cold pizza in the fridge. I take a slice, and my first thought is that this is the second best slice of pizza outside of New York. My second thought is that I must be that hungry.

I bet if I open the pantry I’ll find trail mix, beef jerky, and health shakes. I give myself a dramatic five-second count, like I’m on a game show and Vanna White is revealing what’s behind door #2. I grin. Granola bars, chocolate protein mix, and dried jerky. There’s also some dog food, and cans of assorted soups.

A strange sense of pride comes over me. Granted, this isn’t the kind of thing I should be doing. I’m in this lonely, quiet, mountain town for one reason and one reason only. When I decide if that reason is a good idea or not, I’ll shout it to the world.

Right now, I’m still trying to figure out if I made the right decision. I’ve never lived anywhere outside of New York, so this road trip has been a long one. I stopped a few times. Once in Nashville to hear real live, country music, once in Kansas City to eat a steak bigger than my head, once in Colorado to smoke a joint in the middle of the street, and then in Missoula.

My road to recovery has been paved with debauchery. Somewhere between Ohio and Salt Lake City I started to forget why I was running in the first place. That’s the only good thing about being on the road—it helps you forget, because you just keep moving. That, and the rushing sound of a car zooming down a highway, the windows open, going so fast it feels like you might break the sound barrier.

I throw out the soggy pizza crust in the garbage can. The springs of the mattress move, and my heart does a little jig. I hurry up and get dressed, realizing that I don’t have my underwear. My thong might just have to be a casualty in the War of Love.

Then I step outside, slowly, so the screen door doesn’t make noise. I walk up the street a bit, standing in the middle of the road. There isn’t a neighbor in sight. Having grown up in a sixteen-floor building knowing all the old ladies on my floor, this is just odd. Good fences make good neighbors, and in New York, thick walls make even better neighbors. But there isn’t the need for all that out here.

As the car pulls up, I hear the door behind me. A dog barks.

I wave at the taxi. (I hope it’s a taxi, and not some random car that happened to drive by.) I hop into the backseat just as my shirtless cowboy stumbles out of his house.

“Go, go!” I shout at the driver.

He hits the gas, and as my cowboy steps onto his lawn, we’re well on our way.

I don’t look back.

• • •

The cab driver gives me an odd look. He’s my age, but still has acne. His lower lip hangs a bit, and I can see the yellow and black stains that tell me he chews tobacco, and probably has since he was a teen.

“E’rything all right?” he asks. It’s an accent I’ve never heard. I’d say southern, except we’re not in the south.

The question itself throws me a bit. I’m not used to getting driven around. Unlike Sky, I got my license when I was seventeen, but I’d been stealing my dad’s ride since way before that. Still, the times I take a taxi, I’m not used to the drivers trying to engage with me.

“Everything’s copasetic,” I say. “He didn’t kidnap me or anything.”

There’s a smile, like he’s not sure if I’m joking.

“You’re not from around here.”

“How can you tell?”

He shrugs, and makes a turn onto a highway. My stomach churns. Partly from everything I drank last night, and partly because I don’t remember if Cowboy drove on a highway. Suddenly, all the stories I read about girls getting kidnapped by taxi drivers in backwoods towns in the middle of Nowhere, USA start sounding a screeching warning in my mind.

“Seattle?” the cabdriver asks.

“New York,” I say, indignant for no reason.

He cocks an eyebrow and presses his lips together in that nod people do when they’re impressed.

When we turn back onto a street with more shops, I start to worry less. He’s probably not a kidnapper. I’m going to be reunited with my car. I’m going to continue with my plan. Tabula rasa. Clean slate and all that. It’s the first time I’ve done this. First time I’ve committed to it, at least. It’s usually just one of those things I keep threatening to do to please the people who love me.

This time, I’m doing it for me.

“So, what do people do around here for fun?” Not that I’ll be partaking in that fun. The next ninety days I’ve already volunteered away. It’s not a done deal, but a girl can dream.

“First time in Zoo Town, then.”

“Zoo what?”

He chuckles, and glances at me through the rearview mirror. “That’s what we call Missoula.”

“Ahh. So what do people do for fun in Zoo Town?”

“Depends. What do you like?”

I roll down the window and fish out the cigarettes in my backpack. The car already has the stale smell of smokes. When I light it, he doesn’t say anything, and I take that as permission that I can.

“You know,” I say. “Fun. Card games, good food, surly bartenders.”

Why are you doing this, River?
Sometimes my inner voice sounds like Sky, all disappointed and stressed out.

“You’ve already been to Grizzly Bar. Not bad, ‘cept the college crowd makes half the places in town shitty. Grizzly for greasy food. The Iron Horse turns into a bar after dinner. The Golden Rose is the last bar in the city where you can smoke indoors. Red’s if you’re a football fan, and if you’re in town for a while, you’d better be.”

“Casinos?” I ask.

Stop it, River.

“A few near the mall,” he says. “But it’s not Atlantic City or anything.”

I take a deep drag and blow it out slowly, pushing the gray smoke as I make eye contact with him in the rearview mirror.

“Hmmm,” I say.

“The Golden Rose has a backdoor that never closes. Three grand buy-in. They make you check your cellphone at the door.”

I smile, but don’t say anything. Sometimes it just helps to know things. I know where I can go if I need a fix. But I won’t need it, because this time it’s different.

I finish my cigarette just as we reach the bar. My car is parked in the lot beside three others.

“Lucky they don’t tow on Sunday mornings,” he says. “That’ll be twenty bucks.”

I give him thirty and tell him to keep the change. He doesn’t leave right away, and I gather it’s because he wants to ask me a question. His window’s rolled down and he’s hanging his arm from it. If I turn around, I bet he’s licking the spot on his bottom teeth that’s started to turn black.

I don’t look back. I take a deep breath and get in my front seat. The taxi drives off before I do.

As I drive, the town starts to wake up. Downtown Missoula is a colorful little town. Bigger than a town, but not big enough to be a city. It seems like the kind of place that’s small enough that you could bump into people you know while out to dinner, but big enough that you might find a way to get lost in the lush mountain valley. It’s not the same kind of lost as New York, but then again, I don’t think I could find that anywhere.

I pull on to a street where morning joggers make their way to Mount Sentinel, where a giant white letter M is a beacon for the city.

Dogs are getting walked. Church pews are getting filled. A pretty blonde girl sets up the daily specials board outside a coffee shop. A guy with a backpack is all ready to be the first customer. I feel like I’m halfway between Pleasantville and the most charming place I’ll ever visit. Even though I’ve never called anything charming in my whole life. Not out loud anyway.

I set up the GPS on my phone, and let the polite robotic lady voice guide me up a hill and forty-eight miles south. After how far I’ve traveled, that’s just a stone throw, and a sign that Sun Valley is easy enough to miss if you’re not looking. On the main street there’s a bar, a diner, a gas station, and then that’s it. Everything there is to see is on the main strip. I turn on my right signal light as I spot the other sign I’m looking for. It’s hard to get lost when the road is this straight. An unpaved road lined with trees and tall grass leads to a ranch.

The sign at the entrance is nondescript and unassuming—it’s just a symbol of a pine tree with a sun logo. It means something to the people looking for it.

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel. I flick on my turn signal even though I’m the only car on the road. My wheels crunch against the gravel path that leads up to the main building, a giant log cabin mansion.

Because of course it’s a log cabin.

There’s someone standing at the front. A woman with brown hair and brown eyes, dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. She doesn’t smile, but doesn’t look angry either. She holds a clipboard, and motions for someone to come out and help her.

I park in front of her, and lower my window.

My heart is hammering a thousand times per minute. I look over my shoulder, down the path I just came from. It’s not too late. I can turn around. I can hit the gas and get back on the highway. I’ve had a pretty good time so far. Just driving. Just me. Just the road and the quiet and the safety of knowing that I’m in control.

Except I’m not in control.

I squeeze the steering wheel, and try to unstick the breath lodged in my lungs. I’m not in control, and that’s the reason I got on that road, and looked for that quiet, and went on the run.

That’s the reason I needed one last night to say goodbye to everything that made me who I am now. I close my eyes for a second and think of him—his dark hair and his perfect mouth. A tiny shiver runs through my body. That’s enough. I push the thought of him away and concentrate on my future.

“Good morning,” the woman standing out front says, looking up from her clipboard.

“Hi, I’m River Thomas.”

“Oh! We weren’t expecting you ‘til tonight.”

“Is it okay?”

“Of course! Just park over in the lot, and I’ll meet you back here. I’m Helen. Welcome to Horse Creek Recovery Center.”

I can’t help but laugh to myself. That’s a pretty fancy way of saying, “Welcome to rehab.”

My daddy liked to say I have the perfect face for poker. He didn’t believe in tells, but he knew other people believe in them. He said when people are looking for tells they’re easier to fool. Said I have a face that could fool a man into betting his whole fortune. Just like my mother.

He’d know, because he lost everything to her.

Everything except me.

“This is the lobby,” Helen says, needlessly pointing out what I can figure out for myself.

Maybe she thinks I’m so out of it I can’t tell what I’m looking at. Someone else is already checking in, being given the grand tour by a middle-aged African American guy with a nice smile. The patient looks disoriented, clutching a backpack to his chest. He doesn’t look any older than me.

Horse Creek Recovery Center doesn’t look like a typical rehab place. I’ve never been forced to attend before, but I was at one back when my dad took a bad turn. I was in high school and he was on a month-long losing streak, heading straight into the grave. If his bookie hadn’t been his best friend, I don’t know what my dad would’ve done. Maybe killed himself before his cancer got the chance to do it. It sounds terrible, but I’ll call a spade a spade, and that was my daddy.

Dad’s rehab center was all white with blinding lights that made you feel like you were walking through a dream of Limbo. The patients walked around like ghosts of themselves, haunted eyes and open mouths moaning for another hit.

This place is nothing like that. Everyone wears normal clothes. Some people even look happy. We pass a room painted bright blue where groups are gathered around tables covered in board games. There’s a tiny theater with old couches, and popcorn kernels littered on the floor. A girl with raccoon eyes is watching a romantic comedy while a guy snores at the other end of the room. It doesn’t seem to bother her. What does seem to bother her is me standing at the door.

“Do you mind?” she mutters, sinking into her seat.