PART 2
I wake up in the middle of some horrible nightmare. I can’t recall what it was about, but my brow and body is sweaty and I feel confused and scared for a few seconds. Then the dim reality of my motel room with it’s cheap, worn furniture fades in, and my breathing calms down. Outside I can see the pale, blue glow from the neon motel sign promising service 24/7.
I sit up, reach for my teal handbag and grab cigarettes and lighter. So, I light up even though I promised myself I wouldn’t smoke any more cigarettes that day, but I tell myself that since it is half past one it technically is the next day. This is my last cigarette today then, I promise myself, knowing full well that it is a lie that I’ll be smoking at least a few more cigarretes come morning.Strangely, the taste of tobacco gets me thinking about Antonia and her perfumed smell, and miss her instantly.
I miss both her and little Ramon, picturing them fast asleep back in the city, hundreds of miles away from this dingy motel in the middle of nowhere. I can picture their breathing bodies, the sounds of their breaths (even Antonia’s snoring), and for some reason I tear up while I take another drag on my cigarette. I smile at my sentimentality, me, the tough dike, crying alone in her motel room because she can’t handle the job, the loneliness. Maybe I’m not such a tough girl after all; maybe I’m just as weak as they want all women to be. I laugh a little as I dry away a tear and take another deep drag on my cigarette. I sit there for a while, looking at the blue glow without really seeing it, lost in thoughts. After finishing the cigarette I find my cell and stare at the background picture of Antonia, admiring her auburn, curly hair and her shallow dimples. For a moment, I am seriously tempted to call her, but I resist the urge. After all, It’s four in the morning back home, and as much as I want to hear her girlish voice speaking out my name, I don’t want to piss her off. Instead, I toss the cell on the bed, get up and start dressing myself. I leave off the bra, but get my professional looking blue pantsuit back on, and pull it in place so It doesn’t look too messy. I find a few bucks in my bag, enough to get a coke from the vending machine, brush my sweaty hair a little so I don’t look so much like someone who just drowned. Of course I can’t help center on my nose, my weakness, my nemesis. I guess I am much like a stereotypical girl in that sense as well, even if I would never say so to Antonia. I used to hate that crooked nose, but age has tampered my hate somewhat. I remember the kids from my neighborhood calling me “crooky” because of that tiny left bend, and even if I’ve never heard anyone even mentioning it too me while I have been an adult (not even Antonia in bed) I still automatically focus on it every time I look in the mirror. Perhaps I should just give in and become one of those plastic surgery people the TV is so chock full of. I laugh to myself.
After my reflection release me, I step out into the cool spring night, met with only the low hum of the vacancy sign, lighting up the tiled path to the motel office. There are mounted glowing lamps on the motel walls. It’s beige façade is slightly peeling. It is a place much like any of other damn motels I’ve seen hundreds of times now, and I am sick and tired of them. The automatic sliding door to the motel office open, and I find myself back in the vaguely orange colored room with the scratched counter where all the information folders rest. These folders are all about tourist information and restaurants in the area, it’s the same kind of folders you have in the rest of all these kind of motels. There is a great oaken shelf behind the counter with rows upon rows of little cubic spaces, filled with keys to the rooms and the assorted junk like staplers, pencils, an old football and what looks to be a stack of Gideon bibles. The place is empty; there is no one behind the counter, and no one in the green chairs along the walls. Instead I am met with the smell of something burning – tobacco obviously. Then I notice a small stream of smoke wafting up from behind the counter. With impulsive curiosity, I lean over and see what looks to be a cigarette slowly smoldering on a lightly scorched and piece of carpet (obviously cheap carpeting). Next to the little funeral pyre lies a pair of imitation designer glasses. They look dropped, not put there.
I stop at this sight, my mind not entirely able to form a realistic narrative behind what I am seeing, but finally decide that the gross little manager, who checked out my ass when he thought I wouldn’t notice, must have been in a hurry in order to literally drop everything he had. The explanation doesn’t calm me; the sight is entirely eerie and feel myself becoming apprehensive, like that time back in Butte.
“Hello?” I call out and look around. There is nothing else to see as far as I can tell, there is a door leading into the back room, probably to the private area. “Is anyone here?”
There is no reply.
I resolutely walk past the counter, pick up the slightly warm cigarette and stomp on a few cinders in the carpet, causing a burst of tiny, dying sparks to fly upwards and turn black in midair. Then I put out the cigarette in a tray behind the counter, and find it already half-full. That little repulsive clerk had a cigarette in his hand when I first entered, and it looks like he has been working hard on the lung-cancer during his shift.
“Hello?” I call out again. Everything is quiet.
I’m starting to worry, a feeling up discomfort knotting up my stomach. I walk out the glass door and look into the night. The motel is quiet and illuminated by the rows of lamps on those beige walls, none of the rooms look inhabited but there are three cars in the lot. Just down the road lies the town of Cider Creek, looming black and flat with a sparse row of streetlights showing off the towns unimpressive main road. I call out again, wondering if the manager is out here urinating, but the glasses and the cigarette on the floor has me on pins, and I just know that something is terribly wrong.
Start looking for the manager in the private quarters.
Get back up to the motel room, pack up and get the hell out of dodge.
Get back to the motel room, get the cell and call the cops.