she’s
disguising
us. She’s dressing us in hats and making us go around with Luke and she’s happy that people think he’s her husband because we look like a family, we don’t look like a mother and a daughter on the run.
But won’t my dad recognise her? I mean, if he sees under the hat?
But then I think:
1. Maybe not. It’s been years, hasn’t it? I mean, I always thought he was dead, and I’m seventeen, so he’s been gone for like fifteen years at least.
2. Who even knows if my dad really is chasing us? The coyote said there would be two lies and then the truth, and of course I probably didn’t see the coyote anyway and it was just a hallucination, from the shock of being, oh, HIT BY A CAR, but there’s still something seriously weird up with Mom, and I don’t know that I believe anything she’s saying at the moment.
So.
Sigh.
I put on the hat anyway and we all wander around Flagstaff for a bit, checking out the different stores, looking in the window of the bookstore, the climbing place, and so on. Luke jokes about how I must have been put off climbing now, surely, with my injury, and I try to fake a smile.
If you think an injury’s going to put her off
, says Mom,
then you don’t know the teenage mentality
.
I don’t know
, he says,
I feel kinda like a teenager right now
, and he gives her this significant look.
And I spray vomit from my mouth and nose all over him, a great geyser of sick and –
No, not really.
Like an hour later, we go back to the car.
Oh wait
, says Mom.
Yeah?
I need to go back and grab something. You two don’t go anywhere
.
Oh yeah, sure, I think. Like with my CAM Walker and Luke’s massive boner for my mom we’re going to be rushing off somewhere. We stand by the car for like ten minutes before Mom comes back carrying a bag that says FLAGSTAFF WINE AND LIQUOR on it.
We get in the car and Luke drives us out of town and back to the highway. I grab my make-up bag from my backpack and take two codeine pills from it – my leg is aching after all the walking around town.
I dry-swallow the codeine and it’s probably my imagination but it’s like the throbbing eases almost immediately.
We turn on to Route 66 and as the sun lowers in the sky, we take the off-ramp to the Wagon Wheel Motel.
There’s an old neon sign at the entrance to the parking lot. WAGON WHEEL is lit up in bright blue, and underneath it is MOTEL in those yellow-bulb letters, like a Broadway show. Riding above the whole sign is a train of horses pulling a wagon, the horses made of various neon tracks so that as the light cycles, they seem to gallop.
Underneath is one of those signboards churches have, where the letters can be rearranged. At the moment they are saying:
VACANCIES
EUROPEAN HOSTESS
WKLY SPECIALS
HBO COFFEE
BIG RANCH
I find it strange that they have to specify they have coffee – wouldn’t any motel have coffee? And what’s the deal with the European hostess? But as we park up in the parking lot in front of the low building, Mom is all clasping-hands-cutely.
It’s historic
, says Luke.
I can see that
, says Mom.
We get out of the car and go into the reception, where a girl who must be no older than me checks us in, looking like she might die of boredom at any moment. Her fingernails are painted all in different colours and she’s chewing gum and smells of cigarette smoke. Her skin is sallow.
How many rooms?
she says.
Three?
says Luke.
Or do you and Shelby want to share?
How about two?
says Mom.
Shelby can sleep on her own, she’s old enough
.
It takes a while for this to sink in, for Luke, but then he flushes and smiles.
OK
, he says.
OH GOD KILL ME NOW.
Chapter
19
In the end we get a suite, which the receptionist tells us has a main bedroom, with a little seating area and TV and stuff, and then another bedroom adjoining it.
You two head up
, says Mom, when we go back to the car with the key from the bored reception girl.
I’ll be right behind you. Shelby, I’ll
disguising
us. She’s dressing us in hats and making us go around with Luke and she’s happy that people think he’s her husband because we look like a family, we don’t look like a mother and a daughter on the run.
But won’t my dad recognise her? I mean, if he sees under the hat?
But then I think:
1. Maybe not. It’s been years, hasn’t it? I mean, I always thought he was dead, and I’m seventeen, so he’s been gone for like fifteen years at least.
2. Who even knows if my dad really is chasing us? The coyote said there would be two lies and then the truth, and of course I probably didn’t see the coyote anyway and it was just a hallucination, from the shock of being, oh, HIT BY A CAR, but there’s still something seriously weird up with Mom, and I don’t know that I believe anything she’s saying at the moment.
So.
Sigh.
I put on the hat anyway and we all wander around Flagstaff for a bit, checking out the different stores, looking in the window of the bookstore, the climbing place, and so on. Luke jokes about how I must have been put off climbing now, surely, with my injury, and I try to fake a smile.
If you think an injury’s going to put her off
, says Mom,
then you don’t know the teenage mentality
.
I don’t know
, he says,
I feel kinda like a teenager right now
, and he gives her this significant look.
And I spray vomit from my mouth and nose all over him, a great geyser of sick and –
No, not really.
Like an hour later, we go back to the car.
Oh wait
, says Mom.
Yeah?
I need to go back and grab something. You two don’t go anywhere
.
Oh yeah, sure, I think. Like with my CAM Walker and Luke’s massive boner for my mom we’re going to be rushing off somewhere. We stand by the car for like ten minutes before Mom comes back carrying a bag that says FLAGSTAFF WINE AND LIQUOR on it.
We get in the car and Luke drives us out of town and back to the highway. I grab my make-up bag from my backpack and take two codeine pills from it – my leg is aching after all the walking around town.
I dry-swallow the codeine and it’s probably my imagination but it’s like the throbbing eases almost immediately.
We turn on to Route 66 and as the sun lowers in the sky, we take the off-ramp to the Wagon Wheel Motel.
There’s an old neon sign at the entrance to the parking lot. WAGON WHEEL is lit up in bright blue, and underneath it is MOTEL in those yellow-bulb letters, like a Broadway show. Riding above the whole sign is a train of horses pulling a wagon, the horses made of various neon tracks so that as the light cycles, they seem to gallop.
Underneath is one of those signboards churches have, where the letters can be rearranged. At the moment they are saying:
VACANCIES
EUROPEAN HOSTESS
WKLY SPECIALS
HBO COFFEE
BIG RANCH
I find it strange that they have to specify they have coffee – wouldn’t any motel have coffee? And what’s the deal with the European hostess? But as we park up in the parking lot in front of the low building, Mom is all clasping-hands-cutely.
It’s historic
, says Luke.
I can see that
, says Mom.
We get out of the car and go into the reception, where a girl who must be no older than me checks us in, looking like she might die of boredom at any moment. Her fingernails are painted all in different colours and she’s chewing gum and smells of cigarette smoke. Her skin is sallow.
How many rooms?
she says.
Three?
says Luke.
Or do you and Shelby want to share?
How about two?
says Mom.
Shelby can sleep on her own, she’s old enough
.
It takes a while for this to sink in, for Luke, but then he flushes and smiles.
OK
, he says.
OH GOD KILL ME NOW.
Chapter
19
In the end we get a suite, which the receptionist tells us has a main bedroom, with a little seating area and TV and stuff, and then another bedroom adjoining it.
You two head up
, says Mom, when we go back to the car with the key from the bored reception girl.
I’ll be right behind you. Shelby, I’ll
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