Rooms: A Novel by James L. Rubart

Highway 101 and headed north, Rick said, “So is romance a part of Micah Taylor’s life these days?”
    Too big of a part. Too much complication. Too many questions with no answers. Why did Julie have to put the full-court press on him? He loved her. She loved him. Couldn’t it stay that simple for a while longer?
    “Yeah.”
    “Care to expand on that?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Sorry if I hit a nerve.”
    Micah rapped his knuckles on his knee. “Been going out for a year, been business partners for six. Great business partner.”
    “You see a long-term future together?”
    Wow. The guy didn’t mind going for the throat à la Barbara Walters. “Not sure. I was handed an ultimatum ten days ago. She wants a ring.”
    “Do you want to give her one?”
    “I love her.”
    Rick adjusted his Rams hat. “That’s not what I asked.”
    “I’m not sure.” Micah shifted in his seat. “That’s a lie. I am sure. I’m positive I’m not even close to ring-ready. I want to be. Part of me, at least.” Micah loosened his seat belt. “I should be ready. But the idea of getting engaged makes me . . .”
    Micah stared at the yellow lines in the middle of the road as they zipped under Rick’s truck. Strange. He barely knew the guy, yet here he was spilling out his Julie problems all over the front seat of Rick’s Ford.
    “‘I feel as if I’m in a room screaming and no one even looks up,’” Rick said.
    “What?”
    “It’s from Titanic. Kate Winslet describing her life before Leonardo DiCaprio frees her. You feel like Rose?”
    Micah turned toward the passenger-side window. He wasn’t ready to spill everything. He turned back to Rick. “Pretty good quote. Where’d you come up with it?”
    “I’m a bit of a movie-trivia buff.”
    “Really. Want to take me on?”
    “Absolutely.” Rick grinned. “Ready?”
    “What decade should we focus on?”
    “How ’bout the one you were born in?”
    “Fine.” Micah nodded.
    “Top-grossing movie of ’86, and you’re only getting one clue.”
    “I don’t need one, Maverick. ”
    Rick burst out laughing. “Impressive! All right, name two movies Tom Cruise made before Top Gun sent him into the stardom stratosphere.”
    Micah tapped his forehead in mock concentration. “Wait, wait. How ’bout The Outsiders and All the Right Moves. ”
    “Not bad.”
    Micah volleyed back. “Staying on the same path, name at least three actors or actresses in The Outsiders who went on to stardom other than Cruise.”
    Rick turned left into the parking lot of an auto parts store that looked even older than his garage. He hopped out with a quickness belying his age and linebacker-sized body. “I’ll just take five minutes to get these parts.”
    “Whoa. Sorry, Charlie, no tuna for you till you answer the question.”
    “No time-out to pick up the parts?”
    “No way. You might pull up IMDb on the computer in there,” Micah said.
    “IMDb?”
    “The Internet Movie Database. Playing dumb doesn’t work with me.”
    Rick laughed, propped his elbows up on the open window, and stuck his head inside. “Okay. Would you count Diane Lane, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Matt Dillon as having had a little time in the sun?”
    Rick slid into the parts store and Micah shook his head. He was drawn to the man, as if he were at the end of a bungee cord stretched to its limit. Confident. Well spoken. Intelligent. Why did this guy run a gas station in a tourist town? Every ounce of him spoke of more than oil changes and alternators. Micah suspected his list of accomplishments went beyond working on cars. And yet as much as he searched, he couldn’t find an ego hinting at hidden fortune or fame.
    As they pulled onto Highway 101 and headed back toward Cannon Beach, Micah said, “You want to tell me about the deeper issues of life surrounding odometers that gain sixteen thousand miles?”
    Rick stayed silent for more than a minute before he spoke. “In every moment we make choices. Those