be as tame as they seemed? Weren’t the small towns of America supposed to be rife with meth these days? Where was someone to hand him a crack pipe, for Christ’s sake, if he was going to be stuck here for a while? So far all he’d seen was flat beer and a little bit of skank weed.
There was a lot of noise and a couple of beefy guys burst out onto the porch. “Let’s go,” the one named Ray said.
“Where to?” Robbie asked him.
“‘Where to?’ he says. ‘Where to?’” the one who wasn’t Ray said.
“Where to?” Robbie asked again.
The one named Ray burped up something under his breath, the last part of which sounded like “key to the city, giving you key to the city.”
“I’m kind of keeping a low profile, guys,” Robbie said. “I don’t want to meet the mayor.”
“You already met the mayor,” the one not named Ray said.
Robbie watched them for a second to see if he could locate a joke. “Okay, even so,” he said, “there are certain people in this town with whom I do not want to make visual contact.”
The one named Ray and the one not named Ray nodded to each other and laughed. The one named Ray punched Robbie on the shoulder, almost apologetically, Robbie felt.
12
S he liked her new room about as well as she’d ever liked any place. Possibly this was the result of having had a nice nap away from Tonio’s snoring. It might have been a long nap—she couldn’t tell because there were no clocks in the room and no TV and she didn’t have her cell phone. It was still light outside, though—it must have been late afternoon.
The double bed was small, with a cast-iron frame, but it wasn’t rickety or clangy. She’d slept deeply, which wasn’t usually easy for her, God knows, what with being Tonio’s wife, a condition that carried with it a variety of problems of various dimensions, and Dewey’s mother, another condition that carried with it a variety of problems of various dimensions, although not the same ones, so that the problems were constantly overlapping one another and becoming new, subtly morphed problems that often kept her awake at night. One was always snoring or needing something and the other was always needing something or wanting to go somewhere…God, how sleepy she was right now. She felt like Cleopatra, the family cat back home in Mount Pleasant (must call the graduate student they’d left with the key, make sure he was checking on Cleo regularly).
High ceilings with antique fixtures hanging from them, a beautiful little—what was it, cherrywood?—yes, a cherrywood end table, along with other extravagant furniture arrayed around the room, velvet-upholstered chairs and a delicately carved nightstand and a massive old armoire, stern-looking, positively and properly Victorian in its solidity and breadth and height and weight, its stained and polished enormity, staring at her out of its dual-mirrored face, a face that presented a scene so lifelike, so perfectly real, somehow, exceeding the capacities of mere reflection, that it suggested immense depths beyond the actual measurements of the room. Oak dresser, deep claw-foot bathtub in the bathroom with its black-and-white tile floor.
At some point she was going to have to eat.
There had been a little surprise in that regard, a little potential difficulty. She had tried to open the door, but it was definitely, certainly, beyond a shadow of a doubt locked from the outside. And in case anyone there on the other side of the door was wondering, she had looked around for a key, but had so far been unable to find one. There was maybe the chance of sliding a nail file or a bobby pin into the keyhole, but she had neither of those items in her possession, since she’d left her purse downstairs. The purse, or the absence of the purse, would be a problem eventually, if she stayed here long enough. But she wasn’t worried yet. She wasn’t worried yet—how remarkable a thing was that? List the things that didn’t worry
There was a lot of noise and a couple of beefy guys burst out onto the porch. “Let’s go,” the one named Ray said.
“Where to?” Robbie asked him.
“‘Where to?’ he says. ‘Where to?’” the one who wasn’t Ray said.
“Where to?” Robbie asked again.
The one named Ray burped up something under his breath, the last part of which sounded like “key to the city, giving you key to the city.”
“I’m kind of keeping a low profile, guys,” Robbie said. “I don’t want to meet the mayor.”
“You already met the mayor,” the one not named Ray said.
Robbie watched them for a second to see if he could locate a joke. “Okay, even so,” he said, “there are certain people in this town with whom I do not want to make visual contact.”
The one named Ray and the one not named Ray nodded to each other and laughed. The one named Ray punched Robbie on the shoulder, almost apologetically, Robbie felt.
12
S he liked her new room about as well as she’d ever liked any place. Possibly this was the result of having had a nice nap away from Tonio’s snoring. It might have been a long nap—she couldn’t tell because there were no clocks in the room and no TV and she didn’t have her cell phone. It was still light outside, though—it must have been late afternoon.
The double bed was small, with a cast-iron frame, but it wasn’t rickety or clangy. She’d slept deeply, which wasn’t usually easy for her, God knows, what with being Tonio’s wife, a condition that carried with it a variety of problems of various dimensions, and Dewey’s mother, another condition that carried with it a variety of problems of various dimensions, although not the same ones, so that the problems were constantly overlapping one another and becoming new, subtly morphed problems that often kept her awake at night. One was always snoring or needing something and the other was always needing something or wanting to go somewhere…God, how sleepy she was right now. She felt like Cleopatra, the family cat back home in Mount Pleasant (must call the graduate student they’d left with the key, make sure he was checking on Cleo regularly).
High ceilings with antique fixtures hanging from them, a beautiful little—what was it, cherrywood?—yes, a cherrywood end table, along with other extravagant furniture arrayed around the room, velvet-upholstered chairs and a delicately carved nightstand and a massive old armoire, stern-looking, positively and properly Victorian in its solidity and breadth and height and weight, its stained and polished enormity, staring at her out of its dual-mirrored face, a face that presented a scene so lifelike, so perfectly real, somehow, exceeding the capacities of mere reflection, that it suggested immense depths beyond the actual measurements of the room. Oak dresser, deep claw-foot bathtub in the bathroom with its black-and-white tile floor.
At some point she was going to have to eat.
There had been a little surprise in that regard, a little potential difficulty. She had tried to open the door, but it was definitely, certainly, beyond a shadow of a doubt locked from the outside. And in case anyone there on the other side of the door was wondering, she had looked around for a key, but had so far been unable to find one. There was maybe the chance of sliding a nail file or a bobby pin into the keyhole, but she had neither of those items in her possession, since she’d left her purse downstairs. The purse, or the absence of the purse, would be a problem eventually, if she stayed here long enough. But she wasn’t worried yet. She wasn’t worried yet—how remarkable a thing was that? List the things that didn’t worry
Similar Books
