I went quickly to my car and even though I was parking in a garage for the first time in my life, I could still tell that the weather had changed and it was much colder now. Summer was really over and the tourists had headed home, so my shifts were a lot quieter and I was struggling again to stay awake. As he’d said, I got home late from these night jobs but I didn’t want tosleep late in the mornings. Everett and I could see each other then.
Since the motel was empty, there was room for someone like me to move in—if I wanted to. I had been looking around for a new place for myself but I’d found that I wasn’t in that much of a rush. The longer I stayed with Everett, the more money I would save. And unlike the birthday party when I was a kid and had been the last and most unwanted guest, he didn’t seem pressured to be rid of me. Instead, he was talking about the future and he used the word “we,” like tonight at dinner when he’d mentioned Thanksgiving and whatwewould have. Hearing that had felt like getting a hug, which I also wouldn’t have minded.
But I was very, very glad that I hadn’t followed Jannie’s advice and kissed him out of the blue. It really would have been whacko to mess up the good thing we had going. I could control myself, I totally could. Absolutely, without question. Sure.
The night stretched on and the camera recording on the wall above me whirred its sleepy sound. Besides that, the lobby was silent. I had brought my laptop and I looked for jobs for a while, and there were teaching positions in a lot of different states. I wasn’t certified in any of them but I could get that. I imagined my life in a different place—maybe somewhere like Alabama with the beautiful coastline. I had loved that beach, but I actually didn’t have great memories of the trip. It had been my dad’s way of trying to fix our family’s problems, but it had been too late. The real end didn’t come until after Willow’s accident, of course.
I put that from my mind and thought of taking another vacation. Everett had been to amazing places, all over the world. Maybe the two of us could go to a Spanish-speaking country and try out our new skills. I had to admit that his were a little lacking, but he’d have more time to devote to language study once the season was over—when he was in Arizona, and I was here in Michigan.
The daydream wasn’t working out like I wanted and it was in danger of becoming a real dream, because I was almost falling asleep. There was another danger that I could fall off this stool if that happened, because I still hadn’t mastered the art of sleeping while sitting. The camera above my head gently whirred, a soothing white noise, and I put my mind on a beach, where there was warm sun and Everett—
The doors to the motel slid open and suddenly, he was here. “Zoey? Damn!”
Before I completely understood what was happening, Everett himself, in the flesh, had come around the reception desk and was helping me up. “I think I fell off the stool,” I said confusedly.
“Are you all right? You hit the floor hard.” Even with me back on my feet, he was still gripping my arms like I might have gone down again.
I glanced at the camera, the one focused on my desk, and knew that my boss would see all of this. “I’m ok,” I said, but sighed. “It’s ok.”
“Come sit down,” he said, and tugged me over to the couch in the lobby, next to the rack of dusty brochures. “Do you usually sleep when you’re here?”
“No, not always.” I glanced again toward the camera, but it didn’t record sound. It would only show that I wasn’t at the desk where I was supposed to be, but I figured it was too late to worry about that. “I try not to.”
“Anybody could walk in and you’re a sitting duck.”
“I don’t think that would happen.” I rubbed my eyes. From this scratchy couch, I couldn’t see the old clock on the wall. “What time is it? What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, and that was no good. He had a game coming up and sufficient rest was so important. “I was thinking about that lech bothering you at your school.”
“No, he isn’t. I only see him every now and then, and he ignores me now.” I had believed that was because he was embarrassed by my failures as a teacher.
“Last year, you were in there with him harassing you.”
“It wasn’t anything terrible,” I insisted. “He did want to hug me sometimes but I just said no, thank you, and when he would text—”
“He was texting you? Do you still have those?”
I showed him my phone, but the messages weren’t anything weird or lech-y. There was a lot about me coming over, though, and…well, there were a few about a shirt I’d worn which apparently had been more translucent than I’d realized.
“He’s talking about your bra,” Everett said. His voice had gotten loud. “He says he could see your bra.”
“I thought that he was trying to be helpful,” I explained. “Like, I was silly and hadn’t realized that I was dressing inappropriately.”
“You dress like—”
“Please don’t say that I dress like your grandmother,” I interrupted, because I remembered how my bathing suit had reminded him of her.
“I was going to say that you dress like a normal person. You’re never inappropriate. This pisses me off,” he said, which I could see and I was happy for that. It was so nice of him to care. “What are we going to do?”
“Well…” I took back my phone and looked again at the messages. “I don’t know. I’m really not sure that this is anything to worry about. I think it’s ok.”
“It’s not.”
I didn’t want to get a reputation as a complainer, though, or a trouble-maker. Schools were full of gossip and If I stayed in this district, that reputation would follow me. “I could…” I stopped because a new message had come in, but not from the lech.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. I just heard from my mom again.” Since Texas, she’d sent a few more messages, one about the dry air of the mountains in Utah and their car breaking down, one about rain in Idaho and having to buy a new coat and boots. Now it seemed that she had headed even farther west. “I always thought aboutgoing to the beach in California, but maybe I wouldn’t like it,” I mentioned. “She says it’s cold.”
