It’s Bev. Reeking of smoke, glaring through smeared ash like an avenging angel with a buzz cut. Charlotte trails anxiously behind her, offering a pained smile to the receptionist.
Bev stops halfway across the hall and crosses her arms. She rakes her gaze across us with scathing deliberation, and if I had room to feel another ounce of emotion, I would be terrified. That motel was her life and livelihood, herhome,gone because I decided to punch the wrong person in the teeth. I wonder if Constable Mayhew can get me behind bars before she murders me in cold blood.
Bev asks, slowly, “Would somebody like to explain to me just what the hell is going on here?”
The constable drops me and puffs out the concavity of his chest. “Ma’am, I’m going to ask you to leave the premises. I’m investigating a crime.”
“Well whoop-de-do, Constable. I’minvestigatingwhy you handcuffed one ofmy guestsrather than handing her over to the EMTs.”
I meet Charlotte’s eyes behind Bev’s back and manage a single, strangled word. “Jasper?”
Charlotte says, “They got the fire out, and they haven’t found any—anybody. I don’t think he was there.”
I miss the next few sentences because I’m busy heaving my guts out on the floor. When it’s over I feel hollow and brittle, like plastic that’s spent too long in the sun. The receptionist lobs a roll of blue paper towels at me and I ignore it, trying to remember the trick of breathing.
By the time I peel my skull off the tile Bev is jabbing her finger in the constable’s face. “Don’t talk to me like that, you goddamn mall-cop cowboy—”
“Now look here, Bev, I am elected by the people of this great state—”
“You drive your mom’sPontiac,Joe! They don’t even let you use the lights anymore!” She’s inches away from him now, voice dropping to a strangled threat. “We thought she wasdeaduntil somebody told us you dragged her down here.”
Mayhew tries very hard to look down his nose at Bev, who has several inches and at least twenty pounds on him. “An eyewitness reported this young lady acting in a suspicious manner tonight.”
“Well, I’m an eyewitness telling you I never saw her this evening. She hadn’t gotten back from work.” Bev enunciates each syllable, like she’s talking to a broken speaker at a Burger King.
“Her manager reports that she was fired several hours before the event in question, after getting violent with a customer. Given her volatile actions, I think it likely that—”
Charlotte speaks for the first time, her voice soft and deferential. “I was there, too. Opal wasn’t anywhere near the motel this evening.”
Constable Mayhew narrows his eyes at Charlotte. “And what were you doing at the Garden of Eden this evening?”
“I was just . . .” Charlotte looks at Bev, and Bev’s face goes taut. Charlotte trails away.
Constable Mayhew hooks his thumbs around his belt loops. “Were you a paying guest?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you visiting a paying guest?”
“No, sir.” Charlotte’s voice is fainter with each word. The frames of her glasses are a stark pink against the pallor of her skin.
“Then what were you doing there?”
Bev steps between them, her jaw so tight she can barely move her lips. “That’s none of your goddamn business.”
The constable, who has apparently never seen Bev fight three drunks in a motel parking lot and is under the impression that the white curl of her knuckles means he’s winning, says, “I am trying to investigate a potential arson here. I think it’s worth asking this lady—who was apparently at the scene of the crime, with no reason to be there—a few questions.” He holds his head higher. “Ma’am, I’m going to ask you again: Why were you at the Garden of Eden this evening?”
Charlotte looks at Bev. Bev looks at Charlotte. I might be dazed and sick, stupid with relief, but even I can see them speaking to one another, talking in the silent Morse code of two people who know each other far, far better than I thought they did.
“This is not,” Bev announces, to no one in particular, “how I wanted to do this.”
Charlotte’s face is a map of hope and doubt. She shrugs as if she doesn’t care, or as if she wishes she didn’t, eyes on Bev. “Nobody’s making you, sweetheart.” I try and fail to recall if Charlotte has ever called me sweetheart before. If she did I doubt she said it like it was a dare, or maybe a prayer.
Bev turns back to Constable Mayhew with a reckless tilt of her chin and a fuck-it grin. “She was at the motel because that’s where I live.”
“And why would this woman care where you live?”
“Because,” Bev inhales, “she’s my girlfriend. Office Fucknut.”
