Paullina Simons - Road to Paradise

PAULLINA SIMONS

ROAD TO PARADISE

Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2007

Copyright © Timshel Books 2007

The extract from “i walked the boulevard” is reprinted from COMPLETE POEMS 1904–1962, by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage, by permission of W.W. Norton & Company. Copyright © 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust and George James Firmage.

Paullina Simons asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007241583

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2015 ISBN: 9780007283439

Version: 2015-03-09

For my husband’s mother, Elaine Ryan, from

the time she was twenty, a mother first

Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God;But only he who sees, takes off his shoes

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

And all my former life is seenA crazy drowsy beautiful and utterlyappalling dream

ALEXANDER BLOK

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Map

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue: “Motel”

One: The Car

1. Topless Imponderables

2. Emma

3. The Gift

Two: Mary’s Land

1. The Pomeranians

2. The Vedantists

3. The Black Truck

Three: On the Erie Canal

1. Ned

2. The Chihuahuas

3. Two Todds

Four: The Light at Picnic Marsh

1. Candy

2. The Price of Stamps

3. Comfort

Five: The Road to St. Louis

1. A Little Buddha

2. A Full Bladder

3. The Least of Candy

Six: Isle of Capri

1. Eighteen and Twenty-one

2. Five Flower

3. A Race Not to the Swift

Seven: New Melleray

1. Hours of the Divine Office

2. Estevan’s Stories

3. Rock, Paper, Eddie

Eight: Looking for the Missouri

1. Gina’s Boredom

2. Hoadley Dean

3. Argosy Pavilion

Nine: Badlands

1. The Bartered Bride

2. Lakota Chapel, All Welcome

3. Broken Hill

Ten: Making Things Wright

1. Surio

2. Hell’s Half-Acre

3. The. Great. Divide

Eleven: Beyond the Great Divide

1. Good Samaritans

2. Open Range

3. The Loneliest Road in America

Twelve: Renoforjesus

1. Lost

2. Balefire

3. Cave, Cave, Deus Videt

Thirteen: You are Ascending into Paradise

1. Endless Skyway

2. Lovely Lane

3. Four Last Things

Epilogue: Maccallum House

Keep Reading

A Note to my Readers

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Do what you like, Shelby Sloane, the bartered bride had said to me, smiling like an enigma, just remember: all roads lead to where you stand.

Back then I said, what does that mean?

This morning I knew. It was the morning of the third day I had been trapped in a room, two miles from the main drag of the Reno strip in a place called “Motel.”

I stood alone, broke, and in Reno.

There is one road that leads to Reno from the east—Interstate 80, and in Salt Lake City, Utah, 569 miles away, there is a bellman at a four-star hotel who, when asked if there is perhaps a more scenic route than the mind-numbing Interstate, blinks at me his contempt in the sunshine before slowly saying, “In Nevada ?”

But there is another road in Nevada that takes you almost there: U.S. 50, the loneliest road in America.

Reno is in the high desert valley, 4500 feet above sea level, but the highway climbs into the mountains before twisting down the black unlit slopes to the washbasin where the lights are. The town itself is one street, Virginia, running in a straight line between the mountain passes.

On Virginia stands the Eldorado and the Circus Circus; the Romantic Sensations Club; Horseshoe, the 24-hr pawn shop (“nothing refused!”); the Wild Orchid Club (“Hustler’s All-new Girls!”); Heidi’s Family Restaurant; Adult Bookstore (“Under New Management: More Variety!”); Limericks Pub&Grill ( Once a young lass from Mamaroneck/Decided to go on a trek …); Arch Discount Liquors; Adults Only Cabaret (Filipino waitresses in Island outfits); St. Francis Hotel; Ho-Hum Motel; Pioneer and Premier Jewelry&Loan; “Thunderbolt: Buy Here! Pay Here! We buy Clean Cars and Trucks!”; Adventure Inn: Exotic Theme Rooms and Wedding Chapel; a billboard asking, “Is Purity and Truth of Devotion to Jesus Central to your Life?” and “Motel.”

That’s where I am.

“Motel” is a beige, drab two-story structure with rusted landings built around a cement square courtyard that serves both as a parking lot and a deck for the swimming pool. The cars are parked in stalls around the pool right behind the lounge chairs. Not my car, because that’s vanished, but other people’s cars, sure.

I was waiting for the girl in the mini-skirt to come back. She wasn’t supposed to have left in the first place, so waiting for her was rather like waiting for the unscheduled train to run over the car stalled on the tracks. I came back for her, and she had disappeared. Along with my car. The note she left me could have been written in hieroglyphs. “Shel, where are you? I thought you were coming back. Guess not. I’ve gone to look for you. Here’s hoping I find you.” Two kisses followed by two hugs, as if we were sophomores in junior high passing notes back and forth. She had taken her things.

I was half-hoping the “Motel” manager would throw me out, seeing that I had no money and couldn’t pay for the room, but he said with a smile and a wink, “Room’s bought and paid for till the twentieth, dahrlin’.” As I walked away I was tempted to ask the twentieth of what, but didn’t.

The first day I didn’t get that upset. I felt it was penance. I hadn’t done what I was supposed to; it was only right she didn’t do what she was supposed to.

The second day I spent foaming in righteous, purifying fury. I was eighteen, stopping for a day in Reno, on my way even farther west, to help out a fellow pilgrim I met along the way, and look what I got for my troubles. I whiled away the hours compulsively shredding into tinier and tinier strips fashion magazines, an old newspaper, informational brochures on Reno, and gambling tips, then strewing them all over the room. “TOURIST ATTRACTIONS!” “PLACES TO EAT!” “THINGS TO DO!” all sawdust on the floor.