Mary Miller - The Last Days of California

The bartender hustled us out the door and we stood there for a second before our mother started walking. We trailed behind her like little ducks, Elise carrying her flip-flops in one hand. There was a lot of glass in the parking lot, but I didn’t tell her to put her flip-flops back on. It was car-window glass, the pieces small and shimmery blue, and probably wouldn’t cut her.

Elise tripped over a hunk of concrete and I linked my arm through hers. She had her face to the sky, mouth open. She pointed up at something while I dragged her along, my eyes searching out the curved and shiny glass of beer bottles. The temperature had fallen and there was a breeze. It was so nice out that I wished we were driving at night and sleeping during the day. There was nothing to say we couldn’t, there were enough 24-hour gas stations to see us through, but of course my father wouldn’t go for it. He didn’t go for anything out of the ordinary. He liked for things to be the way they were supposed to be.

“I want that ID,” my mother said.

Elise handed it over without protest and my mother slipped it in her pocket. I scanned the motel to see if any lights were on: two rooms. What were the people in those rooms doing? Watching TV? Having sex? Somehow, it was more interesting to think about what people were doing when the options had been narrowed so drastically, like I might guess correctly.

Our father was asleep, his robe in a pile on the floor and the covers at the foot of the bed. His stomach was hard and tight, like a pregnant woman’s belly. Our mother sighed as she took off her shoes and shorts and replaced the covers. Elise went to the sink and guzzled water out of her hand. Then she went to the bathroom, coughed a few times, and was quiet. I got in bed and waited. After a while, I went over and put my hand on the bathroom door, leaned in. She was crying. Like our mother, she would cry if she was sad and didn’t care who saw or heard her. The last time we watched Forrest Gump , she’d bawled shamelessly throughout the entire movie and I’d had to go upstairs and finish it in my room.

“Elise,” I said.

She didn’t answer.

“Elise.”

“Go away.”

I got back in bed. A few minutes later, she crawled in next to me and put her face close to mine. I liked to sleep on my left side and she preferred her right.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“I hate it when you cry. It makes me sad.”

“There’s an angel looking out for me,” she said. She was so close that she could only look into one of my eyes at a time.

“What?” I asked.

“I saw my angel tonight.” She waited for me to say something but I didn’t want our mother to hear us. Our mother believed in angels but you weren’t actually supposed to see them. It was like the prayer-rug Jesus opening his eyes. He wasn’t going to and anyone who claimed he had was lying or dangerous.

“Tell me about it tomorrow,” I said.

She turned her back to me. As kids we used to fight to be the one who got to sleep on their preferred side, with their leg slung over the other’s hip, but that was a long time ago. I put the extra pillow between us and thought, love one another . It was so simple. How was I always forgetting something so simple? If Jesus’s message had to be reduced to one thing, that would be it.

Soon everyone was asleep and I was awake, listening to the steady, slightly ragged breaths of my sister, the snores of my mother and father. I liked to be the last one to fall asleep, the last one to see the last thing to happen in the day.

When I woke up, a weak gray light was coming in through the slit in the curtains and I knew it was too early to be awake. I checked the clock: 6:24. I’d had bad dreams, a whole series of them, but could only recall the last one. I was at a concert with thousands of people, in some kind of pit, when a structure fell on us. The dream ended like that—we were alive but knew we wouldn’t make it out. The death dreams weren’t that bad, though, because on some level I always knew they were dreams whereas my other bad dreams felt so real, like I was failing a class and was going to have to take it over, or one of my teeth had fallen out. It was always just one tooth, usually a bottom one, and I would search for this lost tooth and find it, attempt to stick it back into my head while blood gushed. Sometimes I glued it. I’d wake up distraught, running a finger over my slick morning teeth, and the upset feeling would hang around long enough for me to forget what it was that had upset me.

My father was usually awake first, but he was still asleep. They were all snoring now, even Elise, though my father was by far the loudest and sometimes he stopped breathing for long stretches. The word “cacophony” came to me—it was a cacophony. I rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom. On the toilet, I recalled the events of last night: Jimmy looking at me through the windshield, Elise’s angel, love one another .

I put on my shorts, grabbed my purse, and closed the door.

It was already hot out. I should have been used to the heat, but every summer it came as a surprise; every summer I wondered if it was hotter than all of the summers that had come before. A bird flew out of a tree, its wings beating so loudly I could hear every flap. I thought about a Diet Coke and what I might eat for breakfast—a bag of sandwich cookies, if they had those, a Honey Bun if they didn’t. Maybe a two-pack of strawberry Pop-Tarts. If there was only a drink machine, I’d go over to the gas station and buy some powdered doughnuts. It was what I liked best about mornings—a Diet Coke and something sweet. Elise and my mother liked the night and my father and I liked the morning.

At the bald man’s room, I stopped to watch the curtains flutter above the air conditioner. And then I was leaning in, trying to hear something. I wanted to hear the woman moan.

The vending machines were next to one of the out-of-order ice machines. I opened the silver flap—yellowed, empty space. I let it slam and considered the offerings. I slid quarters and dimes into the slot and a Honey Bun fell. I had a difficult time getting it out, and when I looked up, the bald man was standing there with his bucket under one arm.

“It doesn’t work,” I said, tilting my purse to one side to gather more change. I picked out the silver, dropped the pennies and gum wrappers back in.

“You need money?” he asked, pulling out his billfold.

“No thanks,” I said.

He held out a dollar. “Here.”

“That’s okay.”

“It’s just a dollar,” he said. “Take it.”

I thanked him and slipped it into the machine. The bottle clattered down. It was always the same temperature, not quite cold enough.

He was still standing there with one arm around his ice bucket, looking at me, so I asked what I always asked when I was uncomfortable—if he’d been saved.

“I’m Catholic,” he said.

“My mother grew up Catholic, but she’s not anymore.”

“I’m not anymore, either. Have you been saved?”

“Of course,” I said, gazing out at the parking lot like there was something there.

“Did you get dunked in a lake?”

“No, just at church.”

“I like to imagine you in a lake, in a white dress.”

“I think that’s just on TV,” I said.

“I don’t go to mass anymore, except at Christmas. It gets me in the spirit, kind of like turkey at Thanksgiving. I guess I’m fair-weather, is what I’m saying, like if the Cowboys are losing, I don’t watch.”

I nodded, smiled.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Fifteen.”

More nodding, smiling.

“Thanks for the dollar,” I said.