Bonnie Nadzam: Lamb

“Okay. Is this like going to Grandma’s in Holland?”

“Sort of. Not really.”

He frowned. “What if we get halfway there and you want to turn around?”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“I’m going to do everything in my power to make you want to keep going.”

“Ooo. I’m scared.”

“I’m just letting you know. I’m a really smart guy.”

“Says who?”

“I do. I get to say. And you better get used to it.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he said, “I have all the money.”

“Oh, yeah.”

So you see, none of this was planned. This is the kind of unforeseeable map that arises one bright little city at a time. It’s about letting go of the clench in your forehead and letting your heart steer. And it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

In the hotel lobby, everything was white. The floor of bleached ceramic tiles; the high frosted ceiling supported by smooth, ash-colored marble columns. Tommie stared around as if she’d been transported to another world.

“Are you afraid?” he asked in the elevator.

“No.”

They rushed silently upward.

“Are you being honest?”

“I’ve never been anywhere like this.”

“I know.”

“Are you really rich?”

The doors opened.

“Now listen,” he said as he walked her down the corridor. She pushed the hair out of her face. Like a little woman. “This is just an intermediary step, right? This trip is not for certain. We’re going to do this in stages.” He unlocked the door with the plastic card and held it open for her. “And maybe not at all.”

The room was warm and dry and smelled of citrus and balsam and clean linen. The creamy whites of the down comforters and painted walls were softly lit. Outside the giant panes of glass the dark sky was lifting and cracking apart. Lamb and the girl stood together near the door a moment, as if the room were intended for some other couple.

“Do you want the bed by the window or by the bathroom?”

“Duh, window.” She went in.

“Good.”

He opened the armoire and turned on the television, searching the channels. “What do you like? You like cartoons?”

She rolled her eyes. “Please.”

He tossed her the remote and rezipped his jacket.

“Are we going someplace?”

“I am. To get supplies.”

“For the road?”

“Yes,” he said. “For the road.”

“How long will it take to get there?”

“Two days.”

“How can we make it back in five nights?”

He looked down at his hands, then moved his mouth as he counted in his head. “This is exactly why we’re doing this in stages,” he said. “So we don’t do anything stupid. It might actually be seven nights. Or ten.”

“Can’t I come with you now?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Three reasons. First, because it’s warm in here. And we don’t want you getting sick. Second, I want you to be alone for an hour or so. You know how to get home from here, more or less?”

She gave him a blank look, so he opened a drawer in the little white desk and took out the binder of guest information. “Here.” He put four twenties on the desk. “That’s for a cab home. And a little extra.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

“I want you to think about it. I want you to take this hour and think real hard about whether or not you should stay and wait for me. This will look a lot to other people like I’m kidnapping you. Right?”

“Oh.”

“It will. I’m fifty-four years old, and you?”

“Eleven.”

He inhaled. Christ. He’d taken her for thirteen at least. Eleven. That was closer to five years old than it was to eighteen. Her friends did not look eleven. The blond one—she could’ve been sixteen. He looked at his hands. At the floor. He did not look at her when he gave her the last reason.

“And three, here you are,” he said, “alone in a hotel room with a stranger. And eleven.”

“But you’re not a stranger.”

“Well. Maybe you feel a little funny.”

“I don’t feel funny.”

“Maybe you’re just not letting yourself feel funny. Think about all the ways this situation could make a girl your age feel. Okay? Say okay, Gary.”

“Okay, Gary.”

“And then, if you choose to stay, I want you to make this room yours. Do some rearranging. Put your shoes over there, and wash your face, and mess up the pillows. Make it like it’s your own room. So when I come back, it’ll be like you’re inviting me into your room, okay?”

“You’re weird.”

“Maybe so. But I know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t want me to come in when I get back, you can hand me my stuff and I’ll go get another room. Right?” He’d meant to sound forceful, convincing, but he was almost whispering.

“That won’t happen.”

“Just say okay, Gary.”

“Okay, Gary.”

“And if I come back and you’re gone, I’ll understand you’ve gone home. And no hard feelings, okay? It wouldn’t mean we can’t—you know—hang out. Like before. Say it: no hard feelings.”

“No hard feelings.”

“Good. Good girl.” He squinted at her. “Are all seventh graders eleven? I mean, your friends look a little old for their age.”

She shrugged. “I’ll be twelve in December.”

He looked down at the floor and nodded.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He sat on the edge of the other bed.

“What if I want to come home? Not like I will.”

“I’ll put you on a plane. Straight home, first class.”

“Okay.”

“And I’ll buy you a little purse, and fill it with money and snacks and a magazine or comic book. And I’ll send you on your way.”

“Okay.”

“It’ll be an open door, all the time. If you decide you can’t bear the drive back with me, if you decide I’m just like some mean old uncle, too strict, or if I preach too much, I’ll buy you the plane ticket. I give you my word.”

“Okay.”

“It’ll be just like vacation, so you can see some other things. Something other than this sad place.”

She nodded.

“You’re not like your friends, are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not,” he said. “You believe that?”

“If you say so.”

He grinned. “That’s my girl. So we have a deal?” He turned over his palm and spat in it, and extended his hand. She snorted, and grinned, and spat in her own hand, and they shook.

Lamb left her in the white hotel and drove back toward the city, away from the last broken reaches of daylight as rain clouds threaded with neon blue in the rearview mirror. The girl would be there when he returned. Not because she wanted to go but because she wouldn’t take the initiative to call a cab.

He turned into the parking lot of Tommie’s building and pulled up to the front. There was a different security guard—a heavy young guy in cheap black pants and a windbreaker with the same corporate logo on the breast. Already balding and pale and bereft of all those heartbreaking nights a young guy like him should be suffering. A young guy only has so many nights in him during his tenure on planet Earth, and he ought not squander them alone in ruined parking lots, bothering people. He came right up to the driver’s side of the truck.

“You looking for somebody, man?”

Lamb’s pulse raced up his neck and down his arms, the taste of his own breath foul in his mouth. “Is this Roosevelt Road?” He pointed at the six-lane. “I seem to have gotten turned around.”

The man shook his head. “No, man.”

“I need to go west?”

“You can’t make a left turn here.” A small, round woman with chin-length grayish-brown hair tilted sideways a little beneath the weight of a huge canvas satchel swung over her shoulder. Lamb watched her walk by as the man gave him directions he didn’t need, and he became very, very still.