Douglas Coupland - Miss Wyoming

They'd read of Susan's marriage to Chris in the Arts & Lifestyle section of the local weekend paper. They met Chris only once, at a midnight vigil for Susan that Marilyn had staged in a Cheyenne town square (exclusive continental European photo rights to Paris Match, UK rights to Hello! magazine, U.S. and Canadian rights to the Star, film and TV rights reserved, as live footage was to be inserted into a possible A&E special about Susan to begin production the following year). Marilyn and Chris hugged for the cameras, lit candles, and bowed their heads for the cameras. All the while, Chris's young fans chanted from across the square. Afterward, Chris left and didn't speak with Marilyn again. («Guess what, Don — I think Sir Frederick Rock Star is an asshole.»)

Then came Julie's phone call one morning: «Marilyn, come to New York. It's over.» When Marilyn found out the amount, she whooped with pleasure, then immediately apologized to Julie for whooping in her ear. She tried to find Don, and did, passed out in the back corner of his favorite seedy sports bar. So that afternoon she left for Manhattan without him. The next day, with Julie, she walked down the courthouse steps and spoke with the press. That afternoon she spent $28,000 while shopping on upper Madison Avenue.

The next day Marilyn went home to Cheyenne, and the day after that she got the call from a sparkle-voiced airline PR woman about Susan's return to the living. She hung up the phone and reached for half a Shitsicle Don had left beside the phone book. Susan would be home the next morning.

Back in Cheyenne's outskirts, Marilyn lurked inside her motel room with the drapes closed, the TV blaring. Vanessa and Ryan were standing behind the rental car keeping sentinel on her, while Ivan and John headed to the lobby.

Ivan called Cheyenne's airport about the jet's overnight parking and then rented rooms for the group in case they had to watch Marilyn into the evening. John was looking out the window covered in grit and credit card stickers, also scoping the door to Marilyn's room. The group reconvened at the car, where Ryan said, «I'm starved. We didn't eat lunch.»

«Me, too,» said Ivan. «I'm going to go make a burger run. There's an A&W a quarter mile back on the road.»

«Well, you can't use the car,» said John.

«What?» said Vanessa. «As if Marilyn's going to vamoose right now or something? We're all sugar crashing. It's a worthwhile risk to get ourselves properly nutrished. Get me a large fries — make sure they use vegetable oil, no lard — and an iced tea.»

John was too hungry to fight and he gave Ivan his order. As he left in the rental car, Vanessa walked up to the door of number 14, and knocked loudly. Even from a distance, the sound of blaring cartoons and commercials tumbled from the room, the windows rattling as if they possessed stereo woofers.

Vanessa's unexpected charge shattered John and Ryan's complacency, and they dive-bombed behind Marilyn's BMW.

«Hellooo …» said Vanessa, and she knocked again, louder this time. « Hellooo — Mrs. Heatherington? Fawn Heatherington?» Vanessa rapped the windowpane and then a slit in the curtains, which were yellowed, nicotine-soaked and threadbare, fluttered open. The room's door opened a crack. «Yes?» Bugs Bunny shrieked from within.

«I'm Mona. My uncle runs this place. Did you leave a twenty-dollar bill lying on the counter by mistake?» She held up the bill.

The door opened a notch wider. «Why yes, I did — how thoughtful of you.»

«Think nothing of it, Mrs. Heatherington. Wyoming hospitality.»

Marilyn plinked the bill from Vanessa's fingertips and mumbled the words «Wellthankyouverymuchgoodbye,» to Vanessa, but Vanessa stuck her foot in the door so it couldn't close. «Excuse me?» said Marilyn in a forced huff.

«Sorry to disturb you even more, Mrs. Heatherington, but — »

«Fawn. Call me Fawn.»

«Sorry to disturb you even more, then, Fawn, it's just that …» Vanessa's eyes saw the aged curtains. «It's just that for the past year I've been trying to get my uncle to buy new curtains for the units. See how ratty these are?»

«Well, I suppose, yes.»

«Exactly. If you could just mention this when you check out, it would sure help me build a stronger case. He's kinda cheap.»

«Absolutely,» said Marilyn.

The door shut and Vanessa strode over to her room, number 7. She was followed by John and Ryan, who scrambled out from behind the BMW, then beneath Marilyn's window. They came into the room and Vanessa said, «She's not alone.»

«How can you tell?» asked John.

«I heard someone rattling about in the bathroom. Even through the cartoon noise.»

«Did you see anything else in there? Clothing? Books? Magazines?»

«No. It looks like an unoccupied room.»

Ryan asked if the room was the same configuration as the one they were in, and Vanessa suspected it was. «Then come back here with me,» Ryan said. «Let's see if there's some kind of escape route we should watch for.» They walked back to the bathroom and inspected the window beside the sink.

«I don't know if that window is crawl-out-of-able,» said John.

«I think it is,» said Ryan. «Watch me.» He hoisted himself up, his stomach resting on the dusty and blackened aluminum slide rail.

«Ryan,» said Vanessa. «Get down from there.»

«No. I just want to see if — » He was cut short by the sound of Marilyn's BMW charging out of the parking lot and left, westward, onto the highway.

«Shit,» said John. He kicked a hole in the door of number 7.

«Don't be so melodramatic,» said Vanessa. «Ivan'll be back soon enough. Let's sit tight.»

«I bet she saw us behind her car,» said Ryan.

They waited outside for Ivan, and John was visibly falling apart. Vanessa asked him if he was going to be okay, and he wasn't sure if he would be. The sun was still above the foothills off to the west, but only just. Wind whistled by, and John recalled the wind, back when he'd been lost. He remembered how it never leaves the air.

Ryan tried to atone for his having distracted the trio away from Marilyn's exodus. He went up to the door of 14 and tried turning the knob. It did and the door opened. He inspected the room but found no clues.

« Gosh, Sheriff Perkins,» said Vanessa, «those darn crooks left a book of matches from the Stork Club. Look — there's even a phone number written on the inside: Klondike 5-blah-blah-blah-blah.»

«A bit more support, a bit less sarcasm, Vanny.»

Ivan pulled in and the trio rushed into the car like puppies. «That way,» said John. «She has a two-minute lead.»

The car skidded out in a lazy spray of gravel. They flew west down the Interstate, back toward Utah and California, amid the truckloads of lettuce and hay bales and lumber that John thought seemed to never leave the roads, as if they existed in some sort of perpetual caffeinated loop.

An Exxon station lay ahead like a beacon. Ryan scoped it out with the binoculars. «She's there,» he said. «Parked over by the tire pump.»

«Thank Christ,» said John. «Ivan, pull in, but not too far, because she might see us and bolt.»

Ivan veered into the station, then empty.

«Is she in the office buying gum or something?» asked John.

«If you're like me,» said Ryan, «whenever you're being pursued, your first impulse is to stop the chase and stock up on gum.»

«She's probably in the bathroom,» said Vanessa. «I'll go look.» She got out of the car and walked to the ladies' room entrance by the side. She knocked on the door and Marilyn's voice called out, «Yeah?» Vanessa faked a southern accent and said, «No hurry then, ma'am,» then gave the thumbs up to the men in the car, and walked back.