Don't Fail Me Now(35)

“Come on,” Leah says. “Please?”

“Yeah, please?” Denny whines.

“Cass, could you back me up here?” I ask, but the hoodied lump just shrugs. “Okay, fine,” I say testily, looking out at a glowing Comfort Inn sign half a mile down the road. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

? ? ?

The front desk is manned by a skinny red-haired guy who can’t be more than a few years older than me, with a lumpy Adam’s apple and a wide, greasy forehead that reflects the yellow-tinged fluorescent lights above his desk. He’s wearing a blue button-down and a nametag that says QUENTIN. He looks like a pretty easy mark, as far as corporate types go, but if I had any money I would still bet it all on Quentin kicking us merrily to the curb.

Tim and Leah walk up first, with me, Cass, and Denny trailing by a few feet. I clutch Cass’s backpack—stuffed with ramen packets and dollar-store underpants—in a weak attempt at legitimacy, but I’m sure my face gives away my anxiety. Now that the adrenaline rush is gone, the reality of what I’ve done is sinking in. And not just running away, or missing school, or ditching Mom without bail or Yvonne without a shift manager—all of which are shameful on their own. But Tim is right: It was my idea to take them with us, and now I have two extra pieces of baggage in my car, newbies who don’t worry about the things I need to worry about all the time.

“Hi, sir,” Tim says in his fake parent voice, looking like a slightly rumpled Boy Scout. “We’re, um, checking in.”

“Can I see some ID?” Quentin looks directly at me, even though I’m not the one at the counter.

“Sure.” Tim pulls out his wallet, and even though I want him to get humiliated (if for no other reason than to prove me right), I have to give him credit for having the balls to keep going.

“Her, too,” he says, nodding at me. Clenching my jaw and holding my head up, I walk over to the desk and slide my license across the slick, fake marble. Quentin looks back and forth from the picture to me, a few more times than necessary.

“We only rent to eighteen and up,” he says curtly. Which is funny, since Tim’s birth date didn’t seem to bother him. I smack my palm back over my ID.

“Thank you,” I say in a f*ck-you voice.

“We have the money,” Tim says. “You can charge it up front, if you’re worried about contract enforcement.” He smiles self-consciously. “My dad’s a lawyer.”

This nugget of information seems to relax Quentin. “It’s really liability,” he says, sounding almost apologetic. “Some people”—he glances at Cass and Denny—“don’t know how to behave.”

“We can take care of ourselves,” I say, knowing I should keep quiet but unable to help myself. “That won’t be a problem.”

“It’s policy,” Quentin says to Tim, deleting me from his field of vision.

“Thanks anyway,” Tim says. Finally. I can’t beat a hasty enough retreat. But before I can make it to the door, I hear Leah pipe up.

“Hi, Quentin,” she says. I spin around to see her leaning on the desk with both elbows. “See, the thing is, our dad is a criminal litigator with Buckman Farrell in Baltimore, and he’s working over at the courthouse all night on this crazy murder case. We had to come with him because this is his week with us, and our school is closed for a stupid teacher’s retreat, and he figured it was just easier to drop us off because he has to get back to work, and we’re super tired and otherwise we’ll just be, like, sleeping on benches at the courthouse. And my sister has diabetes,” she adds, gesturing to Cass.

“You guys are all siblings?” Quentin asks incredulously. I want to kick him.

“Um, yeah, interracial families exist, haven’t you seen that Cheerios commercial?” Leah says breezily, not missing a beat. “Look, I have my dad’s credit card, it’s in both of our names, and I can give you my school ID, and like my brother said, you can even precharge the card if you want. But Dad already left, so if you can’t accommodate us I’ll just call him and ask him to take us to the Ramada, where I’m sure they’ll be more understanding.” She pushes the gold AmEx across the counter like a pro. She might have adjusted to the Harper lifestyle, but there’s no mistaking it: That girl’s got Buck Devereaux in her blood.

“That was impressive,” I tell her once we’re safely in the elevator, clutching our keycards to room 413. I still hate the idea of the hotel, and not just because of the obvious racial profiling, but I know I can’t turn down a free room for the night out of pride. Not when the alternative is five people sleeping in a single car.

Leah smiles self-consciously down at the toes of her Mary Janes. “I wanted to help,” she says, and for the first time all day there’s not a trace of irony in her voice.

The room, I’ll admit, looks like heaven—if heaven were upholstered exclusively in quilted yellow fabric. I even hear Cass say, “Sweet!” under her breath when we step inside. There are two beds, a loveseat, TV, a desk with a vase of stiff fake flowers, and a brightly lit bathroom full of origami towels from which I instinctively swipe all of the mini shampoo and conditioner bottles before anyone even has a chance to shower. Hotels are such a racket—you wouldn’t take someone’s used mattress off the street, so why would you pay a hundred bucks to sleep on it in a tiny room under a piece of bad abstract art?—and I have a special hatred for them ever since Mom lost her job last year, which led to the seemingly terminal unemployment that led to her starting to use again, but I keep my mouth shut so I don’t ruin it for everybody else.