Mosquitoland(16)

One of the Japanese guys raises his hand; I think it’s the one Carl just CPR’d on the bus. “Excuse me, bus driver?” he asks, without a trace of an accent. “Where are we?”

Carl lights a cigarette, exhales out the side of his mouth. “Memphis. Just outside Graceland.”

Everyone disperses, heading toward his or her respective rooms. I grab my bag with renewed spirit. Graceland. Home of my mother’s all-time favorite artist. Undeniably, this is a good sign. Poncho Man (who apparently lost a shoe in the wreck, as he’s currently wearing one penny loafer and one too-big sneaker) winks at me as he turns toward his room. “Sleep tight, Mim.”

Go to hell, creep.

On the way to my room, I spot a pharmacy across the street. It’s one of those real classy joints where the lightbulb in every other letter has gone dark; instead of PHARMACY, it reads, “P A M C .” Maybe it’s the wreck, or the rush of blood from my leg wound, or the death of my friend, but I’m suddenly feeling impulsive and alive. I need change, and I need it now.

I cross the empty street and enter PAMC, surprised it’s open this late. Between the elevator music and the sharp artificial lights, it feels like I just stepped onto a flying saucer. (Apparently, my aliens love the dude who sings “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Because, you know, obviously.) An employee behind the checkout counter is filing her nails and humming along with the song.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey. Haircutting shears?”

“Aisle nine.” She points a fiercely manicured fingernail.

I hustle down aisle nine and, as an afterthought, grab four packs of makeup remover. At the checkout counter, the girl blows her fingernails, rings me up.

“Makeover?” she says.

“Something like that.”

Back across the street, I locate the room between 6 and 8. Hanging there with aplomb is a brass L. I twist the letter into the number 7, but it falls again. Too tired to care, I unlock the door with my bottle cap key and breathe in the sweet scent of a moth’s shoe. I wonder—what might have happened in this room?

. . . Elvis wrote my mother’s all-time favorite song, “Can’t Help Falling in Love” . . .

. . . a rogue beekeeper, who insisted on the very freshest honey to go with his morning biscuits, snuck in a hive . . .

. . . a rabbi questioned his faith . . .

. . . a whore turned her trick . . .

. . . a somebody did their something . . .

In this room . . .

I toss my JanSport under a rickety AC unit and pull the shears out of their plastic box. In the bathroom, I stare at my reflection in the mirror and visualize a new me: Mod Mim. Like Michelangelo with a block of stone, I see my lengthy mop of dark hair and know the end result before I begin. I snip with courage, purpose, urgency, styling my hair the way I’ve always wanted, but never had the stones to ask for—edgy, chic, short-short in the back, then angled down into longer sides, the bob cut of all bob cuts. And the bangs, my God, the bangs! I leave them long, just barely out of my eyes, sharp and straight enough to give Anna Wintour a run for her money. With only one good eye, I have to double-and triple-check all the lines to make sure they’re even. Once done, I stare at myself in the fluorescent light and finally feel like the girl I am. The girl who gets called to the principal’s office but hops a bus to Cleveland instead. The girl who survived a catastrophic accident. The girl who took matters into her own hands, figuratively, literally, f*cking finally.

I feel more Mim than ever before.





10


Inventory

7:42 LOOKS BLURRY.

7:43 is a little clearer.

7:44 . . .

Groggy, I will myself out of bed. I’ve never really been a morning person, but waking up in yesterday’s clothes makes me reconsider being a person altogether. I stumble across the room, push back a curtain. Well. There’s a bus. So that’s good. Though I don’t see anyone around it, which probably means everyone’s still asleep, which probably means some lazy bones down in the front office forgot our wake-up calls. I grab the receiver, press 0, and wait. After exactly thirty-two rings (yes, I count, and yes, I wait that long, because really, once it passes ten rings it becomes a game of How Many Rings Can We Get to Before Someone Finally Picks Up the Gee-Dee Telephone), I hear the soft click of someone picking up on the other end. Except . . . no hello, or anything. Whoever it is, they don’t say a word.

“Hello?” I say.

“Yez, hi.” The guy has a thick accent of indeterminate origin. Gun-to-my-head, I would guess Estonian.

I carry the phone over to the dresser mirror and study my new haircut. “Hi.”

“Yez, hi.”

Well, this is weird. “Oh—hi, yes. I, umm, was with the group of about twelve or so that came in last night after our bus got demolished on fifty-five.”

I am met with complete silence. This Estonian guy could use a lesson or two in telephone etiquette, though I suppose it should come from someone who speaks his native tongue. Thank God I was born with an unending supply of Malone stick-to-itiveness.

“Well, last night, Carl—that’s our bus driver—he set up a six thirty wake-up call. And I never got one.”

Silence.

“I’d hate for everyone to miss the bus, so to speak. Ha.”

Silence.