Mosquitoland(62)

The memory fades.

As I stand in that hellish gas station, staring at myself in the picture, I have the overwhelming sensation that Myself in the Picture is staring back. She’s wearing the green turtleneck. Her hair is blown dry as the Sahara. And even though the black ink is faded, the words are blinding.

MISSING

MARY MALONE, 16

LAST SEEN IN JACKSON, MS, WEARING A RED HOODIE AND JEANS

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL 601-555-6869

My epiglottis can currently be found somewhere in Earth’s stratosphere.

I put my hand in my pocket and squeeze my mom’s lipstick. God, this is . . . this is . . . well, it’s certainly not nothing. It’s certainly something. The somethingest something there ever was.

I storm out of the gas station and hop back in the truck.

Walt raises his eyebrows. “Hey, hey, where’s my Dew?”

“Here,” I shove the bottle into his hands and tear into the bag of peach gummies.

“You okay, Mim?” asks Beck.

(Gummy one, down.) I really hated that turtleneck.

“Mim?”

(Gummy two, down.) What has it been, like, three days? Leave it to Kathy to freak out over three days. Probably trying to prove to my dad that she cares, but seriously, a Missing Persons report?

“Mim!”

I swallow my third gummy. “Yeah?”

“Are. You. All right?”

No. I’m all wrong. “Yeah,” I lie.

Beck shakes his head, brings the diesel engine to life.

“Wait,” I whisper.

(Gummy four, down.) My memory of that morning was identical to a thousand others, right in the middle of the darkest of days. Mom, slippers, silence. Dad, waffles, denial. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat . . .

“May we help you?”

Walt’s voice brings me back to the now. I turn in my seat, flick his cap up, and kiss him on the cheek. “Walt, my God, you are a thing of beauty.”

“Hey, hey, I’m Walt!”

“Mim, what’s going on?” says Beck.

“Nothing, it’s just—we need to make one last detour.”

Beck’s eyes are searching, as if he’s inside my head, walking around with a flashlight, inspecting a certain dusty corner. Oh, says tiny-Beck-in-my-head, I see. Yes, we really should take care of that.

“Where to?” he whispers, half smiling like he does.

I point back to the highway. “Next exit.”

“Wooooooooster,” says Walt between chugs of Dew.

(Gummies five through nine, down.) “Not Wooster, buddy. Ashland.”





34


Ashland Inn

BY THE TIME we pull into Ashland, the sun is long gone. Beck suggests parking somewhere and sleeping in the back of the truck again, to which Walt says, “Uncle Phil hurts my bones,” to which Beck smiles, to which a thousand metaphysical Mims do a flash dance to the tune of “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang.

Walt offers to pay for a hotel; after some discussion, Beck and I agree to use a small amount of Walt’s father-money and find the cheapest motel available.

“How does thirty-three bucks sound?” asks Beck, returning from the front office of a dingy one-story called Ashland Inn.

“Bedbuggy?” I say, climbing out of the truck. “Sketchy? Murdery?”

Beck grabs his duffel and Walt’s suitcase. “So, perfect, in other words.”

“Very other words.” I sling my JanSport over my shoulder and decide to keep quiet regarding my mom’s theory on motels, and their subsequent place of prominence in my heart. It’s best if Beck just thinks I’m a typical girl in this regard. The regard of me assuming motels are grime pits, full of vermin and sperm bunnies.

Inside, the room is cheap and small, even by cheap, small motel standards: two twin beds, one nightstand, one love seat, one tiny dresser with one TV. The carpets, a grayish maroon, have what I hope to God are coffee stains scattered every few feet. Looking up, I notice the ceiling is stained, too, which seems an interesting achievement.

Beck pokes his head in the bathroom and whistles low. Joining him in the bathroom door, the first thing I notice is the toilet: any lower, and it would be in the floor. The sink looks more like a porcelain salad bowl, barely deep enough to fit your hands under the faucet. But worst of all is the shower. If the outer room is small, the bathroom is comically small. And if the bathroom is comically small, the shower is oompa-loompally small.

“That could be problematic,” says Beck.

“Problematic?” I raise an eyebrow. “For a hobbit, maybe. Impossible for us. That showerhead can’t be more than four feet off the ground.”

He smiles at me, tilts his head, and there it goes—the jellification of my heart, the sinking of my brain into my shoes.

“I didn’t peg you for a Middle-earth gal, Mim.”

“Oh, I’ve got game.”

“So it would seem,” he says, looking back at the shower. “Well. It’s gonna take more than a Ringwraith to keep me outta that shower tonight. I’ll just have to make it work.” He joins Walt by the television, leaving me to imagine Beck Van Buren “making it work.” In a shower. Showering. With the . . . water, and all the soap, and . . .