My room looked straight out of a bad 70’s p**n . The wallpaper was peeling in the corners, there were nicotine stains on the walls, and the bed was one of those coin-operated models. The only thing missing was the shag carpeting.
I plunked my bag on the lone chair, not willing to trust the patchy ground, and carefully sat on the corner of the bed. I had a bad experience with bedbugs once and that was in a quality hotel. I didn’t want to think of what could be hiding in the scratchy sheets here.
I sighed and took stock. Had my life really come to this? Staying in a gross motel in New Mexico on some crazy ghost hunting expedition? Things always sounded cooler before you actually lived them. We hadn’t even seen any ghosts and already I had the creeps, which explained why I jumped out of my skin a bit when there was a sudden knock at the door.
I got up and peered through the peephole. My heart eased as I saw Dex, though I wasn’t quite sure who else it would have been.
I opened the door. He leaned against the frame, not moving. He looked a bit stoned; his eyes were glazed and looking past me at some blank spot on the bed. A toothpick jutted about lazily in his mouth.
“Um, hey. Good hotel pick, by the way,” I joked. “I was thinking we could put our beds beside each other and race down the hallway…might cost a couple of bucks extra though.”
He grinned. “Are you coming on to me?”
I wasn’t but I felt heat come to my cheeks anyway. I rolled my eyes. “What do you want?”
“Just checking up on you,” he said defensively.
“That’s…considerate. What’s wrong with you?”
The glaze left his eyes for a second before he laughed it away. “OK, suit yourself. Thought you may have wanted some company.”
Was he coming on to me? I narrowed my eyes, studying him. I can’t say the thought didn’t entice me. But aside from his languid gaze, I couldn’t pick up on anything different. It was just Dex. Standing seductively in the doorway of my seedy motel room (OK, so you can see why I would naturally jump to such conclusions).
And suddenly, while this dialogue was going on inside my head, I realized the situation had become awkward. At least for me, anyway. Dex didn’t seem disturbed in the slightest.
Regardless, he said, “Anyway, we’ll be setting off at 8AM tomorrow. The town of Red Fox is about a two or three hour drive from here. Just be ready and primped and all that before then.”
“Do you think I’m gonna get much sleep…or primping…done in this place?”
He laughed. “Princess, I don’t care. See you in the morning.”
And with that he spun around and walked to his room next door. I heard his door close. I slowly shut mine and felt incredibly alone. And miffed. Princess? Who did he think he was?
I turned and nervously eyed the bed. I decided to sleep on top of the sheets that night.
CHAPTER FOUR
The day was already hot and arid, even at 8AM. The hotel manager said they were having an unseasonably warm fall and we would probably approach the upper nineties later that afternoon. As I stood outside by the Jeep and waited for Dex to finish up paying for the rooms, I welcomed the impending heat. I think it was the Pacific Northwestern in me; most of the year we were enveloped in depressing dampness so I soaked up every warm opportunity I had.
The sun sat loftily above the mountains, its sharp light clearing the cobwebs from my foggy head. I was running on very little sleep. When I wasn’t freezing cold from the room’s air con which just wouldn’t switch off, I was dreaming about bedbugs and/or some coyote zombies. After last night’s “incident” (and I’m sure there will be many of them) I convinced myself coyote zombies were an actual thing.
It wasn’t long before Dex emerged from the office and made his way out towards me. He had black shades on, a plain black tee shirt which fit him perfectly and his black cargo shorts. Against the dry backdrop he bared a resemblance to an emo Man in Black.
“The desert seems to suit you, Mr. Cash,” I said, smiling. He didn’t smile back. He went straight for the back of the Jeep and started riffling through his bag in the trunk.
I peeked over as he frantically started dumping stuff everywhere, searching for something.
“Is everything OK? Did your credit card not go through?”
There was no way I could afford to pay for us.
He quickly shook his head. “That’s all fine.”
He sighed loudly and stood up, his hands pressed against the sides of his head. The next words out of my mouth were going to be ‘what is it?’ but there was something hostile about his current crisis. I decided not to say anything and see what would happen.
I bit my lip, looked away at the mountains and kicked up the dust on the ground with my vintage cowboy boots.
He exhaled again, almost like he was begging me to say something, then quickly turned and ran back into the hotel. He went past the lobby, I guess to his room.
It was obvious that he had forgotten something. I looked in the back where his bag had expunged its bowels. Things were scattered everywhere, but as far as I could make out, all of the camera equipment was present. And he had packed several pairs of underwear (boxer briefs, in case you were wondering. I know I had been).
If we had our gear and were able to pay for the hotel, I wasn’t sure what he was freaking out about. So, I just leaned back against the Jeep, the hot exterior already singing my skin, and waited. I was determined not to freak my own self out just because Dex had lost something important. Lately, when I found myself getting panicky over other people I started reminding myself that it wasn’t my problem.
“We’ve got a problem,” Dex said as he came out of the building, his jaw stern, eyes hidden by the shades.
My heart did a few slow thumpa-thumps. Spoke too soon.
“What?” I asked slowly.
He pointed to the door. “Nevermind. Let’s just get going. Can’t do anything about it right now.”
I exhaled and shook my head at him as I got in the car. He didn’t notice.
I waited for him to say something but five minutes into the drive, he seemed more interested in popping his CDs into the player. As he fumbled for a Deftones album, I caught a shimmer from his left hand. I looked closer. He had a friggin’ ring on his ring finger. It looked exactly like a wedding band.
My heart went thumpa-thump again. Only the feeling was much more devastating than anything else that caused my chest distress in the last 24 hours.