Tiffany is perched on the counter. She’s tying a rope into a noose. She has a pile of nooses already next to her. She holds one up as I enter. “Souvenir?” she offers.
“No, thank you.” Perhaps I should have tried the diner instead of the motel. “Listen, my car ran out of gas outside town...”
“Uh-huh.” Tiffany tosses the new noose into the pile and selects another rope.
“I would have had enough, but I had trouble finding the entrance ramp to the highway...”
She rolls her eyes and begins to knot another noose. “Uh-huh.”
“All I need is a few gallons of gas. Enough to reach the next town. And directions to the highway. I know you said there’s no gas station here, but I’m hoping there’s someone who can sell me—”
“Gas isn’t easy to come by here.” Tiffany completes the next noose. “If you want something that’s hard to come by, you have to talk to the Missing Man. He finds what you need, if you can’t find it yourself.”
“The Missing Man,” I repeat. The name sounds like a joke. “You know, I used to be just like you. Not the leg warmers. But the multicolored hair and the attitude. Convinced I was bound for something great.”
Tiffany smiles flatly. “I’m not bound for anywhere. And neither are you.” She hops down from the counter and goes behind it to fetch more rope. “And you weren’t like me once. I was like you once. Go talk to the Missing Man.”
“And where do I find him?”
“You don’t,” Tiffany says. “He’ll find you.”
Adopting my best mock-teenager voice, I say, “Whatever,” and walk toward the door. The bells chime discordantly as I shove the door open.
“Wait!” Tiffany calls after me.
Stopping, I look back at her. Something has erased the mocking expression, and she looks young, innocent, and oddly scared. I have the urge to ask what’s wrong, to stay and talk to her...but I’m not here to counsel this echo of my old teenage self. I wait for her to continue.
“Do you think...this isn’t who I should be?”
I don’t know what she means. It’s an odd question to ask a stranger.
She touches her hair, pats the hair-sprayed curls. They bounce back under her palm. “Should I ditch the whole ’80s emo thing?”
“Definitely,” I say, though I think what she really needs to ditch is her personality. But I don’t say it because (a) it would be rude, and (b) I don’t think it’s possible to change a personality on a whim. Every New Year’s Eve, I make dozens of resolutions to change my personality, and at best I last a week before I plunge back into old habits. Back when I was in my artist stage, I’d create (and then fail to finish) more paintings and sketches in the first week of January than any other time of the year.
She sighs. “Pity. It was kind of fun.” A second later, she brightens and says in a faux Southern accent, “I know! I’m a fallen debutante. Lost my virginity!” She jumps off the counter. “All I need is the right clothes...pink. Lots of it.” She scurries into the supply closet.
I want to tell her it isn’t that simple to change who you are. You can’t dress the part and expect it to seep into you from the outside in. Sure, she can lose the leg warmers, but I doubt the eye roll or the dripping disdain for others will be as easy to shed.
Tiffany doesn’t return immediately, and I tell myself it’s stupid to wait for her. She’s nothing to me. I leave the lobby.
The Moonlight Diner is directly across the street, but I’d rather try other options first than face the intimidatingly beautiful waitress. Besides, I am curious to see what the center of town looks like. Leaving the motel, I head down the street. It isn’t far, only a block or two.
I pass a barber shop with an old-fashioned barber’s pole by the front door.
A cozy used bookstore (the kind you rarely see anymore).
A white clapboard post office with a bronze eagle at its apex. Its front windows are boarded up with plywood.
I think the town would be quaint and cute if it weren’t so run-down and if there weren’t so much trash piled up on the sidewalks. It feels like a ghost town where the ghosts have forgotten to leave.
Despite the overwhelming mess, one person is trying to improve the town. In front of the post office, a woman is on her hands and knees planting flowers. Her hair is tied back with a floral scarf and she’s wearing a Donna Reed 1950s housewife dress. She hums to herself as she digs with her trowel.
“Excuse me,” I say to her. “My car ran out of gas outside town. I made a few too many attempts to find the highway entrance and kept getting mixed up inside a dust storm. We don’t have too many dust storms on the L.A. freeways.” I laugh, awkwardly. She digs another hole. “I am hoping that there’s someone in town who could sell me a few gallons. Do you know who I should talk to?”
She doesn’t look up. “You should talk to the Missing Man.”
“Yeah, okay, so do you know where I can find him?”
“You don’t find him—he finds you.”
Clearly I walked right into that one. She picks up one of her flowers to plant. It’s dead. All the flowers are dead. She stuffs its withered stem into the hole she made, and she pats the soil tenderly around it as she hums. “Thanks for your help,” I say, and back away.
Nearby, a man in a filthy business suit wades through the debris in the gutter. Every few feet, he halts and picks up a penny. He ignores the dimes and nickels and quarters. He stuffs his pennies into a Santa Claus–like sack that weights down one shoulder. Seeing me looking at him, he clutches his sack and says, “Mine!”
“Absolutely. Yours. Do you know if there’s a police station around? Or anyone helpful?” I don’t expect him to answer, and he doesn’t. He scuttles faster down the gutter, scooping up pennies as if he expects me to steal them first. I scan the area for anyone without a plethora of mental issues.
Children, as ragged as those on the outskirts of town, are crouched in the alleys between the shops. Perched on top of and around Dumpsters, they watch me, their eyes bright and hard. One little girl in a princess dress sucks on her thumb. She has a dirty teddy bear tucked under her elbow and a knife in her other hand. She squeezes the handle as if it’s as comforting as a teddy bear.
So far, it seems that the motel clerk and the waitress are the sanest ones in town. I retreat away from the center of town, back toward the motel and the diner. I hear footsteps behind me.
The children are trailing after me.
The girl with the bear and the knife is in front. She stares at me with her anime-wide eyes. A boy with glasses is right behind her. He has a trash can lid strapped to his arm as if it were a knight’s shield. He has a cut on his cheek that has puckered into a red crust. I pick up my pace, and I hear the shuffling speed up behind me.
They’re kids, I tell myself. Little kids. And it’s broad daylight.
But my heart beats so fast that it almost hurts. As soon as I’m close enough to the diner, I bolt inside. The bell over the door rings, and I check behind me. The kids don’t follow me inside. I sag against the door and then I wonder why a glass door should make me feel safe. It could be opened. It could be broken. It could be shattered and slice me with its shards.
“Ready for some pie?” It’s Merry, the overfriendly woman from last night. She pats the stool on the counter next to her. She still has that odd haze of light, as if sparks are caught in her hair, but I can only see it if I look out of the corner of my eye.
“I’m ready to leave this place,” I say.
“Oh, you look so scared! Don’t worry, sugarplum. Those kids won’t hurt you. They just want to see if you have what they need.”
Victoria sweeps past with a coffeepot in each hand. “Don’t sugarcoat, Merry. Not all the kids who come through here are sweet cuddly pumpkins.” She pours a cup of coffee in the trucker’s mug. He’s in the same seat as last night and wearing the same clothes. He doesn’t look like he’s moved at all. “Best if you don’t make eye contact.”