What I am is pissed that I let Don pull my strings. He’s no doubt sitting on his bunk in there, gloating that he made me so frightened that he owns me, counting my false steps down the slippery slope of doing his bidding.
He doesn’t own me. Mom is fine. Don is Don: when his jaws are opening and closing, either he’s eating or he’s lying. And given that there were no snacks, likelier than not, his whole thing was a fairy tale, a campfire horror story to get me to avenge Connie while he’s trapped in there; or to get me to ditch my life and do a random hit that he gets paid for; or to prove he’s the macho king of brotherhood, upping the ante until I said yes.
“Well, drive safely!” my mom says, as if I had to be reminded not to speed through speed traps.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re welcome.” There’s another pause. “And, Jack, I know it’s hard to see him locked in there, but Donny’s still your loving brother. Remember.”
No thanks, Mom.
9
Cat
So maybe the universe did provide.
Slightly.
In the form of a HELP WANTED sign in the window of the Bluebonnet Motor Court Motel. A robin’s-egg blue, sagging-roofed building in the middle of a long block anchored by the Five Star on one corner and a bright green Jiffy Taco on the other.
Not that I take this sign as a sign. But figuring it for as close to divine signage as I’ll ever get, I make myself walk over there. I have to talk myself through it, like when you’re learning the fox-trot in seventh-grade gym.
Right foot. Left foot.
Face frozen in a pick-me smile even though (when learning to fox-trot) Connor was going to knock over the other boys to get to me first.
But this is now. Texas. Bluebonnet. Go!
A buzzer is triggered when the door to the lobby opens.
I’m just this side of jumping out of my skin, scooping it up, and racing back to the dump. I pretend that I’m about to face the panel of judges at a pageant. (I only did one, but it stays with you.) Pick me.
The lady behind the counter is fiddling with a necklace that says Luna in gold cursive letters, watching Animal Planet in front of an electric fan upwind of me. A good thing, because even if the paper towel scrub removed the stink, the pink liquid soap left me smelling like a gummy bear. Who hires a gummy bear?
The part I’m not expecting is that when she asks, “What happened to you?” my impulse is to tell her.
Which is bad.
Why does every impulse I ever get have to be bad? I’ve gone so far as to write DON’T on my palm just in case I had the sudden impulse to give it up to Connor at spring formal. This was after he plowed through half the dance team and I dumped him.
Luna pours iced tea out of a plastic pitcher into a paper cup and slides it across the counter.
“Was it your boyfriend?”
“No!” I say it so loud, it’s like a puppy that scares itself by sneezing and falls over. Only I tip backward into the lobby’s one chair.
“Oh, honey,” she says. She has a nice Texas twang and a sweet round face. It’s the first second I’ve felt slightly relaxed since it happened. This is also bad. I need to be vigilant, not relaxed.
“The job. Is it still open?”
“Don’t you want to know what it is first?” Then she smiles.
I want to trust her so much, it’s ridiculous. If I had my phone, I’d be typing in memos to self. Stop trusting people would top the list. Just after Hide.
“If it’s legal, I don’t care what it is.”
And the legal part is probably negotiable.
“Maid,” she says. “You work for tips. Still want it?” I’d nod if bending my head didn’t hurt. “We’re maybe a third full.” Which, given the lack of cars in the lot, might be an exaggeration. “But it’s better on weekends, parents visiting over at the college and such. And there’s a room—not much of a room, but it’s got TV.”
“Yes!” There are times when cleaning out toilets in Texas is right up there with a guided tour of heaven.
“I didn’t say you’re hired. You ever done any heavy cleaning?”
“Tons.”
She gives me a look.
I try again. “I really need this. Things didn’t work out with my boyfriend. As you can see. Please.” My voice catches from hearing myself say this out loud. “If I don’t get work, I’ll have to go back.”
“What did he do, break a chair over your head?”
I don’t even blink. “Biker.”
Any idea that I’m still a trying-to-be-honest, parties-yet-adheres-to-the-Ten-Commandments kind of girl is dead and buried in Ohio.
Luna nods with a look of lie-induced understanding. “You got ID?”
“I got out with what I had on.” Props for thinking on my feet if not for moral rectitude. “But I’m sure I could get ID—”
“How old?”
Twenty-one? Everyone who wants to drink says twenty-one. But I don’t want to seem like a high school kid either. A beat-up kid so young that a responsible motel clerk would call up the police so they could come right over.
“Nineteen?”
“What’s your name?”