the blueshift journal

            It was always as Sadie was handing over the room keys that the guests would make their advances. Often flirtations came in the form of wink, a touch to the hand, some grinning wisecrack. In her early years of motel ownership, Sadie didn’t mind the impertinence. These were lonely men, she reasoned. Many of them sat behind wheels all day, traveling alone through balding landscapes, longing for female company. Sadie found the men to be good lovers, even if they were clumsy about subjects that didn’t involve diesel or engines. Randall was the exception. With the others she had romance, with him she had love.

            Randall drove for an academic supplies company. He had hair the color of chickpeas. The first time she met him, he pushed the blonde back confidently and rested his forearm on the sign-in book. A beauty, he called her. She blushed and looked down at her sign-in sheet, surprised to see freckles extending from the man’s elbow to his wrist. The freckles came from the road-hours of leaving his arm on the window rest, skin braved to sun—or so Randall explained to Sadie that night, in bed, as she tenderly kissed each browning star.

            In the beginning his visits were frequent, two or three times a month. With each stay they’d set goals like, have sex in every room. Like, have sex in the bed of his truck. Like, afterwards tour his delivery—stacks of white boards, pencils, cardboard boxes, classroom globes. With the globe, Sadie remembered Randall balancing it on his palm, pointing to where their travels would bring them.

            “We’ll honeymoon here,” he said, pointing to a dot in California with one hand, tucking her hair behind her ear with other.

            “I’d like that,” she said, running her finger along the coastline.

            Sadie, now, was looking across the lobby at a different artifact from Randall. It was a painting of a cabin on the prairie. In the foreground, a wife pinned laundry on a line while her husband axed wood. In the distance, buffalo backs stood out amidst endless grain. The picture was intended as a classroom decoration, but Randy had taken it from the truck and gifted it to her instead.

            On nights like these, Sadie liked imagine herself as the woman in the bonnet, Randy as the man splitting wood. More often, though, she would replay the image of Randy walking into the lobby, carrying the present proudly. The kiss they shared with the frame pressed between them.

            A peal of laughter from outside distracted Sadie from the painting. The high school kids were in the pool area, no doubt very drunk by now. From the moment the boy called about renting ten rooms for his after-prom, Sadie knew what to expect. But, truthfully, she needed the money. Business wasn’t as steady as it used to be. Ever since the government built the superhighway through Rochester, it was as if they’d turned off a faucet. The semi-trucks, the family station wagons, the punk rock group vans—all of them, drained.

            But tonight Sadie was thinking on the bright side. With the high schoolers occupying every room, finances were looking up. Besides, it wasn’t so bad that fewer and fewer people were turning up at her motel. Fewer roaming hearts to break.

 

            Moonlight on water always reminded Annabel of a ballroom dress. She had her feet in the pool and was kicking the water lazily. At the opposite end, a group was by the umbrella table, taking shots and stripping loose clothing. Voices and music from a speaker carried. They were being a bit too loud, Annabel thought. The outdoors, under night skies like this one, belonged to quiet.

            A tap on Annabel’s shoulder startled her. Behind her stood Diane, who had stripped down to her bra, underwear, and a diamond pendant.

            “Anna, I think maybe you should bring Eric back.” Diane pointed across the pool at Eric, who was leaning against an umbrella pole, dozing in place. Annabel nodded. She’d predicted that the night might end like this: Eric had been drunk since he put on the tuxedo. It was because he was still a boy. He called it “booze” like a boy. Nursed bottles all night like a boy.

            Annabel brought her feet out of the water, followed Diane across the pool and hooked her arm around Eric’s waist. He made no protest. As they left the pool and headed to their room, Eric kept slurring how beautiful she was. As she took out her key, he breathed hot against her neck, planting wet dog kisses behind her ear.

            She unlocked the door and guided him across the room. After he bumped against the nightstand, she helped him out of his suit jacket and tie. When he stumbled into bed, she lifted his legs on to the mattress and fixed the pillow behind his head. So, this is what it means to be adult, she thought.

            Outside, Annabel heard the splash of voices. She left Eric’s side and looked out the window at the pool. Her friends had quieted by now. Watching below, she felt like she was standing on the edge of a forest. The long skinny shadows. The rustles of mothlight. The naked boy arms like birch trees.

            Eric stirred and tried to sit up. Annabel left the window and gently eased him back. “Shhh,” she said, resting his head back on the pillow. He reached for the paintbrush tips of her dark brown hair, now hardened by chlorine and hairspray. She brought his hand back down. He persisted, reaching for her strap and pulling it down her shoulder.

            “Stop it, Eric, not tonight,” she said, fixing the strap. In truth, the “not tonight” meant not ever; for the past few weeks, Annabel had been waiting for the right moment to end things. She had dated Eric since freshman year, but she knew with certainty this was not the boy for her. He was, after all, no Moises.

            Annabel liked to describe Moises this way: he was five years older, worked at a coffeehouse, and grew his own bamboo. He introduced her to books by Pablo Neruda, and to the alleys and bedrooms where they could smoke cigarettes and debate translations of his work. Next time they were on his mattress, Annabel thought, she’d tell him about her hair like paintbrushes. The boys looking like birch. Moises would appreciate these.

            Annabel took off her heels and climbed next to Eric in bed, careful to lie above the sheets. She fell comfortable quickly, and soon had fallen asleep.

            This time, when Eric stirred, Annabel was not awake to pull him back. This time, when Eric stirred, he clamored out of bed, opening the door and stumbling into the hallway.

 

            The boy came in wobbly. With his hand groping the wall, he inched his way toward Sadie’s desk.

            Sadie remembered him from earlier that night. All the high school kids had flurried into the lobby together, dressed in suits and gowns, carrying grocery bags and talking excitedly. One boy, this boy, came to retrieve the keys.

            As he approached, he straightened his jacket and pushed back his hair.

            “Waters, Eric. We spoke on the phone. I have ten rooms for tonight,” he said. There was laughter from behind. The boy watched as Sadie counted ten keys. She pushed them to him in a pile. He did a count of his own.

            “Here we go, boys,” he said, scooping the metal and turning away without thanks or a look.

            Now back in the lobby, the boy was far from groomed—white shirt untucked, droopy. The boy’s hand kept searching the wall until it knocked into the painting. He stumbled forward a little at this, and the painting crashed to the floor. Sadie hurried over while the boy steadied himself against the wall. She picked up the painting and ran her hand over the wood, checking for splinters.

            “Sorry,” the boy said, watching. Sadie made no response. The boy leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “It’s a nice painting.”

            “My boyfriend got it for me,” Sadie said.

            “Ohh.” The boy blinked some more. “Where’s he?”

            “Not here.”

            “Sure he still loves you?”

            Sadie looked up. “Of course he does.”

            He turned his head side-to-side. “People never love you—“ He slumped to the floor, back against the wall. “People never love you forever, even when they say they will.”

            Sadie looked down at the boy. “That’s not true,” she said quietly.

            “They stop and they never start up again.” He pushed one leg out. “Could care less about what happens to you, I’ll tell you that.”

            Sadie looked down at the boy. He had it wrong. He didn’t know anything about Randall, or the years it had been. He probably looked at her, the roots she’d forgotten to dye, and saw a fifty year-old woman. He didn’t see the past she’d had, the future in store, the love that would come back for her. He was just a rich drunk boy, who now looked like he was falling asleep again.

            He didn’t know what he was talking about, she thought again, touching her fingertips to her lips and then pressing the kiss against the face of the man axing wood in the painting. She hung the painting back on the wall and side-stepped the body. Rich drunk boy, she thought. She was supposed to stay, here, in the lobby, in case the guests needed her for any reason. But tonight had been a long night, and all she wanted was to retire early. Without a glance to the boy against the wall, she collected her things, turned off the lights, and walked across the street to her home.

 

            Annabel dreamt that she was back at prom. Except this time Moises, wearing suspenders over his button-down shirt, was her date. She guided him to the middle of the gym floor.  They slow-danced to a Frank Sinatra song. She had her hand resting on his neck and was thinking about the authenticity of their love, when a large moth landed on her ring finger. She watched the perched moth open and close, wings like a lung. Annabel was about to share this with Moises, the lung metaphor, when the moth was joined by a second. Moises, meanwhile, reached for her free hand and raised it in the air—as Annabel spun, many more moths were released from inside the folds of her skirt. Like a plague of locusts, they swarmed the lanterns on the ceiling, the stage with the microphone, the bowls of fruit punch and popcorn. But no one noticed. Least of all Moises, who kept asking to dance with her, smiling as more and more moths haloed around his head.

            When she woke, she felt instinctively for a body next to her. When all her hand found was an endless wrinkled sheet, she turned and saw Eric’s side empty. Frantic, she scooped up her shoes and ran out the room. Everything was deserted. She searched the parking lot first, calling his name. When she found no signs of Eric there, she hurried around the side of the building.

            The pool was wreckage. On the cement were empty bottles, clothing, glints of broken glass. In the water floated more of the same debris, with the exception of a large object, a parachute of sorts, composed of black slacks, a dress shirt—

            Annabel’s hands opened and her red heels dropped.

           

            Sadie stared from the window. She’d come back early that morning and, making coffee by the window, she’d seen the figure in the pool. She recognized him immediately. She also recognized that this meant an end.

            Her hands trembled as she tried to pour sugar into her mug. The packet fell to the floor.

            There were going to be all sorts of court hearings to attend. Accusations of negligence. Suing her for the unsafe pool, renting to an under-eighteen year-old, God knows what else.

            Sadie watched the girl wade into the pool and tuck her hands under the boy’s armpit, tugging him gently across the surface.

 

            As she pulled the body across the water, Annabel could think only of lines for Moises. Bright-colored bras and panties, the bellies of tropical fish. White and red roses, emptied tea lights. The body was so heavy, heavy of old Spanish coins, heavy treasure sunk to the bottom of the ocean

 

            Sadie knew that if they closed the motel, Randall would never be able to find her. It had been two years since his last visit, but he had promised. He had promised that day in September, before the superhighway, before everyone found homes elsewhere, when they were both standing in the motel parking lot. He was in the driver’s seat with his freckled arm on the window rest, and she had her hands stacked on his, and he promised to bring her to the ocean.

            Sadie watched the girl hoist the boy over the pool edge, dragging his soggy body onto the pavement. The girl bent over his body.

 

            It was unreal, Eric lying in her arms, this experience in a reality that surpassed anything she’d known, a reality that would meant nothing to the real Moises, the man she had met at a coffee shop on vacation, who had sex with her in the bathroom but had not contacted her since, a reality that didn’t include metaphors, an end to all these metaphors

 

            Sadie walked back to her desk. The motel just had to make it until Randall’s arrival. She’d put the motel on the market that very minute, climb into the passenger seat, and together they’d drive to that speck on the globe.

            The girl was brushing the boy’s hair out of his face. Sadie reached for the phone. The girl kissed his forehead. Sadie dialed two digits, but she stopped before the third.

            Randall could still make it in time, she thought.

            Maybe if she stayed like this. If she kept her finger there, hovering over the last number. If she waited until the last possible moment, until the weeping girl left the drowned boy’s side.