Illustration by Andy Paciorek
The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award
HONORABLE MENTION, Summer 2019
BY LARA TUPPER
“Any time of year, you can find it here.” – The Eagles
On a dark desert highway, there’s Lucy, walking. Just off the highway, there’s a motel sign, pulsing red like a lighthouse. Lucy has no plan except to get there. She’ll say, “My phone is dead. My Volvo is stuck three miles behind.” She says the sentences out loud, to practice.
There’s wind from somewhere, light and persistent, though seconds ago it was still, just the shht, shht of Lucy’s Birkenstocks scraping along the shoulder. She lost her elastic hairband, and now she lets the strands blow into her eyes and wishes for Joe, though they’re supposed to be done. Are they done? He’s in Fresno. He speaks over her—crashes into her sentences. Once he gripped her bicep and finger dots appeared the next day, a ring of proof.
The wind dies. Her watch glows in the dark. Who wears a watch anymore? She slips it off, hears it smack against the roadside for someone else to find.
She thinks, There are movies that start this way, and a few pop songs. None of them end well.
In the motel doorway stands a woman smoking, the ember like a firefly. She doesn’t seem surprised to see Lucy. You’re a harmless granola and your car broke down, says her once-over.
“My car broke down,” says Lucy. “I need some gas.” Her voice sounds quite far away from her mouth.
“Already closed up shop,” says the woman. “But let’s see what we can do.”
This woman can save her, Lucy decides. Her nametag says Tiffany; her voice is southern. She wears her hair in a high ponytail, reddish shade. She could be 40 or 25.
The light inside is murky, like being underwater. Tiffany presses a finger against the front desk buzzer, calling whomever is in charge. Lucy watches as she stubs out the cigarette on the bottom of her high-heeled boot, clips off her nametag, slides it into her purse. A little ballet. Do it again.
“1H is empty and unlocked. Lazy Fuck might not bother coming down.”
“Oh,” says Lucy. “Let me—”
“I have to get back to my boy.”
Tiffany glides out again. She unlocks her truck, reverses and plows ahead—more fluid motions, a grouping of three. A guitar solo leaping from her speakers. Lucy sees a flash of a glittering bumper sticker: My Other Car Is a Mercedes. Then it’s just the drone of the muffler, receding.
Lucy waits. There’s nothing left to see. No other vehicles in the lot. She’s thirsty.
Inside, the ceiling lamps are quiet, except for the blue light above the reception desk. Year-round accommodation in spacious rooms, says the tiny font on the motel pen. Lucy picks it up, wishing for a skeleton key.
She feels, for some reason, not scared. She watches three bloated, blinking goldfish. Pink light from a toy shipwreck. On the aquarium glass, a Post-it note in a child’s hand. Feed me.
Sudden TV voices from upstairs. A laugh track.
The Lazy Fuck?
Now her heart is loud. She finds 1H, the unlocked room, a door that feels like cardboard. She locks it from inside and falls on bedcovers, willing exhaustion. She could call Joe. But—the dead phone, back in the car. Does she hear creaking from a bed above? She smells old smoke in the pillows, which means she can light her joint without consequence. She drinks the last bottle from the minibar and lands it, empty, in the silver pail.
I fear my own boredom—what I could do to myself. She doesn’t retrieve her pen to write that down and the thought disappears.
In time, her sleep is complete and holy.
In her dream, Joe reacts differently. Of course you should have the baby. Her parents react differently. Of course you don’t have to go back, sweet pea. Who needs a college degree?
“Tiff!” Lucy hears at dawn. “Tiffany!” The voice is high, raspy, a child’s voice. “They need more water!” Flushing, upstairs.
Lucy falls into near-sleep again. Tiffany. A crystal chandelier. A sky-blue bag from a shop on 5th Avenue. Joe proposing with a sharp, fake ring.
“Hello?” says a voice. Knocking, gently. “You still there?”
Tiffany’s voice. The nametag.
“You want breakfast?”
“I do.” She sits up.
“Mama?” she hears, close to the door. A different child, younger.
“Shut it,” says the older child. “Tiffany’s working.”
“But I want a piece of toast again.”
Toast, thinks Lucy. Toast and then my car. She splashes water, smooths the covers. I will write a screenplay about this someday.
The boys sit beside the toaster, the loaf of Wonder bread, the packets of Smucker’s, the empty coffee pot. They spin to stare at Lucy, unsmiling.
“Tiffany!” calls the older one. His legs swing on the barstool. The little one’s legs stick out straight. Ten and five? They wear matching black Converse sneakers and shorts. They need haircuts.
Tiffany doesn’t come. A scratchy radio blares from outside. My boy, she said the night before. Maybe one isn’t hers?
Lucy asks for two pieces of toast, please.
“I’ll make it,” says older.
“Ma says we should eat one piece before putting in another,” says the younger.
Lucy smells herself then, a strong whiff of sourness. She wants a toothbrush.
“Do you think the manager is around?”
“A manger?” says younger.
“The man who’s in charge here? I need to pay him.”
“What man?”
“Oh, I thought there was a man.” The Lazy Fuck?
Older presents the toast on a napkin. “Tiffany’s in charge. Randy’s gone. Red jelly? Baby Glenn ate all the purple.”
Tiffany appears. “Boys! Pretty boys! Let the lady eat her toast and help me in the courtyard.” She wears yellow gloves. Her nametag is gone.
“Morning,” she says. “Pardon the toast. Someone forgot to do the shopping. I can order out?”
“I’m good. I should probably just pay and get my car. But I need—”
“A ride? Sure, sure. We’ll get you some gas.”
“Yes, I ran out of gas.”
“It happens. I just need to fix this pump in the pool.”
“It’s just you here today? The boys said—are you the manager?”
“I do a bit of everything.” Tiffany swipes at her brow. Her arms are deep tan.
“I mean, do I pay you?”
“For the toast?”
“For the room.”
No one answers. The boys run ahead and Lucy follows. The pool is about the size of her car.
“Get the bucket,” Tiff tells the older. He runs away and they watch him go.
“Pretty boys you have,” says Lucy. Pretty isn’t right. “Handsome.”
“No, they’re pretty. Glenn’s father wasn’t pretty but he had lashes out to here. Tiny ass. I couldn’t fit into his jeans, the prick.”
Lucy laughs to be polite. “Is the pool for—”
“For use?”
Do I smell urine?
“Looks crappy, but yes, it’s for swimming. Dipping. The boys like it. Frogs get in sometimes, little beasts. I’m trying to fix that. Nice summer sweat by the pool and then you dip in. We keep it cold.”
“It’s chlorinated?” Lucy wants more toast. Her lips are sticky with jelly. “I was a lifeguard one summer on a wicked moldy lake,” she says. “Algae.”
Tiffany stops to look at her.
I had to work summers, Lucy means.
“You have kids?” says Tiffany.
“I’m in college.”
Tiffany’s face says, So?
Thirst, Lucy thinks. “I was pregnant once,” she says. “For three months.” Why is she saying this? “I didn’t tell anyone.”
They stare at the leaves in the pool.
“I know how that goes,” says Tiffany. “So much fucking blood. No one tells you that.”
“I lost my scholarship.”
Tiffany waits, hands on hips, sweat beading at her hairline and in the bend of her elbow, a pale slice of skin. “That sucks,” she says at last.
Baby Glenn plunges his hand into the pool.
“Maybe you’re lucky,” says Tiff. “Kids are a trap. Aren’t they, buddy?”
Lucy coughs. “Do you think I could? Some water?”
“Oh sure. You must be parched. Help yourself.”
Inside, Lucy sucks from the faucet. She smears the last red packet on the bread. She listens for noises upstairs but there’s nothing. On the wall there’s a board filled with Post-its. Call the Captain, says one. Beer and Wine Deliveries.
Lucy takes a shower in 1H as Tiffany showers upstairs. She hears Tiff singing, the pipes moaning. Are they washing their hair at the same time? It might be sexy if they were.
The shampoo, Lucy smells, is just Pantene taken from a big bottle and poured into a fancy little one that says Spirit of ‘69. She imagines, for a minute, staying right there. Ordering the deliveries. Helping to raise the boys. Letting her car rot by the side of the road.
Then it passes and she is who she is again.
“I need a smoke,” Tiff says, her hair dripping on the front step.
Lucy waits. “Should I check on your boys?”
“Oh, they’re fine. Livin’ it up by the pool.”
Lucy looks up at the unlit Motel sign, remembers the Lazy Fuck. “Where did the man go?”
“What man?”
“The man you buzzed-last night. I heard something but he never came down. He’s the owner?”
“No.” Tiff squints into the sun.
“Is he coming back? I should probably pay up.”
“Sure. We’ll just need to get you some gas.”
Baby Glenn runs up from behind, padding wet feet. “I fell in!”
“Again? You need a towel?”
“I got the frogs!”
“And you didn’t drown, good for you. Where’s Donnie?”
“He went to find Randy.”
Tiff’s face shifts. She sucks her cigarette.
“Who’s Randy?” says Lucy.
The boy laughs. High peels of giggles he can’t stop.
“Is Randy the owner? I could mail a check if he’s not around to run my card.”
The boy laughs harder, his face scrunched up. He falls to the ground, laughing, his shorts soaked through.
“Randy’s the ghost!” he says. “He could cash your check!”
“Stop that,” says Tiff. “Go get Donnie. We have to find some gas.”
The boy forces out a fart. “Gas!”
Tiff laughs. “Anyway,” she says to Lucy, “if you say you heard something.”
“So what happened to this place?”
“What happened?”
“I mean—”
Tiffany gets up. “We need gasoline. Baby, where are those frogs?”
“In the bucket.” The boy isn’t laughing. “Donnie’s got them. We have to stab them.”
Tiff looks from the boy to Lucy, assessing. “Stab them? Why would you say that?”
The boy looks at his wet sneakers.
“I don’t know what he means,” says Tiff. “Come help me find the gas can.”
Lucy looks at the boy, unsure who’s being enlisted. They both follow the mother up the stairs.
Master’s Chamber, says the red sign with the arrow. The carpet on the stairs is soft. Silver. Inside, the mirrored ceiling reflects the velvet bedspread.
“The honeymoon suite,” says Tiff. “Excuse the mess.”
But it’s nearly perfect. Like it hasn’t been disturbed in 40 years. There’s dust on the mantel above the fireplace. The glass minibar is full, with small bottles of pink champagne in a basket. The sunken Jacuzzi, in the middle of the room, is bright red and decorated with some kind of diamond pattern inside. Until one diamond hops and Lucy looks closer and sees: In an inch of water there are frogs, dozens of them, slapping at one another’s slick bodies, confused.
“Holy shit,” says Lucy.
“I know,” says Tiff. “It’s disturbing. I can’t think of any other place for them right now.”
The boy produces a pocketknife labeled Tool Steel.
“You put that away, Glenn Lewis.” But she doesn’t sound like she means it.
“They’re hard to kill, aren’t they, Ma.”
“No one’s going to kill anything,” says Tiff. She unlocks a mirrored closet door and bends to retrieve the gas can.
“Still full,” she says. “This ought to get you to Fresno.”
The boy peers into the hot tub, trying to count them all.
“I feel that way sometimes,” says Tiff, snorting a little. “Don’t you? Stuck in a fucking hole.”
The boy doesn’t look up as she says fucking.
“Am I a bad mother?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well, thanks,” says Tiff.
Is she being sarcastic? The canister sloshes.
“Time for our new friend to go, Glenn,” she says, and he puts the knife away, scooting to be beside them again.
“You can’t!” says the boy. “You can’t ever leave.”
Lucy forces a laughs. “I have to. I’m so late. I’m the R.A. and I’m missing orientation. I’m supposed to be there for the frosh.”
“But check out isn’t ‘til noon,” he says.
Tiff scoffs. “You don’t have to check out. You never really checked in.”
“Let me give you some money.”
“Yes, that’s fine. We just don’t have to make it official.” They climb down the stairs in silence.
“Where did Donnie go?” says Glenn.
“Relax,” he says, appearing from behind the counter. “I’m right here.”
“You can leave the money with him,” says Tiff. “I’ll put this in the truck.”
“But how much?”
Tiff doesn’t turn. Maybe she hasn’t heard. “How much?” Lucy asks the older boy.
“We’ll take whatever you got,” says Donnie. His eyes are glassy, like he’s been programmed to say it. She looks at him. How old is he?
She leaves fifty dollars on the counter. He slides the bills into his palm and then his pocket.
“When Randy was around, we used to have big dinners here,” he said. “Snails, duck, frogs’ legs. I wanted Tiff to get a chandelier.”
“Oh,” says Lucy. She should be heading for the door. But it’s hard to move.
“Do you really have to go?” says Donnie. “You just got here.”
Maybe Tiff will leave without her, drive ahead to the Volvo, peer in to see the scattered Phish CDs, the unread textbooks, the plain fact of Lucy’s gas gauge, three quarters full.
“I can’t stay,” she says. “I have to let people know where I am.”
“Your family?”
“Sort of. My Joe,” she whispers. “We can’t stand each other, most of the time. But we keep each other distracted.” How sick it sounds, out loud.
“Well,” says Donnie, ignoring this, coming out to shake her hand. “This has been a nice surprise.” He comes up to her waist. She sees that his arms are well defined. That he smells not like a child but a small, sweaty man. She shakes his palm and his grip is hard. In magic marker, on his forearm, he’s written, Alibis.
“It’s the name of my band,” Donnie says, following her gaze. “I’m going to be the drummer.”
“Of course,” says Lucy.
Tiff honks from outside. The door is right there and Lucy feels like running for it.
“You’re welcome in my home anytime,” says Donnie.
His home? The Lazy Fuck. He lets go and she feels the damp imprint on her palm.
I will never have children, she decides. Outside the day is boiling.
____________________________________________________________
Lara Tupper, born in Boothbay, Maine, is author of the novels Off Island, based on the travels of Paul Gauguin (forthcoming from Maine’s Encircle Publications, January 2020), and A Thousand and One Nights (Harcourt/Untreed Reads), an autobiographical fiction about singers at sea. Her short fiction, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, was runner-up for the 2019 Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music In Literature; her work has appeared in The Believer, Nowhere Magazine, epiphany magazine, and others. A graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, Lara taught creative writing at Rutgers University for many years and now presents writing workshops in New England. A jazz singer, her latest album is This Dance. While performing in Hilton lounges overseas (see debut novel) she sang “Hotel California” many times.