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Overview

Lilac Wood

Your Money Or Your Life

Zester

The Night-light

Ain't Nobody's Business

The Emperor's Niece

The Binder Tree

Summer Of Love

Passages

The Night-light

By night, U. S. 84 is flat and straight and boring, a double ribbon of asphalt across the arid plains and scattered farms of west Texas. The tedium is lessened only slightly by the dim glow of the town of Muleshoe, and rarely does a traveler lack the energy or gasoline to make it to Clovis or Lubbock for the night. In the late 1980s, one of the few sad choices for lodging Muleshoe offered the weary wayfarer was the Westerner Motel.

The Westerner’s 20-foot red neon cowboy hat made the fairly modest and none-too-accurate claims of “Clean Rooms” and “Free TV and Phones,” “Fine Dining,” and “Live Entertainment.” “Fine Dining” reached its zenith in the chicken-fried steak and the packaged, frozen, deep-fried shrimp. “Live Entertainment” for the last two weeks of May had consisted of Ronnie Shank, his Gibson hollow-body electric guitar, and his drumulator, playing the best in country music old and new to both the overnight guests and the smattering of local patrons who gathered nightly to talk or to be talked about.

Room 132 at the Westerner possessed even fewer of the otherwise spare amenities the motel had to offer, since the owner generally assigned it to the out-of-town entertainers playing in the lounge, who got it for free. It featured a pair of sway-backed beds covered with thin, neutral-colored spreads, a low chest of drawers with a scratched blonde veneer and a wobbly mirror, a clothes-rack with two-piece hangers, and a bathroom with cracked tile, dripping faucet, and a permanent musty smell. A stained and stale carpet was underfoot everywhere but in the bathroom, and the only two windows overlooked either the parking area or a weedy empty lot behind the motel. The smell of cigarette smoke hung heavy in the still air, and the dresser drawers hung skewed and loose. The room’s only concession to art, a molded plastic relief depicting gilt-and-silver conquistadors on some ancient beach, was mounted firmly to the wall with galvanized screws. The only attenuation of the bleak surroundings and the thick, curtained dark came from Ronnie Shank’s night-light in the wall socket in the bathroom.

Ronny Shank, a tall, meaty, curly-headed man, recently had been given a cane on his 30th birthday as a joke. An athlete in high school, he liked his beer and his meat and potatoes, and as his hairline ascended, his belt line descended, forcing both his belly and his forehead into a prominence neither really deserved. He spent his days listening to and working out current country songs, watching TV, or tinkering on his late model Chevy van. Night found him playing and singing in the smoky blue light of the Waterhole, the Westerner’s small lounge, sharing a joke and a drink with the regulars. He’d given up on junior college when he found he could make a living working and playing at the same time, using his innate talent and gift of gab to make friends and fans easily. He always said he liked women too much to want to marry one. They liked him well enough too, attracted to his good looks, sensual voice, and easy-going sense of humor. He generally found feminine companionship two or three nights a week, and while no one would call him indiscriminate, he found himself growing more flexible in his desires as the years rolled past.

The second Saturday of a two-week job often found Ronny intentionally alone, since he usually had a long Sunday’s drive ahead of him to make the next motel lounge of his self-proclaimed “Oblivion or Bust” tour. For the next two weeks, though, he played in nearby Roswell, so the sound of feminine laughter accompanied the jiggling of his key in the lock. The door finally swung open and his companion preceded him into the dark room, a young lady in blue jeans, a striped top, and tennis shoes, her curly chestnut hair complementing her frank brown eyes and wide, honest smile. Though she’d turned 21 a year and a half ago, the Waterhole’s bartender had carded her when she ordered her Tequila Driver.

She had come in with a friend and they’d made a big splash in the Waterhole. Ralph O’Malley, an older man who hadn’t missed a night in a bar since his Buick Electra was struck broadside by a train, bought them each a drink. Revuelto Martinez, the daytime dishwasher at the Westerner, made a bunch of barely audible, crude boasts about his (rarely tested) sexual prowess from the safety of his barstool. And Tony Frank and Bob Hasgrove, a team of truckers hauling plastic pipe from L. A. to Atlanta, had amused them all with jokes, camaraderie, and playful dancing. By the time Ronnie took a break and went to their active table, he found considerable confusion as to who was Jennifer and who was Mary Ann, a situation the young ladies not only didn’t clear up, but gleefully confused even further by throwing out the names Roxanne and Judy, and then Sally and Nancy. Perplexity registered on Ronnie’s face even now as he set his guitar case along the wall and switched on the lamp on the night stand. He had a long-standing policy of knowing a lady’s name before spending the night with her, but in spite of their mutual attraction, he still hadn’t been able to get Jenniferroxannesallynancyjudymaryann to narrow it down.

But when a young lady threw him the occasional curve, he adjusted his swing. In fact, he found curves like hers quite appealing. He switched off the overhead light and offered her a beer from the cooler he kept stocked.

She looked around the shabby room. “So this is home.”

“Just until tomorrow morning,” he replied, handing her a dripping bottle. “Have a seat.”

Next to the bed stood a feeble-looking armchair of torn vinyl and lop-sided joints. She took her chances with the bed.

“Anything on?” she asked, sipping her beer.

He flipped on the TV, which came to life in a burst of color and static pops. They found a rerun of the six o’clock news, Gomer Pyle, Kojak, Home Shopping, and some nature show about elephants. They resigned themselves to a channel of weather information set to music by the local country station.

“So, where are you from?” she asked as he sat on the bed beside her.

“Albuquerque.” He paused. “So, what’s your name?”

“Ariel,” she said whimsically, and smiled at his skeptical look.

“No, come on. I really want to know.”

“I can be anyone I want to be, can’t I? I’d get bored being the same person all the time. Why? Who do you want me to be?”

Interesting question. Originally he had just wanted her to be Saturday Night. But now he found himself quite taken with her breezy style and good looks, even though her youth made him wary. But then, after all, he thought with a mental shrug, tomorrow he started in Roswell, and who knew when or if he’d ever return? After Roswell came Oklahoma, and then Tennessee.

“You’re probably too young to remember Gypsy Rose Lee,” he answered.

She sprang from the bed and faced him.

“Blew that,” he thought.

With an almost wicked smile, she set her hips gyrating and began unbuttoning the striped top. This was too good to be true, he thought. He wanted to sit back and see where she’d go with this, but a determination suffused her face that got him flustered. A suggestion like that used to get his face slapped. But you couldn’t tell with this younger generation. She’d undone most of the buttons on her blouse now and seemed about ready to throw it open and take it off.

Hardly believing it himself, he chickened out. “Oh, come on. I was just kidding,” he said. “Come here, sit down.”

Her little laugh stung a bit as she rebuttoned the blouse and sat down next to him. “You didn’t like it?” she asked with an ornery fake pout.

“Just as soon do it myself,” he replied with mock sullenness.

“Well, go ahead then. Get up and shake your booty.”

“I mean, I’d rather take your clothes off myself.”

She thought about that. “Well, it seems like you might have some trouble fitting into them in the first place, but if doing a strip-tease out of my clothes is what turns you on, knock yourself out,” she said with wide-eyed innocence, and then added, “Though I must admit, most men are too uptight to even suggest something like that.”

He couldn’t figure out just when he’d lost control over the proceedings. “Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” he asked her. He bought some time by getting up and flipping off the TV. “You ticklish?” he asked as he sat back down, taking a different tack. She gave him another inscrutable smile, so he proceeded to find out for himself. He squeezed just above her knee with no result, and then tried her ribs, and got only a defiant smile. “I know.” He scootched down on the bed and untied one of her tennis shoes, and she jerked her foot away. “Aha!” he shouted triumphantly, and lunged for her leg and pulled off the shoe and sock. She laughed and rolled around on the bed trying to get her leg away, but he still managed to run a thumbnail up the bare sole of her foot, eliciting a reflexive knee jerk that caught Ronnie squarely on the chin, his teeth snapping to and his eyes filling briefly with stars that gave way to tears.

“Oh, I’m really sorry,” she said sincerely, sitting up. “Are you okay?”

He blinked away the tears and rubbed his chin. “How long have you been doing this full-contact karate?”

“Ever since people started tickling my feet. Serves you right.” She watched him rub his chin and relented. “Oh, come here, you big baby. Let me kiss it.”

He readily acquiesced. Her lips felt warm and soft on the stubble of his beard and his pain rapidly disappeared. She worked her way up to his lips and they tenderly kissed. Soon, after he unbuttoned her shirt, they lay side by side on the bed. He reached up and switched off the bedside lamp.

Three a. m. found the room quiet and peaceful and, but for the glow of the night-light, quite dark.

“This doesn’t seem like the kind of motel that would furnish night-lights,” she said drowsily.

“You kidding? The Westerner?” he murmured, nibbling on her ear. “Naw, the night-light’s mine.”

“Really?” She pulled away and tried to look at his face critically in the obscurity. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he interrupted. “For your information, I got a lot more class than this motel.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She took his hand in hers and kissed it with a contented purr. “But I suppose all the girls tell you that.”

“All what girls?” he asked, bluffing.

“All the girls you’ve taken advantage of in this dim light.”

“Did I take advantage of you?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You mean the night-light helps me put the moves on somebody,” he said, braving it. “Naw, it’s just to help me keep from stubbing my toes in the dark. I spend so much time on the road, after a while I forget which motel room I’m in.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You don’t believe me? Well, you’ll see. Sooner or later, you’ll have to get up and then you’ll find out how handy it is.” He loved the feel of her fingers in his hair.

“Now that you mention it, I do need to get up,” she said, pulling away.

“Huh-uh.” He pulled her back down.

“What do you mean, ‘huh-uh’?”

“I mean, you don’t go anywhere until you tell me your real name.”

She laughed. “Oh, that. If you’ve been straight with me, you’ll figure it out, I promise. Come on, let me up.”

“Tell me.”

“Guess.”

“Guess?”

“I’ll tell you if you get it right. But you’ll be sorry if you don’t let me up soon.”

He reluctantly let go of her and started thinking of girls’ names as she got up and grabbed her purse, then went into the bathroom and closed the door. The dark thickened.

What was going on here? Why did Ronny Shank, proud relic of dozens of such conquests, have this mushy, gushy feeling inside? Maybe the flu? Or too much activity with a belly full of beer? No, he felt this in his chest, or in his head, or somewhere in between. It scared him. He didn't want to be alone with it. What was taking her so long, anyway? And what the hell was her name?

Finally the dim light pervaded the room again.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” he guessed.

She snickered. “Amazing. The first try.” Her young, athletic body felt cool as she slid back into bed with him. Her hair smelled like roses.

“I’m serious,” he said. “How can I find you again if I don’t know your name?”

“You only guessed once. You want to see me again?” she added.

“Jane. And yes.” His hand felt clumsy among the goosebumps.

“No. And okay.” She snuggled against him.

“How about your phone number?”

“That’d be a lot harder to guess, but give it a shot.”

“I mean, tell me your phone number, Diane.”

“No. And no.” Her slim fingers stroked the stubble on his chin.

“Then how can I find you, Bertha?”

She pinched his arm. “Like I said, you’ll figure it out. Unless you call me Bertha again.”

“But Florence…” He began kissing her neck.

“Nope.” She evidently enjoyed this.

“Come on, Trisha, just once more.”

“No,” she said, but only to his guess.

Ten a. m. found Ronnie Shank alone, distracted, confused, and in love. Mary? Cindy? Susan? He packed in a hurry and left, forgetting the night-light in the bathroom.

*                                  *                                  *

Past noon on Sunday the maids got to room 132. They seemed like an odd pair, but they got long fine and worked well together. Colleen MacPherson cleaned the bathroom while Maria Teresa Rebeca Linda Diaz changed the beds.

Colleen, a middle-aged woman born and raised in Scotland, had salt-and-pepper hair and pale blue eyes. She’d married an American pilot whose succession of bad luck and crummy jobs had landed them in Muleshoe. While the town itself didn’t much suit her fancy, she liked the wide open spaces, the endless blue sky, and the dry desert air. A large woman with pale, slender legs beneath her blue cotton wrap-around dress, she possessed the British matron’s bosom, a singular phenomenon that spread in soft billows under her too-tight white blouse. She had told Ronny, whom she gotten to know in the four times he’d played the Waterhole, that she took the job so she and her husband could go to Las Vegas. “And besides,” she added with her Scottish burr, “it’s a grreat way to lose weight.” As the senior member of the partnership she had chosen to do the bathrooms because “it’s alrready a crrappy place, and there’s no sense doin’ a crrappy job on it too.” She trusted herself implicitly.

Maria, a Muleshoe native in her early 20s, had recently married and started as a maid at the Westerner, so far the best job of her life. Her family had lived in the area since the Republic of Texas days, but that didn’t seem to count for much anymore. Short and round, she had big deep-brown eyes and full lips that usually hid a beautiful smile’s worth of white teeth. Shy and not overly bright, she willingly let Colleen make the decisions and do most of the talking.

“Seems Rronny had a wee bit o’ fun last night,” Colleen commented from the bathroom, surveying the mess.

“Yeah,” Maria concurred, stripping the bed.

“He’s a nice buoy,” Colleen went on. “But he’s got to settle down someday, find a lass.”

“He found one last night,” Maria countered.

“What a mess!” Colleen lamented, gathering up towels and washcloths. “And look herre, he’s left the night-light!” It was still on, so she turned it off. Aloud, but to herself, she said, “Now that’s strrange. He niverr forgets things. And what to do?” She bent over the toilet, scrubbing hard. “He’ll be back beforre too long, most likely. If I gi’ ’t to lost-and-found they’ll misplace it for surre.” She wiped the mirror. “I suppose it’s best just to leave it herre. He’ll likely niver miss it anyway.”

It ran against her nature, though, to leave it alone. She put her hand on it, but then changed her mind. Over the years she’d formed a low opinion of lodgers, and she doubted the night-light would survive too many other check-outs. But just to satisfy her own curiosity and confirm her low opinion, she left it, making a mental note to check on it next time.

*                                  *                                  *

Room 132 stood empty the rest of Sunday and all day Monday. After dinner on Tuesday, the Prislows checked in. Bob Prislow looked neat and slim and correct, from the immaculate part in his hair to the sharp crease in his pants to the dazzling shine on his shoes. He got the shoes compliments of Kinney, his employer, one of the little perks that went along with his new position as manager of the Muleshoe branch. Originally from Galveston, he’d steadily worked his way up, though sometimes Muleshoe seemed, at best, just plain over. When he first got the offer, he wondered just how many mules would come in for shoes in this tiny berg, but it represented another step up the corporate ladder. He enjoyed selling shoes, and was good at it, having both the soul and the tongue for the job.

Into the room with him came his wife, Sue, Lisa, their six-year-old, Todd at two, and Sparky, a noisy, blue-and-white parakeet whose only talent consisted of throwing the seeds he didn’t like out of the cage. They all anxiously awaited the closing on their new house in Muleshoe, delayed by their Realtor’s having suffered a painful bout of the mumps late in life. The Westerner fit their budget if not their expectations.

Bob spent Wednesday and Thursday at the store, making little rearrangements in the back room, getting to know the employees, and in general putting his mark on the business. Sue spent the days by the pool with Lisa and Todd, lying in the sun glistening with coconut oil, thinking of all the things she would have to do when they closed on the house. Lisa was old enough to feel a bit maternal about Todd, but still young enough to cherish some deep-seated resentments about his unanticipated existence. She therefore spent a lot of time trying to carry his chubby, passive body around and giving him orders neither of them understood, and then breaking down in heart-rending frustration when it didn’t go as planned. Sue patiently appreciated the small amount of help, or at least diversion, and patiently understood when things broke down. In the rare peaceful moments, she contemplated her stretch-marks and thought about a vasectomy as a Christmas present for Bob.

Friday, at last, Bob signed the papers for the house and they all went to see it. Lisa, who hadn’t seen it before, and in fact had never lived anywhere but their former house in Galveston, found it too big, too empty, and too lonely. Until now, she hadn’t fully comprehended what it meant to move, and now that it was becoming clearer, she felt less than enthusiastic about it. Todd placidly toddled about, leaving drool and scuff marks in his wake and trying to stick the ends of his shoelaces in the electrical outlets. Bob saw the house as temporary and expendable. Sue saw a gigantic but interesting project involving curtains, paint, wallpaper, rugs and furnishings, plus a little landscaping, and even minor construction.

That night they went to Long John Silver’s for dinner to celebrate, Sue trying her best to allay Lisa’s fears, Bob content to dream quietly of the future. In light of the fact that tomorrow would be a big day, they turned in early, covering Sparky’s cage with a towel and everybody kissing everybody else good-night. Sue made a last trip to the bathroom and turned on the night-light, the closest thing to a luxury she had yet spotted in room 132.

About midnight Lisa began tossing in bed, almost pushing Todd onto the floor. Abruptly she yelped and sat up. She rubbed her eyes and looked around her, and, frightened, went to the other bed and pulled on Sue’s nightgown.

“Hmm? What is it, honey?” Sue asked, fighting to open her eyes.

“I think there’s a bear in here.”

“There aren’t any bears around here, baby,” Sue whispered, rolling onto her side.

There was a pause. “Todd keeps kicking me.”

“Just stay on your side of the bed” came the sleepy reply.

“Are there any ghosts in that house?”

“No, honey. Just go back to sleep.”

“I think I saw one there.” When Sue didn’t reply, Lisa added, “It looked like Uncle Pat,” Uncle Pat being a relative known for his pallor and somnambulance.

“Uncle Pat’s in Galveston, dear,” her mom said wearily.

“I wish we were too.”

“I know, baby. I’m a little homesick too. But now we have to go to sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy.” No response. “Could you tell me a story?”

Bob rolled heavily in his sleep.

“Oh, honey…”

“Just a short one, Mommy. I know I’ll go to sleep.”

“Oh, all right. Come here to bed with us,” she said, backing up until her hip bumped against Bob. “But just until you go to sleep.”

“Why is that light on?”

“So we can see our way.”

“I thought we were supposed to be asleep.”

“We are.”

“Asleep?”

“Supposed to be. What kind of story do you want?”

“Will our house have one?”

“A story?” Sue asked with her eyes closed.

“A night-light,” Lisa giggled.

“We’ll see. What about the story?”

“Make it about a princess. And a castle. But no bears.”

“Okay,” Sue began resignedly. “Once upon a time there was a bear—”

“No bears!” Lisa giggled again.

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess whose name was Sleeping Beauty.”

“I’ve heard this one.”

“Not this part. This starts after she wakes up when Prince Charming kisses her.”

“Where do they live?”

“In his castle, of course. It’s a great big, brand new castle with a shiny moat and lots of spires and a drawbridge.”

“I can draw a bridge.”

“I know you can, honey, but for now just listen. Prince Charming was so grateful to the Seven Dwarves for saving Sleeping Beauty that he had seven little rooms built into the castle so they could live there too.”

“Wasn’t it crowded?”

“Oh, no, the Prince owned a great big castle. Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming slept in a wonderful master bedroom with new curtains and wall-to-wall carpet overlooking the moat. But there was just one problem.”

“What?”

“Ever since Prince Charming kissed Sleeping Beauty to wake her up, she couldn’t sleep at all.”

“Maybe it was the new house.”

“No, it was the kiss, believe me. So they had to leave a night-light on all the time, so she could still see what she was doing while Prince Charming slept.”

“What did she do?”

“She mostly just tried to solve all the problems the Seven Dwarves brought her, because they didn’t always get along. Grumpy and Doc especially had terrible arguments, and she would have to soothe them when their feelings got hurt. But she became very, very tired as time went by because she could never go to sleep. Finally she got so tired that she went to Prince Charming one day—actually, she woke him up in the middle of the night one night—and asked if he could help her. But he had no idea what to do and just rolled back over and went to sleep.”

“What did she do?” Lisa asked again, her own voice getting weaker.

“Well, for a while all she could only get cranky and lose her looks, so pretty soon people started calling her Waking Ugly. Then one day Prince Charming was at work—”

“What did he do?”

“Oh. Um, he, well… Well, it’s like this. He used to go to the King’s castle every day to check the royal shoes. He was just a prince, remember, and not even first in line for the throne, so he had to work very hard so his father the King would notice him and all his hard work. Anyway, one day while he was at the King’s castle, he told the magician, whose name was Clyde—”

“Clyde?” Lisa asked doubtfully.

“Yep. Clyde. Anyway, he told Clyde about Sleeping Beauty’s problem. Well, Clyde told him that if Sleeping Beauty wanted to start sleeping again, she had to get another one of those same poisoned apples from her stepmother, the wicked Queen.”

“Where was she?”

“Since she and Sleeping Beauty’s father had divorced, she lived far, far away, in a land called California where many strange and unusual beings lived.”

“Did she go to Disneyland?”

“She looked so scary they wouldn’t let her in. So she walked around California all day in spiky hair and purple boots and a leather jacket and sold bad things to little boys and girls who weren’t very careful.”

“What did the bad things do?”

“Turned them into bears.”

“No bears.” But her enthusiasm was waning.

“So anyway, that night Prince Charming told Sleeping Beauty what Clyde had told him about the poisoned apple, and she immediately wanted to hop on a plane and fly to California, but Prince Charming told her it was too dangerous there, and besides planes cost too much, but maybe they could go another time.”

“So what did she do?” By now Lisa was fading into a light slumber, the story getting all tangled up in the images of her dreams.

“So Sleeping Beauty finally persuaded Prince Charming to take the Seven Dwarves with him and go out to California himself if that’s the way he wanted it and talk her wicked ex-stepmother into giving him some of those same apples so she could go to sleep again. So one bright shiny day Prince Charming rounded up all the little quarrelsome dwarves and put them in the station wagon and they set off for California. And they drove and they drove and they drove and they drove and they drove…”

By now Lisa’s breathing had grown steady and heavy and Sue’s voice trailed off. She waited a moment, and then picked up the little one, put her back to bed, and tucked her in. She tried to ease into bed without disturbing Bob, but as she lay on her back with her weary eyes closed she heard, “Well?”

“What?” she asked, turning to him.

“So what happened to Sleeping Beauty?”

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No. A little dwarf did. But I want to know what happened.”

She laughed, a little embarrassed. “I didn’t think you were listening.”

He waited expectantly.

“Well, uh…hmm. Well, after Prince Charming and the Seven Dwarves left for California, it got so quiet and peaceful at the castle that Sleeping Beauty began to live up to her name again, even without the poisoned apple.”

“And she lived happily ever after.”

“Only for awhile. Then  she really did begin to miss the whole rowdy bunch. And then they came back tan and happy and tired and everybody lived happily ever after in their brand new castle.”

“I know it’s been tough, hon, but soon…”

“Oh, I know. Soon.”

He leaned over to kiss her. “Good night, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Oh no, you don’t, buster,” she said, backing away. “That’s how I got in this mess with the dwarves in the first place.”

He recoiled, surprised, trying to make out if she was serious in the vague light of the motel room.

“Oh, I’m just kidding,” she relented good-naturedly, puckering for him. “Good night, Prince Charming.”

*                                  *                                  *

The next day Colleen and Maria found Sparky’s unwanted seeds, a damp spot on the bed as evidence of a lapse in Todd’s potty training, and Ronny Shank’s night-light, considerately turned off. “Lorr’, they were nice people,” Colleen said, unsurprised. “That lad’ll go farr someday, you know.”

“Should we change this mattress pad, Mrs. McPherson?” Maria wanted to know.

In the bathroom, Colleen shook her head in dismay. “Of course you should,” adding under her breath, “you silly thing.”

But the night-light had caught her fancy. “We’ll just see how long it lasts,” she said under her breath, vigorously swishing out the sink. “God knows they ain’t all as nice as thim las’ ones.”

*                                  *                                  *

About six on Saturday, Joy Hand and Betty Baumhauer burst into room 132 with altogether too much luggage for just an over-night stay. But over-night was all they had, and they wanted to be prepared.

Joy, a thin blonde with shiny stiff curls, had the type of derriere jeans designers had designs on. Betty was chunkier, not fat but solid compared to Joy, a standard brunette with vacuous brown eyes and lips that found a smile an exertion. Each of their four hands held at least four rings thickly encrusted with what appeared to be diamonds, and one hand of each held a cigarette.

“I don’t care,” Joy was saying in her broad rural Texas drawl, “I thought he was quite nice.”

“He was a pump jockey,” Betty said with deliberate disdain.

“I wasn’t trying to get him to marry me, for pity’s sake.”

“Well, then just what were you trying to do? If I may ask.”

“Well, now, I guess I just don’t know,” Joy snapped back. “But I do know for sure and certain that you lit up like a Christmas tree when he held the door for you.”

“I was merely being polite.” Betty lit another cigarette from the butt of the last.

“My sweet ass.” Joy walked to the wobbly mirror and primped her blonde hair.

“Well, I don’t feel like spending my Saturday night watching you admire yourself,” the other said irritably. “I’m going to get ready and go to dinner.”

Betty opened the largest of her suitcases in the middle of one of the beds and pulled out an arsenal of beauty products: hair spray, hot rollers, a small blow-drier, cosmetics, nail polishes, false eyelashes in a little plastic box, even her own make-up mirror. Having spread these out in no particular order, she riffled through the half-dozen outfits she’d brought just in case, picking out a satin blouse that accentuated her bust, the only feature she had that could lure men’s eyes away from Joy’s “sweet ass.” Satisfied, she scooped up fresh underwear, soap, shampoo and conditioner, and a disposable razor, and marched without further discussion into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Joy took the opportunity to jam the relatively  few things she’d brought into the upper drawers of the dresser, and then she set about scrutinizing her reflection for any sign of weakness or blemish.

“They’re putting night-lights in the rooms now,” Betty called from the bathroom.

“So?” Joy called back.

Betty poked her head around the corner. “Just thought it was interesting. No need to get snotty.”

“A night-light just doesn’t seem like any big deal to me.”

“Well, excuse me for living.” The head disappeared in a huff.

As the steam from the bathroom began to smell like soap, Joy fell to contemplating her hands. The ring on her left pinkie was merely pale flesh, marking the spot where, until recently, she had worn an actual ring. It hadn’t been that special, just another cocktail ring of pale gold with a cluster of fiery stones, but she missed it.

The ring had belonged to Betty originally, given to her by Jack Beantucker, the insurance man who’d handled her claim when that louse, “Sonny” Ray McRae, had totaled her T-bird. Jack was a much nicer guy than Sonny, but hopelessly romantic and practically bald, and Betty had gently but firmly said no half a dozen times before he got the message. Betty in turn gave the ring to Joy to make up for Sonny’s having left a perfectly disgusting road-kill skunk in Joy’s lingerie drawer as a practical joke, to pay back Joy for taking Sonny’s beer out of the fridge. The Muleshoe St. Vincent de Paul now carried the cheapest, expensive-looking, bad-smelling selection of fine lingerie in West Texas, but Joy no longer had the ring.

She had taken it off with her other rings on Wednesday when she’d had to unclog the dispose-all of potato peelings. When she went to put them back on later, she couldn’t find the pinkie ring. Joy was suspicious by nature, and she easily found plenty to be suspicious about. She had her doubts about the quality of the stones. (Jack was nice but sort of cheap). Sonny had stayed at the house with Betty the night the ring disappeared. (No one questioned Sonny’s honesty: he had none.) Joy had another suspicion: Betty may have taken back the ring just to spite Joy. They had gotten into a big fight about who had to pay for the collect call Betty had accepted from Joy’s scuzball ex who was doing time in California for check fraud and who managed to find forty-five minutes worth of something to say to Betty.

Between the rancor of the spiteful afternoon and the fact that the shower steam was causing her coif to sag, Joy was becoming just irritated enough with Betty to harbor serious doubts about her character. Her eye fell onto Betty’s purse lying on the blonde dresser in front of her. Some combination of mad impulse and paranoid intuition thrust her bejeweled hand into the depths of the purse. At the very bottom, under the bulging pocketbook and the sunglasses, she found a green, velvet-covered ring box. She heard Betty turn off the shower, so she quickly pulled out the box and opened it. Sure enough, there was the ring, just as she suspected. Her hand shook as she snapped it shut and stuffed it back into Betty’s purse.

This changed everything. Since high school she had considered Betty her best friend, but she had never done anything like this. She pondered again the wisdom of the old proverb that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Apparently you couldn’t trust the human kind.

But now what? She couldn’t very well let on that she knew about this without seeming like a snoop. She’d just have to wait until they were back home. Then she could confront Betty with her perfidy, maybe tear out some of her curly brown hair, and move back in with Steve Crandall, whom she didn’t really like but might still love, and who would take her back in a heartbeat.

Betty walked out of the bathroom in her underwear, toweling the damp ends of her hair. “It feels so good to be human again!”

Joy gave her a look of penetrating, unutterable, heart-felt disdain, but said nothing. Betty didn’t seem to notice as she walked by. Joy swung around to level it at her again, but by now Betty was busily squeezing into her control-top pantyhose, so Joy settled for a sarcastic sneer at herself in the mirror and went back to primping her hair.

Betty’s shower had trashed the elaborate coif that Joy had spent both Oprah and Geraldo perfecting. Her front curls hung limp and her bangs clung to her forehead. She began combing in exasperation, tossing the blonde hair this way and that to expel the moisture.

“And now I’m stuck here with this bitch,” she thought, impatiently teasing and ratting. “Talk about one long goddamn weekend.”

Betty tucked in her western shirt and checked her thick mascara one last time, but Joy’s bangs still stubbornly clung and clumped. In desperation, she got out the hair spray. Betty began pacing the room watching her. Joy’s nerves stretched to the snapping point. She put a cigarette between her lips and, getting flustered, tried to light it with her left hand while spraying her bangs with her right.

A loud whoosh, a bright flash, and the ammonia smell of burnt hair filled the room. An instant later Joy had no bangs, no eyebrows, and no eyelashes. Betty screamed. Joy sat there dazed, staring at the destruction in the mirror, the still unlit cigarette sagging in her lips, the can of hair spray still poised above her head. She couldn’t believe it.

Betty rushed over and knelt beside her. “Are you okay, darlin’?” she asked, her wide open eyes searching Joy’s face.

Joy still could feel heat, but didn’t think the fireball had actually burnt or injured anything other than her pride. But her pride had a deep, ugly gash in it, and her suspicions about Betty’s true character made her doubt the sincerity of her concern.

“Do I look okay?” she asked dryly.

“Listen, hon,” Betty said, standing. “Maybe we’d best just go home.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Joy spat back, for some reason rebelling against the course she herself had considered just a few minutes before. “Well, you can just forget about that. I’ve been planning this weekend for a long time and I mean to have some goddamn fun!” Fun, at this point, sounded positively vengeful.

“Well, fine,” Betty retorted, picking up on Joy’s animosity. “But what about your hair?”

Joy looked in the mirror again, and hot, bitter tears of frustration and rage swelled in her eyes.

Betty saw the tears. “You know,” she went on, softening, “I brought that extra set of eyelashes.” Joy’s despair visibly ebbed as she considered the possibilities. “And we could probably do your hair different.” Betty took comb in hand and rearranged Joy’s hair toward the front.

They abandoned animosity and distrust in trying to salvage Joy’s ravaged appearance or, in this case, saving face. In half an hour, they’d redrawn eyebrows, added new and improved eyelashes, and conjured up a coif that was livable if not terribly stylish or flattering. Still, when Joy needed her blush and lipstick, she made a point to getting it from her purse herself rather than let Betty’s light fingers roam through it.

Dinner proved relatively uneventful, Betty’s appetite unabated, Joy picking at her deep-fried shrimp in fragile silence, painfully self-conscious, sure that everyone was staring at her hair and eyelashes and eyebrows. Their disappointment mounted when they found out Ronny Shank had ended his gig at the Waterhole last Saturday. (Joy furnished Ronny with dimly lit companionship in room 132 three months before.) Some guy named Tom had replaced Ronny and apparently he just lip-synched along with records. He hadn’t drawn much of a crowd to the Waterhole, and gloom weighed heavy on Joy’s mostly artificial features.

Then about ten o’clock Tony Frank and Bob Hasgrove came back into the Waterhole, the over-the-road truckers who had tried to figure out Jenniferroxanne-sallynancyjudymaryann’s name before Ronny Shank came to the table. They were on their way back to L. A. after picking up a load of hardwood pallets in Kentucky. They usually didn’t stray far from the interstate, but they could get a free night and hot shower with Bob’s uncle in Muleshoe. They brought to the Waterhole their usual high spirits, jokes, and camaraderie and the whole bar livened up in a matter of minutes. Soon, with the right song, they invited Joy and Betty to waltz and two-step, and the rest of the time they bought them drinks and playfully teased them and, in general, came on to them.

About midnight Bob and Tony threw a wet blanket on the whole thing by announcing that they had to leave at five to drive straight through to L. A. and, after a kiss on the cheek from each lady, they got up and left. Joy’s spirits, after the brief respite the attention had given her, began to wane again when she discovered her left eyelash had become slightly detached some time ago and that no amount of Lady Stetson could overpower the smell of her singed hair. She and Betty decided to have one more drink and go back to the room, since the only man asking them to dance was Revuelto Martinez, who had become so drunk he kept falling all over them on the dance floor.

A few minutes after Bob and Tony left, the Muleshoe police, in the person of Officer Mike Lopez, stopped in for the nightly check for hell-raisers and fake I. D.s. He stood just inside the door, sternly scrutinizing the peaceful patrons of the Waterhole. Joy’s spirits and self-consciousness both took an upward swing when she noticed that the attractive young officer paid particular attention to the two of them. Betty noticed it too, and they decided to stay and dance a while longer, hoping to attract his notice.

They succeeded. After a few minutes he walked to their table, rather stiffly it seemed, bent down, and in a low, formal voice said, “Would you ladies come with me?”

Betty and Joy exchanged a perplexed look. Not the usual pick-up line, but certainly effective. As they walked out in front of him, Joy wondered if Betty could feel half—even a quarter—as conspicuous as she did.

Officer Lopez politely held the doors of the cruiser for them. Joy sat in front and Betty in back. Officer Lopez went around and got behind the wheel, making notes on a clipboard as the radio blurted bits of static-y, unintelligible conversation. Joy had gone beyond perplexed and even embarrassed and now felt truly humiliated, even though she had no idea what the officer wanted.

Betty cleared her throat. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

The officer finished with the clipboard and turned to them. “Ladies,” he began, though the word sounded odd the way he said it, “as I was walking into the lounge tonight, I met a couple of gentlemen who said that I should, ah, keep my eye on you two.”

Joy stared at the the upholstery on the front seat of the cruiser, too mortified to say anything.

But Betty’s voice sounded indignant. “Just what does that mean?”

He looked at Joy and then at Betty in the back seat. He seemed to be struggling with a polite way to continue. “It seemed clear from what they said and from what I observed inside that, uh…” His momentum disappeared. “That, uh…”

“Well?” Betty wanted to know.

“Well, frankly, that you two were ladies of ill repute.” He didn’t seem comfortable with that outmoded phrase, but didn’t change it.

“What!” they exclaimed simultaneously.

Joy felt dizzy, and half expected her life to begin flashing before her eyes. Betty, who had been momentarily struck dumb by the accusation, found her voice at last.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard! How can you—? How can you—?” She trailed off in stunned disbelief.

Joy, staring at the wall of the lounge in front of the cruiser, felt the tears start in her eyes again, and then the left eyelash popped halfway off.

“Just who the hell were these two ‘gentlemen’?” Betty finally demanded.

A realization dawned in Joy and she whirled around to stare at Betty, who immediately came to the same conclusion. “Ooo, those bastards!” Betty said between her teeth. “If I ever catch up with them…”

Joy felt slightly relieved to find that Bob and Tony had played another joke on them, even one of dubious taste. She laughed self-consciously and said, “Oh, surely you don’t believe…”

Officer Lopez glanced from her undeniably strange hair-do to the glittering rings on her fingers, as though trying to reassess the situation. She quickly stuck the conspicuous rings beneath her thighs and turned away.

“Okay, I admit, I’m new to this area,” Officer Lopez explained. “This sure ain’t Lubbock. And I don’t know you ladies at all. But you must admit, on the surface…”

“We are two ladies who happen to be divorced rooming together—” Betty explained indignantly.

“—living respectable lives—” Joy added.

“—living respectable lives, and people who can’t see past the surface to someone’s true quality shouldn’t be in a position of authority. And furthermore…”

The night bartender was locking up the Waterhole at two before Joy and Betty finished denouncing Bob and Tony to Officer Lopez. Joy’s left eyelash fell off halfway through their harangue, and it left her feeling like she was blinking with a limp.

When they finally said their last and got out of the cruiser, Officer Lopez raised his eyebrows skeptically, but apologized and drove away, shaking his head.

Betty’s indignation carried her all the way back to room 132 and most of the way to hoarseness. Joy fell onto the bed and cried through most of Betty’s irate remarks, vague thoughts of taking the vows of a nun flitting through her exhausted and humiliated mind.

Finally Betty fell silent for awhile, and then said, “Well, I suppose we might as well get some sleep anyway.”

Joy’s eyes popped open as if Betty had dashed cold water in her face. No telling what Betty might do in this frame of mind. Joy didn’t dare take off her rings tonight for fear they’d all be gone in the morning, along with Betty, the car, and any shred of dignity Joy had left. She would have to stay up all night to watch her, to make sure nothing else mysteriously disappeared.

Betty stumped off to the bathroom, still obviously furious. Joy leaped off the bed and crammed all her loose things into the dresser drawers, and then slid quick as a weasel between the sheets, still fully dressed and clutching her purse, as Betty came back out of the bathroom.

“Well?” Betty asked coldly.

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to use the bathroom?”

“Uh…no, not right now.”

“Suit yourself,” Betty said, and flipped off the light and got undressed and into bed, still muttering.

The room was as black as Betty’s heart. Joy’s own heart pounded so loudly she worried Betty would hear it. She lay there paralyzed until Betty’s breathing became more regular, and then got up and went into the bathroom. She took off her clothes, washed her face, surveyed the damage to her hair once again, and then sat on the toilet pensively, idly wrapping toilet paper around her fingers. When she was done, she washed her hands and as she was drying them, the night-light caught her eye. She flipped on the switch, congratulating herself for thinking of this precaution.

She went back out and got into bed again. She couldn’t tell if the burnt hair smell came from her head or the room, but it made her slightly nauseated. In the dim light she could see Betty’s hunched form in the other bed. Though utterly exhausted, she settled rigidly on her side, her eyes fixed suspiciously on the woman who, yesterday, she had considered her best friend.

After lying there for half an hour watching her with heavy-lidded eyes the way a puma stalks a mule deer, suddenly every one of Joy’s faculties came back to life when Betty stirred and then got up. Joy could barely make out the shadowy form bending over the dresser, then glancing right in Joy’s direction. Seeming to reconsider whatever she planned to do, Betty went into the bathroom instead, the tiny light of the night-light fading as the door closed.

The only things on the dresser were Joy’s make-up case and Betty’s purse. Joy couldn’t imagine what Betty, who already wore enough make-up to obliterate a herd of test animals, would want with her make-up case. Maybe the untrusting bitch just wanted to see if Joy had stolen back her own damn ring. Joy had a moment of regret for having passed up the chance.

The light came back up as Betty came out of the bathroom. Then, as if making a point, she walked back and deliberately turned off the night-light. Pricking up her ears, Joy could hear Betty go to the dresser, fumble—in the dark, mind you!—with her purse, and then go back to bed. After a few more sneaky noises, Betty’s face burst into light as she lit a cigarette. When the lighter went out, the hard-set face grew dim again, only glowing faintly with each drag.

Joy felt sure Betty did more than just get the cigarettes from her purse. After Betty put out the cigarette, Joy got out of bed again, went to the bathroom, waited a couple of minutes and then flushed. On the way out, she turned the night-light back on. After slipping between the sheets, she went back to her stealthy surveillance of the sneak-thief, not sure what to expect but fearing the worst.

Betty opened her eyes and in the faint light saw Joy staring at her. “What are you looking at?”

Joy responded only by closing her eyes. What a day, she thought. In the last few days, she’d lost her third-favorite ring, her best friend, her decent reputation, and her bangs, eyebrows, and eyelashes. She felt lower than a worm’s belly-button.

Just when Joy had started to drift off into a fitful doze, Betty got up,walked straight to the bathroom, and once again turned off the night-light. As soon as she got back in bed, Joy got up and stomped back into the bathroom herself, wanting to rip the little light out of the wall and cram it down Betty’s treacherous throat, but settled for turning it back on with a decisive click.

“Do we have to have that damn thing on all night?” Betty asked querulously as Joy got back in bed.

“Yes, damn it, we do!” Joy almost screamed, her voice sounding hysterical even to her own ear.

“Well, fine then, have it your way.” Betty sullenly rolled over to face the wall.

The pale gray-blue of dawn seeped from behind the curtains by the time Joy finally drifted off to sleep.

Sunday morning, already too bright and too warm, showed up as welcome as a party-crasher. Betty’s cigarette smoke already blued the air by the time Joy awoke.

“Feeling any better?” Betty asked her.

“Why should I?” Joy snapped.

She looked around the room, taking stock of things, thankful she at least had a ride home. On the dresser she saw the velvet ring box sitting on her make-up case. She got up slowly, her head pounding, and walked to the dresser. After casually primping her hair in the mirror long enough to seem nonchalant, she pretended to notice the ring case for the first time.

“What’s this?” she asked, barely suppressing the sarcasm.

“Didn’t you see it last night?”

“No,” Joy lied, feeling guilty about ransacking the purse.

“That’s why I kept turning off the damn night-light, so you wouldn’t see it. Go ahead, open it. It’s yours.”

Joy picked it up, opened it, saw the ring inside, and said, in the haughtiest voice she could muster, “I believe you gave this to me previously,” though she did find some small consolation in getting back her third-favorite ring.

“Look inside.”

“I am,” she said, looking at the plush green velvet.

“No. I mean, inside the ring.”

Joy took the slender gold band from the box and held it up to the light. Along the inner surface, in very fine script, she saw inscribed, “For Joy, My Best Friend. Betty.” If the engraving was fine, right then the sentiment seemed much finer. For the first time since they checked into room 132, Joy lived up to her name.

*                                  *                                  *

Joy and Betty checked out late enough Sunday that the room didn’t get cleaned until Monday morning. By then, of course, most Muleshoers had heard the saga of the encounter Betty and Joy had had with the new member of the Muleshoe police, duly amplified until it had become one of the most glittering trophies of the gossip season. And in Muleshoe the season never ends.

But it wasn’t veneration for a historic site that gave Colleen pause that Monday morning as she surveyed the room. Joy and Betty had so thoroughly trashed it that even Colleen, who thought she had seen it all, shook her head in dismay. Bedclothes and towels lay rumpled and footprinted everywhere, the dresser drawers gaped and hung awry, lampshades tilted rakishly, crumpled cigarette packs and make-up-caked tissues littered every surface, and in the bathroom the toilet tank flowed hollowly. Colleen knew at a glance that only the celebrities could have ransacked the place to such a degree. Since Betty’s ex had flown the coop a couple of years ago, Betty and Joy had spent many a Saturday night at the Westerner. Colleen had come to recognize the symptoms and dread the cure.

Maria bent to gather the bedclothes while Colleen went into the bathroom and rattled the toilet handle. Unlike Colleen, Maria couldn’t tell just by looking who’d stayed there, but most of the employees of the motel had entered the number 132 into the saga.

“Do you think they’ll ever come back?” Maria asked as she straightened the lampshades and picked up the trash.

“Oh, to be surre,” Colleen said from the other room. “The likes o’ thim takes a lot morre than a wee scandal wi’out changin’ theirr ways.” She looked at the hair, singed and otherwise, caught in the bathtub trap. “Pffa! I could wish they would though.”

“Do you think they’re as bad as everyone says then?”

Right then Colleen caught sight of the night-light still burning in the wall socket. “Oh, I suppose not. But then, neither arre they as good as they think thimsel’s.”

*                                  *                                  *

When she woke, Della had trouble getting her bearings in the motel room. Sleep hung heavy on her, and dreams still flitted across her consciousness. She felt so tired, almost leaden with fatigue, that it was hard to believe morning had come already. But she could see the telltale glow from the drapes, so she wearily pushed herself out of bed.

As heavy as her body felt, her head felt even lighter, as though filled with helium. She stumbled groggily to the dresser and slumped into the chair. She blinked a few times to clear her eyes as she looked into the mirror. Her reflection seemed foreign and almost grotesque. Where she had always pictured smooth, glowing skin, she saw wrinkled, drying folds. Her once-beautiful chestnut hair now looked like stale gray straw. Even those deep green eyes (“Like still forest pools,” Bill had described them during their courtship) seemed dingy and sad. No wonder her arms and legs felt heavy: they were  heavy. Not fat, just plump and sagging. She rubbed her eyes again to clear her vision, but the vision remained the same.

With one exception. A dull reddish-orange glow suffused one side of her face. She bent to the mirror to look closer, but the glow remained. Strange. As she watched, it grew brighter, more dramatic. She glanced at the drapes. Of course. Sunrise.

She walked to the window and pulled open the drapes. She didn’t remember such a wide window. Outside, a vast plain of grass and mesquite scrub stretched to the horizon.  A lacy network of high clouds of every subtle, sultry tint streamed across the azure morning sky. But instead of the first golden rays of the sun, she saw instead an intense, blue-white point of light. As she squinted away its burning rays, it momentarily waned and then a hazy ring formed around the rising globe of red-hot gases.

In an instant her wonder and delight changed to trembling, abject fear. The hazy ring rushed toward her, engulfing the plain in virulent waves of flame. Della stood paralyzed, having just enough time to realize she had just witnessed a nuclear explosion. Then the shock wave swept over her, shattering everything.

When she woke, she found herself covered with sweat, her hair matted on her temples and her nightgown bunched around her waist. The shabby night-stand light still filled the room with its dull glow and her book lay crumpled on the sheet beside her. Her eyes still felt crumbly with sleep, and it reassured her to find that dawn was still hours away. She struggled hard to calm her breathing and to wipe the remaining traces of the nightmare from her mind.

Reluctantly she picked up the book again. She had a long day in store for her tomorrow (today?), a long drive ahead and then probably a long, ugly scene with Bill. But she didn’t need to think about that just yet. She just needed to read herself to sleep.

The book felt heavy in her hands. Just a novel, too long, by some author she’d never heard of. Not serious reading. Just some fluff to while away the time, distract her distracted thoughts.  She bought it because it referred to piñon nuts, one of her favorite regional treats.

She reached for her glasses but couldn’t find them. Wearily she decided to try to read without them, even though she’d needed reading glasses for years. To her surprise, she could make out the letters, but they seemed to float an inch above the page. When she tried to focus on them, though, they dissolved to the expected squiggly blur. She stared at the fuzzy page. Images of Bill and Keith crept into her thoughts: Bill standing in tuxedo coat and shirtfront but no pants, Keith, well again, putting a bag of trash into the trash barrel. Silly stuff. No reason. The letters on the page shimmered and began to crawl.

Trying to read without glasses seemed like just another exercise in futility. She found the glasses on the floor next to the bed. As she reached down, she thought she heard a faint scratching sound. She put on the glasses, tucked her hair behind her ear, and began to read. Each word, each phrase, seemed sensible enough, but the meaning escaped her. The story seemed so artificial, so removed from natural life. The phrases danced around on the page, interchangeable, intertwining. Black on white, serif and line interlocking and swirling. The pace increased, the phrases dissolved to words, to letters. The scratching sound came back.

She shook her head to clear her mind and looked around the room. No, she definitely could see motion from the corner of her eye. There. On the page. Little bugs, black ants, twirling to and fro, dropping into bed with her, running on her skin, tickling her scalp.

When she woke, she pricked up her fanning ears. She flicked a biting fly from her back haunch with her tail. But she sensed something more than a fly. Something in the air. She rarely dozed off in the afternoon like that. In a brief panic she felt for the boy with her trunk. He lay limp in deep sleep, secure in the knowledge that his mother and great aunt kept constant vigil. Her aunt glanced at her briefly, then closed her eyes and went back to her slow, gentle swaying.

Flies bit her sensitive ears. She quietly gathered the tip of her trunk around some dust and lightly blew it over her head. Maybe she had just had a bad dream, compounded of fatigue and care and the biting flies. No, she smelled it again, just at the limit of comprehension. She checked the still air with her trunk off to her right, having just the vaguest hunch, but couldn’t clearly detect anything.

The boy stirred and stood, wobbly and staggering, soft and woolly, his truncated trunk still limp and silly looking. He murmured softly, a gentle mew. She embraced his tiny neck. The heat felt truly oppressive today, the air so still it seemed to have vanished. Little creaks and pops came from the undergrowth. An occasional sleepy bird call pierced the calm. Off in the distance, a band of monkeys chattered and screamed in their annoying way. Her aunt’s bulk beside her felt reassuring. Nothing to worry about. She worried about everything.

Her right breast felt very full, pressing against the inside of her front leg. The boy dozed standing up. She gently nudged him toward her, and he gently nuzzled up to her, his little trunk tickling her knee. He found the nipple and she felt the first, deep, placid relaxation as the pressure began to ebb. Her eyes drifted shut again as she listened to the squishy sucking sounds he made.

Her ears came forward reflexively. She’d certainly heard a sound this time, and not nearly far enough away to ignore. The air barely moved, so she had trouble locating the source. An odd feeling came over her. Her trunk snaked up and periscoped the clearing.

Something big was approaching from the wallow. She could tell that her aunt had caught the scent too: a mature bull. She stiffened and the nipple slipped from the boy’s mouth, and he started squealing and bawling. She pulled him beneath her with her trunk and he quieted, sensing the danger too. Her aunt had turned to face the spot where the scent of the male seemed strongest.

Suddenly he burst into the clearing, a ragged bull in must, with limp pink ears and long black stripes of musk on his cheek. His eyes looked bloodshot and his left tusk was broken about a foot from his lip. His smell filled the clearing in an instant. He hadn’t yet noticed them. On the top of his head she could see a crusty, bloody hole surrounded by flies and tingeing the musk smell with disease and death.

He spotted them and swayed heavily as he extended his trunk to check them out. They could tell that something dreadful had happened to him. She and her aunt began bellowing at him, stamping the earth, extending their ears. He caught sight of the youngster and the sight seemed to enrage him. He trumpeted loudly, warning them to leave, but they stood their ground. He pawed the earth. He stood much taller than they, very powerfully built, and evidently very sick. Deep inside her she couldn’t deny the attraction of his masculinity and virility or forget the age-old intimate feeling of yielding, but that paled compared to how fiercely she wanted to defend the boy. She and her aunt stood their ground to his threats, but he advanced still, slowly at first but gathering speed, until suddenly he was lunging at them with the one long pale tusk, thrusting his senseless rage and pain at them, trying to tear her from her son, bellowing and screaming, the musk overpowering everything else until it seemed to overpower her consciousness.

When she woke, she smelled the acrid, pungent, unmistakable odor of skunk. It filled the room like the smell of burning hair. With her eyes barely open she went into the bathroom, took off her nightgown, and washed her face, trying to clear away the vague swarming images of elephants and flies. The water from the faucet wouldn’t cool off. It felt like warm milk on her face. The whole night seemed ridiculous.

She went back into the other room. The shabby light still burned, and her book lay face down beside the bed. Outside the door, the sounds of revelry and drunkenness felt like the last straw. She had to get some sleep. Irritably, she pulled open the door to yell at the noisemakers.

Strange. Wasn’t this an outside door? Yet here she found a long hall, stretching out a long way until it made a bend, and she could see other halls branching to the right and left. Dozens of doors, painted a sickly flesh color, lined the hall, all closed, but still she could hear the partiers plain as day. She walked down the hall a little way, but couldn’t locate the sound, and so turned back.

The hall stretched the other way too, and more rows of flesh-colored doors seemed to disappear in the distance. She went back toward her room, only to find that the door had swung shut behind her. Then she realized that she couldn’t find any room numbers on the doors. All the drapes were closed. She wanted to cry. The music and party sounds went on. She slumped to the floor at the foot of what she thought was her door and began to put her face in her hands. Only then did she remember that she had taken off her nightgown to wash her face, and now she sat stark naked on the filthy carpet. It felt like a bad dream. She wanted to die. She wanted to sleep.

She cringed when she heard footsteps. She wanted to hide her face, her everything, but she had to see who approached. It turned out to be Ed Sullivan in an ill-fitting black suit. He walked right by her, and she felt, for a moment, a little offended. But she knew somehow that he wouldn’t help. She had to find the party.

She walked very self-consciously along the hall, the garish carpet grimy underfoot. She wanted to knock on the doors to seek help, but feared she might find someone she knew. The party sounds got louder. She made a right turn down a side hall, then a left, then another right, getting hopelessly confused. This hall had a door at the end, and the party sounds came from behind it. She approached it cautiously and opened it a crack.

Chilled, smoky air came pouring out. Inside she saw an array of flashing lights of every hue. People danced and drank on several levels to the sound of loud rock music. Everything glittered and flashed. Everyone smiled. All around her she found fun and youth and money.

A phone rang very loudly. She struggled to wake herself but couldn’t, aware she was dreaming but unable to swim up out of it. The phone rang again and the music died. One more ring and then someone answered it. Very loudly, a voice blared from the PA system: “It’s for you!”

She knew it would be. Everyone stared at her, not having noticed her until now. Snickers and twitters followed her as she walked naked across the room, and everyone watched closely to see if she would slip climbing onto the bandstand. She did, of course, falling heavily face first onto the dirty rough wood. They handed her the phone as she lay there.

From the phone came Bill’s voice, calling from Sharon’s. “Hey, Della, how are you?” he called out jovially.

“You caught me at a bad time,” she managed to say, feeling like she’d said it before. The room became very quiet, everyone listening.

“Listen, Dell, Sharon wants to talk to you.”

Before she could object, Sharon’s whiny voice came on the line. “Della, honey, where do you keep Bill’s fishing hat?”

“I think it’s in the hall closet, but I’m not sure,” she told her. The stage felt hard and dry beneath her, and she was getting cold.

“Keith, honey, she says to check in the hall closet,” Sharon called out.

Della’s heart skipped a beat. “Is Keith there? Is he all right?”

“Why, sure, Della, he’s with us.”

“You mean he’s in remission?” Della asked anxiously.

“Oh, no, he doesn’t have leukemia at all. We took him to my doctor, and he said Keith is just constipated.”

This got a huge laugh from the crowd. Della felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her, and she began to cry, the happy tears streaming down her face and onto her arms.

When she woke, she sat up with a start. That’s it, Keith is just constipated. But her foggy eyes saw the bleak motel room and she knew for certain she had just had a dream. She lay back down bewildered for a minute and gathered her wits. She turned on her voice of reason. Keith had died two years ago. Bill and Sharon now lived together, Sharon already taking down all the wallpaper Della had worked so hard to put up.

I’ve got to talk to Harry Linhurst about filing the divorce papers, she thought. How could Bill break all this to me on the phone? And there I was at Aunt Martha’s for Mother’s funeral, Fred and Mariann and Arnie and all the rest sitting, sobbing in the other room. We’re all in mourning and I’ve got to hear about Bill’s escapades with his little trollop. Oh, God, she thought for the millionth time in two days, why do you let a woman like me live at all, if it’s got to be like this?

The small, badly furnished room did nothing to lift her spirits. She sat up and looked at herself in the mirror on the dresser. The unflattering light from the night-stand made her look haggard and worn. Small wonder Bill left. Crow’s feet. Brittle hair. Sagging breasts. Those tiny lines around her mouth. Why fight it?

She decided to will herself to die. She lay back down and concentrated on her heartbeat, the faint steady thump in her chest and neck and brain feeling like slow torture. She willed her arms and legs to go numb. She welcomed the myriad organisms already waiting inside her to consume the tired, useless flesh. She understood the futility of trying to will herself to quit breathing, but she made each breath shallow and faint, and tried not to care. She thought about her long-gone uterus and tried as hard as she could to go wherever it had gone.

Some indefinite time later, she opened her eyes and found himself floating above the bed. She looked down at the silent, still body lying there and at the pathetic folds of unwanted flesh. She finally saw it for was: a laughable figure, not comic but ridiculous. How could such a tattered, broken temple have fettered her for so long when her still lithe and lively spirit longed to soar free? The floating felt good, and she relaxed and slowly rose. In the distance the sound of ambulances and fire trucks approaching seemed relevant but remote. She heard a knock at the door, but the wan figure below didn’t stir. The voices of the emergency personel clamored and cried out. She floated still higher, feeling the freedom and the wonder infuse her soul as it sought a higher plane. The door below burst open and daylight flooded in as paramedics rushed to the bedside, trying desperately to replace what she gladly had let slip away. With a knowing, pitying smile she watched them pound the chest and inflate the lungs of the poor, discarded husk on the bed. A clear, pure, pervasive light rushed into her, filling her arteries with a new, stronger, more permanent life. The figures receding below had slackened their efforts and stood over the body. A warm breeze wafted her up to where all below was irrelevant and insignificant and unworthy. Like a vast, diffuse cloud of peaceful repose, she felt herself dispersed into a gentle, rainbowed halo among the dreamy stars.

When she woke, she found the room very, very dark, and filled with a peculiar smell. The pressure in her bladder assured her she was still tightly bound in this mortal coil. Wearily she realized that she had several hours to wait until morning. Her hand fell onto the book beside her on the bed. She closed it and put it on the night stand. Not wanting to turn on the garish light, she sighed and threw back the sheets, carefully stood, and felt her way into the bathroom. There her probing hand fell on Ronny Shank’s night-light, and she gladly switched it on, avoiding the image in the mirror even in this dim glow. But she gratefully left it on when she went back to bed, where she fell into a heavy, dreamless slumber until the first rays of dawn.

*                                  *                                  *

When Colleen first turned the passkey into room 132 Wednesday morning, she wondered briefly if she’d stopped at the wrong room by mistake, even going so far as to check the number on the door. The room barely looked used. She saw no towels strewn about, the lampshades remained upright, not a scrap of litter caught the eye. Quite a contrast to Monday’s catastrophe. Even the smell of singed hair was tempered somewhat by the fragrance of soap and fine perfume.

“But like as not the wee light’s been took,” Colleen thought as she headed into the bathroom. “It’s thim quiet, sneaky ones as will rob you blind.”

But she found the towel neatly folded and placed across the side of the tub, the little bar of hand soap rewrapped in its paper and placed in the wastebasket, the sink wiped clean, and the night-light turned off and unmolested in the socket. She shook her head in wonder. “Must be a rarre grroup of folk come thrrough herre of late.”

“Did you see this, Colleen?” Maria’s voice called from the other room.

“What’s that, dear?”

Maria came into the bathroom holding one of the “Comments and Suggestions” cards they placed on the dresser in every room. They rarely found one filled out, and then generally with obscenities, shopping lists, or phone numbers. Colleen took it from Maria and extended it to arm’s length. There, in steady, mature script, was written, “The room had an unpleasant odor to it, but the night-light was a life saver. Thanks!” It was signed, “Della Dobson Sharpe.”

They both glanced at the night-light. Colleen stuck the note into the pocket of her blue skirt. “I’ll gi’e it a’ Mister Becker. Could be he’ll blow the dust from his purrse and buy some of the wee lights for the lot.”

*                                  *                                  *

Cliff and Loretta Hardy didn’t get back to room 132 Saturday night until past eleven, late for those accustomed to doing chores by dawn every day of the year. But Saturday came just once a week and they had drinking and laughing and horseplay to do. They had come to Muleshoe to celebrate their grandson Charlie’s third birthday, not a huge event but a good excuse to visit their daughter Sarah. They had picked up Patty, Sarah’s older sister, in Tucumcari on the way. After Charlie had blown out the candles and the cake was reduced to scattered crumbs and Charlie, in the care of the sitter, was put to bed in his new Yankee’s P. J.’s, the four adults had gone to the Waterhole to drink and dance to the live music.

Cliff, a tough old geezer, had begun to take on the appearance of the 30,000 acres of piss-poor ranch land in northeast New Mexico that claimed his days and wasted his nights. His hair, a rumpled, shrubby wilderness, thinned to a rugged plateau generally shaded by a straw cowboy hat with the brim pulled down low in the front. Thick eyebrows hung like jutting crags above pale blue eyes the color of an early March sky. From the corners of his eyes a system of arroyos fed by tributary ravines spread across the burnt-umber uplands of his cheeks, arroyos formed by years of squinting away sun and cigarette smoke while his hands wrangled pliers on barbed wire or clutched a post-hole digger, and by the hilarity of Saturday night and too much to drink. His nose jutted like a scarred and pitted rock outcrop, a blunt landmark above the wiry lowlands of his heavy jaw. His shirt snaps rarely wore out above the third one, his bare chest a wide expanse of grizzled, tangled brush. He wore boots; if he owned a pair of street shoes for funerals, he’d long since forgotten where he put them. He kept the legs of his faded jeans crumpled into the tops of the boots, and wore a belt of tooled leather with a heavy silver buckle that featured steer horns and the legend “P. R. C. A. Steer Wrestling Champion, 1968.”

Loretta, ten years younger than her husband, wore her hair, auburn with hardly a trace of silver, in curly disarray. She had tough hands and strong arms and legs, but her figure exuded sexuality, from her pendulous breasts to her wide, sturdy hips. She wore slacks and a sweater, and when she and Cliff danced, a wild, pagan ritual that fascinated or repulsed or delighted the onlooker, she could feel the little gold cross that she’d worn since her confirmation bouncing in her cleavage. Her wide glasses magnified brown eyes that looked nervous and piercing, always so wide open they almost bulged, as though trying hard not to miss anything.

Cliff sat on the edge of the bed, smoking his Camel down to a nub. He wearily hung his head.

Loretta came over and stood by him and ran her fingers through his tousled hair. “Come on, honey, let’s go to bed.”

He looked up at her with a lascivious grin and slapped her bottom. “Yeah, I know what you’re after,” he said in his gravelly voice.

She shoved his hand away roughly. “Not tonight, you old horny toad. You gotta get some sleep.”

He pawed at her body crudely and said. “Hell’s bells, I don’t need no sleep. Could give you more than you could handle, old woman. Make you squishier than a fresh cow pie and still wrangle a hundred head off the mesa with my eyes closed.” His eyes closed before he finished, his voice trailing off.

Despite the unflattering image of the cow pie, she knew from experience he wasn’t bragging. But despite her irrepressible smile as he diddled idly with her breasts, the way his voice faltered furrowed her brow as she helped him off with his pants, .

“Daddy looks tired, Ma,” Sarah had said earlier as they watched him help Charlie blow out the candles.

“Why, he should. That whole section of fence went down over winter, and he’s had the worming to do.”

“Yeah, but he seems different somehow.”

Loretta couldn’t disagree. He did seem different. God knew, he was still the same lecherous, high-living, hard-drinking old coot, but he seemed to have faded a bit. Not tired so much as just wearing out. But even that didn’t quite get it. If anything, lately she’d seen no end to his restless energy. Sometimes just before a light bulb burns out, it gets very bright for a moment. That’s what she feared.

After months of patient arguing, she’d finally talked him into seeing the doctor a few weeks ago.

“What the hell do I gotta take a whole day out to see this quack for? I see the goddamn vet all the time. He says I’m fine. Little mangy, but fine.”

The doctor didn’t mention the mange, but he did say something about an irregular heartbeat and gave Cliff some pills that he threw into the chicken feed one morning. “See? Them pills wouldn’ta worked anyhow. Half them chickens is dead already,” he’d said, wringing the neck of another.

The doctor also had expressed some concern about Cliff’s sleep apnea, and Loretta had noticed lately that sometimes at night he’d stop breathing for a while. She’d lie next to him listening, barely breathing herself, her own heartbeat rising into her throat until, almost like another crude joke, he would just start in again like nothing had happened. He had already fallen asleep now, having given up on the half-hearted sex. Lying on his back, his mouth open, he began to snore lightly.

For weeks, the weather had stayed clear and hot, but tonight clouds rolled in like immense floating islands and lightning flashed behind the curtains. Fat drops struck the dusty window pane.

Cliff’s snoring didn’t keep her awake. He hadn’t even hit his stride. He could rattle the windows when he really got rolling. In the instants of bluish light the lightning afforded, she watched his lined, scarred face. When they’d met and married a quarter of a century ago, he’d not only given his life to her, he’d given her life to her as well. His vitality, his free-wheeling lust, his good-natured kidding kept her going through thick and thin. And they’d seen plenty of both.

One time in Amarillo while he still rode the rodeo circuit, he’d won the biggest purse of his steer-wrestling career, $4500. He acted like a kid again, buying ostrich-leather boots and dollar cigars and a beautiful suede jacket for her. They stayed at the best motel in town and went out to the best restaurant they could find and had 32-ounce steaks and a quart of bourbon. Back at the room they’d tossed and tumbled on the bed until the neighbors pounded on the walls, and after they finished she fell asleep. When she woke, she found him gone and didn’t see him again until four that afternoon. He showed up with a black eye and three dozen roses. Years later she found out he’d picked up a hooker who rolled him and stole $3000. The police found him unconscious behind the cheap hotel where he’d taken her, and he’d had to have 15 stitches in his scalp, which he hid from Loretta underneath his hat for a month.

The lightning burst in clumps, extended flashes seeming to hang in the dark, the thunder rolling heavily across the little town. Cliff snored a little louder, his jaw sagging into his neck. The brutal light flashed on his still face, accentuating the scars.

For awhile they had owned a bar in southern Colorado. It was an old, low, wooden building on the main street of the nearly defunct mining town, nothing fancy, decorated in dark knotty pine and fluorescent beer signs with pictures of scenery. The clientele consisted of the lower class locals, Mexicans and whites, laborers and ranchers and bums. The old jukebox played George Jones and Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn mostly, but it still had some Hank Snow and Jim Reeves and Hank Williams too.

Cliff liked to play bartender, but he helped himself too liberally too often, so they agreed he would play pool in back or do the books, sweating over the lines of numbers and spilling beer on the forms, while Loretta tended bar.

One night two burly men in cheap suits came in and looked at the juke box awhile. They came up to the bar and demanded to know why they couldn’t find certain songs on the juke box. Loretta said she didn’t know and didn’t care. They told her she better care, because they had “certain interests” who wanted to make sure their songs had a “fair chance.” Loretta told them they kept the juke box stocked with the songs the customers seemed to like, and if these two gentlemen didn’t like it they were welcome to take their business elsewhere.

They grabbed her and dragged her out to the back of the building. Cliff heard the commotion and followed them out, getting there just as they were about to rough her up. He caught the arm of one and broke it at the elbow with a sickening crunch, but the other had pulled out a switchblade and he sliced and stabbed Cliff with the precision of a butcher. Cliff collapsed in a pool of blood, but by then the sound of sirens echoed through the small town, so the two men got in their car and drove away. When Cliff got out of the hospital they sold the bar and bought the ranch.

A hard rain began to fall, pelting the roof and windows thickly. Midnight had come and gone, and still she didn’t feel sleepy. Cliff, lying on his side, quit snoring. She snuggled against his back and held him to her.

She had forgotten what God looked like. As a child she had envisioned God as a sort of cross between Charleton Heston and President Eisenhower. God, a stern but kindly old man, saw everything that happened, even to the smallest detail like who said their prayers or where a lost brooch had gone. He cared in a distant, paternal way for his flock of mortals, but seemingly minor offenses could arouse his nasty temper. She prayed to him fervently in those days, asking for guidance and patience and better clothes. Usually she had to settle for a limited amount of resigned patience.

Then she met Cliff. She found him arrogant, shameless, sinful, wild, and full of the devil, and she couldn’t help but love him. They spent a few months sneaking out to make hurried, guilt-ridden (at least on her part) love in the back of his beat-up Ford truck. Then one spring day he asked her to go riding with him. They’d had some rain a few days before, and the desert plain had plunged headlong into exuberant life. The greasewood and mesquite greened up, the paintbrush bloomed, and creamy spikes of bell-shaped flowers rose from the yuccas. They rode for hours in the hot sun and then stopped for lunch at the top of a high bluff overlooking the vast arid lowlands. The scent of piñon and juniper and the humming of insects filled the air. Cliff unrolled an old blanket and they ate lunch quickly, barely able to wait to make love. Even before she had finished licking the chicken grease from her fingers, he tugged her jeans past her hips. For hours they made love, in every position, at every speed, stark naked in the sun. She still had an indelible image of him standing above her, buck naked, bellowing his love like some wild beast into the empty air, shaking his fists at the sun for daring to descend without his permission. As they somberly put their clothes back on over the painful sunburns they had contracted in places where the sun had rarely shone before, she knew she’d lost her soul. When he asked her to marry him, she felt the resignation of the damned as she assented.

She hadn’t prayed since, but she felt now that she needed to talk to a higher power. As she snuggled against Cliff’s burly back, she tried hard to conjure up the old image of the deity, but could only get a nostalgic, old-movie presence that didn’t command much respect. Outside the thunder grew more distant, but the rain beat down as heavily as ever. She felt there must be some connection between the awful power of the storm and the omnipotent being that powered it.

“Please, God,” she whispered, burying her face in Cliff’s broad back, “don’t let him die.”

Nothing in particular happened, inside or out.

She thought about what an absurd request she’d made. “Until you’re ready,” she added humbly, knowing, and knowing God knew as well, that she really meant “until I’m ready.” But she knew she’d never be ready, and that God, in his inscrutable way, would take Cliff when he was ready whether he granted her prayer or not. She gave it up.

She had often thought about his death of late. Every time a storm came through she half expected to find him slumped behind the wheel of the truck off in the ditch somewhere. She hated to think of finding him, frozen and defiled by vermin, along some fence line after a long hard snow, the way they found calves sometimes. When they danced, when they made love, she wondered sometimes if his constitution, if anybody’s constitution, could stand the effort, the concentration, the absolute ecstasy that suffused his face with almost idiotic joy.

“Please,” she went on with her prayer, “let him die in bed, doing what makes him happy.” She thought she might offend God if she said it any more explicitly, but she suspected that God knew damn well what made Cliff happy.

As if in answer, right then Cliff’s breathing stopped. She quickly murmured a few Hail Marys just in case, the words coming to her lips by rote. Cliff lay absolutely still. She snuggled closer to his warm body. The rain beat down. Her heart began to pound. She wished for the lightning to return so she could look at his face, get one glimpse—perhaps one last glimpse—of the cantankerous old features while life still lingered there. Still he lay lifeless. She wanted to clutch him tighter. With each additional moment during which he still didn’t show any sign of life, she felt sure she had reached the moment she’d dreaded. It made her heart glad to know Cliff had her there close by and awake when it happened. Hot tears sprang into her eyes and rolled down her nose and cheeks. “Oh, Cliff!” she cried at last.

He jumped about a foot straight up off the mattress, and then rolled out of bed, his arms out to protect himself. She screamed in surprise and delight.

“What is it?” he shouted. “Where is he?”

“Where’s who?” she shouted back.

“I don’t know! What’s happening?”

“Oh, nothing at all, Cliffy. Nothing at all.”

He ran his fingers through the stubble of his hair. “Jeez, you like to scare the crap out of me. What the hell’s got into you, you old screech owl?”

“Come on, honey,” she said. “Come on back to bed. I’m sorry. I was just afraid…”

“With me here? Afraid of what?” As though she had challenged to his virility.

“Oh, nothing, I guess.” But she held him close again after he flopped back down on the bed.

“Come on, you old bag. What’s eatin’ you?” He already had his hand in her panties.

“I got scared you died,” she blurted out. “That’s all.”

He laughed. Then he laughed some more. “Me? You kiddin’? ’Member that rattlesnake got me through my boot? Who died that time? How ’bout that old two-bit skunk, what’s his name, Joe Palooka thought he was?”

“Jack Gant?”

“Yeah, Jack Gant! Who ended up in the hospital that time, huh? And that time Shiloh threw me on my old bony head. Why, there’s a pot-hole in that rock now the size of a watermelon.”

She couldn’t help but laugh too. “Maybe I’m just being silly.”

“Maybe?” The panties and nightgown were off. “Maybe? Hell, you’re sillier than a colt on Easter. Hey, don’t you do that! Gimme that!”

Helpless with mirth and joy and love and passion, she gave in to the rocking and rolling, the heaving and swaying, until the waves of ecstasy had rolled ashore.

Afterward she lay in the dark wondering if the neighbors would pound the wall. She felt his heavy breathing change again to snores as his mighty bulk pinned her to the sheets. After a while she gently rolled him off, hearing him muttering to himself.

The storm had faded to a gentle drip and a distant murmur. Without the lightning, the darkness in the room became steady and impenetrable. She slid out of bed and found her way to the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the sickly blue fluorescent light. She put down the toilet seat and cover, sat down, and put her face in her hands.

At first she thought she would cry. She felt the telltale lump in the throat, the welling eyes, the aching in her chest. But what came out was a silly little giggle. And the sillier it seemed, the more she giggled, covering her mouth with her hands so she wouldn’t wake up Cliff.

But she wasn’t worried about Cliff. She was worried about God. She felt pretty sure God had nothing against love, or even sex, but what she and Cliff did went beyond. Cliff was some sort of priapus, a raging, lunatic satyr who effortlessly forced her into eternal nymphdom. And if God could hear her giggling, he sure as hell must have heard what came before. She thought about her earlier prayer, but found it hard to believe that the crude, unholy writhing they’d just done could be the answer to a prayer. Besides, Cliff hadn’t died in the middle, the logical outcome, after all, had God taken her prayer literally.

Unless he had just died. No, she could hear him snoring heavily. She listened awhile to the reassuring stertor. She just didn’t want to miss anything. She just didn’t want to neglect him .

“God,” she said, sotto voce, “I know you don’t owe me anything. I know I’m a sinner and I don’t have any regrets. And I guess I hope that you haven’t even noticed Cliff, because he’s a…” Words failed her briefly. “He’s just not everything you could hope him to be, I guess. So maybe it’s just as well if you don’t watch over him. But, God, I love him with all my sinful, wicked soul, and if you want, I’ll watch over him for you if you like. If you’ll just let me do that, I’ll never ask for more.”

The only trouble with this prayer was that Cliff didn’t want God or anyone else watching over him. So whoever took the task would have to do it on the sly.

She raised her face from her hands, despairing at the hopelessness of her task. Then her eyes fell on Ronny Shank’s night-light. She jumped up and switched it on and switched off the overhead light. It produced a dim but pervasive glow, sufficient unto the day. She had never come closer to a direct answer to a prayer—true, a small and subtle answer—but her heart rejoiced nonetheless.

After one o’clock, her loving gaze finally faded into slumber, the image of that gnarled, sinful, lovable face vying with older, holier images on the canvas of her dreams.

They woke, as usual, at dawn. Cliff groused and bitched in the other room while she got ready in the bathroom. She had a long, internal debate about the night-light. On the one hand, it seemed clear to her that God had sent it, or at least pointed it out, to her for a purpose, and that to leave it behind would seem as though the Word had been spoken and she just wasn’t listening. But on the other hand, she had no doubt whatsoever about the sinfulness of stealing, and she certainly didn’t own this night-light in any secular sense. She finally found a more or less comfortable compromise in resolving to buy the best, holiest night-light she could find, and, her soul in peace, she departed, Cliff’s temporarily idle hands on the all-too-willing playground of her tush.

*                                  *                                  *

Colleen wiped the mirror in room 132 with a vigor not dictated by the task. The last couple of weeks had shaken her faith. She had cleaned these rooms for years, and she had witnessed, so she thought, the worst and truest side of human nature. She had found lamps broken and stolen, initials and profanity carved on the dressers, plumbing ripped from the walls, and carpets doused with paint and perfume and excrement. Countless towels, ashtrays, bedclothes, and even armchairs had disappeared. But Ronny Shank’s blessed little night-light remained untouched. It just didn’t figure.

Maria had stood shyly in the doorway for a while before Colleen noticed her. A bit irritably, she asked, “What is it, child?”

“There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you, but I guess I just felt funny about it somehow.” Maria stared at the floor.

“Well, go on, get on wi’ it.”

“Well, Friday’s going to be my last day.”

“Fah! You too? Becker’ld be a rricherr man if he’d only gi’e his girrls a bit morre brrass to keep ’em here.”

“Oh, it’s not the money,” Maria hastened to assure her. “The job’s okay, I guess. It’s just that…well, I found out last week that I’m pregnant.”

Colleen’s joy overcame her irritation. “Why, lass, that’s… that’s…” She threw her arms around her friend, cleaning rag and all. “When’s it due?”

“The doctor thinks in about six months,” she replied, happy at the reaction.

“Well, may you have all the luck and blessings in the worrld!”

Colleen cast about for some small gesture she could make in the way of congratulations. She spotted the night-light. Kill two birds with one stone.

“Why don’t you take Rronnie’s wee light, Marria? I’m sure he’d rrather you had it than some strranger. You’ll be up and about in the darrk morre now, you know.”

Maria looked at the light in the socket. “You don’t think he’ll come back for it?”

“Heavens, no! He’s probably neverr missed it at all.”

Maria hesitated still.

“Surre as you’rre borrn, the next parrson as stays herre will stick it in theirr case and ’twill be gone forr good.”

Maria shook her head. “Maybe so, but it just doesn’t feel right somehow. Let’s just leave it, okay?”

Colleen shrugged. “Suit yourrself. But what happy news! Have you picked a name yet?”

They whiled away the rest of the day in talk of beginnings.

*                                  *                                  *

Barely two hours later, Ronny Shank checked back into room 132. But a great change had come over Ronny Shank in the past two weeks.

Ronny Shank’s face bore a worried, haggard look. His two week gig in Roswell had dragged on endlessly. Tomorrow he had to start in Oklahoma, and he could have stopped in any number of towns along the way for the night, but he he had considered only one: Muleshoe.

When he left two weeks ago he’d been in love. Now he was In Love. And for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why. But he knew for sure that nothing seemed the same. He’d sung the same old songs,  but the words had caught on his heart before they left his chest. A very cute waitress in Roswell had a crush on him; he went there with every intention of spending the night with her, but had turned her down. Even his guitar wouldn’t stay in tune.

He had assumed that this simpering, romantic smarm had gone the way of acne and letter jackets. He felt like a complete, utter dolt. He mooned around like a lost puppy. He took long walks by himself. Fresh air smelled fresher. Every sunset looked gorgeous.

All this for a girl he barely knew. Barely knew?! He not only didn’t know her name, he didn’t have the foggiest notion how he could possibly find her again. For all he knew she didn’t even live in Muleshoe. No one in the Waterhole that fateful Saturday night two weeks ago had seemed to know her. But he had no other clue than Muleshoe.

And it had come down to clues. Even before he’d checked in, he had stopped in the lounge and asked everyone he knew and some he didn’t if they remembered this pretty girl with chestnut hair and a wide smile, feeling like a fool and not even caring. He planned to go back at least once more this evening just on the chance that something else might happen. He’d purposely asked for room 132 again, just in case he found something that would give him a hint.

By the dresser he found some of Sparky’s seeds that Maria’s vacuum had missed. The room still smelled like Joy’s bangs, despite Colleen’s spray and Della’s perfume. Cliff had left a cigarette on the night stand and it had burned a black streak on the old wood veneer. It surprised him to see his night-light still plugged into the wall socket, but so what? Apparently no one had noticed it. And why should they? It was such a little thing.

But she had noticed it. She had told him that he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would own a night-light. It did seem pretty dopey, when you thought about it. But right after that, she’d said something about him having class or something. Of course, it stung a bit when she jumped to the conclusion that he kept it for the exact reason he did keep it. But lately, he had watched those careless bachelor days recede into history.

“Get a grip on yourself, Ronny,” he said as he paced the little room. “You can’t very well pledge a lifetime of devotion to someone you don’t even know.”

But he did know her. He knew her wit and her charm and her intelligence. He knew her body, that fantastic…

But he didn’t want to think about that right now. But it wouldn’t go away. She had looked fantastic, after all, and there are worse things in life than that. But their beginning had just seemed so unromantic.

Okay, he had to think about this. They had come into this very room that night. He put down his guitar, turned on the TV. They fooled around on the bed awhile. He turned off the light. He must have turned off the TV too, because otherwise the screen would have made the room too bright to notice the night-light. And then—well, then that. Then afterward he had tried to get her name out of her, and she did nothing but tease him. She looked so beautiful in the soft light of the night-light when she got up and went to the bathroom. Took her purse. Why do women do that? Who cares? She came back to bed and then—oh, yeah, and then that again. Boy, that was unbelievable. And now he couldn’t even remember the names he’d already guessed so he could eliminate them from the list of possibilities.

It pissed him off. Where did she get off pulling a stunt like that, anyway? Going to bed with somebody she barely knew, not even giving him her right name. He had a good mind to…

No, he didn’t. He didn’t have a mind at all, good or otherwise. His mind had turned to mush. “All because of some little tramp—” But he couldn’t even bear to finish the thought. He knew in his heart that it wasn’t true.

But he had gone through all of that a thousand times already. He had to figure out a way to find her. She had told him that if he’d been straight with her he’d figure it out. He had been straight with her, hadn’t he? Maybe he’d fudged a little about why he kept the night-light, but it did belong to him after all, not to the motel.

How the hell did she expect him to figure it out? He’d checked through all his things a thousand times to see if she’d left something or written on something. He’d called the desk here and even in Roswell to see if maybe she’d called and left a message. He even considered calling the police, listing her as a missing person, leaving her description. Talk about crazy. Besides, what would she think of him if he found her that way?

What did she think of him anyway? She probably didn’t think of him at all. He had told her where he was playing in Roswell for the next two weeks and she hadn’t tried to get a hold of him. She wouldn’t even give him her god damned name! It stunk to find himself the one left behind, forgotten about, disposed of.

Okay, get rational here. Besides all those other names, she’d given one definite clunker. Aerial. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Some kind of a clue? He went to the phone book and looked under TV and then radio, not knowing what kind of clue he expected to find there, but looking just the same. Maybe car stereos. After he checked broadcasting and ham radio supplies, he gave up on the aerial clue.

He went back to pacing. “‘I can be anything I want, can’t I?’” he quoted her to the air in a mincing, sarcastic tone. “Sure, lady, you can be anything you want—unless you want to be mine. And then you have to get more specific.” The walls seemed to close in around him. He went out for another walk, checked the Waterhole again, roamed around the motel just because, and ended up back in room 132, pacing up and down.

Dinner-time had come and gone, but he didn’t feel like eating. He had a long day’s drive and then a hard day’s night ahead of him tomorrow, but he didn’t feel like sleeping. He wanted to feel a whole lot different, but he didn’t feel like drinking. He couldn’t believe he had come all the way back to Muleshoe just to pace this room where they’d spent their only night together, and still couldn’t think of a way to find her.

“Oh, hell,” he said aloud bitterly. “Maybe she’s not worth finding anyway.”

He really didn’t know her, after all. Maybe she had this big, ugly biker boyfriend. Or father. Or worse: maybe she collected cutesy stuffed animals and little frilly dolls and posters of Michael Jackson. Naw, he could tell she wasn’t like that. But she did seem careless and inconsiderate and forgetful. Then again, he knew himself well enough to know that he could live with those things, especially if she could live with his little peculiarities and foibles.

But he couldn’t live with her if he couldn’t find her, and finding her seemed as hopeless as ever. His one consolation was that he knew he’d forget about her sooner or later. You always do. Nothing lasts forever.

He heaved a heavy sigh and plopped down to watch some TV for awhile. Just another day on the road, right? Fifty channels, nothing worth a shit on. He had one thing in common with cable TV though: no aerial.

His frustration pushed him upright again. He wanted to punch a hole in the wall.

“I can’t call every goddamn woman in town! Jeez, I gotta do something.”

He went in and took a leak. Out of habit, he switched on the night-light. Suddenly, the damned thing seemed like the source of all his pain and frustration.

“Yeah, right! Class! You bet I’ve got class! I find a great woman, what do I do? Do I ask her out? Do I send her roses? Do I write songs for her? Hell, no! I take her back to this dumpy little room and use my same old greasy lines to get into her pants, and then let her find her own goddamn way out by the measly little light of this goddamn, measly, pathetic, insignificant, fucking night-light!”

He grabbed it and pulled it out of the socket to dash out its mechanical life against the wall. A tiny piece of white paper, folded over several times, had been wedged between the body of the night-light and the plastic cover of the outlet, held in place by the tension on the copper prongs in the wall. It sprang to life and fluttered to the floor. He picked it up and unfolded it. Inside she’d written:

“Please call me, Ronny. Jennifer.”

Followed by seven of the most beautiful numbers he’d ever seen.

The End