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Chapter 4

Chapter 4

MAGGIE

To: Frasier Hale, frazedaze@mymail.com

From: Margaret Hale, maggie-hale@mymail.com

Mom and Dad took it surprisingly well. They even drove me to the bus station. Of course, I had to promise weekly church attendance and Sunday night phone calls.

I talked to Bronwyn (she emphatically denied ever making out with you), and she seems…great? Not all that enthused to have me living there. What exactly did you bribe her with? I’ll be taking my first ever cab ride from the bus station. Wait, do I sit in the front, or the back? I’ll have to figure it out. It’ll probably depend on the driver and if he/she is scary/smelly or not.

BTW, I highly recommend NOT trying to seduce the director of Essence Dance Theater. She’s in her late fifties and although she’s still fit, she looks sort of like Miss Brooke from Anne of Green Gables. Google it. Not your type, even if she happened to be into twenty-four-year-old tattooed hobos.

Hope to see you in Vegas soon. But not until I have a fabulous life that I can show off to you, ’mkay?

The bus pulled up to the station in Las Vegas. My heart pounded double time as I stepped off and into my new home. Unfortunately, the bus station wasn’t much to look at and the noise of car honks and people itched inside my skull. Once I got my suitcase, I wheeled it onto the street where I was supposed to catch a taxi.

They were lined up in a long yellow row like a giant banana. The ads on top displayed girls barely covered with sequins and pink feathers. I could imagine what my mom would say about their lady parts being on display. I picked a cab advertising a magic show. The cab driver was nice enough, but I decided to sit in the back. I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

“North Nellis Boulevard, please,” I said.

The bus station quickly vanished from sight, replaced with old, run-down casinos. I wanted to see palm trees and the sun but instead all I got was parking lots and gray sky. My eyes caught on the Vegas strip in the distance.

Air conditioning blasted through the taxi, cooling my neck. It was the thick of summer, but not the alive kind I was used to. Everything was brown and dusty except for the odd tree here and there, probably planted to brighten up the place. There was no green grass, no forests of tall lush trees, no wildflowers. This was a dry, dead kind of summer.

The cab finally pulled off the highway. We passed shopping malls and apartments, run-down hotels and liquor stores. And casinos, more than I thought one city could hold. Everywhere advertised slot machines and gambling. People walked the streets, proof that despite the grunginess, it was still safe to live here. Maybe. I’d never worried about safety before. The worst things we’d had in Hillstone were petty thefts and bar fights. The occasional graffiti from drunk kids who had nothing better to do than splash Van+Regan=Forever on the sides of old barns. But suddenly I was worried about real crime, the kind that only existed on TV in my world yesterday.

“Traffic, as usual,” my driver drawled.

A thumping bass resounded from a car nearby and I shrank into my seat.

My eyes drifted from the liquor store advertising five-dollar wine, to the pawn shop with neon lights in the windows saying “cash for gold,” to a Chinese restaurant whose name was actually in Chinese instead of being called Empire Garden or Garden Empire. Two women leaned against the window, both wearing knee-high boots and skirts so short I was surprised I couldn’t see their undies. They might’ve been prostitutes, or maybe that was just the way the staff dressed. I averted my eyes so they wouldn’t catch me staring.

My new apartment, the Crampton Oasis, looked like an old motel from the fifties. It was two stories, with faded pink stucco and a metal staircase. The building was shaped like an L, the apartment doors all on the outside. A pool rested in the middle, the sparkling water inviting in the stifling heat.

I went up the narrow staircase, lugging my suitcase behind me. I held onto the metal railing until my fingers found something sticky, and then quickly let go.

Bronwyn’s apartment was on the second floor, number fifteen. I stood at the door, staring at the tarnished gold numbers. I didn’t have a key. How idiotic. It was the one thing I’d overlooked in my rush to get out of Hillstone. I rang the doorbell and knocked, but there was no answer.

I didn’t want to lug my suitcase back down the stairs or leave it unattended, so I parked it in front of the door and took a seat. I rested my head against the door. My stomach growled. Sweat trickled down my neck into my t-shirt. Hopefully Bronwyn would be back soon. Even if she wasn’t, I needed a bit of a rest before I braved the streets of Vegas with a big suitcase and my purse in tow. That was a theft just waiting to happen.

It was four in the afternoon. I played solitaire on my phone (how appropriate), checked the time again, played some more, social networked, checked again. Thought seriously about jumping in the pool. The heat was making me sleepy. My butt hurt. I was starving. An apartment down the hall was blasting rap music, making my headache worse. The smell of feet and cooked onions wafted from next door. At least that killed my appetite.

My eyes slid closed, I could picture Hillstone in my mind. The wildflowers at Hank’s ranch. The huge cypress tree in my front lawn. The sun turning my house pink and gold.

“Hey, you!”

My eyes popped open and I lifted my head from the door with a groan. I must have fallen asleep because I had an awful crick in my neck.

A tall black woman stood over me, a street bike dangling from her shoulder. “You must be Maggie,” she said. “If you’re not, you better get lost.”

I stood up. “Yeah, sorry. I couldn’t get inside. You’re Bronwyn, right?”

“No, I just mugged her and stole her bike. What do you think?” She stared at me. I stared back. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Was I supposed to hug her or something?

“Get your crap out of the way!”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” I moved my suitcase while Bronwyn rolled her eyes. She lowered her bike to the ground, put a key in the door and opened it.

“I have an extra for you,” she said, going inside. “I didn’t want to leave it sitting around.”

I assumed she meant key, not bike. I followed her into a narrow hallway, which opened into one big room. It was a kitchen and living room combined. The walls were papered to look like worn-out brick, peeling in the corners, the cupboards and floors faded wood. A small kitchen table and a couple of chairs filled the kitchen space, and a red couch faced a small flat-screen in the living room. Framed black-and-white photographs covered the walls. The whole place had a vintage feel to it.

“My room, your room, and the bathroom,” she said, pointing to a series of doors. She leaned her bike against the back of the couch and then popped open a bottle of water.

I headed to my room. Bronwyn followed.

“After I shower, I’m heading to Nico’s. My boyfriend.”

I turned the knob and pushed the door open.

“The room’s been empty for a while, since my last roommate moved out,” Bronwyn said. “Anyway, you probably won’t see much of me, I’m a bike courier during the day and then I usually hang out at Nico’s place. But I like it clean. I hope you’re not a slob.”

My room had a double mattress on a metal frame, no bedding, and a wood dresser shoved against one wall. That was it. With only one tiny window and a dome light lighting up the room, the first word that popped into my head was, hellhole.

“I’m not messy,” I said, my voice weak.

She uncrossed her arms. “Good. I’ll see you later.”

“Wait,” I called. “The key?” I wasn’t sure when Bronwyn would return and I didn’t want to be stuck here. I had bedding to buy and a job to get.

“Top left drawer in the kitchen.” She disappeared into the bathroom.

The noise of the shower was like a dull roar. I sat on the edge of the mattress. There were no pillows, no sheets, and I cringed at what substances might decorate the mattress under a black light. The whole day hadn’t gone the way I expected. I just wanted it to end.

Thinking about home felt like defeat, like I shouldn’t already be missing a place I’d wanted so badly to get away from. But my mind was full of grays and browns, of bad smells and harsh words. I wanted to turn off the ugly channel and I did it the only way I knew. By picturing the home I had left behind.