Page 102 of Hell Bent
I waited, but she didn’t answer. I was around the curve to her trailer, then pulling up beside it. A flash of light in the darkness, a car door opening in the space next door. A black umbrella emerging first, and then a figure going around the car and holding said umbrella as another door opened.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Alix said.
“What?” I asked.
She said, “You’ll see.” And got out of the car.
40
A BAD PENNY
Alix
I hopped out of the car and instantly stepped in a puddle.Thisis why you don’t wear suede shoes in Portland. The rain also started to work on my hair and makeup, which meant that the woman who opened the trailer door wasn’t nearly as polished as the one who’d been escorted into that whiskey library.
Sebastian wasn’t behind me. My mother was, because, yes, that was who’d been waiting for me. I let her in, of course, but guess who was closing the big black umbrella, then stepping into the trailer after her? You’ll never guess, so I’ll tell you. Ned. Who wasn’t quite looking at me, which isn’t easy to manage in about a hundred square feet. Sebastian was still out there, though, so I said, “Excuse me,” put a hand on Ned to guide him out of the two feet of space in front of the door, and told Sebastian, “Come in.”
He was more soaked than I was just from those few seconds, and I said to the three people now crowded into my one-person’s worth of space, “Mother and Ned, please sit on the couch, so we have some room.”
My mother said, “Pardon?” So I repeated it. She looked a little huffy, but they both perched there, Ned with the dripping umbrella still in his hand, and I opened the door to the bathroom, grabbed both towels, and came back the three steps to hand Sebastian the bath towel before using the hand towel to blot my hair and face. I also took off the suede heels, blotted them dry, too, and set them into the little shoe niche carved out of the dinette space, thinking,I’ll put some more suede protector on them tomorrow and cross my fingers,before taking the umbrella from Ned and setting it by the door. I told Sebastian, “You can sit at the dinette.” He looked at me, and I said, “What? Look. I know this is awkward, but what am I going to do?”
He kept looking at me, and the light finally dawned. I was still holding the hand towel, and I gestured with it. “Mother, Ned, this is Sebastian Robillard. Sebastian, my mother, Elise Glucksburg-Thompkins, and my ex, Ned Lightfoot. There you go. Introductions.”
My mother said, “how do you do,” in her most formal tones, then got up from the couch and said, “Happy Birthday, darling,” kissed my cheek, smoothed back my hair, which was much messier than her own, and added, “You look tired. How much are you working?”
“Sixty hours a week,” I said, “and I’m fine, thanks. How are you and Dad?”
She said, “Sixty hours? As anelectrician?I hope you’re working inside, and not doing anything too heavy.”
“Well, no,” I said. “I’m outside. I’m not doing as much heavy work as you’d think, though, because I’m a foreman.”
“But, darling,” she said, looking alarmed, “that’s just asking for trouble. Are you having pain? Have you found a doctor? What are you doing all the way out here, especially in a campground? What if you have a flare? There’s almost nobody else here! It isn’t safe, Anastasia. You know it isn’tsafe.” Her hand was still on my shoulder, and here I was again, suffocating under the world’s most luxurious goose-down comforter.
I moved two steps away and filled the electric kettle. “I’m having a cup of tea,” I announced. “Who else would like one?”
My mother said, “I would, if you’re planning to answer my questions. I’m seriously alarmed. So is your father, and that was before we knew about thecampground.”
I said, “I got that.”
She sighed, barely, then pressed her lips together and said, “Herbal, please, with lemon if you have it. We’ve been sitting out there for two hours. It’s after eight. And if you’ll excuse me …” She headed to the bathroom, and I said, “Wait. Hand towel. Here,” and snatched it up off the banquette.
She looked at it as if I’d handed her a snake. “I don’t think so. You dried yourshoeswith that.”
“Well, if you want to get all picky about it,” I said, and Sebastian covered his mouth with his hand. “Fine. I’ll get you another one.”
“I know where it is,” my mother said. “In the bottom drawer in the bathroom, if you can call it that. I’ll get it.”
“If you want to risk seeing something that could shock you, I guess that’s fine,” I said. “Otherwise, you’d better let me grab it. I have limited storage space.”
My mother closed her eyes, and Ned said, “You don’t have anything that could shock anyone in your bathroom drawers. Why are you being like this?”
“Maybe I do now,” I said. “Maybe I’m a brand-new woman. Hang on, Mother.”
After her visit, Ned got up and availed himself of the facilities. I splashed boiling water over tea bags in two mugs and said, “If anybody else wants tea, you’ll have to share. I only have two mugs. And I’ll just say—it’s mighty hard to have adramatic showdown when everybody has to go to the bathroom first. We’re quickly veering into ‘ridiculous’ territory here.”
My mother said, “Why?”
“Which thing?” I asked. “Because I have very limited storage space? Because it’s objectively hilarious that we’re all crammed into the front half of my twenty-three-foot trailer, and everybody keeps trooping off to the bathroom? And I don’t have any lemon, sorry. Here.” I handed her a mug. “Chai rooibos.”
