Page 66 of No Room in the Inn
Except I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all.
I continue to push gravy around on my plate, but I look up just in time to see my parents exchanging looks. I’m not sure what their nonverbal communication means, but finally my mother glances back at me.
“We don’t know him very well, but Granny—” She breaks off, clearing her throat and looking close to tears herself. “Granny adored him.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say quietly. Then I force my voice to sound more chipper, because I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Talking about it just makes me anxious. “Well, I should probably be getting back,” I say, although the thought of going back to the big, empty inn is frankly depressing. “I’m going to work with Sarah tomorrow. Oh,” I say, remembering something. I want to tread carefully here. “Can we finish going through Granny’s things soon? It doesn’t have to be now,” I add quickly. “Just…put it on your radar? Sometime in the next couple weeks?”
My parents nod. They look at each other again, and I wait to see what they’re going to say.
“If you want,” my dad begins, sounding hesitant. “If you want, you can stay here instead of at the bed and breakfast. We don’t like the thought of you out there alone.”
To my surprise, I’m not against the idea. I could be here with Myrtle for her last days, and I wouldn’t have to be constantly reminded of Granny and Nixon. So I nod slowly.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”
Chapter 30
Nixon
You know how they say “you get what you pay for”?
They are absolutely correct.
I wake up with an aching back and a crick in my neck from the motel bed, and the room is freezing cold because the heat clearly doesn’t work the way it should. When I turn on the shower, part of the shower head falls off.
And don’t even get me started on the water temperature. On one end I’ve got hell fire; on the other I’ve got arctic blast. There doesn’t seem to be any in between.
This is what forty dollars per night looks like. I don’t bother calling anyone to come fix any of these issues, though I do manage to get the shower head back on; no one stays at a place like this expecting quality. They stay here because, like me, they don’t want to shell out the money to go anywhere nicer.
I muscle my way through a scalding hot shower, standing out of the stream of water until I absolutely have to rinse off, at which point I do so as quickly as possible. When I’m done, there’s a distinctly pinkish tint to my darker skin, and the bathroom is so foggy it’s uncomfortable to breathe.
I spend my morning pointedlynotthinking about Willow or the inn, just like I’ve done for the last two days of living in this place. Luckily I’m dead tired right now—I managed to pick up a job at a call center working nights, and I still work days at Santa’s Workshop—so that helps. If you’re too tired to think, you’re too tired to be upset, right?
It’s a working theory, anyway.
As I’m putting on my Santa suit, getting ready for work, my phone rings. My traitorous heart jumps, but I force myself not to rush to see who’s calling. Part of me wants it to be Willow, but she’s stopped trying to get in touch. That stings a little, as much as I hate to admit it. I have no right to be upset, of course—not when I’m the one who wouldn’t answer her calls. I just wish my pride and my heart would get the message that we’re moving on.
When I look at the screen, I don’t recognize the number, so I answer.
“Hello?”
“Nixon, my friend,” says a steely female voice.
I hold in a sigh. It’s Sarah, Willow’s best friend. I shouldn’t have answered; this will only go badly for everyone involved.
“Hi, Sarah,” I say, not bothering to ask how she got this number. From the little I know of her, my guess is that she snagged it from Willow’s phone without Willow knowing.
“Hi,” she says. “Do you remember that little talk we had about how Willow isn’t a one-night-stand kind of girl?” Her voice is hard as she speaks.
“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “But if you’re calling to talk about Willow—”
“Of course I’m calling to talk about Willow,” she snaps. “It’s not like I’m wondering where you got your Santa suit because I want one too. Now tell me what the heck is going on. Why did you bail?”
I sit on the edge of my bed, massaging my temples. I want to go back to sleep and get rid of this headache that’s suddenly forming. “Look,” I say, trying to keep my voice civil—something Sarah is not bothering to do, by the way. “I don’t mean to be rude—”
“Well, I do!” she says, cutting me off. “My girl is over here pretending she’s okay, which is how I know she’s not okay. When she’s upset, she cries. But when she’s really upset, she obsesses until her brain overloads and shuts down. And with Myrtle dying last night—”
“Wait,” I say, sitting up straighter. “Myrtle died? Her cat?”
