Witnessing - Part Three
When Rose rang the doorbell of her lover's wife, after Cecilia invited her over one afternoon, she never imagined that the two of them would set off on a road trip. But Cecilia, riddled with cancer, had hope in one last miracle cure -- a psychic healer in Macon. Cecilia had plenty of faith; what she needed was a ride. Baxter wouldn't take her. She wasn't well enough to drive herself. Rose, well, Cecilia thought this was the least she could do.
Cecilia stares out the window of Rose's Toyota, laconic and distant. They are a half an hour outside of Montgomery, Cecilia's Gucci bag pitching across the backseat. Cecilia has changed into a navy silk pants suit, the tufts of her cream blouse blossoming at her neck, her lips subdued in frosty pink lipstick. Her outfit costs more than Rose makes in a month.
Rose took the meandering back roads because Cecilia insisted they experience the scenery. If this was to be her last road trip, she wanted to see something besides nondescript highway with exits to cookie cutter strip malls. Near the Georgia border, Cecilia cracks her window and makes a game of counting the number of doublewides wrapped in icicle-shaped Christmas lights.
"They're not kidding around with this Christmas stuff, are they," she says. "It's like a ludicrous competition in redneckness. God knows the amount of money they spend."
Rose thinks of the small trailer she lives in, how she spent an entire weekend outlining it in Christmas lights and rigging a life-size illuminated Frosty that teetered on the stamp-sized patch of grass she calls her front yard. And then Baxter sent the note and the flowers, and she got drunker than drunk and ripped it all down, figuring why bother?
They hit another tiny town, one of a dozen along the way, as identical in their poverty as strip malls: red-brick false-front buildings, rotted, defunct gas stations, graffitied video stores, the doors long since closed -- the carrion left behind when Wal-Mart and the Applebee's moved close to town and the mills left for Mexico.
At a stoplight, they pull up alongside a blonde teenage girl with a nose ring the size of a washer shoving Hardees' hash browns into her mouth. Her souped-up Honda Prelude -- gleaming silver rims, a yellow fireball blazing down the side -- palpitates with rap music: Everywhere I look, everywhere I go, I see the same ho. Don't get mad. I'm only being real.
Cecilia leans over Rose, scrutinizes the girl, then shakes her head, her wig slipping to one side. "What's with country girls these days?" she says, her breath sour on Rose's cheek. "They all want to be ghetto whores." She mouths to the girl: "What's your problem? You should be in school."
The girl flashes a bellicose smile, flips them the finger, then allows her mouth to gape open, a plug of half-chewed potatoes bouncing on her darting tongue.
"You're going to get us shot," Rose says, shoving Cecilia back into her seat. "You can't do that kind of shit out here." She looks back at the girl, shrugs apologetically, twirls her finger at her temple to indicate that Cecilia is nuts, which she decides is true enough. But the girl's fumbling with her CD player; she doesn't even see Rose.
"The world's going to hell in a handbasket," Cecilia says. She flexes her hands the way a man does when considering a fight. "But that's the beauty of dying. You can let everyone know just that, and what's the worst thing that could happen? Huh? Shoot me? Stab me? Well bring it on, I say. Do me the favor."
Without a pause, Cecilia calmly opens the passenger door and vomits neatly onto the street. Then she fishes in her handbag, takes out several bottles of pills, pours a wad into her hand and swallows them dry.
"Drive," she says, pointing to the light to indicate that it's turned green.
The address on the business card is for a mom-and-pop motel attached to a liquor store on the outskirts of Macon. Behind the motel is a small trailer, presumably the owner's, with dead ferns hanging from the porch overhang.
"Hand me that card," Rose says. "We must have read it wrong."
"This is the place," Cecilia says softly, and Rose can hear genuine fear in her voice. "Mr. Meekle owns the motel. We're supposed to get a room, and he'll meet us there at two."
A mangy, plucked looking cat leaps onto the hood of the car, stretches languidly, then plops into a curl.
Cecilia lifts her wig as if tipping a hat. Tufts a gray hair lurch from her scalp in clumps like Spanish moss. "We must have the same stylist," she says. Her eyes dare Rose to show pity.
"I think you look great," Rose says, because she does. Even ill, Cecilia is one of the best-looking women her age that Rose has ever seen.
What Rose doesn't say: No master healer frequented by wealthy, satisfied client would live in such a hovel. The front-desk clerk, a fleshy woman in a Christmas sweater identical to Rose's, watches a soap opera from a lazy chair wedged behind the counter. Behind her is a cross-stitched sign: God Is Here.
On the TV, a couple struggles in an agitated embrace. The clerk is entranced; even after Cecilia rings the service bell twice, the woman doesn't budge until a commercial flickers onto the screen.
"Nice sweater," the woman says to Rose. "You got the earrings, too. I told my daughter I should get the earrings, but she said to wait for the after-Thanksgiving sales, and when I went back, they were gone. Ain't that always the way of it? Y'all got a credit card? I'll need to run it in case you make long-distance calls or use the pay-per-view."
The clerk moves slowly, as if underwater, and it takes her a full minute to walk to the other side of the counter to run Cecilia's credit card. When she shuffles back, she hands the card to Cecilia, looks her up and down, then pats her tenderly on the hand. "Don't you worry. You've come to a holy place."
"Praise Jesus," Cecilia says flatly.
Their hotel room is clean, but that's all that can be said for it. A tiny card table in the corner, two mismatched chairs, a double bed in a faded floral spread, a wooden-veneer dresser with an old TV, shag carpet the rusty red of dried blood. It smells of cheap air freshener and cigarettes.
Cecilia immediately whips out Lysol from her bag, begins spraying down the bed, the table, the bathroom. She yanks the bedspread off, folds it neatly, and shoves it on a chair. Then she picks up the TV remote between her thumb and index finger and drops it into the wastebasket. "The dirtiest thing in the room," she says, pumping her tongue against her cheek, the same gesture the car salesmen at the dealership use to indicate that a fuckable woman is on the lot. "Men hold it and God knows what else while they're watching their nasty movies."
This is not the Cecilia that Baxter described on the many nights he wept over her: the woman who could make a stunning centerpiece out of tree twigs and pinecones, the woman who could speak three languages fluently, the woman who once fired the gardener for urinating on the back lawn.
Cecilia heads to the bathroom sink, begins splashing water onto her face. "What did you think of that receptionist nut?" she yells over the water. "This is a holy place. Has she been inside one of these rooms?" When she emerges from the bathroom, her lips are coated in fresh pink lipstick, her cheeks smeared with too much rouge. "I need a drink," she announces, and before Rose can mention that maybe a drink is not such a good idea, Cecilia is out the door.
Rose thinks of turning on the TV, but she's too lazy to walk to the trashcan to get the remote. Instead, she lays back on the bed, thinking she should call her boss to tell him she is missing work, which should be obvious by now. Kids have written on the ceiling. Apparently, Johnny B. wuz here, Connie luvs Eric, and April L. sux big dick!!!, which Rose thinks is supposed to be a compliment. She's half asleep when Cecilia returns, a bottle of wine under each arm.
"You need a cup?" she says. "Or do you just drink it straight from the bottle?" Before Rose can react, Cecilia pulls a fancy corkscrew from her suit pocket, which she must have brought from home for just this occasion. She whips the cork from the bottle in record speed and fills two flimsy hotel cups.
"Maybe you shouldn't be drinking on all that medication," Rose says.
"Probably not." Cecilia says. She finishes the wine in a long swallow, pours herself another.
Rose picks up the phone book from the bedside table, flips the pages nervously, then puts it back down. There's a photo of an expensive sailboat on the cover, which doesn't make much sense. The ocean is hours away.
"Do you sail?" Cecilia asks. "Baxter loves it. I mainly drink martinis and suntan, which I guess I could do anywhere, but a sailboat works, too. The sea makes you feel small. In a good way."
"My sailboat's in the shop," Rose says, and instead of taking offense, Cecilia lifts her glass to Rose, says "Touche. I can see why Baxter enjoys your company. I bet you keep him on his toes."
"I don't think this is a good idea," Rose says. "I mean, I don't think I want to be here."
"Then pretend," Cecilia says. She walks to the window and pulls up the shades, the brilliant mid-day sun garish.
"There's a squirrel that plays outside my window at home," Cecilia says. "I've decided he's male because of the way he holds his tail, fluffed out and stiff. Sometimes I talk to him, about any little thing. Something I read in the paper. A funny joke I heard. For the most part he's been good company. He keeps his mouth shut."
"Maybe you should take a nap," Rose says. Cecilia is leaning heavily against the window frame, and if she passes out, Rose isn't sure she could get her on the bed. "Why don't you drink some water?"
"The other day he finally talked back," Cecilia says. "You know what he said? He said, 'I'll be here long after you're gone, and I'm just a fucking squirrel.' I told him that wasn't a nice thing to say."
"You're drunk," Rose says, which is starting to sound like a good idea.
"Believe me," Cecilia says, "I need to get a lot drunker."
Outside, the parking lot is completely empty, not a car in sight. A billboard in neon green advertises The Bunny Hole, a gentleman's club.
"Who knew such a place existed," Cecilia says, allowing the shades to fall.
