With a destination in mind, I don’t want to wait. The hotel is more active now that it’s Friday night. I can hear a party going on somewhere close by. The hotel clerk seems distracted as I thank him over the phone about allowing me to stay past checkout. Cold, hard cash talks, right? And fortunately, I have enough emergency money on hand that I don’t need to use a bank card to pay for the rental.
I patiently wait until nightfall begins to settle in, counting the minutes until just before Made Good Again Car Rental closes at eight p.m., then walk the few blocks to pick up my rental. But I’m surprised when they pull a refurbished Pontiac convertible around after I went through a list of more conservative vehicles. Not wanting to create a fuss and draw too much attention onto myself, I take the keys.
It’s only when I take the last turn out of Tucson and onto a highway leading me into the vast desert ahead do I relax. I lower the convertible’s soft vinyl hood, the blackness of night blanketing me from the eyesight of the few cars I pass heading in the opposite direction.
Besides, Texas is the size of France. There’s a lot of land for me to cross over and disappear into, and the Gulf Coast to lose my troubles in as I move on with my life.
An hour later, I notice headlights way behind me on the long expanse of roadway. A prickle of fear courses up my spine and I instantly regret my decision to put the top down. Not that a hardtop will stop a bullet, if whoever is after me chooses to use a gun next time.
A . . . gun.
Reaching into the backseat, I grab the pink duffle and deposit it on the passenger seat, the gun tucked inside the outer pocket now easily accessible. Point and pull the trigger, right?
You hope you never find out.
We follow Interstate 10 and cross into New Mexico. The dark road ahead is straight, flat, and uneventful, and the driver behind me keeps his distance. I assume his car is on autopilot. And as I head toward Texas, I’m feeling less and less stressed, like I’m on autopilot too.
According to the Internet, the ride from Tucson to San Antonio is twelve hours. The Internet never lies—well, thankfully not in my case—because at exactly eight-fifteen in the morning, I pull into Made Good Again’s Sister Rental. As a precaution, I’ve decided ahead of time to switch vehicles, though have a slight pang of regret after the sales clerk frowns at my trading down to a cheaper compact car. His eyebrows raise as I remove and place my duffle bag into the new rental, and I decide to play up the poor woe-is-me woman, down on her luck and who can no longer afford the trade up in rental cars. A role that’s not hard to pull off because that woman is there, lingering just beneath the surface. I just choose to keep her under tight lock and key. A panicked, grief-stricken, shaken-to-her-core woman like her would be no help whatsoever.
Made Good Again is my one and only stop. No one but that sweet guy to confirm who he’s seen, if anyone inquires. It doesn’t hurt to err on the side of caution, even if my company for the better part of the trip turned off somewhere mid-Texas.
The second leg of my journey takes longer than the two hours anticipated. Internet maps haven’t taken into consideration the old Toyota’s lack of enthusiastic pep. Anonymous? Incognito? Low on the radar? The vehicle chugs along so slowly a little old lady gave me the finger as she passed around me.
My lips twitch, my sense of humor kicking in. There’s only so much you can control, right?
I arrive without further incident, return the car, and take a cab toward the beach and the Corpus Christi Inn. I didn’t prearrange for a room, erring on the side of caution before leaving Tucson, but again cash talks and the clerk is more than happy to book me into an ocean side room. The room is beautiful, with a small kitchen, a balcony with gulf views, and an air of normalcy about it.
Are you ready to begin again?
My eyes sweep across the suite, coming to rest on the stovetop in the open-spaced kitchen, and I immediately know how to cheer myself up. My way of christening my new hometown. My new life.
Everything seems better when cupcakes are involved.
There is something about makings lists that I find soothing. Maybe it’s because I like being organized, having set goals and a plan. I find comfort in writing them and reassurance in knowing how, with patience and perseverance, everything can be resolved if you’re clever enough to fit the puzzle pieces together. It’s an either/or situation. Every hypothesis will be validated or proved false, right? It’s my way of controlling what I can even when the long, brutal string of events say otherwise.
As I lick homemade icing off my fingers, I’m careful not to leave vanilla-bean fingerprints on the two sheets of paper set out on the desk before me.
Lists, peace of mind, cupcakes. The perfect trio.
What’s at the top of the first one is cause for celebration. A job opening for a gift-shop clerk at the Texas State Aquarium. Though I’ll be dealing with stuffed animals rather than real ones, I’m optimistic my boss will move me into a more suitable position once he or she discovers I’m a marine biology major. That is, once I get the job and apply for Texas A&M’s program. But first things first.
As backup, I’ve also jotted down other potential employers like the Corpus Christi Marina and Give Paws, a rescue center for four-footed land animals. On the bottom I’ve written “Contact Admission Office.” A no-brainer, yet I add it to remind myself what I’ve been forced to temporarily give up.
I polish off the last bite of cupcake and shift my attention from the must-do list to the second one. For the time being, I’m renting long-term accommodations at the Corpus Crispi Inn, but finding a cheap apartment would need to be added to the list. I have access to money—a bank account in San Diego that I set up and transferred my inheritance into a few weeks before winter break—but living in a hotel isn’t lying low. If I do land a job in Corpus Christi and am able to stay here for a long period of time, I can also focus on the shorter, much more challenging compilation, list number two: my FIO list, for “Figure It Out.”
It’s no surprise Kylie’s the headliner. “Where is she?” and “What has she done?” are written as subcategories. Number three reads: “Who wants to harm me?” Three dots connect the question to the word Shelby and another to the word Cabo. If I can just make some of the pieces fit.
With a sigh, I stand and move away from the small desk in my room and over to the small refrigerator in an equally small kitchenette, thinking about the last item I need to figure out.
“My Stranger.”
Heck, he probably deserved his own freaking list after everything. How did he fit into this whole thing? So far all I really know about him is narrowed down into four bullet points:
A friend of Kylie’s
A man of few words but big on action.
My hero.
My fantasy crush.
I pause and shake my head, carefully covering the remaining cupcakes with plastic wrap. Psychologist might as well be added to my to-do list. He’s just a man you’ve placed on a pedestal. A man who has forgotten you. You are on your own, Madelyn.
Tomorrow my life will begin all over again. I’ll pursue my passion while coasting on cruise control and hopefully, with time and a new perspective, figure things out.
The kitchenette window faces the beach, and with the window cracked, I can almost smell the salt air. Tomorrow, I promise myself, I will go down to the beach and be normal.