Surprisingly enough, this is a real place. I've passed by it many times on Route 422. It's shaggy and small, but it gets business because of its big neon sign planted right next to the road, drawing in weary travelers. It's the only hotel on Route 422 for miles.
I opened my front door as I was going out to get the mail, and, lo and behold!, there was a note taped to it that read "MEET ME AT THE MOTEL DESKA". I studied the handwriting: unfamiliar to me. Such a strange coincidence that this little scrap paper ended up on my door after I'd just gotten home from a vacation with my idols and came home to find out my boyfriend was, how can I put this delicately?, fucking my best friend. Maybe she wrote it and meant "Meet me on Jerry Springer." I crumpled up the nasty little note and threw it on the floor. I retrieved the mail from the yellow-jacket guarded mailbox and returned to my Central Air-cooled haven. When I closed the door, I stopped and stared at the paper ball. It beckoned me to pick it up and read it over and over and over. So I did. I didn't have the heart to throw it out; it seemed cute and helpless.
I.
So I stuffed the note in my pants pocket, got my wallet and keys, and left for the motel. I hoped I didn't need reservations. If I was going to Maine, I'd need reservations, I thought as I nervously bit my nails and drove my white '87 Ford Taurus. Ten minutes later, I cautiously pulled into the parking lot and parked next to the only car in the lot - a white '98 Mercedes minivan with the license plate that read DESKA. Man, I thought, if this person isn't here I'm gonna shoot myself. Comin' here, like a fool. I should have called first. This is so stupid; I can't believe I'm doing this. I went into the office, which was a dark little room with a counter along the back wall. A door on my right was labeled Restrooms, and a snack machine and a soda machine stood to my left. An old guy with a white beard and thick glasses sat behind the counter reading the Reading Eagle Times. I stepped up to the counter and waited for him to acknowledge my presence. He still sat reading. I waited. He still sat reading. I rang the little bell on the counter. I rang the little bell on the counter harder. He still sat reading.
"Excuse me!" For once in my life, I became assertive.
The old guy slowly looked up and was stunned to see someone standing there.
"Hello, what can I do you for?"
"I think I was supposed to meet someone here."
"Oh, really?" the old guy said with a stupid big grin on his face.
"Yeah," I nodded, trying to get information out of him. He nodded in sync with me. "Look, is there anybody here waiting for someone?"
"Oh, yes," his 's' whistled, "I believe there is. In room 5. She said she just wanted to talk. Here's a key for ya'." He turned around and picked any old key off the key rack on the wall. He handed it to me. "Be good little girls now."
I took the key and walked quickly out the door to room 5. The key said RM1, but it fit in the lock anyway. I opened the door. No one was in the room. No trace of human life except for a leather jacket flung over the desk chair to my right and keys sprawled on the desk. I strolled quietly to the desk beyond the dresser and examined the collection of key chains. It was my ex-best-girl-friend's. One of the key chains was a small square photo of the two of us at Dorney Park; my half was now defaced with pen marks lacking creativity - I now had horns and a mustache. And pointed eyebrows. I frowned. Bitch, I thought about her. I'll teach her to steal my boyfriend.
I heard a toilet flush, then water running, pause, then the bathroom door opened. Courtney emerged, saw me, and smiled with sly victory, throwing her long blonde hair over her shoulder. I shrank in fear. God, help me, my nerves cried out. She still wore the other half of the Friends Forever heart necklace we bought at the mall. She wore it like a diamond, flaunting its faux golden brilliance. Mine was hidden under my shirt.
"So," she stalked up to me like the cat that she was and pulled the half heart on the chain out of my shirt neck. "I see you have a broken heart."
I handled her necklace and cunningly raised an eyebrow. "So do you. Did Jason, my ex-boyfriend, break up with you, too?" I pouted.
"No." She smiled triumphantly. "In fact, I'm going to see him after I get done with you."
"Is that right?" She nodded. "Well, give him my regards of defeat and my regret for destroying your pretty, pretty face." I ripped her chain off her neck and pushed her away. Before she had a chance to raise her stiletto-heeled shoe, I kicked her in the stomach with my mom's 1978 heeled leather boot. She fell to the floor crying. I ripped my necklace off and threw it at her, and it hit her in the eye. I finally defeated her at something. "That'll teach you to steal my boyfriend," I yelled and quickly ran from the room.
II.
So I stuffed the note in my pants pocket, got my wallet and keys, and left for the motel. I hoped I didn't need reservations. If I was going to Maine, I'd need reservations, I thought as I nervously bit my nails and drove my white '87 Ford Taurus. Ten minutes later, I cautiously pulled into the parking lot and parked next to the only car in the lot. Man, I thought, if this person isn't here I'm gonna shoot myself. Comin' here, like a fool. I should have called first. This is so stupid; I can't believe I'm doing this. I went into the office, which was this dark little room with a counter along the back wall. A door on my right was labeled Restrooms, and a snack machine and a soda machine stood to my left. An old guy with a white beard and thick glasses sat behind the counter reading the Reading Eagle Times. I stepped up to the counter and waited for him to acknowledge my presence. He still sat reading. I waited. He still sat reading. I rang the little bell on the counter. I rang the little bell on the counter harder. He still sat reading.
"Excuse me." For once in my life, I became assertive.
The old guy slowly looked up and was stunned to see someone standing there.
"Hello, what can I do you for?"
"I think I was supposed to meet someone here."
"Oh, really?" the old guy said with a stupid big grin on his face.
"Yeah." I nodded, trying to get information out of him. He nodded in sync with me. "Look, is there anybody here waiting for someone?"
"Oh, yeah, there is, actually, one person waiting for, er, Tori Chamberlin. He says he just wants to, to talk." He wheezed, then began to violently cough. I didn't want to interrupt, but he kept waving at me. I couldn't tell whether he wanted me to go away or talk to me. A young girl came out of the door behind the counter and handed him a glass of water. He drank it, and I watched the top of her head bounce up and down as she walked back through the door. He turned to me and said, "He's awaitin' for ya, woman. Room 5. Go ahead."
I nodded in suspicious concern and made my way to the door. Room 5, huh? All the way down at the end. If it's Jason, I'll shoot the bastard, I thought. He has no right to talk to me after what he did, the egotistical, sexist, dorky, sex-crazed maniac. I'll git out me gun and shoot'm dead, I will. Oh, God, he makes me so mad I could scream. I can't believe he has the nerve to drag me here and try to make up for what he's done, leaving me for Courtney, the whore, leaving me stranded at the Reading airport, making Billy and Yelena drive me home and miss their flight back to Chicago because he was taking Courtney to some stupid party that I was invited and went to and found them naked in her bed.
And why can't I get this door open?!
I finally got the door open and stepped inside. My hand was still on the doorknob when I felt the assassin's bullet seer through me. I stood stunned, everything began to blur and spin. The black-clad figure with the silenced pistol lunged forward….
III.
So I stuffed the note in my pants pocket, got my wallet and keys, and left for the motel. I hoped I didn't need reservations. If I was going to Maine, I'd need reservations, I thought as I nervously bit my nails and drove my white '87 Ford Taurus. Ten minutes later, I cautiously pulled into the parking lot and parked next to the only car in the lot - a black '97 Ford Taurus. Man, I thought, if this person isn't here I'm gonna shoot myself. Comin' here, like a fool. I should have called first. This is so stupid; I can't believe I'm doing this. I went into the office, which was this dark little room with a counter along the back wall. A door on my right was labeled Restrooms, and a snack machine and a soda machine stood to my left. An old guy with a white beard and thick glasses sat behind the counter reading the Reading Eagle Times. I stepped up to the counter and waited for him to acknowledge my presence. He still sat reading. I waited. He still sat reading. I rang the little bell on the counter. I rang the little bell on the counter harder. He still sat reading.
"Excuse me." For once in my life, I became assertive.
The old guy slowly looked up and was stunned to see someone standing there.
"Hello, what can I do you for?"
"I think I was supposed to meet someone here."
"You think? You don't know?"
"I don't know for sure. I found this note posted on my front door." I took the paper out of my pocket and showed it to him.
He typed something on the keyboard of the new computer on the counter. "Are you Chamberlin, Tori?"
"Yes."
"You have a room reserved for today."
"I do?"
"Yep. Room 5 is the only one left available. Here's your key." He took a key at random from the key rack behind him. I thanked him. "If you ask me," he added, "it sounds a little suspicious."
"Yep, it does," I agreed and headed to room 5.
Room 5 was dark like the office. Dark and cold, as if someone died there. There was a distinct odor to the place, like disinfectant and Pledge wood polish. Dust particles revealed themselves in the beam of cloudy light sifting through the breaks and holes of the curtained windows. Where one ray of light hit the wall, I noticed a carpenter ant crawling upward, seeking shelter beneath a sliver of wallpaper. The atmosphere here was certainly the eeriest I had ever encountered, as if I was on a set of an X-Files episode.
There was a firm knock on the door. I switched the switch near the door. No lights turned on. "Who is it?" I asked cautiously, standing away from the door.
"FBI, Miss Chamberlin. We need to ask you a few questions."
I recognize that voice, I thought. It was the FBI. I should open the door. I shouldn't mess around with these people. I opened the door slowly.
When I saw who it was I gaped at them. WOW!, I felt like crying out as I let them push their way into the room.
"I suggest you sit down. You look a little tired. I'm Agent Mulder. This is Agent Scully. We're here to investigate a murder and we have reason to believe you have vital information about it."
"You're David Duchovny. And you're Gillian Anderson," I was in awe. I was on the X-Files. But where are the cameras?
"I'm afraid you are mistaken, Miss Chamberlin. May we call you Tori? David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are actors sadly portraying us. We need to ask you some questions," Agent Mulder corrected and sat on the desk. He put his foot on the chair and rested his elbow on his knee. Agent Scully glanced at him and frowned, turning back to me.
"He's had a rough day," she apologized for him. "Tori, we brought you here because we thought you might be able to help us with a case. Recently, a woman was murdered here by this man." She handed me a picture of Jason.
"Oh, my God," I stared unbelieving at the crime scene photo. He was sprawled in the floor with blood all over him.
"Do you know this person?" Scully asked.
"This is my ex-boyfriend."
Scully and Mulder glanced at each other.
"Who did he kill?" I asked.
"Who he killed is not important, but who killed him?" Mulder explained.
"Autopsy reports show that he was indeed murdered after he killed his victim," Scully added. "However, no one has been able find any evidence of his assassin. Not even Mulder."
"Hmph."
"Maybe it was a ghost," I laughingly suggested. "Maybe his victim wanted revenge after her death and killed him. Like that movie Ghost."
Mulder became active. He jumped off the desk and grabbed the picture from me. His black overcoat lunging toward me gave me flashbacks….
IV.
It was night. The sun had gone down long before and still he hadn't shown. Billy had left a message on my answering machine confirming the note he'd left on my door. I lay on the bed, day dreaming of different scenarios between us. Our little fling out in Colorado last week ended unnoticed by Yelena and Jon, my new best friend whom I'd met while staying there. Billy and I certainly had some unfinished business.
At nine thirty, according to my watch, he finally arrived, opening the door with his own universal hotel door key. He tried switching on the light, but it didn't turn on. He didn't notice I was there until I called his name. He turned to face me; I was now standing behind the bed. The moonbeams through the worn curtains shadowed the far side of his boyish face, light sparkling his blue eyes. His six-foot-four hunched frame towered over me, even at a distance.
He settled his leather jacket over the desk chair and took a step forward. "I really only came here to talk." His nasally tenor voice cracked with weariness. "That seemed to be our strongest bond."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Sit down. Talk."
He sat down slowly on the end of the bed. He turned and waved me to him. I pulled the desk chair up to him and sat down.
"When we got back to Chicago, I told Yelena about us. I couldn't keep it from her. If she found out any other way later on, she would've shot me. I couldn't have that rut between us. I couldn't even think about marrying her with a guilty chip on shoulder. Not that I didn't enjoy our time together, Lily," he always called me that. "You know, I love her too much to let last week slide."
"What happened when you told her?"
"She dumped me. Understandably, of course. All this week I've been trying and trying to apologize and get her to at least hear me out, and she is so stubborn -"
"Billy, she isn't stubborn. She's mad as hell. I was too when I came back and found my ex-boyfriend sleeping with my ex-best friend."
Billy looked up at me and glared me in the eye. "Did you tell either of them?"
"Yeah, after I saw that, I did, just to get back at him. I'm mad as hell, too, but Yelena didn't catch us in bed together. I saw them, sprawled all over, nothing covering them up. And they didn't even care that I was standing in the room, watching," I started to choke up. Tears began welling up in my eyes. "They wanted me to join in. 'Come on, in,' they said, all nasty and naked together. He didn't even have the gall to come out of her when I said something 'cause he was too damn drunk -"
Billy reached out and pulled me to him. His large hand pressed my cheek to his as I cried.
"God, the luck I have with men."
"We can empathize with each other, now. I'm sorry, Lily. I wish I could go back and change all of this."
"I didn't like him, anyway. Not since I met you and Jon. Jason became the dorkiest bastard in the world after I met you. And I lost him to my worst fear in a relationship - losing someone to a prettier, skinnier, taller someone else."
"Lily, stop it. You are pretty, honey. We got what was coming for us. We're paying for our sins, if you will."
I stopped crying and backed away from him. "You came here to talk. So talk."
He frowned. "I brought you here so I could see you again. I didn't want Yelena finding us, though I doubt she would come here looking for me. No doubt, I'll keep searching for her, but if I don't I'm retiring and moving into a log cabin, far, far away from everyone. Every serious relationship I've had with a woman was destroyed somehow. I guess I just came looking for sympathy. I wouldn't have been satisfied talking with anyone else; they all have their own lives and they'd just lecture me about cruelty and cheating, blah, blah, blah. I've heard it all already. They don't listen, just ramble. And you're a wreck, anyway," he smiled slightly.
"Thanks." I rolled my eyes, then they landed on his. We stared at each other for a while, until he finally grabbed me and kissed me…
V.
I met Jon, my new best friend, confidante, migraine reliever and soul mate in the parking lot. He leaned on his beat up old car with his arms folded, looking suave. I hate suave guys. Jason was suave. Suave sucks. But I liked Jon anyway. I was relieved to see him there. I hadn't seen him in what felt like ages - five days. I parked my '87 Ford Taurus and joined him. We hugged in greeting. He was a good hugger. I liked Jon.
He kissed my cheek as he pulled away. We stood at the same height, eye level with each other. He had dark brown eyes; I had green.
"Hi, Tori. I'm glad you came. How has your week gone?"
"Don't ask. I missed you."
"I missed you, too. I'm going into New York tonight and I had some time to kill. Want to come with me?"
"Sure. What are you doing there?"
"Partying. I need a date."
"I said I'll come."
"Good. So what do you want to do?" He examined the hotel behind me with a mischievous smile.
"Sleep. So we can stay up and party all night."
"That sounds like a great idea. I'll go check in. If all goes well, we can skip New York."
The phone rang, that stupid, annoying phone. I crumpled up the paper again and
carried it to the phone.
"Hello?" I answered.
"Hi, Tori. It's Jon."
I blushed. What a coincidence, I thought. "Oh, hi! I was just thinking about you."
"Good. Then you got my note?"
"What note?"
"Meet Me at the Motel Deska?"
I glanced stunningly at the paper in my hand. He's psychic, I thought.
"Uh, yeah. I have it right here. When should I be there?"
"Tori, I didn't mean it literally. You were complaining that you couldn't think of anything to write for your creative writing class. I was giving you an idea. I'm no writer, but I thought it would be a cool title. You could write about my incident with Jenn this afternoon. She asked me to meet her there. I said no, of course, but -"
"Jon, you're a genius!" Ideas for a story immediately began popping in my head. I headed to the garbage can to throw it out.
"And, Tori, don't forget to recycle."