Healing Sands (24 page)

J.P. stared at her, as if not knowing was a notion she'd never entertained. I looked at the four of us, all roughed-out with no place to go, and incorrigible laughter burst from my gut.

“I don't see what's funny,” J.P. said.

“Well, look at us. Hillary didn't take this much when he climbed Mt. Everest. We could live in the wilderness for weeks, but there's no room in it for us.”

Poco covered her mouth, but I knew there was a giggle lurking there. I couldn't tell what was going on with Victoria. Her hair was hanging in front of her face.

“So now what?” I said, looking at J.P.

“We go home. I don't see what else we can do.”

She stomped off, swaying slightly under the pack, and I felt a little bad.

“She was looking forward to this, wasn't she?” I said.

“It's okay,” Poco told me.

Though it obviously wasn't. J.P. drove all the way out to Highway 70 in a brutal silence that put White Sands to shame, ignoring Poco's suggestion that we at least go to dinner—or coffee and dessert maybe? Chocolate was known to make anything better, she said. J.P. didn't even grunt.

Until we stopped to turn onto the highway, and saw the roadblock. Then she exploded.

“
Now
what?”

“It looks like the road's closed,” Poco said.

“I can
see
that. What's the deal?”

“I bet it's a missile range test,” Victoria said.

“In the middle of the night? That's ridiculous, if you ask me!”

“Maybe that's why they didn't,” I said.

“Didn't what?”

“Ask you.”

J.P. twisted halfway around, but Poco put her hand on her shoulder. “You know what, let's just go toward Alamogordo and see if we can find something to eat. I'm starving.”

“We didn't have dinner,” Victoria said.

“Of course we didn't have dinner! We were going to cook wein-ers over a campfire and eat under the stars.”

I was startled by the disappointment that showed through the thin place in J.P.'s anger. I felt small and mean again.

“Just turn left, okay?” Poco said. “We'll find something.”

We found nothing, because in two miles the highway was blocked in that direction as well. At least on this end there was a marked car with its light flashing and someone military-looking at the wheel. When J.P. pulled over behind him, he got out and came to the driver's side window.

“Can I help you?” he said.

J.P. filled him in on our plight in a voice meant to change the entire schedule of the White Sands Missile Range. The man was unmoved.

“It's going to be two, three o'clock in the morning before the road opens again in either direction. You can go on past me, but you won't be able to come back through until then.”

“I see,” J.P. said. “It would be nice if you would inform the public about these things.”

“We do, ma'am. Watch the news. Check it online. Read the papers.”

“Thank you,” J.P said, increasing the starch in her voice. “We'll move on now.”

I wanted to sit back, arms folded, and enjoy her misery, but she was already stewing in her own embarrassed juices.

“I guess we have no choice,” she said as we pulled back onto the road.

We rode in silence again for a few miles, until Victoria said, “There's a motel.”

“Where?”

“On the right.”

J.P. swung across the road and stopped with a spray of gravel in front of a strip of doors with a room labeled
Office
on the end.

My laughter bubbled up again. “This is where you come for a two-hour tryst.”

J.P. looked at me in the rearview. “Is that the voice of experience?” “J.P.!” Poco said.

She shoved the gearshift into reverse. “Okay, so I guess we'll go into Alamogordo. I think they have, like, one hotel—it's a Holiday Inn.”

Poco pulled out her phone. “I'll call first.”

We waited while she got the number and chatted sweetly with someone—who told her they had no rooms available and to try the Motel 6. That, too, was full for the night.

“What is going on that we don't know about?” J.P. looked at me in the rearview again. “Was there something in the paper about some big event?”

“The Whole Enchilada Festival,” I said, “but that's in Las Cruces.”

“There are never enough rooms in Las Cruces for those things. The overflow comes out here.”

“And I would know that how? I just moved here.”

Poco put up her hand. “Okay, listen. This place doesn't look that bad. Why don't we see if they have a couple of rooms?”

“It looks like you could get a disease in there,” Victoria whimpered.

“A disease?” I said. “We were going to sleep on the ground in the desert with the snakes and the kangaroo rats. How could this be worse?”

The whimper turned to a squeal.

“Oh, for Pete's sake, Victoria,” J.P. said. “You're not doing to die. Let's just go in and make the best of it.”

“We'll order room service,” Poco said and giggled.

We all went in, walking as if we were attached with Velcro, and learned from a semi-toothless individual of undetermined gender that there was only one room left, with a double bed. We took it.

“I bet there'll be another room available at about ten,” J.P. said as we lugged all our stuff from the car to the door.

I was surprised by her sudden willingness to adapt. Victoria, on the other hand, was winding up like a manic toy soldier.

“I don't think I can sleep in there,” she said before we even unlocked the door.

J.P. went in first and turned to us with a mock-cheerful face. “Well, it ain't the Ritz-Carlton.”

I slipped in behind her and surveyed the dark-green walls, which matched the bedspread and the flattened carpet and the Formica on the dresser. The only thing that wasn't the color of cooked spinach was the overhead fixture, because there wasn't one. A bare bulb illuminated the room in light that made us all look like we were headed for our coffins.

“Ritz-Carlton?” I said. “This isn't even the Motel 6.”

“Motel One and a Half.” Even as small as Poco was, she had to squeeze between us to get into the room. She wrinkled her nose. “Somebody has smoked in here.”

“Ya think?” J.P. said. “We could get cancer just breathing.”

Victoria gasped from the doorway. “Seriously?”

Somehow we all managed to cram ourselves into the room, backpacks and all. J.P. arranged the food on the dresser, Poco stacked the packs in the corner, and Victoria set about unfolding her tent.

“Where do you think you're going to put that?” J.P. said.

“On the bed.”

“You're going to pitch your tent on the bed?” I said.

Victoria tossed her hair back and looked at me with actual gumption. “I'm sure not sleeping on that floor,” she said and continued to spread the tent across the mattress.

Where she intended to drive the stakes in I had no idea.

As Poco handed J.P. a can of Lysol, they exchanged a look that held a hundred previous shared conversations. I felt as if I were outside a scene looking in, and I wished, just for that moment, I could be part of the picture.

Victoria finally got the tent up with the stakes tied to the headboard, in time to share the motley feast J.P. and Poco put together while I shot photos.

“I don't know who you plan to show those to,” J.P. said as we downed Cheetos and uncooked hot dogs and the Hershey bars and marshmallows meant for s'mores. “But if I see one in the paper . . .”

“I have a question,” I said. “How come we get to eat all this junk and our kids don't?”

“Because we're the mothers,” J.P. said simply. “What did you want, filet mignon?”

“I'm not complaining,” I said, mouth full. “I've eaten a whole lot worse on assignment.”

I winced. I hadn't meant to say that. But Poco pounced on it like a kitten.

“Like where?” she said.

“Oh, just around.”

“Alex told Cade you've been to Africa.” J.P. looked at a Cheeto and then at me. “Is that true?”

“That was my last assignment, yeah.”

“What did you eat?” Poco asked.

“Meat of questionable origin.”

“Oh my gosh,” Victoria said.

I couldn't tell if she was grossed out or impressed. I was starting to squirm, especially when J.P. licked the orangey gunk off of her fingers and looked at me dead-on. Here we go with why-did-you-leave-your-children-and-go-to-Africa.

“Okay, so we talk about ourselves all the time,” she said. “And we don't know a thing about you.”

“Not that much to know,” I said.

“Well, now, that's a lie.” J.P. counted on her still-cheesy fingers. “You've traveled all over the world. You have your work in the paper. And you haven't told us what happened between you and Dan.”

“And I'm not going to.”

“And you don't have to,” Poco said, minus the arm pat because she had a marshmallow poked onto the end of each finger.

“Yes, she does,” J.P. said. “We're stuck in a green hole for the night and none of us has anything interesting to say about ourselves, so it's up to her.”

“Forget about it,” I said, but I didn't feel like decking her. She had a twinkle in her eye I hadn't seen before.

“All right, then,” she said. “I'll tell you what I'm seeing.”

Poco giggled. “This ought to be good.”

“Give it your best shot,” I said. “I'll tell you if you're right.”

J.P. pushed the usual tendrils of hair away from her face. “I'm looking at you and Dan—and at first I'm wondering,
What did he ever see in her? She's a snob
.”

“J.P.!” Poco looked at me nervously, but I waved J.P. on.

“And then I started to spend time with you, and I knew I was right. You are a snob.”

For some unknown reason, another laugh burst out of me. Poco and Victoria looked at each other as if they were making an unspoken plan to procure a straitjacket.

“But then I notice him looking at you when you don't
know
he's looking at you, and I see something.”

“How about, ‘I'm sure glad I'm not married to her anymore,'” I said.

“You'd think that, but no.”

“J.P., you are just rude!” Poco said.

She was, but it was growing on me.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“It's like he's seeing something he didn't expect. And then there's the respect, which I totally don't get, but see, we don't know you.”

I abandoned the rest of my Hershey bar and propped a foot up on the dresser. “I think you're totally wrong about Dan. But what do you want to know about me? I'm warning you, it isn't that fascinating.”

J.P. looked at Victoria and Poco. “Girls?”

“Go for it.” Poco had obviously given up on reining J.P. in. She pulled open a bag of Peanut M&M's and offered it to Victoria, who selected a yellow one.

“I want to know where you stand on God,” J.P. said.

“Excuse me?”

“We're all Christians, which is part of why we hang out together. I'm assuming you are?”

“I am,” I said. “I haven't found a church here yet.”

“I'm not talking about whether you go to church—although I don't see how you can practice Christianity without the body of Christ.” She shrugged. “That's a whole other conversation. What I mean is, do you have a relationship with the Lord?”

I bristled.

“What's wrong?” she said.

“I hate it when people talk churchese.”

“Then how would you put it?”

I hesitated. This could be the end of what was taking the shape of a genuine conversation among women. An hour before, I'd longed for it. But it if meant skirting the issue that was central to my being, it was going to be over before it started, and I'd be back where I'd always been: outside looking in.

“All right,” I said. “I don't just
believe
in Christ and all that he stands for. I
know
it's the truth. But that looks different for me than it does for a lot of people.”

“What does it look like?” J.P. asked.

“It looks like I pray and study the Bible, and then I get out in the world and it all falls apart. I get ticked off and I act like a snob and I do stupid things like leave my husband.”

Eyes widened. I rushed on before anyone could hook onto any of that.

“But what saves me are these images that God gives me, like pictures I might take, only they don't come from me. I know that sounds kind of woo-woo . . .”

“No,” Victoria said. “It sounds wonderful to me.”

“It would,” J.P said drily, but she leaned toward me. “So go on. What happens when you get these images?”

“Sometimes nothing, because I don't know what they mean right then. Sometimes they tell me that I'm being an idiot. It's different every time.”

“That is beautiful.” Victoria shook her head at me, pale eyes wide and shining.

“That's not too different from what I experience with God,” Poco said. “Only I don't see, I hear. Sort of. It's my thought, only it's not, if that makes any sense.”

J.P. nodded, but there were still questions in her eyes. “I have to read it and then do it. That's my relationship with the Lord or however it is you want to say it. That works for me.”

“So you do it and Poco hears it and I see it.”

We all turned to Victoria. Her eyes were closed, long lashes resting in the hollows beneath them.

“She's asleep,” J.P said.

“No, I'm not. I'm feeling it.”

J.P. nudged my foot with hers. “Now that's woo-woo,” she whispered.

And then she smiled, and I almost grabbed the camera. A smile made J.P. Winslow a handsome woman.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN