Zigzag (10 page)

We spent that night at the
Moonlight Motel just outside Blue Earth, Minnesota. I kind of liked the place—I mean, it was old and dingy, but one wall of the room was painted dark blue with a big smiling moon in the corner and stars falling down all around it. The people who owned it were old, but very helpful. Dory was going to rent two rooms, one for Marshall and herself, and one for Iris and me, but the old woman suggested that, since we were all family, we could fit in one room and save some money. “There's queen-size beds in 'em. My son's idea—folks seem to like 'em. So there'd be plenty a' room for two a' yas in one bed.”

Dory thanked her and rented just one room, though obviously she could have afforded two, then asked the woman for a recommendation on where we might get some dinner. The diner down the street seemed to be the only thing still open, so we piled our suitcases in the room and walked there. Iris, of course, started complaining the moment the old woman was out of earshot—at least she had that much sense.

“Why are we all stuffed into one room, Mother? Just because that old lady thought we should be?”

“We'll be fine,” Dory said.

“Couldn't you have just told her we wanted two rooms? Why
do you always do whatever people want you to do?”

Dory forced a smile. “It'll be like a slumber party, Iris. What's the problem?”

“The problem is we have to share
beds.
A queen size isn't that big.”

I felt so exhausted from listening to her all day, I wanted to say,
You spoiled brat! You're the one who's always telling your mother what to do. She's driving you all over the country and you're bitching about having to share a queen-size bed for one lousy night!
But I managed to stuff my anger back down. I was along to help Dory, and me getting mad at Iris was just going to make us all more miserable.

Marshall and I were both silent except when we ordered the very same meal from the waitress: cheese omelets and hot cocoa. I tried not to look at him, and he did the same for me. Iris managed to keep up the argument with her mother so Dory didn't notice that Iris's turkey sandwich was being picked into tiny pieces but not actually eaten. By the time we got back to the Moonlight Motel, I was so tired I could have fallen asleep in the bathtub. The queen bed looked great to me, even if I did have to share it with the Queen herself.

T
hat was a night to remember. It must have been about two o'clock in the morning when Marshall woke up screaming. At first I couldn't remember where I was, and then, when I did, I figured the motel must be on fire or something. But no, he was just having a bad dream, which I guess is not that unusual for Marshall these days. Of course, he's not usually sleeping in a small room with three other people when this happens.

Dory knew right away what was going on. She shook him awake gently and then cooed to him, “It's okay, Marsh, honey. You're just dreaming.”

Iris popped up in bed, her hair a messy golden nest. “God, Marshall, you scared the crap out of me!”

I sat up, too, since everybody else was up. “Is he okay?”

Now that he was awake, Marshall was angry. Nothing like having a big audience around to witness your nightmare. He shrugged off his mother's hug. “I'm fine. Let me go.”

“Yeah,
you're
fine, but the rest of us are in cardiac arrest,” Iris said.

“Iris, go back to sleep,” Dory told her.

“That's
so
likely. My heart's pounding like mad.”

“Shut up, you idiot!” Marshall yelled at her.

A few more heated exchanges occurred before we all laid our heads back on our pillows. But the mattress, which had seemed comfortable and plenty large enough a few hours before, had suddenly turned into a thin, lumpy pad that sagged in the middle and threw Iris and me together elbow to elbow.

“I'm never sharing a bed with you again,” she crabbed. “You're hogging the whole thing.”

“I can't help it.” I said. “It sags in the middle.”

“Yeah, so do
you.
”

I was pretty sure Dory had heard that comment, but she was pretending to have slipped magically back into sleep in record time.

I tried to ignore Iris, too, but her groans and grumbles kept erupting just as I was about to nod off. We infuriated each other for another hour or so, and then, finally, I got up, located my notebook in the dark, and retreated to the bathroom. As long as I couldn't sleep anyway, I figured I might as well sit on the toilet lid and write Chris a letter. At least now I had things to say.

Dear Chris,

It's four
A.M.
and I'm sitting in a bathroom at the Moonlight Motel in Blue Earth, Minnesota. The trip from hell has begun. Whatever I might have said before about my cousins from Chicago, I was wrong. They are MUCH crazier than I ever knew—possibly even psychotic.

Iris and Marshall insult me constantly, but I guess I'm lucky because they actually slug it out with each other. Meanwhile, my aunt Dory ignores it all and pretends we're having a lovely vacation together. And this was only the first day! We went to the Iowa State Fair this afternoon, or I guess it was yesterday, and spent about an hour looking at large vegetables. Dory is all nostalgic about her Iowa
roots or something. The kids thought the whole fair stank.

Remember last year when we went on the Ferris wheel about seven times? That was so much fun. Remember how from the top you can see all over the countryside and how pretty that is? Just thinking about last summer reminds me how much I miss you. I promised myself I wouldn't go on and on about missing you, but since you said you missed me, I think I should be able to say it, too. I miss your arms around me. I miss your voice. I miss your smell. I miss that great thing that is YOU. Especially now, at four o'clock in the morning, when I'm hiding out in the bathroom so I don't wake up my lunatic relatives—I MISS YOU!

Your letter sounds like you're having a great time. How are your roommates by now? Is that Rob guy still so stuck up? If they think you're a hick, what would they think of me? Have you gone back to St. Peter's yet, or the Coliseum? And what the heck are Spanish Steps? Have your classes started?

For some reason I feel like I'm asking you the same questions your mother's asking you. Sorry if I'm boring. I'm mostly not mad at you anymore, although once in a while I think about how great our last summer together would have been and then I get sad. I AM still mad at your parents.

Franny is going out with Des Sanders. And my mother's still dating the giant. Are there any girls on your program? I don't know why I didn't think of that before. Do you all live in the same dorm? Are there gorgeous Italian girls everywhere? Don't tell me I shouldn't be jealous because how can I not be?

I'm so tired I have to stop writing—my eyes keep closing. Tomorrow I'll mail this off to the Via della Vittorio, which sounds so romantic and beautiful. Is it? Do you still miss me, or are you too busy having a great Italian life?

Love, love, love,

Robin

To tell you the truth, I wasn't that tired. It was just too frustrating trying to say what I meant in a letter. When I read over what I'd written I couldn't even tell if it sounded like me or not, but I decided I'd better mail it anyway, so Chris didn't think I'd forgotten him or something.

By the time I got back into bed, Iris was asleep. I finally fell asleep too just about the time it was getting light around the edges of the window shade. Dory turned the alarm off at eight
A.M
. but nobody got up. Around nine thirty she gave us all a shake.

“Get in and out of the bathroom quickly, guys. I'm going to go pick up some coffee and muffins at that place down the road so we can get going. Lots of driving to do today.”

Iris groaned but managed to get up fast enough to be first into the bathroom. Marshall stood in the motel room doorway and screamed at his mother's back.

“Chocolate milk! Get me a big carton of chocolate milk!”

“Okay!”

The kid is barely awake and he's barking at Dory already. “Do you order everybody else around the way you do your mother?” I asked him.

He looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

Some of my leftover anger from yesterday crept out. “I mean, you don't ask for things—you demand them.”

Marshall scowled at me. “I
asked
her.”

“No you didn't. You said, ‘
Get me chocolate milk
!' That's not asking.”

“What do you care? Mom doesn't care.”

“Well, I'm sure she's used to it, but that doesn't mean she likes it. Nobody would like it.”

Marshall wrinkled his nose at me. “You're crazy,” he said, then marched to the bathroom door and started pounding. “Hurry up,
Virus, it's my turn!” Iris, of course, screamed back at him. I should have brought earmuffs.

We were ready to roll by the time Dory got back with the caffeine and pastry. And chocolate milk, of course. After a quick stop at the post office so I could get stamps and mail my letter, she announced she wanted to get across the rest of Minnesota and into South Dakota before stopping for lunch. She told me to rest in the morning while she drove, so I could take over in the afternoon. The car was quiet for a change—both Iris and Marshall fell asleep the minute they'd finished eating. I didn't really feel like sleeping, even though it was only Minnesota we were driving through and not
Italy,
it was still my first vacation and I was sort of excited. Minnesota didn't look that different from Iowa, mostly farmland stretching out on all sides, but just the idea that I was in a different state made me look at everything more closely.

I started wondering what the other states would look like. Would the mountains in Colorado look the same as the mountains in New Mexico? Were there mountains in Arizona, too, or only desert? What did it look like where Dad lived? Just the thought that we were actually headed there, that I'd actually be staying in his house with his family made me feel dizzy. I'd never visited my dad at his own place, even when he lived in Iowa. It was such a normal thing to do, but it felt weird to me. I mean, I hardly even knew the guy.

Dory was sipping her enormous cup of coffee as she drove. She had gray circles around her eyes and I wondered if that had happened overnight, or if I just hadn't noticed them before.

“Dory, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, honey. What is it?” She smiled at me in a sad sort of way, which seemed like it was probably her real smile. A twenty-watt smile, conserving energy.

“I was just wondering about my mom and dad. When they first
got married. Mom doesn't talk about it much. Did you know Dad very well?”

She shook her head. “Not that well. They were juniors at the university and I'd just started college in Chicago so we didn't see each other very often. I did spend a week with them the summer after you were born. That was kind of strange.”

“How come?”

“I don't know. They seemed so
old
to me. Here they were married, with a baby, living in a dumpy apartment—I couldn't understand it. I'd just gotten away from all that down-home farm life for the first time. I was going to clubs and art openings and trying hard to put my small town past behind me, and here was my sister settling in to middle age when she was only twenty.”

I brought my bare feet up onto the seat and hugged my knees. “Well, I don't think it was her first choice. If she hadn't gotten pregnant . . .”

“Oh, sure, honey, I understand it now. But at the time it was just the last thing I could imagine.”

“But you got married and had kids as soon as you graduated.”

Her little smile picked up again and then sagged. “Well, you never know when love's gonna hit you. I thought I'd go on to graduate school and get my Ph.D. in English. Until I met Allen the first day of my senior year. He just bowled me over. All my other plans got put on hold.”

“But then you got your teaching certificate.”

She nodded. “I probably wouldn't even have gotten that, but Allen thought I should have something to fall back on, just in case . . . as if he knew.”

I thought about Allen. He'd never had much to say to me, but I remembered he had a formal way of talking that made me kind of uncomfortable. As if he were
highly
educated and wanted everybody to know it. One time he took us down to the lakefront
and we rented a sailboat for the afternoon—I remember thinking he looked better when he wasn't wearing a suit. Still, it was hard to imagine him bowling anybody over.

I figured I should get off the topic of Allen. “Do you think Mom was bowled over by Dad?”

“By Jerry?” Dory gave a laugh. “I'm sorry, I don't mean that the way it sounds. Jerry was a nice guy, a very sweet guy, but he was too confused in those days to do much bowling over. I don't think he knew what he wanted—your mother made all the decisions. And I think, once she got pregnant all she wanted was that baby—
you
—but she thought she'd better get Jerry into the picture, too, or Grandad would really throw a hissy fit.