Day Out of Days Read Online Free PDF Page B

the icy blacktop. I just sit there for a while, watching them through the wipers, my hazard lights still flashing, and my dog getting very nervous about what may lie ahead. Maybe I’ll just spend the night in the car, I think. Wait it out. That would mean leaving the engine running so I wouldn’t freeze to death. That would mean that the dog would be whining and turning in circles. I turn on my satellite radio for some possible clue. The angelic voice of Sam Cooke comes on. I can’t take it. I turn it off, not wanting to provoke a total emotional breakdown. Can I just sit here all night like this? Engine running. Dog turning. Lights blinking. Snow falling. Am I going to park this car or just sit here forever? What will happen when the sun finally comes out and the snow stops and the ice melts and the whole landscape is transformed into spring and stuff is blooming and farmers are running their gigantic combines up and down the long rows? What will happen then? Will I still be sitting here like this with the car running? What will happen when they discover that someone is trying to live in his car in the Holiday Inn parking lot? I’ve got to get this car parked!
    So I do and then one thing leads to another, and I’m heading back into the lobby, not really looking forward to encountering Lashandra again, not really looking forward to waiting in line behind the Tupelo hot-rod family, but there I am. Thank God the TV channel has changed. Now it’s news with some distinguished-looking dude in a suit, parading back and forth in front of a huge electronic map of the whole United States, magically touching it and brushing it in different areas, causing it to light up red in the South, blue in the North, giving the impression that the whole damn country is some cartoon show, divided up like apple pie, and that no one actually lives here, trying to score a simple room at the Holiday Inn in the middle of a blizzard somewhere on the outskirts of Indianapolis.
    The Tupelo family finally trundles off with all their geartoward the “smoking” room I had once coveted. Lashandra’s face is unsure what expression to make when she sees me pathetically standing there again. It’s a cross between smiling politeness and sheer terror at what she must see in my eyes. “Lashandra, hi,” I say meekly. She says nothing. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor, I—the storm is really bad out there. You wouldn’t believe it.”
    “That’s what they were saying,” she says. “Those folks from Tupelo.”
    “It’s unbelievable. Whiteout. I could barely see the hood in front of me.”
    “They’ve got it on the news,” she says. “All the way down into New Orleans, I guess.”
    “Really? Well—I couldn’t—I had to turn back around.”
    “I still haven’t got any vacancy though,” she says.
    “No, I know. I know that. But what I was wondering is—I have an old friend here. That woman—you know, that woman I was talking to before? That tall skinny woman with the red hair?”
    “Right,” she says.
    “I was wondering if you could give me her room number, because she offered to let me stay in her room and—”
    “Well, we’re not allowed to give out the names of guests, sir.”
    “No, I know. I mean—I know her name. Her name is Becky Marie Thane and and we used to live together in New York. Way back, I mean.”
    “Well, I still can’t just give out the room number, sir. That’s our policy.”
    “I understand that, but do you think I could call her, then, on the house phone? Would that be all right?”
    “Sure. I can let you do that. Let me get you connected.” She slides the house phone to her, looks up Becky’s room number, punches it in, then hands me the receiver. I’m holding it to my ear, hoping Lashandra will stop staring at me and turn her backdiscreetly, but she stays right there, eyes boring into mine. Becky picks up.
    “Hello,” she says, and the simple innocence of her voice starts me weeping