Bad Things (10 page)

waddled diagonally across the street, toward the hair salon. By the

look of it this girl had successfully made it to motherhood, at least

six or seven times. Either that or she needed to seriously rein back on

the snacks.

The sight of the salon triggered the thought that Kristina should/

could/might as well get her own hair attended to, and so she called

and made an appointment for a couple days’ time.

Then she put the phone back in her bag, and returned to staring

out of the window. A few more minutes passed, as though on their

way to somewhere they’d already been told wasn’t worth the visit.

What bugged her most was she didn’t even know why she’d come

back, and in truth this was probably part of why conversations with

her mother tended to start scrappy and go downhill from there. She

knew that her mother regarded her return as a moral victory, and

Kristina wanted to be able to explain and defend it in some way other

than pure laziness or worse. She didn’t want to believe it had been

inevitable.

That her mom had won, basically.

But why
do
you go back to where you and your parents and their

parents and grandparents were born, after a decade away? Friends?

Nope—all moved away, either geographically or into the snug dens

of parenthood. Father? Dead. Dear Mother herself? God, no. There’s

plenty room in a Christmas card to be reminded of your alleged re-

58 Michael Marshall

sponsibilities, and/or be given a hard time about the only important

thing in life, spawning a child.

She’d left town less than a week after her eighteenth birthday.

Good-bye, thanks for not much, I’m done here
. Worked, paid taxes, and leased apartments in fi ve different states and three foreign countries,

including a wacky six months in Thailand as the weird tall chick tend-

ing bar: by all means buy her a drink but please understand it isn’t

getting you anywhere. Some of it had been interesting, some of it fun,

a lot of it day-to-day and hard to remember in detail—even the high

times and hair-raising scrapes. She could have kept doing it, though,

or things like it. Could have stuck it out in Vermont or Chicago or

Barcelona, dug herself a life or just committed properly to the ones

she’d tried, rather than leaving a series of men staring bemusedly at

brief notes left on kitchen counters.

Yet here she was, back where she came from, under her own

steam and with no one else to blame. And she had been here—she

was horrifi ed to realize—almost nine months now. She didn’t
want

to be here.

And yet (and the words were beginning to feel like a spike in her

brain, banged deeper and deeper by a hammer she held in her own

hand) . . . here she was.

She accepted a refill from the server, a girl who—despite nose ring

and turquoise hair—was so bovine it made you want to set fi re to her

(and not just because she so obviously resented her sole customer for

being thin: well, sweetie, news fl ash—your hips are what happens if

you won’t eat anything except nut loaf and cheese). She wondered

briefl y where the girl had caught her counterculture vibe from. Some

two-years-ago crush who’d entranced a teen, fl ipped her world, and

moved on? The uncle who always seemed cooler than mom and dad,

while quietly tapping them for money on the side? Or the girl’s own

parents, dragging her hither and yon as a baby, borne on mom’s fl eshy

B A D T H I N G S 59

hip from festival to protest and back. Not that Kristina was so differ-

ent, she supposed. You think you’re being yourself and then one day

you realize you’re in beta testing for turning into Mom 2.0, the worst

of it being that the observation is
so
fucking trite you get no points for having hacked your way to it the long way around.

And had she fi nally got down to the point? Was she back in town

because part of her knew being elsewhere would never make a differ-

ence, that these mountains and trees and the scratchy pattern of these

streets were where she came from?

She didn’t think so. And yet. . .

Oh, fuck it.

She stood before she could complete the sentence yet again, left

a large tip just to fuck with the hippie’s head, and went out onto the

street.

It was cold outside. Winter was knocking on the windows, and she

knew she basically wouldn’t get her shit together now to ship out

before Christmas. She’d always liked fall and winter here anyway—

the land was made for it, so long as you didn’t mind snow and the

somewhat oppressive company of trees—so maybe that could serve as

an excuse. Perhaps she was proving you
could
come home again, and

then leave for good. She hoped so.

People came and went up and down the sidewalk, some nodding

at her, most not. She walked slowly up the street, in search of some-

thing to do until it was time to go to work. It was as if she’d been

awake for ten years and then allowed herself to fall asleep again. Or

maybe the other way around, she wasn’t sure. There was nothing for

her here. Nothing she wanted, at least.

And yet here she was.

C H A P T E R 9

We touched down a little after three o’clock. Driving up into the

foothills of the Cascade Mountains took an hour, and then I turned

north off 90 and through thirty miles of trees before reaching the

outskirts of Black Ridge itself. It would be easy to imagine the town

only has outskirts, on fi rst meeting. Even if you know better, and

where to fi nd what counts as the main attractions, driving too fast

will still have you out the other side before you know it.

Black Ridge is a place of small wooden houses on lots through

which you can see the next street, and stands at an altitude of about

three thousand feet. It stretches twenty disorganized blocks in one

direction, twelve in the other, before blending back into the forest

which climbs into the mountains toward the two major lakes of the

area, Cle Elum and Kachess. There are kiltered crossroads holding

hardware and liquor stores, a few diners where no one’s bothering

to string up fi shing nets or kidding themselves as to the quality of

what’s on offer, and a couple rental-car places. Presumably to help

people leave. The older part of town—an eighty-yard street at the

western end, offers a short run of wooden-fronted buildings holding

an antique/junk emporium, a coffee shop/secondhand bookstore, a

B A D T H I N G S 61

burger place, a pizza place, a couple of bars, and not a great deal else.

As I’d driven up into the mountains I’d refi ned my plan. Finding

a motel was the fi rst step. I’d passed up a Super 7 and a couple of

tired-looking B&Bs before suddenly fi nding myself confronted by a

place I recognized. I’d known it would be there—I had lived in it for

nearly a month—but it remained strange to see this particular motel

still in business, looking the same as when everything had been very

different. I didn’t consider turning into the entrance. On the road out

the northwest side of town I found somewhere called Marie’s Resort,

an old-fashioned, single-storied motel that had cars parked outside

all but three of its twelve rooms. It was clad in rust-red shingles and

stood right up to the woods on all sides except the front. I vaguely

recognized it from the old days and thought it would do.

Marie—assuming it was she—was a short, husky, sour-faced

woman who looked like she’d seen most of what life in these parts

had to offer and hadn’t enjoyed much of it except the shouting. Her

skin was the color of old milk and the pale red hair piled on her head

looked like it had last been washed in a previous life. Other than tell-

ing me the rate and asking how long I wanted to stay, she kept her

own counsel throughout the entire transaction. I told her I’d be there

one night, maybe two. From a back room I heard a television relaying

an episode of
Cops
. The woman kept glancing back toward it, perhaps

expecting to hear the voice of a friend or relative as they objected

unconvincingly to being hauled away to jail. Finally she pulled a key

out of a drawer and held it out to me, looking me in the eye for the

fi rst time.

She frowned, the movement sluggish.

“I know you?”

“No,” I said. “Just passing through.”

I moved the car to sit outside room 9 and took my bag inside. It

was cold. There was a pair of double beds, an unloved chair, a small

side table, and a prehistoric television, all standing on a carpet whose

62 Michael Marshall

texture suggested it was cleaned—if ever—by rubbing it with a bar of

soap. I didn’t even check the bathroom, accessed via a stubby corridor

at the back of the room, on the grounds that it would only depress

me. Other than a badly framed list of the things occupants weren’t

allowed to do, the room offered little diversion and no incentive to

remain in it. I scrolled through the call log on my phone and clicked

call when I found the number I’d been sent via e-mail the day before.

It rang six times, and then went to voice mail.

“Hey, Ms. Robertson,” I said, with bland cheer. “It’s John, from

the Henderson Bookstore? Wanted to let you know that item you or-

dered has arrived. It’s here waiting for you. You have a good day.”

I cut the connection, feeling absurd. For engaging in Hardy

Boys–level subterfuge to hide the nature of a call to the woman’s cell

phone. For being in Black Ridge in the fi rst place. For being, period.

I left the motel. If you have no idea where you’re supposed to be,

movement is always the best policy.

For the next hour I walked the town. It had evidently rained hard in

the morning, and it wouldn’t be too long before the locals could start

expecting the fi rst snow. Black Ridge was never a place I’d killed

much time. The town wasn’t familiar and did not go out of its way to

welcome me. Pickups trundled past down wet streets. People entered

and left their houses. Teenage boys slouched along the sidewalks as

if three-dimensional space itself was an imposition. The few Realtor

signs I saw in yards looked like they had been in residence for some

time, and more businesses seemed to be folding than opening. From

the outside, Black Ridge looked like it was in the middle of a poorly

motivated liquidation sale.

As soon as you raised your eyes above house level you saw the

ranks of trees waiting only a few streets way, and the clouds thicken-

ing, coming down off the mountains to remind people who ran things

around here. There are places where man has convincingly claimed

B A D T H I N G S 63

the planet, making it feel little more than a support mechanism for

our kind. Washington State is not one of them, and mountains every-

where have never given much thought to us. After nearly three years

on the coast, it was nice to see them again.

My phone, meanwhile, did not ring.

I found myself glancing at the few women on the streets, wonder-

ing if any was the person I’d come to look for. It was impossible to

tell, naturally. Usually strangers look like extras, background texture

in your life. As soon as you start to look more closely, everyone looks

like they might be someone in particular.

Eventually I found myself becalmed on Kelly Street, the only

thing that might cause a tourist to hang around for longer than it

takes to fi ll up with gas or a burger. I bought a coffee and a sturdily

homemade granola bar in a place called the Write Sisters, served by a

cheerful girl with remarkably blue hair. I sat outside on a bench with

it, sipping the coffee and watching the streets. Nowhere seemed to be

doing much business except the Mountain View Tavern, which stood

almost opposite. Even the bar’s patrons seemed lackluster, men and

women breezing in and out with the stiff-legged gait of the mildly

shit-faced, walking down slopes only they could see.

Black Ridge was, as it had always been, kind of a dump. Carol and

I hardly ever came down here—getting our groceries from Roslyn or

Sheffer (the closest communities to our house) or Cle Elem (bigger

than Black Ridge, but still hardly the excitement capital of the world).

Once in a while we’d saddle up and drive over the Snoqualmie pass

and thence to Seattle, about three hours away. There were a couple

other small towns en route—Snoqualmie Falls, Snohomish, Birch

Crossing—which were just about worth the trip if you are open-

minded about what constitutes a good time.

Black Ridge wasn’t one of our places, which is among the reasons

why, two and a half years ago, I’d wound up in a motel here for a

while. I’d spent almost all of that time holed up in my room, not so-

ber, or else out the back in a chair, overlooking the disused swimming

64 Michael Marshall

pool—also not sober. It was a condition that I’d specialized in at the

time. This lay in the past, however, and so I had little patience with

the people I saw drifting in and out of the Mountain View. I didn’t