Fernway

Rachel was a pleasant travel companion despite being draconian about their music. She drove fast and competently, slowing down near obvious speed trap spots. Prompted, she would talk about her youth or general stuff. Anything related to her family Tim steered well clear of and it seemed to keep the atmosphere light.

It was around ten when they started to approach Lexington.

“Find us a hotel. Read off some places.” She lowered the radio slightly, which he was glad for after she had suspiciously managed to find an album worth of Hanson songs in a row. All on different stations.

He searched nearby hotels and started reeling names off. She no’d a bunch until he got to a Best Western.

“Yes! That’s it! Punch it in!” He wasn’t sure if this was a mystical feeling thing or if she just really liked Best Westerns. It seemed the latter.

He got his answer when they checked in. An incredibly nice woman a little younger than them arranged a room on the first floor in the back corner of the building. There was nothing he could put his finger on as being odd during the encounter with the clerk, but it still felt odd to walk out with two key cards for a room without so much as giving their names.

Tim stopped cold as they stepped back out of their car in front of the room.

“We have nothing! I mean I don’t really care but I have to change my socks daily or I feel disgusting.” He wasn’t sure why this mundane inconvenience continued to horrify him even into this dream/nightmare. It did though. Deeply.

“There should be some clothes in the room. Stuff from her and her husband. Go look while I smoke.” Rachel satisfied her end of the deal by lighting a cigarette while she strolled around the parking lot, appraising the sleeping cars and dark rooms.

It took Tim a moment to figure out how to unlock the door, it wasn’t a simple tap of the magnetic card as he thought. He eventually figured that he had to slide the card up into the bottom to enter. Once inside he saw a standard hotel room. Two queen beds with a nightstand between them. Facing the bed, a television on a cheap dresser next to a small desk. Tim noticed a corded phone on the nightstand. Huh. Didn’t see them often.

He also saw that Rachel was right. A navy duffel bag with white “Old Dominion University” lettering sat on the foot of the nearest bed. Pretty curious, Tim went over and unzipped it. Inside was a mess of shirts and pants. Not packed neatly, just tossed in. Weird. It didn’t take Tim long to sort the clothes into two piles, one full of small clothes, one of big. In his pile was a “RARO” (Tim had no idea what this stood for) and Hershey Park shirts and two non-descript pairs of jeans. A size tight but the right length. In Rachels pile was a faded shirt from one of Cher’s numerous final retirement tours, a few other plain tops and another two pairs of jeans that looked like they’d fit her. No socks. Or undergarments, which he was ok with.

By the time he had sorted and folded their bounty Rachel had let herself in the room with her card. She reeked. Rachel only glanced at the neat pile of clothes, going right to the duffle bag. She ran her hands along the inside of the bag like she was missing a toothbrush.

“Looking good for us!” She said it flippantly but was getting increasingly intense as she rifled through the duffle.

“Ah!” she pulled a small black rectangular box from the bag triumphantly. She broke the magnet seal at the lip and looked inside. “Fernway! They are true aficionados!”

Rachel flopped on the bed furthest from the door while she fiddled with the contents of the box. Shortly, she started inhaling from a small black pen. She was sitting but still moving, right leg bouncing continuously while she crossed and un-crossed her left leg over it. Her face started to fall in on itself, no longer having to concentrate on driving seemed to have allowed the thoughts Rachel was fleeing from to catch up.

“You’re going to have to give me some time please.” She was somber now, her previous thrill not even a memory.

Tim just nodded and stepped out of the room, making sure he had his key card again before the door shut entirely. Finding that he did, he let the door click to his back. It had gotten easy at times for him to just slip into the moment and pretend that things were normal. Moments like this were a reminder that things were not right. He knew Rachel had been one strong memory from falling apart when he left her just now. Tim tried to tell himself that he honestly thought leaving her was the best thing to do. He didn’t know her well enough to comfort her. More so, he was a disaster, he was really in no condition to help anyone at all. So, he left her to cry.

Tim wasn’t sure how to kill the time. It was not unpleasant out, cool and calm, but he had no desire to stray more then shouting distance from Rachel. He had a persistent feeling that he did not quite fit in this world. Rachel tethered him to something else. Something bigger.

Something he wanted desperately to believe in.

So, he strolled a few rooms over and sat on the curb. He looked around at the few other cars in the lot, none near him. He turned his gaze to the sky for a little bit. He realized that he was not well equipped to just sitting around and he hated it. He was used to having constant distraction at his fingertips. Tim found out that having nothing to do was super boring.