V
Seconds before the storm did, we made it to the hotel. Renee was still upset with me about the coins. I marveled at the storm—a wrathful rain, sheets of it, acute and obtuse angles of impact battling it out—banging against the windows as if it wanted in the room with us.
On the couch Renee appeared to be trying to figure some difficult problem out. “You’re just having a banner day, you know that?” she said. “What are you going to do next? Steal that statue from City Hall?”
The water on the window made the yard look like an impressionist painting. I scooped a handful of coins from my pocket, out of which I picked out twelve quarters, enough for two sodas. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Wait,” said Renee. “What?”
I rattled the change in my hand. “Something to drink.”
“It’s pouring out there,” she said.
“Don’t worry. I won’t melt. I can change my clothes if I get wet.”
“I’m still mad at you. First the brick, now this,” Renee said. She threw her legs up on the couch in a resigned huff before stretching for the remote control. “See if they got any iced tea.”
“What’s that? You want an iced tea with my ill-gotten gains?
“I don’t want to be mad on my vacation,” Renee said. “Look. Star Trek: Nemesis is on again. Man, those Remans are scary-looking.”
I was immediately drenched. The second-floor overhang offered zero protection. I sprinted to the vending machine, which was located in the stairwell to the second floor. The concrete space afforded a kind of claustrophobic refuge from the dark tumult about me.
Then something, a shadow draped with power and menace, lumbered across my periphery, lingering just long enough that I couldn’t dismiss it out of hand, and as the cliche goes, I nearly jumped out of my skin when my Dr. Pepper hit the delivery tray. It’s like a horror movie, I thought; Renee will get a kick out of how spooked I just got and her IMDb-database of a mind will be able to spew out a host of fun analogies I won’t get.
For the next installment, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment