Patty's behind the desk doing a crossword. She looks up over her glasses as we enter. "Sloane Archer." Then she turns to me. "And Maggie Dawson. Isn't that something. Well, I've had a parade of disasters through these doors today but you two just took the trophy."
"I'm so sorry to bother you," Sloane says. "I left the window in my room open during the storm. By accident. And it's — everything's covered in dust. The whole room. I feel terrible."
Patty sets down her pen. "You left the window open."
"I wasn't thinking. I'm so sorry."
"During a blowing dust advisory." Patty frowns. "Honey, where I'm from, you close the window when the news tells you the desert's about to walk into your house. Even my dog knew to come in."
"I know. I know. It was stupid."
Patty sighs. "That's going to be a cleaning charge. Deep clean, all the linens, the carpet. That dust gets into everything." She writes something down. "I'll work out the amount tomorrow but I can't get your room cleaned anytime soon. My cleaners are run off their feet — every checkout's a disaster, half these people tracked the whole desert in with them. Day after tomorrow at the earliest."
A sock slips out of the armful Sloane is carrying and lands on the carpet. She bends to pick it up, and as she straightens, a pair of underwear falls from the top of the pile. She catches it against her thigh, red-faced, and tries to tuck both back into the bundle.
"That's fair. Of course." She pauses. "Is there — I don't suppose there's another room I could move into tomorrow?"
"I can't promise that. We're full and then some — half these people drove into the storm like fools and now they're stranded waiting on Hector to fix their cars. Sandblasted windshields, clogged air filters, one fella seized his whole engine. Hector's one man with one shop, so they're not going anywhere fast." She shakes her head. "God help me, I've got people sleeping in a room with one bed and a cot I dug out of storage. There's not a spare pillow in this building."
"Right. No, of course."
Patty shrugs. "You're welcome to borrow a bucket and some rags and do it yourself if you can't wait, but I'll be honest with you, that's a two-day job for one person and I don't even have clean sheets for you."
"Okay." Sloane nods, absorbing it. "Okay. Thank you. And I really am sorry. I should've known better."
"Yes, you should have," Patty says. "Anywhere you can sleep in the meantime?" Her gaze shifts to me. "Maggie?"
"Yes, she can stay with me for a couple of nights, so there's no rush on the room."
"Mm," she says, which could mean anything. "I guess that's sorted then." We turn to go and she calls after us. "Give your mom my best, Maggie."
"Will do, Patty."
Outside, Sloane lingers by the truck. "Maggie. Are you sure about this?" She glances back at the motel and lowers her voice. "Your mom's going to come by. Luis, Dale, Cassie. Everyone's going to see I'm there. You said yourself there are no secrets here."
"But now we have a perfectly innocent explanation," I say. "Your room's full of dust, the motel's full, and I've got a spare room." I open the truck door for her. "Nobody can argue with that. And as far as Mom's concerned…" I hesitate. "She already knows we kissed."
Sloane stares at me. "No…"
"I'm sorry, but even if I hadn't, she'd have worked it out. I was all over the place after you left for LA that weekend and I had to tell someone." I sigh. "That's all she knows though. I said it was a mistake, which I truly did tell myself at the time. No one else will find out though."
"Oh god." Sloane closes her eyes. "She's barely tolerating me as it is. This is going to push her right over the edge."
I shake my head and put a hand on her arm. "Mom won't tell anyone. And no, she's not delighted, but it's my life. She knows that."
57
SLOANE
Gloria's brought a vegetable thing with chickpeas, tomatoes and peppers, and there's couscous and a green salad from her garden. Luis, Dale, and Cassie are here too, and we're all crammed around the table on the porch with the citronella candle going.
Dale and Luis are deep in some long-running argument about tire pressure on the tractor and Cassie's describing, in forensic detail, how Penny worked out how to undo the latch on the feed bin this afternoon. Gloria's been kind to me — not warm exactly, but kind. Maggie's across the table, deliberately. She does this when the others are around.
Then somebody mentions the calendar — Dale asking when the new feed order's due, Gloria saying end of the month — and it lands on me sideways. I've only got three weeks left.
I push it down with a forkful of couscous and look around the table. I like these people, one of them in particular very much. What am I going back to? An empty penthouse and a phone full of people who didn't call when I was in trouble. A calendar of silly brunches and parties. The same expensive dissatisfaction I had before, only now I'll know what I'm missing.
"Look at this, Sloane." Gloria pulls her phone out of her cardigan pocket. "I want to show you something." She holds it up. It's the sanctuary's Instagram. "Maggie set this up years ago and then never touched it, so I took it over."
