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“Hello!” I called, “Hello! Liam?”
My heart sank, was I all alone in this godforsaken—
A door in the back cracked open and Liam’s sleepy, mussed hair, and just-woke-up self, said, “Mornin’ already?”
“Yes! And I have so much to—”
“Hold yer wheesht.” He closed the door, and I clamped my mouth shut.
A few minutes later he entered, his hair less mussed. Through the crack in the door I could see a small bed in the back room. “So you live in an abandoned motel?”
“Ye make it sound like an Edgar Allan Poe poem.”
“But you live here?”
“Aye.”
“Why don’t you live in one of the rooms?”
“I daena ken,” he ran his hand through his hair. “I hae tae stay near the office in case the lass in room 5 has an emergency in the night.”
“Thank you again for vanquishing the monster.”
“Nae worries.” He rifled through a drawer at his desk. “This might help ye in yer situation.” He placed an old iPhone and a cord on the counter between us.
“Oh, you don’t need to do — that’s too...”
“How else ye goin’ tae pay me for the room?” He grinned. “Ye hae tae log ontae yer cloudy-wimbles tae pay me, tae do that ye need a phone, right, Woodshee?”
I laughed. “Yeah, you’re right, but you really don’t need it? I don’t need the cord, I have a cord.”
“I’m thinkin’ ye daena hae this kind of cord. The phone is verra old, its only purpose is as an emergency situation phone.”
I laughed again. “I am definitely an emergency situation.” I hit the home button and ‘hello’ appeared on the screen. “Okay, this might take me a few minutes.”
“Aye, and I need coffee, ye want tae stay here while...?”
“Sure, will you get me one too? A pastry or donut, or like, five, you can add it to my room charges? Some donuts for yourself as well?”
“Ye’re pretty optimistic that ye’re goin’ tae be able tae get the magical money tae appear inside this phone that has been in a drawer for years.”
“If there’s one thing I know how to do is set up an iPhone.” I flipped it over. “Where does my fingerprint go?”
“Daena hae a place for fingerprints.”
I joked, “I’m surprised it has a cord, seems more likely that it would run on steam.” I asked, “Do you have WiFi?”
“Only inside this office.” He added, “The server is the Trailhead Motel. The password is: ‘thisplaceisshite’ no spaces.”
“I guess it’s truthful?”
“I was in a mood when I created it.” He ran his hand through his hair again, chuckling. “I wasna expectin’ tae tell a customer it, and not a fancy customer from Los Angeles. I will be back in ten.” The bells over the door jingled as he left.
I got the phone working and was able to connect it to iCloud and then Apple Pay. The phone had a working phone number but none of my contacts because for some reason those weren’t stored in the cloud. I only had my husband’s number in my brain.
I called it.
He sent me to voicemail, of course, because my number was unknown.
