Set This House In Order Part 42

"Yes."

"What about your mother? Did she die?"

He starts to say yes, then hesitates. "I. . . yes, I a.s.sume so," he says. Mouse tilts her head in an unspoken question. "I mean," Andrew continues, "I don't remember ever talking about that, but I do know my father loved her. He loved her a lot. . . and I can't see him feeling that way if she'd just run off, and left him with the stepfather. So yes, she must have died. . ." But he frowns, unsatisfied with his own logic. "I'll have to ask about that."

They talk a while longer. Then, about a half hour after sunset, Mouse lays her head back, and the next thing she knows they are pulled over by the side of the highway again.

"What?" she says, sitting up straight. "Where are we?"

"Coming up on the Wisconsin border," Andrew tells her. "There's a city up ahead, so I thought you should probably take the wheel again. I'm ready to stop for the night."

Wisconsin. . . Mouse checks the dashboard clock, which reads 10:29. She tries to remember whether she reset it to the correct time before leaving the motel this morning; even if she did, they've probably crossed another time zone by now. So it's really after eleven, maybe after twelve.

It's late. Mouse takes the wheel, and drives across the Mississippi River into La Crosse, Wisconsin. They find a motel. Mouse, ready to nod off again, pays scant attention as Andrew negotiates the check-in.

Loins isn't so sleepy.

"Twin or queen-size?" the girl at the check-in counter asks.

"Huh?" says Andrew.

"One bed, or two?"

"Oh. . . Two rooms, please."

"No, that's all right," Loins interrupts, deftly putting Mouse under. "We can share a room. I don't mind."

"You're sure?" Andrew says.

"I'm very sure," Loins tells him, trying hard not to give herself away. "There's no need to waste money on a second room."

"All right. . ." He turns back to the check-in clerk. "Two beds, then."

"Excuse me." Loins leans across the counter and whispers something in the clerk's ear that starts them both laughing.

"What?" says Andrew.

"Oh, nothing," the clerk giggles. "Here you go, room 230."

They go up to the room, which only has one bed. Andrew frowns when he sees it. "Sorry," he says, like it's his fault. "Let's go back down and fix th --"

"It's all right," Loins says, stepping past him into the room. "It's a big bed." She sits on a corner of the mattress and bounces up and down a few times to test it. "We'll both fit."

"Uh, Penny. . ."

"I'm really tired, Andrew," she says. "I don't want to go through the ha.s.sle of changing rooms. I'll just curl up small on one side, and you won't even know I'm here."

"Penny. . ." He knows something's off, but not what. "Maledicta?"

Loins laughs. "Do I sound like Maledicta? It's me, Andrew." She gets up quickly, and goes into the bathroom to wash her face and hands. When she comes back out, Andrew is still standing by the open door. "What's the matter?" Loins asks him. "You're not going to stand there all night, are you?"

"Penny. . ."

"At least close the door."

"Penny, what --"

"You know what you need?" Loins says. "A good shower."

"A shower?"

"Yeah." She nods. "To relax you. Wash the day off." She tosses her head and smiles in a way that she knows is seductive. "Or maybe a nice hot bath. . . I'm going out to get a soda, anyway, so while I'm gone, feel free. . ."

"You're going for a soda? I thought you were really tired."

"Oh, I am," says Loins. "But I'm really thirsty, too." She steps past him again, unable to resist stroking his cheek with her finger in pa.s.sing. "See you when I get back. . ."

Five minutes, Loins tells herself, as she makes her way to the ground level. She finds a soda machine in an open breezeway that runs between two sections of the motel. There's a cigarette machine, too, but Loins barely glances at it; she doesn't actually like to smoke, and only does it for effect. But Andrew, her intuition tells her, isn't someone who finds smoking s.e.xy.

But speaking of s.e.xy smokers. . . as Loins is making her selection, a cigarette coal flares in the shadows farther down the breezeway. The cigarette's owner is a shaven-headed man in a jogging suit.

He's cute enough to make Loins forget about Andrew momentarily.

"Hi there," she says, making her voice a purr. "Looking for some company?"

The smoker smiles at the come on, but then holds up his left hand and waggles the digits; a wedding band glints on his ring finger.

"Your loss," Loins informs him. She takes a can of 7-Up from the soda machine, and -- although the night air is cool -- presses it to the side of her neck as if she is very, very hot. "Sleep well. . ."

When Loins gets back upstairs, the bathroom door is closed and the water is running in the shower. She drops the soda can on the bed, primps briefly in the mirror above the dresser, and goes to join Andrew.

"Hi there," she says, pushing the bathroom door open without knocking. "Want some comp --"

The bathroom is empty. The shower-sounds Loins heard are coming from the room next door.

"What are you doing?" Andrew says from behind her.

She whirls around. Andrew is sitting in a chair by the door with his arms crossed. Coming in, Loins must have walked right by him.

"What are you doing?" Andrew asks again.

Loins smiles and gives a little shrug. "Just checking to see if you needed any help. . ."

"You aren't Penny."

"You caught me." Loins raises her arms in a fetching display of surrender, but Andrew's not fetched.

"Do you think it's right, you pretending to be someone you're not?" he asks her.

"Right. . . ?" says Loins, her tone implying: What a concept! "I think it's fun."

"I think it's rude. Rude to me, and rude to Penny, too. Did you even think to ask her permission before popping out like this?"

"Ask permission?" Loins laughs. "She doesn't even know me. She's too boring to know me."

"I don't think she's boring. I think she's a nice person, and a good friend -- and I'd like to talk to her. Could you bring her back out, please?"

"No, I couldn't. I want to have some fun. If you're not interested, fine, I'll find someone else. . ."

She exits the room in a huff. Descending once more to the breezeway, Loins thinks: All right, we'll see what that wedding ring is worth. Five minutes, max. But when she gets there the smoker has departed -- finished his cigarette and jogged back to his wife. Loins walks to the far end of the breezeway just to be sure, but she can find no sign of him, nor does she see any other prospects.

Then she hears a whirring noise behind her -- someone feeding money into one of the vending machines. She pastes on a s.e.xy smile and turns around. "Hi there. . ."

Her smile falters; it's only Andrew. On the other hand, what the h.e.l.l? "Changed your mind?"

Loins purrs, approaching him.

"No," Andrew says. He retrieves a pack of cigarettes from the machine and holds it up so she can read the label: Winstons. "Catch," he says, and tosses it at her.

". . . f.u.c.ker!" Maledicta snarls, s.n.a.t.c.hing the pack out of the air. She brandishes the smokes: "You think you can f.u.c.king bribe me with this?"

"No," says Andrew, "but I thought it would get your attention. And I trust you more with Penny's body than that other girl."

"Trust!" sneers Maledicta. "Don't get me started on f.u.c.king trust." Then: "f.u.c.king Loins. . . I swear, that f.u.c.king s.l.u.t. . ."

"I'm sorry you didn't get to hang out with Aunt Sam this afternoon. . ."

"You should be f.u.c.king sorry!"

". . . but I never promised it would be today. Now maybe tomorrow --"

"Maybe? That's what 'please' gets me, a f.u.c.king maybe?"

"I'm tired, Maledicta. If I swear to let you spend time with Aunt Sam tomorrow -- no maybes -- will you go back up to the room and stay there? Make sure Penny stays there?"

"Where are you going to f.u.c.king sleep?" Maledicta demands. "Not with me."

"No, not with you," Andrew agrees. "I'll get another room, I guess. Or maybe I'll just sleep in the car. . ."

"You're not sleeping in my f.u.c.king car."

"Then I'll get another room." He holds out the key to room 230. "OK?"

"f.u.c.ker. . ."

"I noticed there's a minibar in this one," Andrew adds, parenthetically, as she takes the key.

"Don't go crazy."

-- and so about seven hours later Mouse wakes up alone with cigarette breath and a mild hangover. There's a note on the pillow beside her, in Maledicta's hand: HES f.u.c.kING AROUND. It takes all the concentration Mouse can muster to figure out that this is a reference to Andrew's physical location.

Mouse gets out of bed, showers, and brushes her teeth. She swallows three aspirin. She gets dressed and goes out to the motel parking lot, and finds Andrew waiting for her by the car.

"Something happened last night," she says, walking up to him.

"You switched," he tells her. "I had to call out Maledicta to make sure you didn't. . . wander off."

"Who was in control before," Mouse wants to know, "that you thought Maledicta would be better?"

"Well," says Andrew hesitantly, "I'm not sure, but I think her name is Loins. . ."

"Oh G.o.d," says Mouse, when she hears what Loins did, or tried to do.

"It's all right, Penny."

"All right?"

"I mean it wasn't aggressive. She backed off as soon as I made it clear I wasn't going to play along. I got the feeling she was used to dealing with men who didn't resist."

"Great," says Mouse. Then: "It's not all right. You don't know, but this. . . Loins. . . has caused me a lot of trouble. The night before I came to work at the Reality Factory. . ." But she can't tell him that story.

"Well, Penny," Andrew offers, "if you don't like the way she acts, you can always tell her to stop."

"Tell her?"

He nods. "Track her down, inside, and let her know you're not happy. Lay down the law."

"Would that work?"

"Probably not the first few dozen times, but if you keep after her. . ." He shrugs. "It's your household, Penny -- or it can be, if you take charge of it.

"I'm going to have to go inside myself today," he adds, "to get some directions from my father, and finish a conversation he and I were having. And since I did kind of promise Maledicta that she could hang out with Aunt Sam, maybe we could coordinate: I'll go inside to see my father, you go inside to talk to Loins, and we let Maledicta and Aunt Sam handle the next leg of the trip."

"Maledicta. . ." Mouse blinks with bloodshot eyes. "You think that's a good idea?"

"I can talk to Aunt Sam beforehand, impress on her that they're not to take any side trips. And Maledicta, if you ask her nicely. . ."

Mouse is skeptical, but she realizes that the real source of her reluctance is not concern over what Maledicta may do with the body, but fear about what she herself may encounter in the cavern. She thinks of the little girl in the party dress. "What if Loins and I don't get along?" she asks. "Or what if I meet somebody else inside, who I don't want to talk to at all?"

"Tell them you don't want to talk to them." He thinks a moment. "When you had your meeting with Dr. Grey, did she do the thing where she has you wear a miner's helmet?"

"Yes."

"She had my father do that too," Andrew says. "He said it really helped, before he got the sun going inside. Bring the helmet with you when you go to talk to Loins -- it'll keep you safe."

They check out of the motel. After breakfast, they go to a Sh.e.l.l station to get gas for the Centurion (Andrew, in his determination to go "just a little farther," nearly ran the tank dry last night).

Since ga.s.sing up the car is Maledicta's self-appointed task, they do the switch right there -- first Andrew calls out Sam, and then Mouse, more reluctantly, calls Maledicta forward.