Lila was in the hotel room, lying on the bed, shoes still on, jacket on, ready to move. She didn’t trust the new front desk clerk to call her but she couldn’t sit in the lobby anymore. The endless drone of cable news. Trump, Hillary and the talking heads. Trump’s supporters, angry and dishonest, Hillary’s supporters optimistic and dishonest. All, Lila thought, missing the point. You just do the next right thing in life. You just do it the best you can and then move on to the next right thing. Mistakes, bad things, they happen. Just do what’s in front of you, then do the next thing. What’s so hard about that?
But what if the next thing is the same old thing? And the same old thing again?
Lila dozed and thought of JJ. She saw him in weird vivid flashes: silhouetted against a campfire, pacing. Ranting about how stupid and dishonest people were. She saw him sitting and reading in a chair, laughing suddenly at something in the book. “What’s funny,” she would ask but she knew how he would answer. “Nothing.” Parts of him, parts of most men, never grow past 15 years old, closed off for good. She felt the feelings of the early days, excitement and rebellion, them against the world. Them against old people who had no clue. He made her question her parents for the first time in her life and that felt wrong but exciting.
The phone rang.
She came to, a little groggy, and picked up the receiver.
“Hello.”
“He just came in.” The desk clerk.
“Where is he?”
“He’s talking to the manager.”
“I’m coming down,” she said and hung up.
She went to the door, but caught herself in the mirror as she went past. She paused and looked. Disheveled, rumpled, tired. Lila did a finger comb and a hair patting thing. Then her eyes twinkled and she laughed. She had come across the country to rescue JJ from this latest escapade. He had been on a drunken binge, had probably blacked out, sleeping who knows where, and had left his stuff behind in this hotel. And she was concerned with how her hair looked.
One of the things she loved about JJ, maybe THE thing she loved, was that he always brought home the absurdity of it all.
She laughed again and went out the door.
The Thickening 