Road to Paradise Read online

  I didn’t see and didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to ask why this woman, or this woman’s suitcase or this child was getting into my car.

  “Are you kidding me?” Gina hissed.

  At first I said nothing. Then I spoke. “Gina, let them get in.”

  The trunk managed to slam shut, and the three of them piled in, boy first, packing into the miniature backseat that had been barely big enough for two Pomeranians and now, no less incongruously, was cramming in three people, to a varying degree all strangers.

  “This is Lena,” Candy said, behind my seat, a big smile on her face. “And her son Yuri.”

  Lena, sitting in the middle, stuck out her hand. I shook it. Gina didn’t. She wasn’t even looking in the back. Her arms were crossed.

  Candy announced she and Lena were hungry. “I’m not hungry,” said Lena. “I’m thirsty.” She had a heavy Slavic accent; Russian maybe? While I drove around unfamiliar Salt Lake streets, they decided they were more in the mood for a sandwich than a bagel. “Gina,” Candy said, with an ill-received poke, “is a bagel a sandwich if you put ham on it?” She chuckled. Gina did not grace Grace with a reply.

  Candy wanted eggs and hot oatmeal. And milk. This in addition to a good cup of coffee. Lena, who knew her way, badly, around Salt Lake, directed us to a sandwich place on North Temple that apparently had a bit of everything. Gina and I stayed in the car while the three of them bounded out and inside.

  Whirling to me, Gina said, “Are you ever going to ask her what the hell she’s doing?”

  “What’s with the tone?”

  “Shelby!”

  “Gina!”

  She swung her arms crossed on her chest. “You clearly have stopped caring a damn for what I think,” she said. “I’m not going to waste my breath.”

  “Thank you. What will it matter if I ask? They’re in the car. A mother and a child. What do you want me to do?”

  “I wish I weren’t here. From Ohio onward, I regret every second I didn’t take a bus to Bakersfield. I should have put my foot down. Then. Now.”

  “Candy will tell us soon enough,” I said, disengaging. There was no point. What was I going to do, threaten her again with the bus station at Salt Lake City? It was getting so old.

  “Could we go any further out of our way?” she barked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We put ourselves at risk every second. And now we’ve got Russians in the car! Tell me, will we be safer with them?”

  I smiled. “Russians are badasses.”

  Gina growled in anger.

  “Would it make you happy if I asked who they were and what they were doing in my car?”

  “Happy? No!”

  “So why should I ask then?”

  They came back, carrying their hot coffees and milks, bagels and egg sandwiches, foiled squares, and potato chips. For people who weren’t hungry, they sure were carrying a lot of food. Half of it spilled out as they got in.

  After they were settled, I turned around in my seat to face them. The woman was a better bleached blonde than me or Candy, in her late forties, with heavy eye makeup and red lipstick. Her beige business clothes were tight, and her skirt too short for a grown woman. Her slight son was gray and wiggly. He had sallow teenage skin as if he didn’t go outside, and unwashed pin-thin black hair. Lena smiled at me. I gave her a perfunctory smile back. My eyes were on Candy, who had obviously been shopping because she was wearing a new pink halter, so thin it was see-through, and a white miniskirt. Every time she moved, I could see her skimpy white underwear. She was holding five things in her hands, trying to figure out where to put the coffee while she ate her egg sandwich. I waited. I raised my eyebrows.

  “Candy?” I said.

  “Yes, Shel? Yuri, can you please hold this for me?” Yuri reluctantly helped her.

  “Candy.” With my eyes, I gestured to Lena and Yuri.

  “Oh, them,” she said. “Remember last night I told you about the bartender I met? Well, that’s Lena.”

  “Okay. And where is Lena going?”

  “To Reno. I figure we were going anyway. I said we could give her a ride. I told her you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I can drive,” said Lena in a heavy accent. “I learned in Moscow. I have my international license.”

  “No, that’s okay. But thank you.” I envisioned trying to stuff Gina back there with the mess of them.

  “What’s the suitcase for?” I asked.

  “We’re not coming back.”

  “No?” I said it so casual.

  Lena shook her head. “I don’t make too many mistakes in my life. But Salt Lake City is biggest mistake I ever made. Until I met this nice person, I didn’t think anything else was possible. And your friend just said, let’s go. Pack your stuff, tell them you’re quitting, and let’s go.” She sat up straighter in the seat. “I work only one night per week at bar. My full-time job is at Nordstrom. I sell shoes. Do you think they have Nordstrom in Reno?”

  “I really don’t know,” I replied evenly. “I’ve never been to Reno.”

  Lena told me my car was nice. Gina snorted. I said thank you. Candy said, “Nice—but noticeable.”

  “You want them to notice you, no? Three pretty girls in car like this. You must get so much attention.”

  “A little less attention would do us all some good,” said Candy.

  Yuri said nothing. He was squished, eating his bagel, turned sharply to the little window.

  “Candy told me she was thinking of moving to Salt Lake,” Lena said. “That’s how we got to talking. I said not if you want to survive. Not if you want to live. If you want your soul to live, you can’t come here.”

  “And I said,” said Candy, “that I wanted my soul to live.”

  “Do you like it here?” I asked Yuri. Gina wasn’t speaking.

  He shrugged. “The Mormons are weird.”

  His mother put her arm around him.

  “Weird how?”

  “I dunno. Like there’s nothing inside.”

  “That’s because there is nothing inside,” said his mother.

  “Ma, I know how you feel about it, okay?” The boy tried to move out from under her arm.

  Lena told us she came from Seattle to Salt Lake two years ago. “Seattle we lived for eight years. Seattle was beautiful. But the weather was terrible. Like Russia.”

  “In every place there’s something,” Candy said. “Never going to be perfect.” Huffing, Gina turned to her window.

  “I take rain every day rest of my life,” said Lena, “than sunshine in Salt Lake.”

  “I told you, Sloane,” said Candy, her mouth full. “You were so gung ho on this town, but I told you.”

  “Candy, you tell me something’s wrong with every place we’ve been to.”

  “Jackson took me a while to figure out.”

  “And what was wrong with Riverton?” suddenly snapped Gina. “What was wrong with Hell’s Half-Acre? Wright? Rapid City?”

  “You forgot Interior,” Candy said.

  “I know what was wrong with Interior,” said Gina, the memory of its desolate loneliness and Floyd’s heroin-soaked guilt stamped in our eyes.

  “There is nothing wrong with Broken Hill,” said Candy in her rolling, lilting voice. “That’s the one place that’s perfect.”

  2

  Open Range

  The car was covered with bug juice, the windshield, the wipers, the doors, the grill, the hubcaps. The car was filthy dirty inside and out. I wished for a carwash. As if by magic, it appeared near our entrance to the interstate. By the time we, in a spotless and shiny yellow car, got onto I-80, it was after three.

  “It’s ridiculous, is what it is,” I said.

  “I’m surprised you don’t like it here, Lena,” Gina said. “It’s so pretty. Wasn’t Temple Square nice, Shelby?”

  “The flowers were.” I didn’t mention that we weren’t allowed inside a church. I glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “So how c
ome we can’t go inside their church?” Gina asked.

  The Russian bartender and shoe saleslady said, “They don’t tell you why. They tell you to convert, become a Mormon and then they let you in.”

  “How come there are no crosses anywhere?” I asked. We were driving through miles of salt flats that looked like snow all the way to the distant foothills.

  “I don’t think they believe in Jesus,” said Lena. “Right, son?”

  “I don’t know, Mom.” Yuri was trying to stay out of it.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” Lena confirmed. “The Mormons don’t believe in or celebrate Christmas, Easter, or the Feast days. They don’t believe in the saints or in baptism. They don’t believe Christ was divine. They place Jesus on the same plane as John Smith and worship the latter slightly more.”

  “And their star is inverted,” said Candy.

  “That too.”

  “I bet the Mormons see nothing wrong with that. And,” said Gina, as always finding provocation with Candy, “I think the Mormons would be pretty upset, Candy, to hear you call them not Christian.”

  “What I call or not call them doesn’t change things, like that Great Divide sign. Whether the sign is there or not doesn’t change the essential truth of—Shelby, off the interstate!” Candy exclaimed.

  “Off and go where?”

  “I don’t know. Just get off.”

  “No, no, don’t get off,” said Gina. “We’re in the Great Basin. It’s quite remarkable here in the playas and the salt lakes. Don’t get off.”

  “Sloane, go!” said Candy as if Gina had not spoken—certainly as if she had not spoken to Candy’s best interest. Great Basin? Playas? But I had other concerns about leaving the interstate.

  “There’s only one road to Reno from Salt Lake,” I said. “Your Mormon friend Justin told me.”

  “That can’t be true. Off.”

  “It’s true. Just north is Idaho. You don’t want to go to Idaho again, do you?”

  “We’ll go south.”

  “South? To the Grand Canyon?”

  “Sloane, just—get off. We’re almost where we need to be. Don’t blow it now.”

  “We’re almost broke is what we are,” I said, getting off on U.S. 93 and heading south. It was only a seeming non sequitur. A straight road meant I needed less gas, there would be less meandering, less meandering on the leeward sides of mountain passes, less wildlife, less risk, and Reno was just one long drive away. Gina was angrily studying the map, telling me we were in the middle of an empty and vast Steptoe Valley.

  “I got money,” Lena said. “I don’t have much, but I saved some, hoping I’d get out of that place one day. And you guys are helping me out big time. I’ll be glad to contribute. I’ll pay for your hotel, your food. Whatever you need.”

  Ashamed of complaining in front of a single mother, now unemployed, with a kid, I shook my head, but before I could speak, Gina said, “Thanks, that will be a big help.”

  After rummaging in her purse, Lena handed Gina a hundred-dollar bill. “I’ll give you more if you need it.” Gina felt better.

  We rode alone through the Steptoe Valley, a Great Basin land with the Nevada Egan foothills in every direction. I thought Wyoming was desolate. Here, not even man-made cattle fences flanked the road to proclaim man’s presence and to keep the wildlife from wandering out. Just two signs for a hundred miles with the following words: “OPEN RANGE.”

  No rich Iowan farms, no Nebraskan broken barns, no Lakota Chapels where all were welcome, no Interior with trailers and a neon bar, no llamas lazing by sheds, or fences keeping the buffalo away. No ski towns. No scenic turnouts. No electricity. Nothing. Two signs forty miles apart. OPEN RANGE.

  That, and the road itself. A clean, smooth road with yellow double lines and an emergency shoulder to tell me civilization came here through the valley and paved me a gliding path so I could fly on my yellow bird and sing, there is no civilization, there is no civilization.

  At the junction of 93 and 50 lies a town called Ely. Signs for that town started coming up thirty to forty miles ahead. Billboards announced that the Ely McDonald’s had a great parking lot, and the Burger King had one of the best play areas in the state. And every mile or so, a big colorful billboard declared that you hadn’t been to Ely unless you visited the “BIKER FRIENDLY!” Hotel Nevada for some “WESTERN HOSPITALITY!” And for the businessmen passing through this part of the country, they could relieve their troubles and their stresses by visiting the VIP Spa, “with Truck Parking!” This was sung to me by a repeating silhouette of a voluptuous naked woman, like an X-rated Greek chorus.

  “Maybe Ely is the town for you, Candy,” Gina said dryly.

  “Could be.”

  “No, no,” said Lena. “Ely? I thought you were headed to California?”

  “I am,” Candy replied. “But not permanently. I’m looking for a permanent place.”

  “Stay in California,” urged Lena, with a big red-lipped smile. She must have reapplied after the bacon sandwich. “Why would you want to leave? It’s warm. It’s beautiful. It’s got a little of everything, not too much of anything. California is endowed with gifts.”

  We three didn’t speak.

  After a while Candy said, “Town I’m going to is terrible. The pits.”

  “Trust me,” said Lena, “California is paradise.”

  In the narrow mirror, I saw Candy cringe.

  “Let me tell you what’s wrong with the people in Salt Lake,” said Lena. “Last year I had some health problems. Just female things. And I was friendly with my boss at Nordstrom. She was—is—nice lady. I asked her if there was anything Nordstrom could do to help me out. Perhaps small loan, maybe raise, better insurance policy? You know, whenever money is involved, you can gauge many things about people. Their true hearts come out. So hers did. She refused to help me, said Nordstrom couldn’t help me either, no loans, no raises, and when she saw my face, she patted me and said, ‘Why don’t you convert to Mormonism? They are very generous with members of their church. And they have plenty of money.’ ”

  Candy shook her head. I withheld judgment. Gina said, “Sound advice. Why didn’t you?”

  “Why didn’t I? Are you joking?”

  “No, I’m serious. To help yourself, to pay for your medical bills? It’s a no-brainer.”

  “I said to my boss,” Lena continued, as if not addressing Gina, yet addressing only Gina, “why would I prostitute everything I believe in and turn my back on my faith for few pieces of silver? I’m Russian Orthodox. I’m going to become Mormon so they can give me money? There is a word for someone like that.”

  We didn’t say anything. Gina spoke first. “But what if your faith isn’t that important to you? What if you have no faith?”

  “Then you’re not giving anything up. It’s like my Catholic friend who converted to Judaism because her boyfriend wouldn’t marry her as Catholic. I said to myself, how serious a Catholic could she have been?”

  “Maybe she was a bad Catholic. A bad Christian.”

  “We’re all bad Christians,” said Lena. “We should be better. But better Christians.”

  “But the Mormons call themselves Christian,” said Gina.

  Candy stayed out of it, smiling at me through the rearview. Lena was the only one in the ring with Gina.

  “Yes,” Lena agreed. “But they don’t believe any of the dozen things you need to believe in order to be Christian.”

  “Well, they don’t have to believe in every single thing—”

  “They don’t believe in a hundred things!”

  “Just because they don’t agree with you—”

  “Oh, no. This isn’t about me. This is about them. And all things they don’t believe in.”

  “They’re just different from you,” said Gina. “Everybody’s got their own opinion.”

  “Opinion is not religion, girl. Opinion is not Christianity. And you know what, Mormonism is not opinion. Judaism is not opinion. Religion i
s not opinion. Religion is religion. Opinion is opinion. Religion is not gambling either. Or Lake Tahoe. Or State of Nevada.”

  “I don’t know what you’re yelling about,” said Gina. “Shelby, Candy, do you know what your new companion is yelling about?”

  “Mom, honest, calm down,” said Yuri.

  “I’m not yelling,” said Lena in a calm clear voice, as Candy stared at her amused. We passed another sign for the Ely VIP Spa. DON’T DRIVE BY WITHOUT STOPPING BY! “If it’s all the same, Mormons and Christians, then why didn’t they just give me money without converting? They’re Christian, you say? Well, I’m also Christian. We’re all Christian. Why not give me money?”

  “No one does that. The Catholics don’t do that.”

  “Exactly. Because there must be some difference.”

  “Small difference.”

  “Is it small, Candy?” Lena asked.

  “Um, no,” said Candy. “As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.” She shook her head. “That’s not us.”

  “Exactly!” Lena smiled at Candy approvingly. “The Mormons don’t believe in the Trinity. Forget Christ, heck, they don’t even believe in the divinity of God! They think God was once flesh and blood, had sexual relations with his goddess, and on another planet they had children, one of whom was Jesus, and one of whom was Adam. And one of whom was Lucifer. So, Jesus and Lucifer were brothers! Adam was a god, and God was a god, and Jesus was a god, and all the good Mormons will eventually become gods, too. They pretend not to believe in polygamy, but they hold sacred, sacred, a man who had twenty-seven wives, and were founded in Utah by a man who had fifty wives, and fifty-seven children! Oh, and the cross is non-existent in their worship. There is no resurrection in Mormonism.”

  “Yes, but it’s their Christianity,” Gina insisted stubbornly. “Just because you don’t agree . . .”

  “All right,” interrupted Lena. “But then why can’t I be a Mormon? They call themselves Christian, yet they don’t believe basic tenets of our faith. I don’t believe basic tenets of Mormon faith. Why can’t I be Mormon?”

  “I don’t know why. Maybe you can.”