Road to Paradise Read online

  Ely was ten miles away. Gina stopped speaking. I asked, “But what about salvation? Without resurrection, how are you saved?” HOTEL NEVADA: BIG MISTAKE IF YOU DON’T STAY WITH US!

  “Salvation?” asked Lena. “In our faith, it’s gift from God. Like this. Here. I love you. There you go. Now be good. But Brigham Young said that salvation comes to man only by professed belief in Joseph Smith. The false belief that salvation comes from Christ rising from dead was a lie spread by Satan to damn the world.” Lena laughed. “Those are not my words. They’re Brigham Young’s.”

  Ely was calling. LIVE GAMING! PENNY SLOTS!

  “But in the New Testament,” said Candy, “Jesus said that the belief he was not divine was spread by Satan to damn the world.”

  “Oh, Jesus!” exclaimed Gina. “Same effing difference!”

  HOTEL NEVADA: HOT PIZZA AVAILABLE 24 HRS!

  Yuri cut in. “Mom, please! Look what you started again.” Apologetically he tried to stifle her. “You’ll have to excuse my mother,” he said. “There is nothing she likes to talk about more.”

  “Coming here has ruined our life, son,” Lena said. “And you know it.”

  “All right, Mom, stop it already. What do these girls care? They’re going to throw us out of their car.”

  Candy said no. I said no. Gina pointedly said nothing. “Same damn stupid idiotic difference,” she muttered, hitting the hot window with her fist.

  Ely sparkled in the sun. There was a park and a school, and indeed the parking lot in McDonald’s did look quite parkable, and the playground in Burger King was, as promised, large. Hotel Nevada was out of the nineteenth century, and in front of it on a bench sat a toothless man, who looked as old as the hotel. He sat in his dirty denim overalls and no other clothes, with his legs stretched out, a cigar in his mouth, looking up and down the street. Behind him was a sign that cheerfully invited you in: “WESTERN UNION—INSIDE!” Figuring you were going to need it. Next to the old guy was a slot machine on which a young man in a sharp suit was pulling the lever. The old man waved to us, gumming a smile, the suit didn’t turn around, sticking his hand into his pants pocket for more quarters.

  “That looks like a nice place to work,” said Candy. “I could be a waitress. I could deliver drinks.”

  “I’ll teach you,” said Lena excitedly. “We both get jobs.”

  “Mom, we’re not living in Ely,” said Yuri.

  “Why, son? It looks like nice town.”

  “Have you looked at a map, Mom? Two hundred miles north, south, east, and west, there is nothing.”

  “We don’t need anything.”

  “How is Dad ever to come and visit?”

  The mother scoffed. “The same way he came and visited in Salt Lake. Never.”

  “At least he could. He could if he wanted to. What’s in Ely?”

  “It has a nice spa,” offered Candy. “For the tired businessmen.”

  We all giggled. I looked for a gas station. Gina wanted something to drink. “How many miles to Reno?”

  “I dunno,” I said. “Check the map. Three hundred?”

  “Get out! It can’t be. It’s impossible.”

  We pulled into a parking lot, not McDonald’s, but still comfortable, and sprung open the map. Lena took her son to the bathroom. As soon as they were gone, Gina, forgetting about the map, spun to Candy. “I don’t like her,” she said. “I don’t like her, I don’t like her tone or her ways. I don’t want her in our car. You are so inconsiderate. You didn’t even ask how we would feel taking a stranger with us. You got no respect for us. It’s Shelby’s car, and you didn’t even ask before you invited them in.”

  “I knew Sloane wouldn’t mind.”

  “She does mind! She minds greatly. She is sick and tired, too!”

  “Gina.” That was me.

  “You’re taking advantage of her,” Gina continued breathlessly, sticking her finger in Candy’s face. “You’re using her, knowing she can’t say no, doesn’t know how to, and you, knowing that, are abusing her every chance you get!”

  “I can, too, say no,” I meekly protested. Gina and Candy weren’t listening.

  “Sloane doesn’t mind,” Candy repeated.

  “I can’t wait to get to Reno,” Gina said through gritted teeth. “You hear me? I. Can. Not. Wait. We’re dropping you off and taking off. I’m not even staying overnight. Whatever time we get there, we’re barely even slowing down, you’re out, your new friend is out, and we’re gone.”

  “Okay, let’s be reasonable. We’re going to get there late . . .” That was me.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Candy. “I’m stopping at Reno. I’m not staying in Reno. Jess there owes me a bit of change. And Jess has a car. But that’s it.”

  “What you do after you leave this car is your fucking problem.”

  “Gina . . .” That was me again. When did I become so mealy-mouthed, so milquetoast? I’d prefer if they just didn’t talk to each other. Where did my allegiance lie? Who did I side with? I didn’t want trouble. That was me, I preferred things a little quieter, with less money dripping through my fingers, less angst, less Erv (God! Much less), less dog, hitchhiking mothers, bars in tumbleweed towns. That’s how I preferred my life, was that so wrong? Yet in front of me stood my lifelong friend and the green-streaked, bleached-blonde waif with no bra.

  Lena and Yuri returned from the bathroom. “Why are you all standing outside?” the woman asked. “It’s a hundred and twenty degrees. Let’s get in.”

  The air-conditioning system in the car was not strong enough to cool the small space with the outside temperature that high and the heat of five hostile people inside.

  “No one wants a bite to eat?” I asked. “Burger King has a large play area.”

  “No,” snarled Gina. “Let’s get going. How many miles really to Reno?”

  Turned out I was wrong; It wasn’t 300. It was 369. Gina got even more sore. It was after six in the evening, though you couldn’t tell from the sun, which burned so hot in the sky over Ely, you’d have thought it was equatorial noon.

  3

  The Loneliest Road in America

  No one spoke for a hundred miles. We took a sharp right on U.S. 50—and kept going. It was just us—five of us, alone in the car. No one else on the road, except for the two birds that crashed into the windshield, one inadvertent, one clearly suicidal, since it was high up and flew down to fling itself unto death. The mountains were spooky large, so too the distances between them and the sky.

  The road in the flats between the mountains stretched out like a pencil line, was a hallucination. Occasionally it wound like string through the sunlit hills. I couldn’t help it, despite everything that had happened, I was still thinking, God, how beautiful. How amazing. I can’t believe I’m seeing this. I can’t believe I’m living this. Nevada. Who would’ve thunk it was like this? Not Justin, the skeptical Mormon by the revolving doors. God. It’s unbelievable.

  Candy said, “Gina, did you know that Jean-Paul Sartre had to struggle with being an atheist all his life?”

  “And this segued from what?” Gina asked. “From Nebraska? Never a good time to let it go, huh?”

  “Well, not here,” said Candy. “Anyway, often he would catch himself thanking God for a beautiful day, or for stunning views like these. He said it was a lifelong struggle to remain an atheist, because the whole world seemed to be made ‘as if’ there were a God.”

  “Not much struggle for me. Why can’t you all just look at a mountain or a leaf without attributing some larger meaning to it? Why can’t it be just a mountain? Why does it have to mean something?”

  I watched Lena put her arm around her son, and he didn’t move away from her. She fixed the black greasy hair that fell into his eyes, and he let her, while mumbling stop it, okay. She kissed his cheek, and he let her, then I caught Candy staring at me with a “you see?” expression.

  “That’s what you did for me, Sloane,” Candy said quietly.
r />   What did I do for you? I thought, saying nothing, catching Gina’s closed face. I could’ve let her catch a bus. I could’ve done that for her. Gina, too.

  “Guys, come on, what about Ely?” asked Candy. “I see nothing wrong with Ely.”

  “Girl, why would you want to live in Ely?” said Lena. “You’re too young. You have to finish high school first.”

  So Lena didn’t know. Candy didn’t tell her.

  “You have your whole life in front of you,” Lena continued, the lines in her face deepening. Where was Yuri’s father? Why was she still alone? She was fairly attractive. Perhaps it was the Mormons. Perhaps she couldn’t find a match among them, and it made her bitter. Maybe it would make me bitter, too, if I were old like thirty-five or something, with a child, living in Salt Lake. “You know what I was thinking of doing?” she said. “If Reno doesn’t have Nordstrom, I was thinking of taking class, learning how to be casino dealer. That’d be something, don’t you think?”

  “It would be,” said Candy. “They tip you good. You’ll have nice customers. And you’ll meet new people. You dress up nice, put on your face, earrings. Men with money will come to your table. You’ll be able to get a nice apartment, support your child.” She smiled at Lena, while winking at me in the rearview. “It’s a really good idea, right, Sloane?” That’s how she and I communicated. By deciphering the meanings behind our glances in a two-by-seven-inch reflective strip.

  The loneliest road in America must have been misspelled. It wasn’t the loneliest. It was the longest. There were only two towns from Ely to Reno, Eureka, pop. 640, and Austin, pop. 320, a Pony Express town, and as we blew through it, a handwritten poster stuck into the side of the road warned, “CAREFUL! SPEEDTRAP AHEAD.” So I slowed down, from ninety to fifty, and sure enough the copper was sitting by the side of the deserted road. Not a thing was open in town, not a store, not a gas station, not a drinks place. There were no other cars, yet the trooper was sitting, trying to catch speeders like me.

  “How long to Reno?”

  It was interminable. We’d gone less than a hundred miles. Still over two hundred and fifty to go. Gina groaned and moaned, crumpling the map, curling into a corner. Candy sat composed and cramped in the back. Yuri had fallen asleep. Lena was too tense to feel bored; she had her whole life to plan. Candy, too. But Lena was chewing her lips and cuticles.

  The sun set in the mountains out of Austin, right in front of us, melting the cement on our distant road. It set so directly in front of my eyes, unfiltered by a tree or a bush, water or a mountain, that I had to stop driving, because I was blinded and couldn’t see.

  “Why are you stopping?” said Gina.

  “Because I can’t see.” We rolled down the windows, we oohed and aahed.

  Only Gina remained in her stone-like masquerade. “It’s the sun,” she said. “You’re acting like you’ve never seen the sun before. Oh no! It’s setting, look! That’s incredible—a sunset. You mean the sun also sets in Nevada? Who’d have thought it? Wow. Is it ever gonna do that again? Because I sure want to be here for it if it happens.”

  “Nice, Gina.”

  Eventually night fell down around us on the road. There were no towns, no fences, no neighbors, no cars, and no lights. There was nothing.

  “Don’t break down, Sloane,” said Candy. “God Himself couldn’t find us here.”

  “Why not?” Gina grunted. “There’s nothing but us for miles around. How could he miss us? We’re the only things breathing. A blind man could find us here.”

  We entered Fallon around ten in the evening, then rode an hour or more through the black hills, down the dark mountainside to Reno, nested in the valley.

  Lights! Electricity! Civilization! The first sign we saw coming in off the road was a billboard for RenoforJesus. “LOST?” the billboard asked. I blew by too fast to read the rest.

  TWELVE

  RENOFORJESUS

  1

  Lost

  There is absolutely nothing in life that Reno can’t make cheaper.

  We arrived so late; perhaps we should have come during the day, but at night, the lights were sparkling and after 500 miles of driving through land no soul has been through except to pave the road, I became distracted, lulled into benevolence. Everything was looking good to me, even the shiny casinos. We passed a place called “Adventure Inn.” It advertised “Exotic theme rooms.” I wanted to see them. I thought it’d be fun. Stinger Good Times Bar and Grill had pink neon lights flashing and I said, “Look, Gina, wouldn’t that be fun, so fun, right?” But then in front of Circus, Circus, two down-and-out guys were sitting waiting for the (very) late bus, both gray and stringy, caps on backward. They looked so broke, like the last quarter they had went on the poker machine on the street right behind them, and waiting for the bus was a futile pastime. Past them was the Wild Orchid Club, “with new girls every night.”

  “Where’d they get new girls from, and every night, too?” I mused out loud. No one was playing.

  Jess, a friend of Candy’s, ran a local motel, and had told her she’d let Candy stay there, so that’s where we headed. “What’s the name of the place we’re looking for?” I asked.

  “Motel.”

  “No, I know. What’s the name of it?”

  “Motel.”

  I couldn’t see her in the rearview mirror. “Are you being difficult?”

  “Motel! That’s the name of it. That’s what it’s called. Motel.”

  We drove up and down the strip twice, looking. We couldn’t find it. It was all Pines Motel, and Reno Motel, and Gordon’s Motel, and Sunshine Motel. A dozen places, all with motel in the moniker. How would you go about finding the one with just motel?

  I was so hungry, all I kept seeing was restaurants. “Look,” I said. “Heidi’s Family Restaurant. Pancakes, steaks, omelettes. Maybe we should get a bite before we continue?”

  Lena thought that was a good idea. “The boy is hungry.”

  For the boy we stopped. I had to go to the bathroom; we all did. We pulled into Heidi’s, parked the car, and ran inside. The boy went to the boys’ room. All the girls piled in to the girls’. While we were washing our hands, Lena said, “Shelby, I need to run to the car for a sec. I forgot my purse.”

  “Car’s locked,” I said. “I’ll come with you.” I went out with her. She dropped her cigarettes and all her change in the dark, in the parking lot. I should have helped her, I felt bad, but I really wanted to go inside and order.

  “Look,” I said, “you don’t mind, do you, I’m just going to run in, okay? When you’re done, press down the lock and meet us inside?”

  “Okay,” she said, without looking up; she was bent over the passenger side footwell. “Could you order me a hot tea with lemon, please? And something for Yuri. Whatever he wants. Milk. I’ll be right there. I just need to—Oh God! Sorry . . .”

  But I was already inside. We all piled into a long booth, the three of us squeezed on one side, in a row like soldiers, leaving the seat across from us for Lena and Yuri. The waitress came, a bloated chick named Daisy. We ordered coffee, Cokes, tea for Lena. “What do you think Yuri wants?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Candy. “Chocolate milk? Apple juice? He’s been in the bathroom a long time.”

  “He was saving it up. Like a camel.” We chuckled, so relieved to be sitting down, nearly eating, and in Reno.

  The waitress brought the drinks. “You gals ready to order?”

  Tilting my head to see around her, I couldn’t quite see the front door. “Well, we’re waiting for . . .”

  “Let’s just order,” said Gina. “They’ll order when they come.” The waitress agreed; we ordered soup, steaks and pancakes and French fries, a burger deluxe and a BLT. Daisy took our menus (“Wait, leave two!”) and left. She brought bread and soup, which we devoured.

  Fifteen, twenty minutes had passed.

  “What the hell?” said Gina, glancing behind us. “Seriously, maybe something’s wrong with the boy?�
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  “Well, how would we know? You want to go to the men’s room?”

  “You go.”

  “I’ll go,” said Candy.

  “Really?” Gina and I giggled. “Be our guest.”

  When Candy came back, she stood at the head of the table. “Sloane, where did you say Lena—”

  I must have spilled my drink, gasping, “Move!” shoving Gina so hard that she nearly fell out and onto the floor, as I jumped from my claustrophobic seat and ran through the restaurant into the night. The car was there. But Lena was not. I ran back inside and opened the door to the men’s room. “Yuri?” I called. There was no answer. “Yuri?” I peered in the three stalls. They were empty. Candy was outside in the parking lot. She was standing near my car.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, panting. “What happened to them?”

  “Looks like they took off,” Candy said, emptiness in her voice the size of Montana. “Unlock the door.”

  “Took off? Why? Where?” Her face was hollow, as she got out her Mary Poppins bag. “Took off in what? They have no car. Where could they have gone?”

  “I don’t know.” She dropped her hobo bag back on the seat. “Caught a bus? Slipped into one of the casinos? Went to the train depot? I don’t know.” She wouldn’t lift her head.

  “Why would they leave like that?” I stuttered. “I don’t get it. Did they take their suitcase?”

  “I reckon they did. Open the trunk.” Still not looking at me. She slammed the car door.

  Then it dawned on me. “Candy,” I whispered. “Oh, no, Candy.”

  I popped the trunk. Lena’s suitcase was gone. I was afraid to look in my suitcase, afraid to look in Gina’s. Candy looked for me.

  “It’s gone, Sloane.” She groaned.

  “What’s gone?” I said inaudibly. I couldn’t comprehend it.

  “Our money. Yours. Mine. Gina’s. She took it and vanished.”

  “What? How much?”

  “All of it.”

  “What do you mean, all of it?”

  “I mean, all of it. All my money, and yours. I’m assuming Gina’s, too. She kept it in the side pocket of her duffel? It’s gone.”