ND 2

We pulled over at a local motel. There was a bar attached. Before either of us even checked the front desk to see if there was a vacancy, I went straight to the restroom. L wandered into the bar.

I looked at myself in the dim light, poorly reflected against dirty white walls. I felt very far from Los Angeles, but closer, right then, to home. I looked tired, but not like myself. My hair was short and my stomach rounder than usual. Once I'd made the decision to leave LA, I started to fill up and fast. I ate all the food. I stopped pacing myself. Instead of a night out for cuban chicken one week and an Indian food feast the next, I started packing them in night after night. By the time I started to drive east, my favorite jeans didn't fit. But, that seemed fitting.

L was standing outside the door, scowling at the petite blond bartender. The girl's eyes were far apart, practically on the sides of her face, and when she turned to look at me, she seemed to be glancing far behind me. Then she scoffed.

"What?" I said.

L shrugged. "She did the same thing to me," she said. "I asked her what was on tap and that's the answer I got."

We walked back into the lobby where the night manager was stood and looked at us. He didn't say "welcome." He didn't say "hello." I was less than a week gone from working for one of the top hotel brands in the industry and this guy couldn't greet two potential guests.

"We'd like a room," I said.

He shook his head. "No," he said. "All booked."

I didn't understand how a motel off an interstate could be booked on a weeknight. There weren't many cars in the parking lot. We'd been one of three people in the bar. I made a face, and the manager sighed.

"The owner of the gas station's wife passed away and everyone's in town for the funeral," he explained.

L and I looked at one another. She sat down on the brown sofa in the lobby. Everything in the room was brown. The light was brown. The mood was brown. The night manager's eyes were brown.

It's true that I was headed home, to live near the small town in which I'd grown up. I'd traveled far and wide. But I'd never felt as foreign as I did in that unfriendly motel off the 2 in North Dakota.

ND One

It was dark when we crossed the state line into North Dakota. At least, that's how I remember it: out of Montana and into the night. The road seemed to narrow and the landscape widened and our headlights were wholly inadequate to show us what lied ahead.

We kept driving without any idea whether or not we'd stop. I suggested an overnight haul straight through the state. But, my eyes grew heavy and orange barrels and road construction made the narrow road feel smaller, scarier, something almost impossible. We stopped at a gas station to study the map because the dashboard light was too dim to illuminate a useful route. We were still on the 2, that much we knew for certain. We did not deviate. The plan was to continue on. It was a straight shot in the dark, but with pesky orange cones peppering the way. I thought we could get through it. I thought we could make it all the way to Minnesota and skip a night in the wide, blank state between destinations that I cared about.

Ultimately, it was my bladder and my terrible night vision that made us stop. We'd gone to the sun and came back down and then spent the day driving further and further away from the glory. When we stopped at a motel off the only exit for miles, we were about as far away from anything majestic as two girls could get.

WSHB One

When I was sixteen years old, I stood on a bridge near the city limits line and watched a small, street-sign be unveiled by the mayor. He was gregarious man who enjoyed his status and his accessories. He was easily recognizable by the sash he wore constantly, embossed with the word "Mayor." It was the middle of the day, and the "Sash Mayor," as some people called him, had commissioned the road signs for all the ways in and out of the city. I was there with a journalist from the community newspaper. I was a senior in high school and participating in a program in which I shadowed the journalist. She was sent to cover the signs. I went with her. We stood on a bridge near the city limits line with the mayor in his sash and a sign that said, "Welcome to Portsmouth, Ohio. Where Southern Hospitality Begins."

I read the sign and for the first time was aware of the slogan that spoke volumes about the town. I remember thinking, "Huh," when I first read it. It seemed just about right.

By the time I saw the sign, I'd been through the South several times. Every family vacation was spent walking a battlefield or a cemetery or both. On our way to Florida, we stopped to see cousins in Alabama. I read a lot of southern literature. Carson McCullers especially interested me. She seemed to know what life was like in towns like mine. People were lonely, they projected personalities onto you, they were odd and twisted and sometimes kind.

I loved the grand decay of the South. I loved the preserved houses - both grand and average. I loved the manners. I was too young to understand the underlying issues of class and race...that would come later. I saw that sign and I started comparing. I had a small inventory of southern values...

The Glass Carafe

There was still a touch of romance in the way I was living: road trip, farmhouse, coming home. I could end my twenties in more than style. I was making a promise to myself, not with words, but with gestures. I would follow roads and take in scenery and stare out the front window while I tried to understand the whole of my experience.

Pieces of the life I was after were lies. Pieces were honest attempts. Pieces were manufactured for comfort and pieces were avoided at all costs. Some days were Nutella on a cinnamon bagel and some days were plain white toast.

Every day, though, one small measure of a routine was played out. One of us boiled water. While the kettle was on, we might brush out teeth or start working on our hair. The unbleached, brown paper filter was inserted into the top of the small glass carafe and the coffee grounds scooped in with a clean spoon. If we were using the fancy coffee, we dumped it into the filter straight from the shiny package. Then, one of us had to man the pour over. We didn't know to call it pour over. We just poured it over. L's grandmother had been using that very Chemex for over thirty years. The glass carafe was older than either one of us. Like so many things in the house. We lived in a space in which you didn't encounter history. You confronted it.

Or you made your way with it.

Modern appliances wouldn't have felt quite right anyway. No toaster. No coffee pot. We had a fussy microwave. We had two crock pots and a sink full of dishes most of the time.

On 52

It's hard to love the road, but have little love for the people who live along it. I have a fondness for them, in small ways, but when one insists on circling me on his four wheeler while I pump gas on a gravel lot, I lose what little affection I carry for the folks as a whole. When I pass a man wearing a "Cool Story Babe Now Go Make Me a Sandwich" t-shirt, I lose a piece of the respect I was saving for them.

On the other hand, my love isn't about people. It's about place. I know all the arguments about how people make a place. But I'm not settling into one town and making a home. I'm driving through.

Ashland Burial

I made it to eastern Kentucky again, to see my friend's grave. It was around this time a year ago that I learned that she'd died. She passed away almost six months before I knew it. About once a year, I'd look up her phone number and give her a call. Instead of a phone number, the internet gave me an obituary.

Our story was weird and winding. I can't say it ends at her grave. Now that I know where to find it, I can't say that I won't go back to see her again. I want to take things to leave with her: magnolia blossoms, Virginia Woolf books, a university ball cap. I might try to talk to her. This time, all I could say was, "Goddamit, Ann." I had to roll a coffee table across a mausoleum floor and stand on it in order to even touch her...headstone. It's not a headstone. It's a name placed on a marble drawer front. There's a brass vase attached, and faux flowers filling it up. I pushed them out of the way because faux petals were obscuring a part of her name.

There was a sofa sitting in front of a stained glass window and I sat there and looked up at the letters that formed her name and the dates, well, those significant dates. Birth. Death. It's really that simple. You don't see timelines with graduation dates or wedding dates or favorite accomplishment dates. We get two dates, and what little control we have over either. 

I'd say no control, except in her case, she had control over one of the dates. It happens. People take control of their second date. 

I can't say I've spent a lot of time in mausoleums, but it's strange in cemeteries where you have headstones just a few steps away from the mausoleum. Headstones often have titles, too: daughter, mother, beloved wife. There was no title this time. Just her full name and her two dates. And a brass vase filled with faux flowers. They were purple.

It was cold, and smelled like a cheap motel swimming pool. There were rooms, and the one where she was had a stained glass window with the word "Light," built into the design. I thought that was odd because the room was dark. I sat on the sofa and I looked up at her name and her dates and I sobbed for a minute because I wasn't ready for the enormity of it, even though I'd had a year to get used to the idea. There will never be goodbyes or any sort of closure. There will be me on an ugly floral couch spitting curse words because I'm angry that I lost a friend who didn't want to stick around. 

I couldn't find her at first. I walked along all the outdoor mausoleum graves and didn't find her. I finally called the number and the lady gave me the code to get into the larger building. When I told her who I was looking for, she remembered her off the top of her head. "Turn right, then at the end of the hall turn left, then she's on the top left," the lady said. I thanked her. I thought it was kind of fitting that I was back in Ashland, chasing Ann down. I'd done it before, years ago, when I came back to the river for a few days at a time and tried to make plans to see her. I'd drive to Ashland to meet her and she wouldn't be at our meeting place and I'd call her and get no answer. I'd call her parents' house and they'd tell me where they thought she was supposed to be and I'd go there and run into her aunt or uncle, who'd tell me I just missed her. Sometimes I'd find her and sometimes I'd go home bewildered at how quickly set plans could fall apart. I'd be frustrated, but rarely angry. I needed her too much to be angry with her. Maybe I idolized her a little too much, too. Maybe that's whey she dodged our rendezvous. Maybe she was busy, even then, wrestling with the thing. The thing that led to her name and dates on the wall in the mausoleum.

I stood on the wheeled coffee table and I placed my hand on her name. Then I climbed down and put the coffee table back in front of the sofa and then I sat on the sofa for a long time. I sat with her. She can't dodge me now. And I'm angry over it. I'm angry that I didn't have anything to say but "Goddamit." I'm angry that there wasn't a date for the year that we met, that she directed a project created by me and my friend, Amy, that she made us crawfish etouffee and we watched the Academy Awards. I'm angry that she used to dodge my visits and I'm angry that I wasn't a better friend. I'm angry that I didn't know that she was dead for six whole months. For six months, I lived in a world in which she no longer existed and I didn't know it. I'm angry that the sofa is ugly and the room is cold. 

I'm angry at Appalachia for taking her. It made her and it took her and I'm angry that we have at least one half of that equation in common. 

From the ugly sofa in the cold room, I could hear the traffic from the highway that runs beside the cemetery. I don't know if I'd find the sound comforting or maddening. Maybe a few of the cars are driving on, just passing through town, on their way to some place else. Maybe a few carry young women who are getting out of town. Who are getting out. Who are dodging hard lives. Maybe not.

Fan Letter

When I was a fledgling undergraduate fiction writer, my professor gave me a thick stack of photocopied stories, and during a brief required conference in his small office made tiny by the numerous stacks of books, said to me, "Your stories remind me a little of Ivy Goodman." He explained to me who Ivy Goodman was. "Ivy Goodman," he said, "was an Iowa Award winner and you should read her work." I walked back to my sparsely furnished, drab one bedroom with the stack of photocopied stories and the question lingering in my mind, "What's an Iowa Award?"

I was new to writing short stories. Heck, I was new to reading short stories. Before the required "Introduction to Fiction" course, I'd read two short stories in my life. Both were read for my high school English class and both were written by men about men doing horrific things. One was "The Most Dangerous Game," and the other was "Harrison Bergeron." I remember thinking that I was getting bored with all these people being chased. When I got to college, I took the intro class to reading fiction and we read all the classics. We read about the woman who kept a corpse in her attic and we read about the enormous radio and we read about the bible salesman stealing the young woman's prosthetic leg.

And then I started writing.

By the time I started writing short stories, I'd been in some pretty absurd situations. I was too shy to present them as nonfiction, so I stole stories from myself. For instance, once, on my way to have dinner with my wealthy boyfriend's family in a big city along the river, I stopped at a trailer park on the way and had the transexual psychic and sometime beautician do my nails so I'd feel fancy for the occasion. That's a premise worth writing about, so I did, but I twisted it. I carved out the best parts and embellished the rest.

It was that story that led to the conference and the mention of Ivy Goodman and my frustration at not knowing what the heck an Iowa Award was. I carried the stack of photocopied stories home and I sat down on my parents' old sofa and lit a cigarette and started reading. I was intrigued. I was impressed. I was enlightened. And I was appalled. I thought that maybe my professor was playing a prank. My work didn't hold a candle. I was completely intimidated - so much so that I didn't think to feel complimented. I just felt kind of sick.

Luckily, my transexual psychic in the trailer park story was the last one I had to write during my undergraduate career. I revised it a little for my applications to graduate school, and then I didn't do much with it ever again. I wrote new opening paragraphs for it. I made new outlines and lists of possible new scenes. But I never finished it. I made that a habit.

I never finished any of them. I'd write a decent first draft and then I'd shy away. I'd retract. I'd think the voice was too distant. I didn't include enough description or detail. They were too thin. They were too something and not enough something.

I made these excuses for years.

The Glass Panel

The door we sometimes locked, sometimes didn't lock, had nine 5 x 7 glass panes in it. They were stacked three high and sat three across. The door was painted pale yellow to match the house. It was technically the side door, and the door that faced us when we pulled in to the spaces in which we parked. There weren't designated spaces. There wasn't even gravel. We did park near the garage, but not facing it. We faced the door.

When you walked through the door, you entered the mudroom. To the left was the bathroom and to the right was the door into the kitchen. At one point in time, it had been the back door. But, when they added the indoor bathroom to the house, they connected it with the mudroom. It had probably been the back porch at one point. The ceiling wasn't covered and the floor was simply poured concrete. It's where we started leaving the dogs while we were gone all day. It was supposed to keep them from getting in trouble in the house. No one was going to come home to chewed shoes, books or other personal items if the dogs couldn't get to those items. We shut the door to the kitchen and left the one hundred pound farm dog and the puppy in the mudroom - where the only accessible window was the bottom row of those glass panels.

It started innocently enough. Both dogs just wanted to see who had pulled in. Or at least, that's what I thought. Later, I realized they knew who pulled in. They knew the sound of the cars. When L pulled in, F was at the window. When I pulled, little B stretched himself as long as he could, and peered out the corner panel.

That corner panel didn't stand a chance.

It was late Fall the first time they knocked it out. I came home and there was glass on the floor. I swept it up and hoped that L wouldn't be too upset. She didn't really react at all.

'The dogs knocked out the window," I said.

She lit a cigarette on the stove and nodded.

There was a glass company a block away from the university, just across the street from the floodwall murals. I stopped and picked up a new pane and we slid it into the spot fairly easily, although we didn't know how to secure it.

"Super glue?" I asked.

"Duct tape?" L asked back.

We let it stay in place, but unsecured. It didn't take long before the dogs knocked it out. They liked that particular pane. Once it was gone, they started sticking their heads out the little space. They could see us getting out of our cars. We could see them shake and bark with excitement. It was heartwarming.

But not housewarming.

It started to get cold and the loss of the panel seemed to stand out more. I offered to pick up another one at the glass company, but it seemed futile if we didn't know how to make it stick. Besides, they'd just break it like they did the last two.

L had a bag of old clothes next to the door since I moved in. On a particularly cold late Fall morning, she grabbed a handful and shoved them in the hole.

The dogs couldn't break them. We spent the winter with old clothes shoved in the door. I didn't mind. I didn't really notice. It was one more quirk, one more quick fix that worked. I didn't need things to be perfectly mended, I needed things to be functional. We let the dogs back into the house during the day and dealt with the occasional chewed shoe.

AR End

The building still stands, but it stands empty. The paint isn't fading and the shingle still hangs. The windows aren't boarded up and the door is dusty, but the glass hasn't broken. It still stands, but it stands empty. Much like the town it once served. People have cleared out. They've fled for more prosperous areas. And the American Restaurant still stands to remind what we once were, what we once had, and what we once valued.

It's in danger. No one can afford it. At least, no one who wants it. The building needs some work, but it could be a restaurant again. Locals would come by. The town would have an alternative to the corporate chains that popped up at the outskirts, and in the center. We would have something. It would be our own. It would be local history and a legacy. It would be a place where everyone knows your name, and more importantly, they know how you take your coffee. They know you. If you care to show up. If you care to claim them.

Locked Doors

We were somewhere between Kalispell, Montana and Minot, North Dakota, driving Route 2 across the northern plains on our way to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was pleased to see that Montana kept up its espresso and thrift store habit all through the reservations and towns as small as the one I was from (and as small as the one to which I was moving.) We could stay caffeinated and pick up secondhand souvenirs all the way to North Dakota, where the fun dried up altogether.

But we weren't quite to North Dakota when we started talking about all the things we would need to do that first week once we got to the farmhouse. Once we got home. 

"Buy paint," I said.

"You'll have to scrape those layers of wallpaper off first," L said. 

The room I was moving into needed some work. I knew that, and I was ready. My co-workers, upon hearing that I'd be moving 3,000 miles back to the land I told stories about, asked a million questions, including, "Where will you get your remodeling supplies?" When I casually - and without any suspicion that they were up to something - answered, I didn't know I was giving them gift ideas. On my last day, they presented me with a gift card, loaded with a handsome amount of money, to get myself set up in my new room. It was incredibly thoughtful and overwhelmingly generous. I could do a lot with what they gave me.

"Paint the floor," I said. L nodded. 

"Make a place for my chair in the living room," I said. L nodded.

"Get a key made," I said. 

"For what?" L asked.

"For the door," I said. 

"It doesn't lock," L said.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, I don't lock it," L said.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean you won't need a key," L said.

"Why don't you lock the door?" I asked.

"I never have," she said. 

We both grew up in small towns, but I grew up in a house in town, and in a household run by a career firefighter and Marine Corps veteran. Everyone in my family had a healthy distrust of other people, no matter how well we knew them or how close we had to live to them. We locked our doors. It's what we did. We locked them when we were in the house and when we left the house. It was a modicum of control. We said who entered our house, and when.

My friend N's family never locked their doors, but I always thought it was because they lived on a street with other family members and a close relationship with their immediate neighbors. I still didn't understand it, but I at least made up an explanation for it. 

"Well," I said. "How do you know people won't just come right on in?" 

"They don't," L said.

"But, what if they tried?" 

"They haven't."

In my mind, the lock was the signal that you control your home. I couldn't let go of that control. Not yet. I needed that illusion.

"How do you keep someone from just walking in and taking your stuff while you're at work?" I asked.

"If they want in, they'll find a way in. The lock's not going to stop them," she said, and had a point. "Besides," L said, "that's breaking and entering."

"But you can keep them from entering," I said. I said it with conviction because I was convinced. It's what I knew: lock your doors, in your house and your car, while you're there and while you're away. Have a smoke detector on every floor of your house. Keep a blanket and jumper cables in your car at all times. Know where the exits are. Safety. Safety. 

"The door needs a new knob anyway," L said, and we moved onto the next chore for the list. 

We each silently chewed on the conversation for a while, though. Something was revealed in our differing door locks philosophies. It felt fundamental. It seemed important. But so many conversations hold a greater weight when they're had on the road. 

It was just a door. If it's unlocked, it's easier to let people in. And that's where I had trouble. That's where I insisted that my doors stay locked. People had to knock or be given a key. I didn't know another way.

The Ghost of Grauman's

When you live somewhere big, sometimes friends come to visit. Of course, they come to the city to see you, but they also come to see the city through your eyes. You'll show them the Los Angeles you know. You'll present the city you think is worth seeing.

And, if you have a chance to spice it up, or offer something special to the days of landmarks and oddities, you do. Because that's what you do.

You can offer half a bed in the sunny little studio you love. The big windows face south, and in the eastern corner, three neon crosses light up the night sky. All of your friends should make the journey just to see that private little calvary. It keeps you company while your friends live far away from you.

In Los Angeles, you've become accustomed to free tickets. You see shows, you're in the audience, you happen onto performances. This time, just in time, you're given two tickets to the biggest night in the music industry. Your friend flies in. You spend the day showing him your Los Angeles. Then, an hour before you're supposed to leave, to take the subway downtown to the event, you both sit in your studio and contemplate forgoing.

"Do we have to?" you whine.

He sighs. "We could just hang out here," he suggests.

"Would we regret it?" you ask.

"Probably," he says and sinks deeper into the chair.

In the end, you get up. You get made up. You stomp to the subway where you witness a mugging and are almost assaulted yourself. Then you arrive at the biggest night in the music industry. You see celebrities. You watch performances. You applaud and you yawn.

"We could have watched this on television," you say.

"And not risk bodily harm," he says.

With the tickets, you were given access to an after party and free drinks. In Hollywood. You went all over the city that day, but not to Hollywood. Not yet. You save the boulevard for last.

In a nightclub on the top floor of a prestigious building, you gaze south over the city and marvel at the shimmer. The glow. The city's nerve endings on fire.

"Let's go," you say.

You walk the walk. Of fame. You stop on stars and say their names in unison. And in front of the grand Chinese theater, you linger. It's quite on the boulevard hours after midnight. No one is around but your shadows. You've entered the area full of hand prints. All the actors who pressed their palms in the mud. Their collected lifelines on display for eternity.

Out of a dark corner comes a stranger. His hair is wild, but his eyes are kind.

"I'm the Ghost of Grauman's," he says.

You freeze. You've already made it through one altercation tonight. You don't have the patience for another.

"I know every hand here," the ghost says. And you see his intent. He wants to put on a show for you. In the heart of Hollywood. You can't say no. Who would you be?

He points at your hand hanging by your hip. You lift it up for him to examine. He gives you a name, and leads you to her square. You sink your hands into the space where Joan Crawford commemorated her career. You feel a kinship for the woman. You feel a new compassion. There must have been more to her than bad mothering. Although, you realize that women aren't allowed to be bad at that. That is the one thing they must get right. No matter their other talents.

Your hands feel heavy and you pull them back quickly. The ghost smiles, as if he's seen that behavior before.

He turns toward your friend, who is more skeptical than even you. The ghost glances at his hands and says, "Tom Hanks." Together, you scoff. You walk over, lean down, and watch your friend's fingers slide into place.

"Like a glove," the ghost says.

He vaporizes. Folds himself back into the shadows. Tomorrow, tourists will come. They'll press their hands into the cement. They'll giggle over the novelty and give the ghost a bill or two.

There are worse ways to earn your keep in town, you think. The ghost knows his ground. You go back to your's, where the calvary burns up the corner of your view. You count the three crosses, you point them out to your friend. You can't look out the window and miss them. They sizzle in the periphery. You received the view for free with your little studio. They put on a show you no doubt will attend.

Huck Finn

The best part about working a minimum wage job in Beverly Hills, California is meeting a man who'll tell you, "Huck Finn ruined my life."

The second best part about working a minimum wage job in Beverly Hills, California is all the other people you'll meet. I'm not talking about the celebrities or the lookalike women who've all had the surgeons carve them the same nose. I mean the co-workers: the people who come to southern California and for one or more of a million reasons, they wind up working a minimum wage job in the most prosperous zip code in the nation.

You'll meet aspiring actors and writers, comic book artists and singers. You'll meet lost girls and boys and ambitious college students who work unpaid all day and then slave away in the evenings to support their experience. You'll meet all stripes and all types. I'm telling you. I was one of them.

I was aspiring AND lost and working paid all day and then slaving away in the evenings to meet interesting people and do something besides drink or watch television. I stood behind the counter at a bookstore, bewildered at what titles celebrities will buy. And, I talked with my co-workers.

One of them told me that Huck Finn ruined his life.

"What?" I asked. I was familiar with the title. It was that book that was always getting banned.

"Yeah," he said. "Basically, after reading it, I just want to float down the river for the rest of my life."

Some would say he's a lost boy, but I knew better by the look in his eye. I wondered if that's why the book strikes such fear in the hearts of so many school board members. It's not the language or the action or the behavior of the characters. It's what they inspire. They inspire flotation. It seems like the opposite of ambition. It looks like laziness. It sounds like a vagrant's life.

That's more frightening than cutting your flesh to change your face. To look similar. To assimilate. One takes money and one takes guts and maybe that's the real fear. That guts without money can thrive in this world. The best part about working a minimum wage job in Beverly Hills, California is feeling gutsy without a big payday. You have your wits and your dreams and you got yourself to southern California. If you can get to Beverly Hills, you can build a raft. You can find a river.

Meeting the Neighbor

After a long day of running errands, I pulled into the driveway and saw, out of the corner of my eye, a long-haired man standing on the back porch of the neighboring apartment building. His hair was dark and he wore round eyeglasses and his hands were on his hips. He was standing with his chest puffed out and looking out over the parking area as if he were a pirate and it was the sea.

I was eager to meet my neighbors. I was eager to meet anyone, really. I was completely solo in my new town, and I wanted to make an ally or two. I parked my car and hopped out, but by the time I turned around, the long-haired man was gone. He disappeared. In a blink of the eye and the time it takes to put the gear shift in "park," he dissolved into the building.

Huh, I thought. Maybe he doesn't want to be met.

I took my grocery bags inside and lingered in the kitchen for a while. The first department mixer was later that evening, and I thought I might want to look nice. I threw the five items of clothing in which I felt most comfortable onto the bed. I picked up the red cotton tank top in which I'd traveled western Europe. I threw it back on the bed. I called my friend Nicole.

"What should I wear?" I said to my friend, who'd just had a baby in Ohio.

"A bra," she answered. "Wear a bra."

Two months before I moved south, I cut off all my hair. I wanted a fresh start, which I thought should include a fresh look. Instead, the cut, plus the product that the stylist convinced me to buy, made my hair look flat and stringy and greasy. I'd gained a little weight between acceptance and arrival, too. I didn't feel like myself, and I had to go meet a bunch of strangers.

"Maybe I should stay home," I said to Nicole.

"Well," she said. "Then you don't have to wear a bra."

I wore a bra. And I went to the mixer. Everyone was generally nice, although I did get the distinct feeling that we were being sized up. I was fresh meat. I walked out onto the porch of the professor hosting the shindig and I saw my next door pirate, standing with a few other people - people I didn't know, and I didn't know if they were new or not. I was new. I knew no one.

But, I'd seen this man and I was fairly certain he'd seen me.

"Hey," I said to him. "I think you're my neighbor."

He whipped his head around to look at me and his hair followed. It punctuated his movements like a period ends a sentence. He moved, and his hair let you know how to read it. His movement seemed quick and clipped. And I could see how this man could disappear in a snap.

He didn't say, "Nice to meet you." He didn't say anything. He just nodded. And then he was talking to the other people.

The nod was enough. I wasn't put off by it and I didn't feel brushed off. A small, still voice from deep within told me that the little yes was big beginning. What it didn't tell me was that before I knew it, I'd have a cataloged collection of every Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode before it was released on DVD. Courtesy of the man with the pirate presence and the exclamation point hair.

Wolf Stuff 6

I chewed on that anger all the way to Glacier National Park, and then chewed on it some more. I gripped the steering wheel of my little, gas-efficient economy car as if it might save me if we drove over the side of the very steep, very narrow road we were told was magnificent and something to see. It was something to see, alright. And it was scary.

The terror wore off somewhere around Bird Woman Falls. We stopped to take a picture by the sign. Then we continued on, saying things like, "Wow," and "Are you kidding?" We marveled. We mocked. We just couldn't believe what we were seeing.

"I've been to the Alps!" I said. I declared it. And, with residual anger, added, "And this shit puts 'em to shame!"

We stopped at the lodge deep within the park, and the regular stop, I suppose, for travelers going to the sun. I passed over all the wolf stuff. I headed for the bookshelves. I couldn't believe that in all those years of mythologizing Montana, I didn't know anything about that park, those mountains, or the road that will casually lead your through.

Most of the books were history books. I pulled Native North America from the stack because I liked the look of it: copper with confident blue text. I felt fine judging the book by its cover. I opened it to a random page and learned that some tribes isolated their women while they were menstruating because the blood was considered so potent, so powerful and dangerous that it could contaminate sacred objects if it came in contact with them.

"L!" I called out. She came over and I read aloud, "The first period usually included the girl's isolation in a small menstrual hut set apart from the village."

"Is that so the bears and wolves could eat her without putting the others in danger?" L asked.

I shut the book, but I bought it. When I stepped outside on the patio where L was smoking a cigarette, I gasped. There was magic in Montana, and it was in those mountains. It was in that view.

It wasn't at the White Birch Motel and Campground, which was why we'd made the pilgrimage to Kalispell in the first place. I was searching for a spirit, but it wasn't for my dad's deceased friend, after all. It was the spirit of discovery, fueled by the act of traveling roads revealed to you by strangers. It was Going to the Sun or nowhere at all.

Wolf Stuff 5

We woke up cold and hungry. The tent was covered in morning dew and the campground was quiet while I gathered all my toiletries from the trunk of the car and trekked to the public restroom and showers. I was on a mission. I wanted to investigate the White Birch, if only for an hour. While L showered and dressed, I'd be out exploring the grounds of the almost mythical motel of my childhood.

There wasn't much to it. The motel was a two story deal with an office and a laundromat and a shed. The signage was large and imposing. I liked it. It seemed confident. I needed to borrow some for the moment.

I fixated on the shed. I remember hearing it so clearly: Roger shot himself in the shed. In the shed. In the shed. I walked over to the shed. I stood in front of it. I felt nothing. For a minute. Then, I started to feel a little silly. I glanced over to make sure the new owners didn't see me staring at the shed. I also didn't want them to see me taking pictures of it. But, I thought if I had a photo, then I could use that, I could stare at the photo until some profound feeling came over me, some moment of clarity where I all my childhood questions about Roger's death were answered.

Even though I didn't really have questions. I just had sorrow. I didn't know Roger well enough for it to make a big impact on me. I knew his daughter. I knew his best friend. I don't know what I thought I'd learn about the man for whom they grieved. I don't know what I thought a shed on a campground in northwestern Montana would tell me.

"Let's go," I said to L after I stomped back to my car. She was packing everything up, giving me time to talk with ghosts. There were no ghosts there. Unless you counted my childhood thoughts. I didn't.

"I'll drive," I said.

We headed further north to drive the narrow road inside Glacier National Park. I'd never even heard of Glacier before plotting my way back home. Maybe I had heard of it and it didn't register. I wasn't really a kid who paid attention to national parks or state parks or that sort of thing. We had a state park back home that my family and I hiked through a lot, but it was just a part of the area. You could cross the street in front of our house and start hiking. And it wasn't a state park. I didn't know what the fuss was about. I didn't know.

I mean, I'd been to the Grand Canyon by that time. I'd seen a few geographical wow-ers. But I wasn't prepared. The bartender didn't tell me. He didn't describe it accurately. He got it wrong. Simply because he didn't get it right. He didn't describe the majesty of the mountains in Glacier National Park, and for that, I was angry.

Or maybe I was angry that I didn't meet the ghost of Roger while I camped at the White Birch Motel and Campground. Maybe I was angry that I couldn't get an answer to whether or not Roger 1.) took his own life or 2.) why he took his own life. I wanted to know why so I could give my father an answer. He'd lived for almost twenty years without his best friend. That made me angry.

Wolf Stuff 4

We waved at Buzz as we drove away for the evening. We were tired and hungry and wanted to find a restaurant downtown that we could write home about. Or, at the very least, we wanted to find a restaurant that we couldn't find in every other state we were passing through. L was driving, because I couldn't. I was almost putty. I was almost a puddle. All I could do was point and say, "There."

On a side street in downtown Kalispell, we found a little wine bar. We sat at the bar and L ordered an appetizer while I sucked down a glass of red from a local vineyard. I didn't want a buzz. I wanted the knots out of my neck. I tried to sit upright on the bar stool while L went outside to smoke a cigarette.

"What's there to do in this town on a night like tonight?" I asked the bartender.

"Nothing," he said, but not in an unfriendly way. He shrugged and smiled. We talked a little about the wine, then a little about the July weather, and then a little more about winters in Kalispell. "You can always spot an out-of-stater by two things," he said. "Their fancy trucks and their fancy trucks in the ditch when it snows."

Apparently, driving in the snow was something you learned when you were young and all the folks who came from out of state had a hard time adjusting. I thought of Roger. He was a resourceful sort. When one of his horses kicked him in the face, and his jaw was wired shut while it healed, Roger didn't stick to an ice cream and mashed potato diet. He put a Big Mac in a blender and drank it with a straw. That's not the kind of man who comes to Kalispell and blinks at a little snow.

But, as I learned, it wasn't a little snow that the bartender was talking about. I shook my head. I was still in a California state of mind when it came to naughty weather. I frowned when I had to wear a hoodie in the evenings because it gets chilly in the desert. But, many feets of snow? I pursed my lips.

I'd rather drink a Big Mac.

"What are you girls doing in town?" the bartender asked. I was a little self-conscious about my real reason for coming to Kalispell. I didn't want to spill my secret to the bartender.

"Passing through," I said. I explained the drive from California to southern Ohio. I sold it as a simple road trip. All the details could get exhausting for a stranger.

Somehow, in our chit cat, the bartender told me to check out Glacier National Park. I'd barely noticed it on the maps when I was planning the trip. It was north a little ways, and a tiny bit out of the way. I said so.

"Yeah," he said. "But Going to the Sun Road is something you've got to see."

I nodded. I liked to happen upon things when I traveled. I liked to talk to the locals. I wanted to know about the places they thought made their town distinct. I listened to the bartender describe the narrow road through the mountainous park. I kept nodding. It sounded exquisite.

Wolf Stuff 3

We sat in the car and watched the man with the hippie hair walk by. We watched him in silence. He climbed into the passenger seat of a waiting pickup truck.

"What was that?" L said. I shrugged. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or give up. I still hadn't recovered my language skills, and I was aggravated that our left turns were getting us nowhere. It was still somewhat early in the day. If we could just find the damn place, then we could set up camp and relax for a while. I was desperate to relax. I was desperate.

I pulled the car back into traffic and made my way to the place where we were supposed to turn left. "What if we didn't go left?" L asked as we approached the intersection.

"You mean, what if the directions were wrong?" I asked. By then, I couldn't remember where we even got the directions.

"Yes. What if we just went straight?"

I aimed the car straight. About a mile ahead, we could see a giant sign for the White Birch. It boasted a big white arrow directing us to turn right.

And then there it was: the motel of my adolescent imagination. I'd made it up in my mind and when presented with the real thing, I wasn't disappointed. It was rustic, but clean. I pulled up in front of the office.

"I'll go pay for a camping space," I said. L stood outside the car and smoked a cigarette. I took a deep breath. I had no idea what or whom to expect.

The woman behind the counter was friendly. "What can I do for you?" she asked. I mentioned that we wanted to camp. She told me the prices. I told her we'd only be there one night. We chit-chatted and I handed her the cash. I was about to chicken out. But, I heard a pause in the conversation and I knew it was my chance. I couldn't ask her if she was Roger's second wife, that seemed too personal and too forward. Plus, I wasn't sure I wanted her to know who I was.

"Are you the owner?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. She went about her business, pulling together my paperwork.

"How long have you owned the place?" I asked.

"Oh, my husband and I bought it from the previous owner a few years ago," she answered.

I smiled. She wasn't Roger's second wife. The timeline didn't work. But she probably bought it from Roger's second wife.

"Why, honey?" she asked.

"Oh," I said. I didn't know how to answer her. "My dad's friend owned this place for awhile."

"From Ohio?" she said.

I felt my face go numb. I showed up without a plan. I was too scared to make a plan. I didn't ask my parents about to whom Roger left the place or if his second wife had stuck around after his suicide. I didn't know whether to ask the new owner, "Yeah. Where did the guy commit suicide?" I never looked up a newspaper article about it and I never read an obituary. I was just a girl on a road trip, headed back  to Ohio, leaving a little life in Beverly Hills to make a bigger life for herself in the foothills of Appalachia. I felt very young, then, as I stood in front of this stranger and said, "Yeah. From Ohio."

She smiled and handed me my receipt and a copy of the campground rules. I smiled back, took the papers, and spun left on my heel. L was leaning agains the car.

"Well?" she asked.

"She doesn't know Roger," I said. I was shaking my head. I didn't want to answer questions or talk about it. I wanted to pitch the tent. And I wanted a drink.

We found a spot between two other tents and bent the poles and inserted them into the openings and created the tent structure in no time. It sat upright. It looked like the other tents. We went back to the car to get all the blankets, then turned around to watch the tent tumble away. It rolled and rolled and wanted to jump over the little summit and down into the creek nearby. L ran after it while I stood and watched with all the linens in my arms.

"What. The. Hell." I said under my breath. But, even under my breath was loud enough for the man across the little paved path to hear me.

"You didn't anchor it down. You've got to nail it into the Earth," he said. He went into his camper and came out with a hammer and some ties. L placed the tent back in the spot we'd originally chose, and the man kindly secured our tent in place.

"There you go," he said. His dog barked from the open camper door. We all walked back to the little paved path.

"That there's Buzz," the man said, pointing at the dog.

"Hi, Buzz," L and I waved at the dog.

The man walked over and picked the dog up. I pulled my tiny digital camera from the glove box. The man hugged Buzz close to his face. Buzz was an overweight dachshund. He seemed practiced at having his picture taken.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot Part 2

L and I went into the thrift store. While I browsed for my next great souvenir, she bought pink gingham sheets and a few thick blankets. I walked out empty-handed.

We had some trouble finding the White Birch. We stopped at a gas station and they told us to go up the road and take a left. The left turn took us back the way we came. We stopped at a fast food joint to eat grease and steady ourselves. We'd been on the road for only six days, but we'd managed to tour the Hearst Castle, stop at Nepenthe near Big Sur, eat a tuna melt at the Madonna Inn, spend hours in Powell's in Portland, avoid fireworks on the 4th of July and then shop at Pike Place in Seattle. We drove on toward Montana, with a pit stop in Idaho. In Montana, we'd managed to stop at a large used book store in a town with only ten houses. We bought wolf stuff at the trading post and from the guy who warned us against camping while menstruating. By the time we made it to Kalispell, we looked as wild and as unkempt as we felt.

And we kept trying out left turns with the confidence that eventually, one left turn would be the right one.

The White Birch would eventually have to reveal itself to me.

After ingesting roast beef and curly fries, we continued on. One more left turn took us to another gas station. I went in to grab snacks, while L smoked a cigarette outside. I had my arms full of soda bottles as I turned away from the coolers, and turned straight toward a man wearing little round sunglasses. I couldn't see his eyes. His hair was long - hippie long, not metal long. It was graying slightly. He held his hands up when he saw me, like I was about to place him under arrest.

"Whoa!" he shouted. "No guns!"

I stepped around him and joined L in line. She was waiting to buy another pack of cigarettes, and I had all the soda we could need for the night. The man with the hippie hair sauntered up behind me. When I looked at him, he pointed at L.

"She," he said as he pointed at my friend, "is beyond reckless."

L stared at the man. She was wearing a "Hard Times Saloon" t-shirt from the lone bar in the poverty-stricken town in which I was about to live. Her long curly hair was unwashed since Washington state. Mine was too.

We paid quickly and ran to the car. We had a motel and suicide scene to find.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot

When I was a little girl, my family and I spent a lot of time with my dad's best friend, Roger, and his family. Roger had a daughter exactly one year older than I was. When I say "exactly," I mean it. Kara and I share a birthday. We were fairly close, or at least we were as close as some cousins are close. More importantly, my dad and Roger were close.

Eventually, though, Roger and Kara's mother divorced and Roger remarried and moved from southern Ohio to Kalispell, Montana. He and his new wife bought a motel and campground. There was talk of possible visits. There was talk of a family trip to Big Sky Country. There was talk of wilderness. There was event talk of domesticated wolf pups. But we didn't go. I was too young to know why. It just seemed to me that, as a family, we weren't supposed to cross the Mississippi River.

As an individual, I crossed it. Several times. Back and forth I went from east to west and west to east. I crossed it with my best hometown friend and I crossed back over it with my brother. I crossed it again by myself, and then headed back east with L, my college friend, the one in the farmhouse. When I was ready to leave California and come back home, she flew out to make the journey with me. And that journey, I insisted, had to include a pilgrimage to Kalispell.

I was going to see that motel. It had taken up a lot of time in my childhood. My imagination exercised regularly to thoughts of Kalispell. Kalispell. I always remembered the name of the town. It seemed so sharp and awkward. Kalispell.

But I wouldn't be seeing Roger. Because part of what my imagination used for fuel was his story. His violent, tragic ending.

I was eleven years old when my father lost his best friend. He got a call from Roger's new wife. One day Roger went out to the shed and shot himself. Suicide. My father raged. He grieved. He speculated all the reasons why his best friend might take his own life. Some evenings, he dared to suggest that maybe Roger didn't. I was privvy to these conversations, even as a young girl. And they made an impression.

My father didn't go for a funeral. Roger was cremated. Montana stayed a distant dream.

Until I left California. I was going to Kalispell. One of us had to get there eventually.

L liked my itinerary, and we were both eager to see what the Big Sky state had to offer. We drove in from Spokane, across the top of Idaho, after making an overnight stop in Cour d'Alene. It was July, and everything was a deep green. We started to notice subtle differences from Washington and Idaho. In Montana, you could always get an espresso. They served espresso at rest stops. Also, they had a lot of junk. We drove through whole towns populated only with thrift and antique and junk stores. I was okay with all of it. I like coffee and gently used things.

At the start of the trip, I knew I needed to pick up souvenirs for the two boys who called me Aunt Mandy. Cam was about the age I was when Roger moved to Montana, and he had a thing for wolves. Somewhere near San Francisco I asked L, "Do you think I'll find wolf stuff in Montana?"

L and I stood outside a giant tourist trading post. I held a bag in each hand, each bag was filled with wolf t-shirts, trinkets, faux scrimshaw pocket knives. At one junk shop, I found a plaster cast of a wolf paw print. L turned to look a me and said, "I think you'll find wolf stuff in Montana."

Montana is full of wolf stuff. Any kind of wolf souvenir you could ever want, you'll find in Montana. I would go so far as to say that Montana is the wolf stuff jackpot.

But finding wolf stuff wasn't my only agenda.

We had to get to Kalispell. To the White Birch Motor Lodge and Campground. When L heard the word "campground," she started collecting gear. We were going to camp. In Montana. She bought at a used tent at the junk store where I found the plaster print. The man who sold us the stuff said, "If you ladies are going to camp, be sure it's not during your lady time. That attracts wolves and bears."

It wasn't lady time for either of us, but the prospect of wolves and bears being attracted to us in any way or for any reason made me nervous. And then he gave us further advice.

"You'll need to get some deet," he said.

I grew up camping with my dad. We sometimes sprayed ourselves with bug spray. We mostly just dealt with stings and bites after the fact. A little calamine lotion went a long way in our household. But in Montana, in July, I learned all about deet and why it was important.

By the time we reached Kalispell, we were beat. We stopped at a thrift store to get a few more things for a camping adventure. And because we were enjoying the number of thrift shopping opportunities. I pulled into the parking lot and suddenly lost all ability to speak. I tried to say I was tired. I opened my mouth and said gibberish. I parked the car, and the gibberish continued until it turned into giggles. I had never been that tired in my life. Or maybe I was nervous, too, that I'd made it to Kalispell. I didn't know what I'd see or learn there. I didn't know if I'd gain insight into Roger's death. I was pretty certain I wouldn't. I didn't have a plan beyond walking around the White Birch property. If anything, I'd close a long case of curiosity only about what the damn place looked like.

And no one cared but me. I wasn't reporting anything back to my dad. I wasn't in contact with Kara. We hadn't seen one another in years.

Selecting Furniture

If I closed my eyes, I could see the place: dark hardwood floors and woodwork, white walls, lots of light. It was small, but cozy. I was going to make it my home.

I was living in a studio apartment when I was accepted into the program. I had a futon and a skinny kitchen island I'd bought at a big box store and used as a desk. I would stand at it and type on the laptop I'd bought myself after college, or I would perch on the barstool I found at a yard sale and spend my time writing stories about women who were on the edge. In the six months I lived in the studio apartment, I wrote a story about a woman at a temporary secretarial job who beat up a guy in the lobby for constantly being nice to her.

Knowing I'd be leaving that apartment for the one on Dearing Place brightened my perspective a little. Plus, it gave me something to do.

I started shopping for furniture, dishes, domestic wares. I bought a book on Feng Shui. I agonized over living room rugs.

The kitchen was small, but there was room for a tiny table. I was reminded of the "ice cream table" or parlour table on the balcony of the apartment I'd rented in Paris right after college. It had reminded me of going for ice cream in my hometown, at a little ice cream parlour across the street from the cemetery. The tables had black and white marble tops. The claw foot bases were painted black. The chairs were practically made of wire hangers. And that's exactly what I wanted for my kitchen in the South.

My father found a base and heavier, sturdier wire chairs at the flea market. The chairs were missing seats and backs. He cut wood circles, added padding, and upholstered them with black and white striped referee shirts. He painted the base. And then he reminded me that I had a marble table top coming to me whenever I wanted it.

His friend, Gus, owned a marble and tile shop. He made bathroom sinks and countertops. When I was about to graduate from high school, Gus offered to make me a marble table of my own design. I didn't think much about it while I lived in college apartments, but this would be my first "grown up" place. I called, and he was happy to deliver. I asked for black and white swirled top. I got it. It was custom made for my perfect apartment.

I wasn't about to make the futon a permanent sleeping option. In my mind, it took the place of a sofa. I needed a bed, and I looked for a bed. I looked for a wrought iron bed at the flea market, in antique stores all over southern Ohio, northern Kentucky and in every shop in Huntington, West Virginia. Nothing seemed right, or the right price. I was browsing an antique store in my hometown when I saw the odd bed. It wasn't intricate. The posts were thicker, the iron less delicate. The white paint had cracked over the years. I said, "I'll live with that." I was happy to find it back home, in my hometown. It would be from home. The seller said it was as old as the late 1800s. It had lived in southern Ohio a lot longer than I had. And now I was making it a piece of my own history.

Like all furnishings, my possessions made statements. We made the ice cream table. The top was custom made. The bed was from a mercantile near the river. My bookshelves belonged to my grandparents - my Mamaw's childhood bookshelf and one my Papaw built himself in his garage.

I wanted a rocking chair, and found one that needed new caning. Instead, we put flat wood on the seat and I covered it with a comfortable pillow.

I moved it all into the little one bedroom just before the left curve at the top of the street. And it felt like home so fast that the neighbors could have been anyone.

And they were.