The motel’s air conditioner was garbage. Lance turned dials, mashed buttons, and the unit gave him nothing but a soft, warm breath. He opened both windows. The air, too heavy to move, slouched around him. Sweat dribbled down his back and ran into his eyes, and when he lay on his bed, his shirt stuck to his chest.

Since things couldn’t get any worse, he called his mother.

“Are you serious, Lance? I’m too busy to drive up tonight. Do I need to send someone to come get you?”

“No, Mom.”

“I’m sure David would come up if I asked him.”

“No.”

She gave a long, heavy sigh. He could hear everything stacking up behind that sigh. Judgments, clichés, examples. And when her dam of a ten-second silence burst, out came the flood.

This trip was senseless! People are counting on you! You’re a grown-up, Lance! I’m not going to be here to hold your hand and it reminds me of the time, and how did that turn out?

Her comments sank like fists into a heavy punching bag. They didn’t hurt, just gently knocked him around. He swayed from foot to foot, muttering responses until something jabbed him hard.

It’s Sunday night, Lance. Your speech is this week.

Yes. The weekend was gone. He smacked his lips.

“Lance? The speech is done, isn’t it?”

He eyed his orange duffel bag. It crouched in the corner, a tense little animal.

“Mr. Leeds wants to do a practice run on Tuesday or Wednesday. Can you let him know a time that would work?”

He squinted at the bag. Staring it down.

“You should pick a time in the late afternoon, so you have your morning free for enrollment paperwork. Lance?”

“What?”

“The speech is memorized, right?”

“I’m working on it,” he said. “Right now. I’m working on it now. I really need to go.”

Lance hung up. He took a breath and approached the orange duffel. The bag that had traveled—unopened—to Seattle, two separate coffee shops, a hotel room, his audition, and now the Trainsong Motel. Enrollment materials, honors college application, scholarship follow-up essays. His Personal Banker orientation packet. The speech.

He flung the bag on the bed.

He yanked the zipper like ripping off a Band-Aid, and a small, horrific face peered up at him. Bug eyes and claws and a mechanical laugh.

AHH-HAHAHAHA!

Lance shrieked, dropping the bag.

“Damn it, Jonathan!” he said.

He pulled out the foot-long figure. Mr. Jangles. A humanoid rat with giant fangs and claws. Taped to its head was a tiny blue graduation cap. Since middle school, Mr. Jangles had been ambushing people in showers, lockers, kitchen cupboards, and backpacks. This was his first trip out of state. Lance dropped the figure on the floor and Mr. Jangles screamed again. He called Miriam.

“Hi stranger,” she said.

“Sorry I didn’t call earlier,” Lance said. “I’ve been out running around. Trying to get this stupid car fixed.”

“So what’s new?”

“I found Mr. Jangles.”

“Nice,” she said. “Jonathan was wondering.”

“I didn’t need that today.”

“Do we ever need that? Can’t you leave that thing in Washington?”

“He’s wearing a graduation cap. You have to admire the attention to detail.”

Mr. Jangles lay facedown on the carpet, still wearing the cap.

“When are you coming home, Lance? Is something wrong?”

“Yes, something’s wrong. My car is broken and my mechanic is an idiot.” He flopped back on his damp mattress. “This guy can’t fix it. He might never fix it.”

“Your speech is this week.”

“I realize. My mother brought that up.”

“She has a point.”

“I’m so glad you agree. You two should hang out.”

She sighed and he felt the threat of a Miriam Moment of Silence. He’d just wait. He could fall asleep, waiting for her to inhale again.

“Do you need me to come get you?” she said. “I could borrow a car.”

“Really?” He sat up straight. “Could you spend the night?”

“In a motel? Ew, Lance. I looked that place up. Bedbug city.”

“C’mon,” he said, scratching his scalp. “It would be fun.”

“What are you even doing? Do they let you practice in your room?”

“No,” he said, sitting up. “I mean, I’ve barely practiced. It’s been crazy here.”

“Meth crazy?”

“Funny. No. There was a car accident last night. Like, right outside my window. And this guy was stuck in the car and I ran down to help them and then the driver, this girl—she was totally drunk—was screaming at me, and trying to pull the guy out of the passenger seat.” Lance got up, acting out the whole scene. Pushing Breanna, the arrival of the police. He leapt around the room, flinging sweat. He peeled off his shirt and kept going. All the way to The Float, the cheeseburger, the knife fight.

“Isn’t that wild?” he said.

“You must’ve been really hungry,” she said. “Like when you snapped at those guys at the Fireman’s Fair. Remember?”

“No,” he said. “I mean, kind of. But this wasn’t stupid kids. This was real. And it gets better.”

He went on. The free burger. Taking a shot! At an actual bar! He was grinning, gesturing as if she could see him.

“Can you believe it? Miriam?”

“Wow,” she said.

Wow?

This was a story. His first empirically good story. The wow hadn’t even sounded excited and what was that noise in the background? Soup cans? Was Miriam stacking cans of soup?

“It was amazing,” Lance said.

“Yes. Kind of hard to imagine.”

“Really amazing,” he repeated.

Lance knew he had slipped out of one of their approved conversational grooves. He was still talking, but the needle had jumped and the record was hissing along on blank vinyl. Static between radio stations. There were certain topics of conversation Miriam just couldn’t hear: Seattle. Jazz. Now this. Everything here.

Lance walked to the window facing Dakota’s room.

“Anyway,” he said.

“I’m just sad about the party,” she said. “I thought you’d be sad about missing the party.”

“I am, Miriam.”

“We’ve been waiting a long time.”

“You should just drive up here.”

She sighed.

“Lance.”

His name, spoken like a two-week extension on his virginity.

He pushed aside the blinds. A girl who was not Dakota was standing in front of Dakota’s door. The soda sister. Same dark ringlets of hair, same skin tone, but her sister was shorter and sluggish. She seemed to carry extra gravity, as if the extra steps Dakota stole when she walked, this girl paced out in slow motion.

“Lance?” Miriam said.

Dakota’s sister brought alternating objects to her mouth. Smoldering cigarette. Can of Moody’s Grape.

“Oh, man,” he said.

A snapping sound, like breaking pencils.

“Miriam? What’s that noise?”

“Look,” she said. “If you can get back here tonight, we could still have the room at Jonathan’s.”

Her voice cut through the slow-brained heat. Lance turned from the window.

“Really?” he asked.

“Jonathan’s parents are gone until tomorrow.”

“So this could still work? Tonight?”

“I think this can still work. Don’t you?” she asked softly.

A rare flash of color in her voice, like the first time they’d kissed, when she’d whispered Come here. Teeth had collided. Drool and laughter and Sorry, sorry. Not pretty, not graceful, and exactly right. He wanted that again. To be attacked. Hip-bumped like the open drawer of a copy machine. And Miriam’s Don’t you? had sounded like Come here.

“I’ll call the mechanic right now,” he said, leg jittering.

“Good. We’ll hide Mr. Jangles under Jonathan’s pillow.”

“Or hang him from the chandelier.”

“With a note that says Goodbye, cruel world.”

“Oh my god,” Lance said. “Yes!”

Miriam at her funniest. Her sexiest.

He was off the phone, grinning and dialing William so fast his hands were shaking. No answer. He called twice, three times.

No answer.

His conversation with Miriam had felt like an inevitable 370-mile runway to Bend. A revving V-6 engine. But with the third play of Hello, you’ve reached Goodview Towing, the feeling was turning slow and heavy. Now there were two people outside of Dakota’s door.

It took Lance a second to recognize Dakota. Her hair was pulled back, and her whole posture was different. Shoulders, loose and free. She looked like a kid. She was grabbing at the air in front of her sister, pretending to snatch her cigarette. Her sister ducked, slapped her arm. Dakota’s laughter was choppy on the breeze.

A voice rang out, and the sisters stopped moving. The voice was similar to Dakota’s. The sisters’ response was fluid, as if it had been rehearsed many times. Dakota opened the storm door, and her sister set the brace to hold it open. They stood off to either side, waiting.

Lance’s phone buzzed and he walked back to the bed, but it was not William. It was a number he did not recognize and a crawling in his gut told him not to answer. He stood still while the phone went silent and the caller left a message.

Lance, this is Officer Perkins with the Washington State Police. I’m calling about an accident and the hospitalization of James DeWitt. We need to ask you about your involvement. Please call me as soon as—

Lance hung up. His leg was shaking, but so were his hands. He was hungry. He just needed to eat. He grabbed his case and stepped out onto the patio. The air was cooler than it should’ve been in June, and there was no one left standing in front of Dakota’s door.

Wind whipped up in the field between him and The Float. Weeds ruffled and bowed. From where he stood, the roadhouse no longer looked fixed in the parking lot, but buoyant on shifting grasses. Bobbing on gentle waves, and drifting closer.