“Anything special?” Alicia asked as she studied the menu.
“Not really, but don’t ask me. I eat here all the time. I’d change that color combination if I was you, though.”
“What?” Confused, Alicia laid her menu down.
“Color combination. That yellow top really doesn’t go with those jeans.”
“I thought bright colors were in.”
“Maybe for some folks. They just make me kind of nauseous, you know?”
“Hey,” Frank said, “how about taking our order instead of criticizing my wife’s clothing, okay?”
“Sure.” The waitress sounded genuinely puzzled at Frank’s tone. “Hey, kid, if you gotta blow your nose, rub it on your sleeve instead of my clean tablecloth, will you?” Steven gaped at her. “And you,” she went on, talking to Mouse, “we get some weird types in here, but you look like you just dropped out of some traveling freak show.”
“How about me?” Burnfingers asked politely.
“I don’t much like Indians.”
“That’s all right,” Burnfingers responded studiously. “I do not care for blondes who bleach their hair and try to look younger than they are.”
Frank held his breath, expecting to have to duck pad and pencil if not something weightier. But the woman just smiled at Burnfingers, who smiled back.
Alicia was right. He felt a by-now familiar tenseness in his gut. Something was wrong here. He noted that Mouse was paying more than casual attention to the conversation.
One by one they placed their orders. Frank found himself expecting additional comments and he wasn’t disappointed. The waitress found Wendy’s selection of lemonade to accompany her hamburger profoundly disgusting and didn’t hesitate to say so, to his daughter’s obvious surprise and chagrin. When Frank requested his steak well done, the young woman promptly told him what she thought of anyone dumb enough to order good meat burned. He would have shot back with a reply save for a cautioning look from Burnfingers Begay. So he bit back his natural response. Only when she left to turn their order in did he lean over and whisper.
“Why’d you shush me? What the hell’s going on here, Burnfingers?”
Mouse interrupted. “I fear that despite appearances we may not have returned to your reality line after all.”
“That can’t be.” Alicia gestured around them. “Everything here’s normal: the people, the street signs, the brand names in the windows—everything!”
“I’m afraid not quite everything,” Mouse replied somberly.
“You’d better spell it out for me,” said Frank angrily. “Just because we run into an honest motel and a snippety waitress, you’re trying to tell us we’re still not ‘home’?”
“What she is trying to tell you,” Burnfingers Begay put in, “is that only one thing is different, but that this difference is significant. To put it another way, where reality is concerned, ‘almost’ don’t make it.”
Alicia was looking around worriedly, as though she expected a host of long left-behind demons to walk in through the front door. “What one thing is so different?”
Burnfingers looked at Mouse, who simply gazed back. Finally he sat back in his chair. It groaned under his weight. “Maybe we’re wrong. Let us just enjoy our food. Do me one favor, though, Frank.”
“If I can.”
“If the young lady who took our order, or anybody else, says something to upset you, do not get mad.”
“Okay,” said Frank slowly. “She’s probably just an exception anyways.”
“Somehow I do not think so.”
As the unexpectedly silent evening meal proceeded, Burnfingers’s prediction was borne out by the conversation around them. Other diners exchanged vicious, pointed insults and commentary with their neighbors, without trying to hide their opinions from anyone who might be listening. Their waitress smilingly insulted everyone in turn, offering her observations of their personal hygiene, taste in attire, appearance, and whatever else struck her fancy. They replied in kind. Neither restaurant staff nor customers appeared in the least upset. Later they were able to overhear her exchanging similar comments with the cook and cashier.
This biting verbal byplay was not restricted to the visiting adults. Children chatted equally guilelessly, and teenagers exhibited great ingenuity in putting down their companions. When a couple of girls Wendy’s age passed the table and all but reduced her to tears with their comments about her coiffure and clothing, she responded in kind. They smiled, nodded, and walked on. It was as though the words had no effect on them, or at least none of the intended effect.
“Not quite our reality.” Burnfingers was finishing his Coke.
“I think I understand.” Alicia pushed peas around on her plate. “It’s just like our world, except everyone here says exactly what they’re thinking. Nobody lies.”
“There’s no tact or diplomacy, either,” muttered Wendy darkly.
“Everyone here speaks the truth as they see it,” said Mouse thoughtfully. “A different social system has evolved. It would probably be impossible to insult anyone in this place unless you accused them of telling a lie, and they very well may not know what a lie is.”
“That’s why the people back at the motel were so blunt with us,” Alicia murmured. “An honest opinion is all they can offer.”
Wendy crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, glowering. “Well, I don’t like it.”
“No inhibitions. No restraints,” said Burnfingers.
“It doesn’t bother you?” Frank asked him. “Doesn’t get under your skin just a little?”
“I do not have any illusions to shatter. I know exactly what I am. And also I am—”
“—crazy. Yeah, we know,” said Frank tiredly.
“Then we’re still lost.” Alicia was wonderfully calm in the face of the crushing disappointment. “We’re still not back where we belong. We still aren’t—home.”
“An almost perfect off ramp,” Mouse observed, “but as Mr. Begay tells us, ‘almost’ does not count.”
“We must be close, though.” Alicia sounded suddenly eager. “Aren’t we close? Wouldn’t this be good enough?”
“I dunno,” said Frank. “If we stayed here I’d have to learn a whole new way of doing business. I don’t know how it works here. I don’t think I’m ready for a reality where everybody tells the truth every time. Bet politics here are interesting. I wonder if our reality is exactly the opposite of this one. I mean, where we come from, it sometimes seems like you get elected for telling the biggest lie.” He looked sharply at his wife. “Are you ready for all your friends to tell you exactly what they think of you?”
She hesitated, slumped slightly. “No. No, I guess not. I guess we better not stay here.”
“If we’re this close, then surely the next off ramp will be the right one.” He tried to sound encouraging, reading the discouragement in her face. “At least this line isn’t dangerous.” He cut a chunk of steak. “The food’s normal enough. Downright good.”
So was the motel, as its managers would have honestly admitted. They had real beds with thick mattresses, a full-sized shower bath, and strangely honest television to watch.
Not wanting to send their friends off in the dark, Frank insisted Burnfingers and Mouse spend the night in the empty motor home. Both accepted, albeit Mouse tentatively. As always she was anxious to be on her way. As he prepared to climb into bed, Frank found himself checking the clock and almost laughed out loud. Time meant nothing to them until they made it back home. The numbers on the plastic face bore no relation to their experiences of the past couple of days.
Yet despite his exhaustion and the warmth of Alicia’s slumbering form next to his own he found he was unable to fall asleep. The memories were too immediate, too strong. Alicia could sleep anywhere, anytime. The children had dropped off quickly. Only he was left to gaze at the ceiling, at the sweeps and curves in the stucco feebly illuminated by the light from the motel parking lot that filtered into the room around the edges of the curtains.
Now that they were close to the right reality line, near to home, he found himself pondering all they’d been through and experienced. Bad dreams, the stuff of nightmares. Tomorrow they’d find the right off ramp and take it all the way to Salt Lake or Los Angeles Tomorrow they would drive back to reality. In the morning they would rid themselves of the enigmatic child-woman who called herself Mouse and the wandering maybe-crazy Burnfingers Begay.
Meanwhile it was silly to lie here trying to decide how much of the past was real and how much hallucination. If he couldn’t rent a plane or taxi, they’d have to drive all the way into Salt Lake. He rolled over, forced himself to close his eyes.
It was a quiet room, especially for someone used to traffic-laden Los Angeles He thought he heard a coyote howl out by the city limits, near the mountain slopes. Probably only a dog.
