CHAPTER 49

MATT PINE

Matt drove his grandfather’s old station wagon into the Adair Motel parking lot. Tonight the lot was more crowded than before, jammed with news vans and cars with out-of-state plates. More troops to cover the funeral tomorrow, Matt supposed. He saw Kala standing in front of the door to her room. She wore jeans and a shirt knotted so you could see her midriff. The piercing on her flat tummy.

She walked around the long vehicle, eyeing the wood-paneled sides with an amused squint in her eyes.

“Nice wheels,” Kala said, pulling the seat belt over her shoulder.

“My grandfather’s. I think he’s had it since my mom was a kid.”

“How is he?” Kala asked.

“Not great. They say he has moments of lucidity. But I haven’t seen any.”

“I’m sorry.” Kala put a hand on his shoulder, rubbed it.

“It’s all right.” Matt thought back to Cindy’s remark. The only family he had left was a brother in prison, a curmudgeon aunt, and a grandfather who didn’t recognize him.

“I’m starving,” Kala said.

“I told you to go to Lincoln with everybody,” Matt said.

Ganesh and company were getting cabin fever. He’d texted Matt that they needed to go to a real restaurant and a real bar, preferably one without tumbleweeds outside and inbred hicks trying to kill him. It was sweet of Kala to hang back. To make sure Matt wasn’t alone. She was from rural Oklahoma, so he supposed she had a higher tolerance for small towns. Though even Kala was starting to get that cooped-up look about her. Once you lived in Greenwich Village, it was hard to go back. That was why every New Yorker comes across insufferably superior.

Kala said, “I needed a break from everyone. And I wanted to see you—you’ve been gone all day.”

“There aren’t many food options this late,” Matt said.

“You’ll think of something.”

Matt drove the clunker out of the lot, not sure where to go. He could head to Lincoln like the rest of them, but it was already late. He was tired, though he wasn’t sure why. He’d spent the day watching TV and visiting with his aunt.

Kala gazed out the window at nothing. The air was thick. It was already feeling like summer.

“Anything would be great,” she said, still staring outside like she was searching for something on the horizon. “Even that crap fast food you and Ganesh like.”

“You’re really slumming it,” Matt said.

“When in Rome,” Kala replied. It was something she always said, and Matt had picked up the habit of saying or thinking it himself. Funny how you acquire the verbal tics of your friends.