正文
Del didn’t say anything, just pulled through the drive-thru and ordered what I wanted. He didn’t get anything for himself. I think it was just out of spite.
* * * *
Toward evening, we stopped at a motel in Kingman, Arizona, one of those cheap ones that have been there since Route 66 was an interesting road and not just a tourist novelty—the ones that now looked like they’d be rented for the hour by people who didn’t much care what the accommodations were like.
Del checked us in, pulled the Nova around to the stairwell closest to our room.
“Get your kicks,” I said.
“Kicks?” he said, baffled.
“Route 66,” I said, pointing to a sign. “Guess we couldn’t afford the Holiday Inn either, huh?”
He stared straight ahead, drummed his fingers light against the steering wheel. He curled up his bottom lip a little and chewed on his beard.
“You know those court shows you watch on TV?” Del said finally. “And how you tell me some of those people are so stupid? You listen to their stories and you laugh and you tell me, ‘That’s where they went wrong,’ or ‘They should’ve known better than that.’ “
“Do you mean,” I said, “something like a man who robs a convenience store and then calls up the clerk he’s held at gunpoint and asks her out for a date?” I felt bad about it as soon as I said it. Part of why I fell in love with him and now I was complaining about it.
“There were extenuating circumstances in that instance,” he said, and this warning sound had crept into his tone, one that I hadn’t heard before. “I’m just saying that we need to be fairly circumspect now about whatever we do. Any misstep might put us in front of a real judge, and it won’t be a laughing matter, I can assure you.” He turned to face me. “Louise,” he said, again that way he does. “I love you, Louise, but sometimes . . . Well, little girl, sometimes you just don’t seem to be thinking ahead.”
It was the
little girl
that got me, or maybe the
extenuating
or the
circumspect,
or maybe just him implying that I was being stupid, or maybe all of it, the whole day.
“Del,” I said through clenched teeth, putting a little emphasis on his name, too. “I’ve always said that I love you. But sometimes, Del, sometimes, I could just kill you.”
He nodded. “Well,” he said, slow and even as always, but still with that edge of warning to it, “I guess you’d go to jail for that too.” He handed the room key across to where I sat. “You go on in. I got a couple of things to rearrange in the trunk.”
