Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

998 SHE'S MAD

SHE'S MAD

I woke up from a nap a while later. It was dark but, you know, it was winter, so it was only like six o'clock? Claire was out cold.

She had picked the bedroom that had the window that faced the back. I had tried to steer her toward the other one, which only had a small side window, but having less exposure to the outside walls meant it was better insulated and therefore warmer.

She was bundled under the covers, sleeping in a ball, her mouth open and snoring lightly. I decided not to wake her.

I wasn't hungry yet and thought maybe the best idea would be for me to go up to the gas station and try to figure out the phone situation. So I got in the car and drove out to the main road and on up to the intersection with the county road. The gas station was another mile or so toward the interstate. It was maybe a six or seven minute drive, which isn't far by most reckoning, but that meant a half hour or more to walk. Not something that would be convenient to do.

I put gas in the car while I was thinking of it, and felt good about remembering to do so for about half a second before I sort of crushed myself with the whole sarcastic oh-yeah-SO-competent, now if only the reason you were at the gas station in the first place weren't your incompetence...?

I was really embarrassed about the whole thing and I didn't even know why.

The first call I made was to our landlady, but she didn't pick up the phone. I left a voice mail saying I'd just discovered there was no phone service, that is, there was a phone, so I thought that had meant it would work, but it didn't, and I didn't know whether to call the phone company or what and could she give me a clue about it?

I tried Carynne next and didn't get her. I left her a voice mail, too.

It was chilly and the pay phone was on the outside of the gas station. I was bundled up pretty good but, you know, no hat, no gloves, because I had convinced myself it wasn't that cold compared to New England. In fact, it turns out, forty-eight degrees is the same amount cold no matter what your latitude but let's not talk about that right now.

I decided to call Sarah.

Having just left two voice mails I was primed to leave a third one, and then when she picked up the phone I wasn't really ready to talk. My "hello?" was a startled noise.

"Daron? Is that you?"

"Yeah. Hi. Um. Hi from Tennessee. I'm still here. I'm still sorry. Are you still mad?"

"What? Hang on." I heard rustling and then she came back, presumably after moving to a more comfortable place to talk or something. "Am I still mad about what? You not coming to Jordan's thing?"

"Yeah, isn't that what you were mad about? Or was there something else you didn't tell me?"

"No, that was the main thing. I mean, I'm mad about Jordan dying in general but he's not around to be mad at so maybe I'm taking it out on the people around me. I don't know. Death fucks up a lot of things."

"Um, yeah." I tucked my bad hand under my arm and held the phone receiver in the other. "Do you even remember calling me?"

"Vaguely. I remember it being a pain in the ass to track down your number."

"Yeah, well, it's going to be even harder to track my number down for a while because I'm in a place that doesn't have one."

"What? Because you're avoiding me?"

"No! Nothing like that. We moved out of the motel into a vacation cottage, but we have to get phone service set up, I guess. Or something." The wind blew my hair into my eyes and mouth. I huddled against the wall of the gas station and ignored the fact it was leaving white dust on me. "Sarah, I need your advice about Ziggy."