Surprising the boy, she affectionately squeezes his right hand. “Whenever people think they’re smarter than you, Curtis, just you remember what I’m going to tell you.” She leans across the counter as far as her fabulous bulk will allow, bringing her face closer to his, and she whispers these teaberry-scented words: “You’re a better person than any of them.”
Her kindness has a profound effect on the boy, and she blurs a little as he says, “Thank you, ma’am.”
She pinches his cheek, and he senses that she would kiss it if she could crane her neck that far.
As a desperate but relatively unseasoned fugitive, he has been largely successful at adventuring, and now he’s hopeful that he’ll learn to be good at socializing too, which is vitally important if he is to pass as an ordinary boy under the name Curtis Hammond or any other.
His confidence is restored.
The loud drumming of fear with which he has lived for the past twenty-four hours has subsided to a faint rataplan of less-exhausting anxiety.
He has found hope. Hope that he will survive. Hope that he will discover a place where he belongs and where he feels at home.
Now, if he can find a toilet, all will be right with the world.
He asks Donella if there’s a toilet nearby, and as she writes up his takeout order on a small notepad, she explains that it’s more polite to say restroom.
When Curtis clarifies that he doesn’t need to rest, but rather that he urgently needs to relieve himself, this explanation touches off another emotional reaction from Burt Hooper, which appears to be laughter, but which is probably something more psychologically complex, as before.
Anyway, the toilet — the restroom — is within sight from the lunch counter, at the end of a long hallway. Even poor Mr. Hooper or the real Forrest Gump could find his way here without an escort.
The facilities are extensive and fascinating, featuring seven stalls, a bank of five urinals from which arises the cedar scent of disinfectant cakes, six sinks with a built-in liquid-soap dispenser at each, and two paper-towel dispensers. A pair of wall-mounted hot-air dryers activate when you hold your hands under them, although these machines aren’t smart enough to withhold their heat when your hands are dry.
The vending machine is smarter than the hand dryers. It offers pocket combs, nail clippers, disposable lighters, and more exotic items that the boy can’t identify, but it knows whether or not you’ve fed coins to it. When he pulls a lever without paying, the machine won’t give him a packet of Trojans, whatever they might be.
When he realizes that he’s the only occupant of the restroom, he seizes the opportunity and runs from stall to stall, pushing all the flush levers in quick succession. The overlapping swish-and-lug of seven toilets strikes him as hilarious, and the combined flow demand causes plumbing to rattle in the walls. Cool.
After he relieves himself, us lie’s washing his hands with enough liquid soap to fill the sink with glittering foamy masses of suds, he looks in the streaked mirror and sees a boy who will be all right, given enough time, a boy who will find his way and come to terms with his losses, a boy who will not only live but also flourish.
He decides to continue being Curtis Hammond. Thus far no one has connected the name to the murdered family in Colorado. And since he’s grown comfortable with this identity, why change?
He dries his hands thoroughly on paper towels, but then holds them under one of the hot-air blowers, just for the kick of tricking the machine.
Refreshed, hurrying along the corridor between the restrooms and the restaurant, Curtis comes to a sudden halt when he spots two men standing out there at the lunch counter, talking to Burt Hooper. They are tall, made taller by their Stetsons. Both wear their blue jeans tucked into their cowboy boots.
Donella appears to be arguing with Mr. Hooper, probably trying to get him to shut his trap, but poor Mr. Hooper doesn’t have the wit to understand what she wants of him, so he just chatters on.
When the trucker points toward the restrooms, the cowboys look up and see Curtis a little past the midpoint of the hall. They stare at him, and he returns their stares.
Maybe they aren’t sure if he’s his mother’s son or some other woman’s child. Maybe he could fake them out, pass for an ordinary baseball-loving, school-hating ten-year-old boy whose interests are limited entirely to down-to-earth stuff like TV wrestling, video games, dinosaurs, and serial-flushing public toilets.
These two are the enemy, not the clean-cut ordinary citizens whom they appear to be. No doubt about it. They radiate the telltale intensity: in their stance, in their demeanor. In their eyes.
They will see through him, perhaps not immediately, but soon, and if they get their hands on him, he will be dead for sure. As one, the two cowboys start toward Curtis.
Chapter 13
“Intergalactic spacecraft, alien abductions, an extraterrestrial base hidden on the dark side of the moon, supersecret human and alien crossbreeding programs, saucer-eyed gray aliens who can walk through walls and levitate and play concert-quality clarinet with their butts — Preston Maddoc believes in all of it, and more,” Leilani reported.
The power failed. They were conversing by candlelight, but the clock on the oven blinked off, and at the far end of the adjacent living room, a ginger-jar lamp with a rose damask shade went dark with a pink wink. The aged refrigerator choked like a terminal patient on life-support machinery, denied a desperately needed mechanical respirator; the compressor motor rattled and expired.
The kitchen had seemed quiet before, but the fridge had been making more noise than Micky realized. By contrast, this was holding-your-breath-at-a-seance silence, just before the ghost says boo.
Micky found herself staring up expectantly at the ceiling, and she realized that the timing of the power outage, just as Leilani was talking about UFOs, had given her the crazy notion that they had suffered a blackout not because of California’s ongoing crisis, but because a pulsing, whirling disc craft from a far nebula was hovering over Geneva’s motor home, casting a power pall just like alien ships always did in the movies. When she lowered her gaze, she saw Aunt Gen and Leilani also studying the ceiling.
In this deep quiet, Micky gradually became aware of the whispery sputter-sizzle of burning candle wicks, a sound as faint as the memory of a long-ago serpent’s hiss.
Gen sighed. “Rolling blackout. Third World inconvenience with the warm regards of the governor. Not supposed to have them at night, only in high-demand hours. Maybe it’s just an ordinary screw-up.”
“I can live without power as long as I’ve got pie,” Leilani said, but she still hadn’t forked up a mouthful of her second piece.
“So Dr. Doom is a UFO nut,” Micky pressed.
“He’s a broad-spectrum, three-hundred-sixty-degree, inside-out, all-the-way-around, perfect, true, and complete nut. UFOs are only one of his interests. But since marrying old Sinsemilla, he’s pretty much dedicated his life to the saucer circuit. He has this honking big motor home, and we travel all around the country, to the sites of famous close encounters, from Roswell, New Mexico, to Phlegm Falls, Iowa, wherever the aliens are supposed to have been in the past, we go hoping they’ll show up again. And when there’s a new sighting or a new abduction story, we haul ass for the place, wherever it is, so maybe we’ll get there while the action is still hot. The only reason we’re renting next door for a week is because the motor home is in the shop for an overhaul, and Dr. Doom won’t stay in a hotel or motel because he thinks they’re all just breeding grounds for legionnaires’ disease and that gross flesh-eating bacteria, whatever it’s called.”