Free Age of Consent by Marti Leimbach Page A

though this was deliberate rudeness on her part. Her geography teacher once woke her, saying,
Do you have a problem I can help you with?
She’d shaken her head, stifled a yawn, endured the laughter in the classroom. No, he couldn’t help her. She had a lot of problems he couldn’t help her with. Her problem right now is she has to wait for Craig to get the money and get her home. Who could help her with that?
    The motel sign was reflected in long bars of light on the Buick’s gold hood and in colorful splashes on the window. When she approached she saw her own shadow, angular and dark. Then she stopped. Somebody was behind her. She could see plainly enough in the window’s reflection. He was moving along the little cement path that led to the front of the motel. The night manager. He disappeared from view as she got into the car. She rolled the window down and listened. Crickets, the whirring of the ice machine, traffic in the distance. She smelled freshly cut grass and the fecund, growing greenery, and she breathed this in and tried to relax. Don’t worry, she told herself. Craig would get the key and get the money and then drive to the station. In a matter of hours the whole awful night would be over. She pulled her knees up and hugged them. “Don’t worry,” she said out loud. But when she heard the door of the reception area bang shut, upsetting the bells, she felt like a fuse had been lit somewhere in the distance and soon everything would blow.
    She saw Craig walking quickly down the path, the wooden fob in his hand, his head bent in the direction of the room. He turned in to the path that led to the motel’s interior, then down the step to the little path that led to the room. A motion sensor clicked into action and produced a sudden, gauzy light that draped over him like a cape. He disappeared into the light and she could see no farther.
    She opened the glove compartment, searching for cigarettes just in case Craig had missed them. Crushed in the corner was a single stale Marlboro with a tear in it, which she fished out carefully and tried to straighten. The filter had specks of loose tobacco and she was busy picking those off when she heard her name and looked up. Craig was standing on the bank of grass, blue in the neon light, his ball cap in his hands, his hands on his hips.
    “Barbara, get in here and help me!” he said.
    She poked her head through the open car window. “Help you how?”
    “Don’t ask me how! Move!”
    How could he
not
find the money? It was in a drawer on top of a Bible with a note. She’d already told him that. It was impossible to miss. She wondered if she’d made a mistake and the money wasn’t there. Maybe she was remembering incorrectly. Maybe she put it somewhere else. Finding the roll of cash, fishing it out from behind the night table—all that felt as though it had happened long ago. She could no longer think straight; she was tired, her thoughts agitated. She wanted to lie down, but she pushed open the door instead.
    Her Dr. Scholl’s clip-clopped along the cement path and she was aware of the noise and the likelihood of disturbing people. But she couldn’t figure out how to tiptoe in such inflexible shoes and he pulled her along so quickly she had no choice but to clomp down the path. They reached the room and he pushed the door open, then stood in the yellow light taking up a good deal of the small space where they’d been all those hours ago and said, “Find the fucking money.”
    The room looked burgled. The bed still had the brown coverlet but he’d been through the drawers and they stood open, some now with broken handles, some pulled off their runners so they lay at angles across the floor. The dresser drawers were only made of flimsy plywood and the back of one had come off and now sat inside the three remaining sides. In another she could see the print of Craig’s shoe across the lining paper. The curtain was drawn back so the light from outdoors shined