Mr. Tall Read Free Page A

he didn’t want to ride it all the way to the bottom. He suddenly wanted to see Cheryl walk out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. He wanted her nipples to lock him in their transfixing gaze. He took a deep breath.
    Cheryl held up her index finger to cut him off. “Right now,” she said, “you just need to shut the hell up. All I wanted to hear was a foghorn.”
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    Misti was not allowed to touch Cheryl’s scissors, either. Misti took gymnastics. Misti took ballet. Misti learned to read by climbing onto the light table and sounding out headlines. Misti joined the swim team, but she didn’t like it. Misti grew taller than the other girls in her class. Darryl put up a hoop in the parking lot and he and Misti shot baskets after school. Misti played center for the Lady Scots. She was All-Conference her senior year. Some guys from Ohio offered Darryl and Cheryl three million dollars for the Argus and they sold it. Darryl took up fly-fishing, which he wasn’t very good at. Cheryl worked part time at a fudge shop owned by her aunt. Darryl and Cheryl drove Misti to Wilmington and left her standing in the parking lot of a dormitory with her hands clamped over her mouth.
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    They didn’t reach Nags Head until after dark and then had trouble finding a room in the fog. Every time Cheryl managed to identify one of the vaporous buildings as a motel, Darryl had already driven past its entrance. “If you don’t slow down,” she said, “you’re going to miss the spooks in Scotland.”
    Traffic lights swam at them out of nowhere, each as unexpected as a UFO. Darryl had no idea where he was going, only that it wasn’t toward Argyle. “About back there…” he said.
    Cheryl didn’t look at him. “I’m about starved,” she said. “Keep a lookout for a Hardee’s or something.”
    She would forgive him, just not yet. He was lucky she hadn’t knocked his teeth out. That he had kept his teeth all these years when he so obviously didn’t deserve them seemed a minor blessing. He kept his hands on the wheel at ten and two and savored the domestic missions of the moment. Find me a Hardee’s. Find me a room. Stay with me until I die. It was all the same thing, really.
    He had begun to consider turning around for another pass through Nags Head when the words “Wade-n-Sea” materialized in sizzling pink neon high above the roadway to their right.
    Cheryl leaned forward and stared up at the sign. “That’s got to be a motel,” she said.
    â€œOr maybe God needs a copyeditor.”
    â€œJust shut up and slow down, Darryl.”
    He managed to steer the car into the parking lot of an ancient red-brick motel. Three low wings of eight or ten rooms lay moored in the fog in a U around the sign, and beneath the sign glittered a small, dazzlingly bright swimming pool. Three pickup trucks with fishing-rod holders welded to their front bumpers were the only other vehicles in the lot.
    When Darryl rang the bell in the office, a desiccated old woman with skin cured the color of nicotine opened the door behind the counter. Through the doorway he saw an even older man slumped in a wheelchair, his mouth agape in what seemed to be a permanent expression of disbelief. The wet light of a muted television wavered on the wall behind him.
    The woman studied Darryl’s face with the wariness of someone who had been held up more than once. “That’s my husband,” she said. “I try to bring him home on weekends.”
    â€œDo you have a room available?”
    â€œYou saw the parking lot. How many do you want?”
    Darryl smiled. “How about one?”
    â€œKing or double?”
    He chewed on his upper lip, considering the ways the evening might go. “Double, I guess.”
    â€œThat’ll be eighty-five for the night. Who’s the other bed for?”
    â€œMy wife. She’s in the