One Door From Heaven

negative thinking.
        Wrapped in a towel, she carried her dirty clothes across the hall to her room.
        All was quiet in the kingdom of Cleopatra. No throb of camera flash. No declaiming in a phony Old English accent.
        Leilani dressed in a pair of summer-weight cotton pajamas. Midnight-blue shorts and matching short-sleeved top. On the back of the shirt, a cool yellow-and-red logo said ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO. On the front, the word STARCHILD was emblazoned in two-inch red letters.
        She'd seen the pajamas on the recent tour through the saucer sites of New Mexico, and it had seemed to her that acting silly-kid excited about them would help convince Dr. Doom that she continued to believe his cockamamie story about Luki being levitated to the mother ship. The aliens sometimes abduct people right out of bed, Preston. You told us stones like that. Well, gee, then for sure if I'm wearing these jammies, they'll know I'm ready to go, I'm pumped, I'm psyched. Maybe they'll beam me up before my birthday, bring me and Luki back together, with a new leg and new hand for the party!
        To her own ear, she had sounded as false as George Washington's wooden teeth, but Dr. Doom had heard only sincerity. He didn't know squat about kids, didn't care to learn, and lie expected them to be excitable and shallow and, in general, dorky to the max.
        He always bought her what she requested-the pajamas were no exception-probably because these gifts made him feel better about scheming to kill her. Leilani seldom asked for more than paperback books. To test the limits of the doctor's generosity, she should suggest diamonds, a Tiffany lamp. No matter how ingenuously she phrased the request, asking for a shotgun would probably alarm him.
        Now, boldly identified as a starchild, virtually daring the ETs to come and get her, she picked up the first-aid kit from her dresser and returned to her mother's room.
        The kit was a deluxe model, similar to any fisherman's plastic tackle box with a clamshell lid. Dr. Doom wasn't a medical doctor, but as a seasoned motor-home enthusiast, he understood the need to be prepared for minor injuries while on the road. And because Leilani understood her mother's penchant for mishap and calamity, she had added supplies to the basic kit. She kept it always near at hand.
        Red blouses still draped the lamps. The scarlet light no longer fostered a brothel atmosphere; in view of recent events in this room, the feeling was now palace-of-the-Martian-king, creepy and surreal.
        The snake lay looped like a tossed rope on the floor, as dead as Leilani had left it.
        Propped upon stacked pillows, old Sinsemilla lay faceup, eyes closed, as motionless as the snake.
        Leilani had needed the shower, the change of clothes, and time to gather the raveled ends of herself before she had been able to return here. She hadn't been Leilani Klonk when she hurried from this room. She'd been a frightened, angry, and humiliated girl, panicked into flight. She would not ever be that person again. Never. The real Leilani was back-rested, refreshed, ready to take care of business.
        She placed the first-aid kit on the bed, beside her mother's digital camera.
        Sinsemilla snored softly. Having crashed from her chemical high, she was planted deeper than sleep, though not as deep as coma. She'd probably lie limp and unresponsive until late morning.
        Leilani timed her mother’s pulse. Regular but fast. Metabolism racing to rid the body of drugs.
        Although the serpent hadn't been poisonous, the bite looked wicked. The punctures were small. No blood flowed now, but much of the surrounding soft tissue was blue-black. Probably just bruises.
        Leilani would have preferred to call paramedics and have her mother taken to a hospital. Sinsemilla would then, of course, be mad-dog furious for having been subjected to university-trained doctors and Western medicine, which she despised. When she returned home, she would launch a campaign of hectoring recriminations that would last hours, days, until you prayed to go deaf and considered cutting off your ears with an electric carving knife just to change the subject.
        Besides, if Sinsemilla flipped out when she woke up and found herself in a hospital, her performance might earn a transfer to the psychiatric ward.
        Then Leilani would be alone with Dr. Doom.
        He wasn't a