One Grave Less
Rosetta to speak anything but English if they could help it. It felt as if their safety depended on illusion now. It was important to keep it up . . . to live it.
“I think one night. Maybe two. We are meeting friends who are not here yet. Should I pay for two?”
“Let us know before checkout time. You can pay then,” she said.
Maria signed her name in a backward slant, unlike her own signature. She felt like someone was going to catch her at any moment. The trouble with telling lies was that they had a cascade effect—one led to another and then another. She couldn’t imagine how some people could make a life-style of this. The woman gave her a key for a room on the third floor. Maria took Rosetta’s hand and walked to the stairs, backpack and new purchases in her other hand.
They climbed the stairs and found the room at the other end of a long hall. She unlocked the door and closed it behind them once inside. The room was simply decorated—bed with no headboard, brightly colored bedspread on one Hollywood-sized bed, a table and a chair, a lamp, and a painting of a parrot and junglelike leaves over the bed. And, of all things, an air conditioner in the window. It was off. She decided not to turn it on unless the temperature started getting uncomfortably hot. There was a small bathroom with a shower and a tub.
“We’ve come a long way,” said Maria.
“This is nice,” said Rosetta. “It’s a good thing we found money along the way. I thought we would be sleeping in the jungle most of the time. That’s kind of hard. I have small mosquito nets stuffed in the backpack, but I didn’t know how we were going to get off the ground. Hammocks are too big for me to get in the backpack.”
“We did fine, didn’t we? We’ve been lucky, all things considered,” said Maria. “So, let’s get clean. Do you like baths or showers?”
Rosetta took a bath first. Maria helped wash her hair and scrubbed her back, and Rosetta played in the water and laughed.
Maria combed Rosetta’s wet hair straight down her back, parted on one side. She laid out fresh clothes on the bed for the two of them. Not the most stylish, but clean.
“I’m going to try to get my hair clean and untangled. When I finish, we need to talk about our story. I’ve got to tell you things about John and his family. Give you some names to toss around if anyone asks. Okay?”
Rosetta nodded and grinned. “We’re good at making up stories.”
“Yeah, we’re a pair, aren’t we?” said Maria.
Maria first washed her hair in Rosetta’s bathwater. She figured it would take several washings to get it clean and decided not to let the water go to waste. The bathwater was a light brown when she finished. Damn, her hair was dirty.
She washed it again in the shower and covered it with conditioner she had bought, hoping it was good enough to help with the tangles. She piled her hair on her head while she washed her body. Maria scrubbed her skin until it was almost raw. She ran out of hot water but she didn’t mind. All she could think of was clean. She rinsed her hair last, using her fingers to help the conditioner do its job. It took quite a while. She was expecting the hotel management to come knock on the door and ask why she was using so much water.
Finally her hair was clean and mostly untangled. Maria rubbed some of the last of the whiskey into her scalp and felt the sting. She hoped the alcohol would make her hair shine. She was tired of dull mud. And she really wanted to look different from the drawing on the Wanted poster.
She dried off and dressed in the new clothes. The underwear felt rough against her skin, but she really didn’t mind. While Rosetta had been playing in the bath, Maria had washed her bra in the sink and wrung it out almost dry. It had been hanging on a chair while she showered. It was still damp, but it was clean.
She had found a sack of tube socks at the market. She brushed off both their boots. They put on the socks and boots. She put Rosetta’s hair and her own in ponytails and stuck the tails through the openings in the backs of their baseball caps. Then they put on their sunglasses and looked in the mirror.
“Well, we look different. Almost respectable,” said Maria.
Rosetta was about to cry. Maria knelt down and took off their glasses.
“What’s the matter, sweetie?”
“Mama bought us some clothes that looked just alike.” Rosetta put her arms around Maria’s neck. “Can we call her? I
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