Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,64
tattered green Hulk t-shirt.
“Si, amigo?” he said into the taxi, and Wara was shocked by the squeakiness of the kid’s voice. He couldn’t be more than ten years old. What was he doing in this kind of place?
“Ask him how much for two days,” Alejo told the driver.
“Five hundred bolivianos,” the taxi driver announced after consulting with the boy outside. He raised his eyebrows at Alejo in the mirror. Alejo pulled out a fat wad of red one hundred boliviano notes from the pocket of his jeans and peeled five off. The driver passed them through the cracked-open window and the kid counted the money, crisping the bills in his hand with the efficiency of a Los Vegas casino employee.
“Number six,” the kids squeaked, and passed something metallic and jingly into the interior of the car. Alejo snatched the item from the driver’s burly fist, and Wara saw it was a single silver key, attached to a key chain with a cherry red, puffy, lace-trimmed heart. Alejo started to hand her the key, saw her face, and then lowered his eyes, stuffing the key into the pocket of his hoodie. The driver sealed the window shut with a soft hiss, and then slowly pulled across the grass to leave them closer to the heart doors. Without a word, Alejo opened the car door for Wara, then paid the driver.
“Don’t look behind you when you get out,” Alejo breathed into her ear, and Wara’s cheeks flamed as she exited into the cool night. She gathered her composure and followed Alejo, forcing herself to stare at the double hearts ahead instead of behind her, where she thought the boy who had taken their money might still be watching in the darkness. But then again, the kid was probably already back inside watching cartoons, so used to this life that there was absolutely nothing exciting about the arrival of yet one more couple.
“See, that wasn’t too bad,” Alejo said under his breath as he jammed the silver key into the lock. The plush heart bobbed around wildly as he turned the key to Motel Room Number Six. The wooden door swung open, immersing Wara in a warm glow of cinnamon red.
The entire interior of the room was varying shades of red. Lit, neon red Christmas lights ran around the ceiling, and the walls were cherry red and white stripes, crisscrossed with painted cupids, arrows ready to fly. Shaggy, worn crimson carpet blanketed the floor, cushioning Wara’s ankles as she warily stepped inside. And in the center of the room sat a double bed, fire-truck red satin comforter shimmering under a gaudy gold headboard in the shape of a heart.
Alejo gingerly closed the door behind them and flipped on the light, causing Wara to gasp. A monstrous, cheap crystal chandelier exploded with light above them, and every diamond-shaped light bulb was red, spreading a rosy scarlet hue across everything in the room, including Alejo’s face.
“What do you think?” he had the audacity to ask with a crooked grin. Wara didn’t know whether to laugh or run out the door. “Of course you can have the bed. I’ll take that couch.”
Wara followed his gaze to the wall, where a plush couch, the color of cinnamon red hot candies, snuggled against the wall. Next to it, a wicker chair with a matching footrest was adorned with cushions to match the couch.
It was all just too much.
“I hate it!” Wara responded to his question, turning in a slow circle around the room. “I have never seen anything so ugly in my entire life. It’s…indescribable.”
“I’m sorry I had to bring you here,” Alejo said, seemingly feeling bad for her. “It’s just that it really is the best spot to hide…”
“Yeah, your reasoning does make a twisted kind of sense,” Wara sighed.
Noah would have chuckled at this, and for sure he could have written a hilarious song about this room with this Taylor guitar. Nazaret would have been shocked, then dissolved into a fit of giggles.
Wara missed both of them so much, and felt awfully, terribly alone.
Alejo hauled the wicker chair over under the room’s only window, a long, rectangular-shaped opening that ran higher than the level of their heads next to the door. He pulled aside the gauzy red curtain and peered outside, probably checking for any bad guys. The gaze he fixed on her as he stepped down from the fuzzy red couch was so like Nazaret’s that for a moment she blinked, forgetting he was really