Page 60 of Everyone Is Lying to You

The waiters push through the weather to bring out our first course, an arugula salad in hand-thrown pottery that’s so lumpy and strange it looks like it could have been made by ten-year-olds. We’re all silent at first. Are we all so used to talking about our kids and our work? What else is there? My husband? My marriage? I don’t have a single hobby to speak of. I’m either parenting or working. It’s who I am.

It’s who most women I know are. Men have hobbies; women struggle to take a shower.

Everyone around me is pushing their arugula around on their plates. I’m glad to know I’m not alone in not knowing what to say.

“What is God calling you to do?” the woman to my right asks me. Before I can answer, a crack of lightning illuminates the sky. We should have noticed the black and purple clouds blotting out the stars, but we were so focused on being praised as queens. Only seconds later comes a boom of thunder so intense I feel it in my bones. The wind whips over the table, taking with it flower arrangements in crystal vases, the napkins, and the plates. Three tiki torches tumble over, sending us into blurry darkness. One torch picks up speed as it rolls over the rock, only stopping when it slams into the leg of one of the tables. The flames appear to leap from the lantern to the white cloth, which lights up with a furious vengeance. That’s when the rain comes. Sharp staccato streams of water, which will hopefully calm the flames, but are also making the rock slippery as we all clamber for safety. None of us can see. The edge is so near, the canyon so deep. Anyonecould topple down the Devil’s Staircase at a moment’s notice. A scream comes out of the darkness and then another one.

Everyone panics until the plateau is illuminated in twin beams of headlights. The dune buggies have arrived. We may be saved. We may not.

“Get in,” Veronica yells out. Her tranquility finally punctured. Someone grabs my arm. I look behind me. Katie.

“Flash floods come on fast out here. We’ve got to go,” she shouts into the wind. The tablescape is still burning despite the torrent of rain. I can barely see as the raindrops sting my eyes, but I make my way to the waiting vehicles. We’re all pushing to reach them. It’s an unruly scrum of soaking-wet women desperate for escape.

I make it into one of the vehicles. There’s no roof to protect us. As soon as the four seats are taken the driver steps on the gas and we’re off. Rain and sand mix to coat us in mud.

Another scream punctures the darkness.

“Help me,” a voice yells into the void. “Help!”

“We have to stop. We have to go back,” I scream at the driver. He doesn’t seem to hear me. Or maybe he does and keeps going anyway. I’m pinned to the back of my seat from the velocity of the cart. We’re sliding all over the place. I remember how deep the canyon was on the edge of the plateau. One wrong turn and that’s where we’ll be.

One of the tires snags on a jagged rock and my side of the vehicle flies off the ground. Blood rushes through my skull and I’m close to blacking out. I reach over for Katie, though I can barely make her out through the rain. Her head is bowed. I think she’s praying.

My eyes keep searching the horizon for the hotel, but there’s nothing. We must be going in the wrong direction. What had the woman told me during my tour? There’s a hundred miles of open desert this way. No one will ever find us.

I find Katie’s hand. Our fingers are slippery, but we try to hold on until finally the outline of the hotel appears in front of us. It’s a mere shadow in the darkness, almost a mirage. The power must have gone out during one of the lightning strikes. But still, we’re safe.

We reach the circular driveway and workers rush toward us with plush towels.

“Someone is hurt back there.” I’m hysterical and I don’t know if anyone is listening to me as they swarm me with warm towels that smell vaguely of eucalyptus.

Finally one hotel employee responds, “We’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. Please don’t worry.”

But how will they get there? Out the massive windows I can see headlights from the other vehicles making their way back here. Another slash of lightning. The thunder fast after it. It’s close. So close. I can smell singed earth.

The lobby is lit with an abundance of candles, most of them lavender- and cedar-scented ones from the gift shop.

“The generators will kick in soon,” the young woman behind the desk says calmly. “Any minute now.”

Katie is frantic, her eyes darting around the room. “The elevators are out?” she says.

“They are. But you can use the stairs.”

She makes a mad dash for the fire door. Before I can think about what I’m doing, I follow her, curious about why she’s sodesperate to get upstairs. An employee chases after me and thrusts a flashlight into my hand. Only then do I realize that I don’t have my phone. It’s still in that black bag. Probably still out on the rocks or dropped down into the chasm. Lost forever.

I can just make out Katie’s footsteps in the stairwell. She’s only one floor above me. I take the stairs two at a time with the same energy I used to sprint out of Rebecca’s house just yesterday. The door to the second floor slams in my face as I reach it. Once it’s open I see Katie rushing down the hall, squatting and opening her arms to a small figure hunched in the hallway. By the time I reach them, Katie’s clutching the person; they’re rocking back and forth and Katie is soothing them.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re fine.”

I hear the distinct cries of a child.

Katie doesn’t notice that I’m here, she’s so focused on comforting the little creature in her arms. I kneel down next to them.

“What can I do?”

I have to repeat myself a couple of times before Katie squints into the glare of the flashlight. The look on her face is one of horror and fear. She doesn’t want me here. And when the little girl lifts her head I can see why.

I gasp as I look into Rebecca’s daughter’s pale white face, streaked with tears. “Alice?”

---