“You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry. You’d better not pout, I’m telling you why ..Springsteen’s version of the classic holiday tune was running through Adam’s brain as he helped himself to a cup of Rendezvous coffee. The office was empty. Across the highway cops were crawling over the Totem Lodge. A few miles farther out, snow buried his truck. He hadn’t quite thawed yet. Oh yeah, and an older woman—probably crazy, but definitely smoking hot—had picked him up off the side of the road and invited him for drinks and, he was fairly certain, a chandeliershaking romp in her room at his parents’ motel. Huh.
He read the note taped to the counter. Dad wasn’t here.
That was strange.
Christmas.
Weird was better than bad.
Bad was what he’d been expecting since he drove away from his dorm.
He’d learned a new word in English Lit the other day: “confluence.” It meant the flowing together of two or more streams, a juncture point. That’s definitely what had happened to him. A confluence of bad.
Adam had been popular in high school. He made Honor Roll. He lettered in basketball, hockey, and baseball. He knew, and liked, almost everyone from his graduating class. Bethany Davis, his not-
too-serious girlfriend, messed around with him all through senior year and the summer with no drama. They exchanged e-mails from college. She won a full-ride swimming scholarship to the University of Arizona. She loved it. The school was awesome. Sun!!! Yay!!! She’d met so many new people. Even a new guy. Wasn’t college the coolest?
In his case ... not so much.
Adam’s grades nosedived. Classes were huge. His roommates sucked. Everything happened around him, not to him; big campus anonymity came as a culture shock. He wasted days alone, camped in a beanbag chair, drinking 3.2 beer and watching ESPN Classic. He was bored and let down. He didn’t know what he wanted to do or who he wanted to be. His whole life he’d waited to get away from home, but he hadn’t figured out what to do once he got there. Inside his backpack, under the seat of his truck, was a piece of paper that said he was failing half his classes. His academic scholarship was in serious danger. Lose it, and the cost of college would be too high. He could never make up the difference.
He’d be back here in American Rapids.
Look at a weather map, any day of the year, there’s a good chance American Rapids, Minnesota, would be in the running for the coldest temperature, the lowest low, in the contiguous forty- eight. Sane people didn’t live here. They passed through on the way to somewhere else. They’d buy gasoline and a bag of Doritos; stock up on fudge, fleece, and rubber tomahawks; flush a toilet and check their hair in the mirror; eat some fast food, guzzle some coffee, and put ole AmRap in the rearview as quick as possible.
Highway living.
Folks stopped here for a little satellite TV and forty winks.
Towns like this: They’re where a person’s from and, usually, what they left behind. Adam wanted to escape. Hanging out around these same six blocks looking for entertainment—the Snowy Owl Tap on one end and Darby’s All-Star Diner holding down the fort on the other—you didn’t need to ask why.
Nothing ever happened in American Rapids.
And nothing ever would.
The door to upstairs was locked. Adam used his key.
Bruce, Chuck, and Jean Claude huddled on the stairs, staring at him.
“Hey, guys. What’re you doing here? Only time you three are in the same room is when I pop a can of Chicken of the Sea.”
The cats whirled around his legs, purring. He picked up Jean Claude, the runt, and the most affectionate of the littermates. As he’d been doing since he was a kid, Adam put Jean Claude up on his shoulders. Sniff, sniff. The purring magnified in his ear. A furry black-and-white cheek brushed against his.
“Hello!” Adam called out, “Anybody here run a motel?”
He took the stairs two at a time, careful not to jostle his rider or stomp any tails. Reaching the top step, he was surprised by the silence. He heard the clock on the wall ticking. The wind was speeding up like an overdue trucker. Nets of white flakes masked the windows. The heat kicked on. Warm air blew and the curtains swayed. He had the immediate sensation no one was home. Yet he didn’t feel quite alone, either. Without knowing why, he clenched his hands into fists. The cat’s muscles grew rigid, stiffening. Tendons flexed. Claws dug into Adam’s neck. Jean Claude sprung from his perch. He shot to the bottom of the stairwell where he joined his two brothers. They fled out the door.
“Goddamn, that hurt. Crazy cats,” he mumbled, rubbing his neck.
He tried to ignore it, but he noticed something, too. An odd charge of electricity filled the air. He was afraid to touch metal. The carpet crackled underfoot. Living room. Kitchen. The bathroom and den.
All dark.
The sight of his parents’ bedroom door shut in the daytime was about as bizarre as the roof suddenly lifting off the top of the house. Snow falling in his face wouldn’t have been any more peculiar. Or more unsettling.
“Mom? Dad?”
He rapped his knuckles against the wood.
“You two aren’t in bed? Miss the alarm clock this morning?” What about the note downstairs?
They hadn’t missed the alarm.
He grabbed the doorknob. It sparked. He felt a tiny jab of pain enter his thumb. He opened the door and went inside.