“Might be,” says Molly, “but I don’t know it.” She leadsthem slowly, reluctantly back into the dining room and seats them in themiddle, feeling their exposure as her own: hairs rising on the back of herneck, the urge to look over her shoulder persisting even when she opens thedoor with the peeling sign reading EMPLOYEES ONLY and starts preparingbreakfast. The regulars only care about protecting the Flamingo and the coupleisn’t a threat, at least not to Molly, but what if Mother doesn’t think so? Shesees everyone like this: dangerous or edible. Maybe even Molly. Maybe especiallyMolly.
After breakfast, the couple go out somewhere—she doesn’tknow where, she’s a little afraid to think of where—and don’t return until lateafternoon. By then Molly is playing solitaire again. These are Samir’s oldcards and his grimy thumbprint is still stuck to the four of hearts, the onlypositive physical proof left that he was ever any more real than those suntanlotion guests who hardly ever checked out of the Flamingo after they checkedin. Molly stifles the embarrassed urge to hide the cards when the couple comesin and instead steeples her hands on the desk, says brightly, “How you folksdoing this afternoon?”
“Were just out planning our route out of the swamps,” says thewoman. Her name is Janine, Molly reminds herself; they’ve been introduced,she’s allowed to use the name.
“Sun is beautiful on those cliffs,” the man says, driftingaway from his companion to look again on the painting. “You don’t use thosekinds of colors here, although the ones you do use are striking as well.”
“How did you know it was mine?” Molly says, alarmed.
“Just figured: who else? You’re the native alien,” the mansays, that distracted tone coming into his voice again. Molly is still embarrassed,but maybe a little flattered too, her cheeks feeling warm in a not unpleasantway. She painted that smudgy vague landscape when she was still a teenager,trying to see past the horizon in her imagination when she couldn’t in reallife. But even with a full set of paints, all that came out was a rich deepgemlike green, vines and ferns and Spanish moss dripping into dark still waterthat also, somehow, had a green cast to it. She’d painted a heron perched on amossy log then covered it over into an obscure grey smudge, feeling the birdwas a dishonest addition to what she really saw: only the green, roiling andwithout form, thick as mucous and just as full of sickness.
“It’s lovely,” the woman says. “Molly, do you get lonely,living here by yourself?”
“Oh, I’m not,” Molly says uneasily. “Alone, I mean.” Shedoesn’t know what to say about Mother, because no guest has ever asked before.The regulars know their contract is with the resident of 1B, and the one-nightguests don’t care whose name is on the deed hanging in the back office; theyonly care that they’ve got a key and four walls around them. They don’t thinkabout how someone else might have a key too, that walls don’t mean much. Motherdoesn’t know the couple is here; when she asked Molly to rattle off theoccupants of all the rooms, Molly left them out. It’s never been like that:that someone knows Mother is here but she doesn’t know about them.
“The owner lives here,” Molly explains, inadequately. “Sheraised me. This has always been my home.”
“Not always, surely,” the man says. “I’m sure youmust have been nearly full-grown when the marshes encroached. How old are you?”
The heat on Molly’s cheeks is anger now, coveringhumiliation. It has never occurred to her that she looks older than she is, butmaybe she has been looking haggard and elderly for years now, ignorant withoutany mirrors to reflect her. “Let me know if I can make your stay morecomfortable,” she says. “Enjoy your evening.”
“Scott, you’ve upset her,” the woman whispers too-loudly,the whites of her eyes rolling at Molly as she grasps him by the elbow. “Comeon,” she says. Molly lowers her eyes so she won’t have to watch them gointertwined, the woman’s slender arm wrapped around the man’s bicep, all thatskin nearly touching through the light barriers of their clean-looking linenclothes. The dirt on them is superficial; Molly feels her own dirt deep. Sheswipes at her face and shuffles the solitaire cards. Samir used to do this forhours at this same desk. Someday someone will be looking for traces of Molly inthe dog-eared old cards. They will not find her there, but in the romancenovels, the folded-over corners of the raciest pages and the smudges wherehumidity stuck her fingers to the pages.
Before Molly goes to Mother that night, she pulls thepainting down from the wall and drowns it in the motel’s pool. The green paint,decades-old, bleeds in feathery tendrils that fan out into blotches of darkcolor on the pale surface of the water. Molly cleans and maintains the water everyday, even though the guests almost never want to go swimming. She used to thinkabout over-chlorinating the water; she used to think about not chlorinating itat all, letting algae bloom on the surface and water moccasins roam the bottom.But she never did either of those things, for the same reason that she letsMother keep stocking that cooler. If the Flamingo were dead, Molly would reallybe the only one left living. And then she’d only be a smudge, easily missed ina landscape wanting to swallow up everything, soon digested without themarshlands even chewing.
◊
When Molly goes to her desk in the morning, she finds a noteballed up behind the bell that customers are supposed to ring for service. Shecautiously opens the piece of paper, smelling the faint chemical odor thatemanates from the woman’s hair—beneath that, a faint trace of the sweat that isso like her own. Need help? Those well-formed letters like typeface in abook. Molly looks up like she’s being watched. The lobby is empty, the wallviolently naked without the painting hanging up. But everything else is thesame: the lumpy old sofas, the coffee table with the ancient peeling magazinesstuck to the glass tabletop, the empty flowerpots in the corners that used tohold ferns, or something, but
