Читать книгу The Fame Game, Starstruck, Infamous: 3 book Collection - Lauren Conrad - Страница 25

Madison wanted answers. Not diversions or evasions. Not a lame “Aw, Sweetpea, I just wanted to see you,” or a “Well, I happened to be in the neighborhood.” No: She wanted real, honest answers about why Charlie had shown up now and exactly what he wanted from her.

The momentary flush of love and gratitude she’d felt when she learned about the letters had dissolved and become tinged with suspicion. It was time to uncover the truth.

The parking lot of the E-Z Inn was littered with fast-food wrappers and empty glass pint bottles still camouflaged in paper bags. (“Give me Rosie in a skirt,” her mother used to say to the clerk at the 7-Eleven; it meant Wild Irish Rose in a paper bag, which she could take to the park while she watched Madison and Sophie climb all over the jungle gym.) A man with tattoos on his neck, his hands, even on one cheek sat on a folding chair outside room 3, smoking. He asked Madison, as she stepped out of her gold Lexus, if she’d like to join him for a drink. Madison shuddered and hurried past, down the row of forlorn-looking doors toward the one that was marked OFFICE.

The last time she’d been in this neighborhood was when she got off the Greyhound from Armpit Falls. She’d made it out of downtown L.A. in under an hour, though.On the bus she’d befriended a guy named Travis who was going to visit his sister at UCLA. When the sister picked him up, she offered Madison a ride. Madison took it and never looked back. A week later she’d found a job at a little salon, and her transformation began with some free highlights and a spray tan.

A bell jangled on the lobby door as Madison entered. There was a man passed out on an avocado-green couch near a fake potted palm. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. The room smelled like stale cigarettes and mildew.

Madison walked over to the Plexiglas window that separated the owner of the motel from his guests. “Hello?” She tapped her knuckles against the greasy glass and wished she’d brought a bottle of hand sanitizer. Who knew what kind of infection you could get in a place like this?

“Be right with you.” The owner’s back was to her, and Madison could see that he was playing online poker. The man on the couch turned over and snorted wetly in his sleep. Madison shuddered once again. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

After a moment the owner turned around, and his expression turned from boredom to predatory interest the moment he saw Madison. “Well, hello and hello,” he said to her breasts. “Are you looking for a room?”

Madison nodded curtly. “Yes, I—”

The man smiled. “We don’t usually see your caliber of girl around here. You want the room for an hour or for the night? Money’s due up front, of course. Cash only.”

Madison paled. “Excuse me?” she said. “Do you think I’m”—she looked both ways and angrily whispered—“a prostitute?”

The man shrugged.

“Sir,” Madison scoffed. “This is Stella McCartney,” she said, motioning to her dress.

“Okay, not your line of work. No problem. So you want the room for the night, then.”

“I’m not here to book a room,” Madison said with more than a hint of disgust.

He held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, don’t act so offended. You know we’re all prostitutes in this life, baby. We just make our monies different.”

“Says the philosopher of the fleabag motel,” Madison remarked acidly. “Thanks so much for your wisdom. But I’m looking for a Charles Wardell. I believe he’s staying here?” She glanced over her shoulder at the guy on the couch, who was now upright and leaning by the door.

“Ready when you are, darlin’,” he said, leering. It was 11 a.m., and he was already (or still) drunk.

“Oh my God.” Madison clutched her YSL bag closer to her body. “Ew. Can you just tell me where Charlie Wardell is staying?” she said to the owner.

“Room nine,” he said. “I’m Earl, if you should need . . . anything.”

Madison rolled her eyes. He was talking to her breasts again. “Thank you,” she said coldly.

She turned on a heel and almost ran into the drunk. “Hey,” he said. “Aren’t you that girl on the billboard on Sunset?”

But Madison was already pushing past him. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. She passed the tattooed man again, who waved, and hurried toward the far end of the building.

Her dad’s room was located between the fire escape and the Dumpsters. Madison knocked on the metal door and waited, feeling uncomfortable and out of place in her heels and short summer dress. She should have tried a little harder not to stand out. Too bad she’d thrown away the clothes she’d brought from Armpit Falls long ago; cheap denim and pleather shoes would have been just the ticket for today’s excursion.

Sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if she hadn’t run away from home when she was fifteen. Would she still be miserable and alone, a fish out of water? Or would she finally have accepted her hardscrabble existence? If she had, she’d be settled down with one of the guys from the paper mill by now, the mother of at least two little brats and the proud owner of six Ford pickup trucks, only one of which ran.

She shook the thought from her mind and knocked again.

“I’m coming,” Charlie yelled. “I told you I won’t have the money until—” The door flew open and he stopped speaking.

“Oh! Mads, I thought you were Earl.”

“No, not Earl. Nice place you picked out.” Madison looked past her father into the dim, tiny motel room. She could smell cigarettes and bleach. The TV was on in the corner but its picture was blurry. There were two beds, both of them neatly made. She supposed he’d developed that particular habit in prison.

“Oh, where are my manners?” Charlie said and stepped aside. “You want to come in?”

Did she want to? No, absolutely not. But did she need to? Yes. She told herself that she was just trying to find what a therapist would call “closure,” but she sensed there was something deeper involved. Something weaker.

“Sure,” Madison said, and entered the room.

Dirty yellow curtains covered the windows; only a sliver of light came in. The comforters were probably mustard-colored once, but they had faded to a dingy shade that looked like the room smelled. There was a small Formica table and two chairs next to the built-in wooden dresser. The door to the bathroom hung ajar, one of its hinges broken.

“It’s temporary,” Charlie said, sounding apologetic.

“Of course. The Standard must have been booked.” She tried hard to keep the revulsion she felt from being visible on her face. She examined one of the chairs and determined it looked clean-ish enough to sit on.

“How are you?” Charlie asked.

“Fine,” said Madison stiffly. “You?”

“I got a job,” Charlie said, settling himself into the chair opposite her. “Well, I mean I had the interview for the job, and the guy said he liked me. He’s supposed to call later this week.”

“Doing what?” Madison asked. She had no idea how he’d made the little money he had.

“Mechanic,” Charlie said. “I was always good with my hands. Sometimes it seemed like I only had to open the hood and the car would just tell me what was wrong with it.”

“Really?”

“Really. Except for that damn Mustang. I spent years of my life lying under that thing and I never could get it to run right.” He laughed, remembering. “I swear, on a cold clear night you could just hear it rusting.”

A slight smile found its way to Madison’s face. “I remember that car. It was cherry red.”

Charlie nodded. “Yes, it was. Beautiful, but useless. Though I did get it up and running once.” Charlie reached into a Styrofoam cooler beside his chair and pulled out a Dr Pepper. “I took you around the block a few times before it shit bricks.” Charlie shook his head at the thought and popped open his soda. “You want one? I can get you something else, if you’d rather. They got a vending machine. Ice, too.”

“No,” Madison said. “Thank you.” She leaned forward a little and clutched her hands tightly in her lap. It was all well and good to share what few childhood memories they had, but she still needed answers. “Why, exactly, are you getting a job as a mechanic? I mean, Trevor is paying you. Isn’t he? To be on the show?”

Charlie gazed over toward the window, and a shaft of light lit up one stubbled cheek. “Mr. Lord did make an offer, yes.” He took a drink of his soda. “But I wouldn’t take it.”

Madison looked at him in surprise. Charlie had declined money to be on the show? But he so obviously needed it; he was living in this horrible place, and he didn’t even seem to own more than one pair of pants.

“Don’t look so shocked, Sweetpea.” His voice was soft.

“I’m not shocked,” Madison said, although of course she was. “I’m confused. Why did you say no?”

Charlie’s blue eyes met hers. “I told him I wasn’t here to cash in on your success, only to get to know you. Sophie said she didn’t think you’d see me unless it was on-camera.”

Sophie had been right about that, Madison thought. At least at first.

“That made sense to me, because this is your life now,” Charlie went on. “But profiting off it just didn’t seem right. I’ll be okay. I’ll get that mechanic job, find a studio apartment. It’ll be enough. Hell, it’ll be more than perfect if I get to see you and your sister. I’ve waited more than a decade to be able to do that.”

Though she might have been tempted, Madison didn’t ask him what it was that had kept him away so long. (He wasn’t in jail the whole time, so what was his excuse? Had he been shipped to Siberia? Had he suffered from temporary amnesia? Or was he always nearby, just not near enough for her to see?) She kept her mouth shut because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. She just wanted him to keep talking.

“Of all the things I regret in my life—and believe me, there are a lot,” Charlie said, “the biggest is not getting to watch you turn into the young woman you are.”

Madison smiled wryly to herself. From the breast augmentations to the syringes of Restylane, from the hair dye to the personal training regimens, it had taken a lot to turn her into this particular young woman. She didn’t think Charlie would have actually wanted to witness any of that.

He reached across the chipped, slightly sticky table and touched her arm. “I’m so proud of you,” he said. “You made it out of there. And what’s more, you made it here.”

Madison turned away and looked through the dirty slice of window toward the freeway. Why was she tearing up?

He left you, she reminded herself. He left you, and don’t you forget it.

But she could tell herself that a thousand times and still there would be the small, hollow part of her that cried out to forgive him. To love him and be loved by him. He had come all the way to Los Angeles, and he had not taken any money for it. He wanted a relationship with Madison and her sister, and he was willing to live in a shithole like this to prove it.

“I have to go,” Madison whispered. She stood and ran her hand over the back of her dress, smoothing out the wrinkles.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Charlie said. “It’s not a great neighborhood around here, as you may have noticed. It’s not a good idea for a young lady to walk alone.”

Against her better judgment, Madison paused to wait for him, and her heart opened a bit more. Yes, she wanted a father. She wanted a father to compliment her and protect her and worry about her and be proud of her. “Okay,” Madison said. “Walk with me. I’m just down the parking lot a little ways.”

When they got to her Lexus, Madison unlocked it and folded her legs inside. Charlie stood in front of the car, still holding his Dr Pepper can.

“I don’t suppose you have much need for a mechanic with a new thing like this,” Charlie said. He ran his fingers along the gleaming hood. “Drive careful, all right?”

Madison rolled down the window. “I wanted to tell you . . .” She paused, knowing what she had to say but unsure she was a big enough person to say it. “I need to tell you that I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” She exhaled and the tightness in her chest released. “I spoke to Sue Beth and she told me about the letters.”

Charlie nodded, and then he patted the hood of the car.

“I didn’t know that you tried to see us or contact us.”

“I wasn’t much of a father,” Charlie said. “And I’ve got to live with that the rest of my life. I wouldn’t expect you to really ever forgive me, but I just wanted you to know I tried. It was a poor try, a weak one, but it was all I could do back then.” Charlie lifted his arm and rubbed the sleeve of his shirt across his eyes.

Madison nodded and turned on the ignition.

Charlie took a step backward. “Will I see you again?” he called. “Maybe when you aren’t filming?”

Madison smiled out the window. “Yeah,” she said. “You will.”