Black Quiet by Ted Galdi

Author:Ted Galdi [Galdi, Ted]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

35

The gloomy daylight squeezes through the closed blinds in room 5 of the Paradise Inn. A watercolor painting of a cowboy riding a bronco hangs on the wall. In the bathroom, Cole dyed his hair dark brown, wrung out his rain-wet clothes, and dried off before putting them back on. Some warmth has returned to his skin.

“It’s called two truths and a lie,” Lacey says, sitting at a small laminate table, its rim peeling. Cole propped its second chair against the door, an added barrier to the lock in case someone tries to bust in. Now that they’re in a secure place, Lacey’s nerves seem to have calmed a bit.

“How do you win?” Cole asks. He stands by the queen bed, removing a screw from the headboard, using a dime from Lacey’s purse as a screwdriver.

“It’s a game,” she says. “But not like a competition. Just a fun way to pass the time. You say three things. Two real, one BS. The other person has to guess the fake one.”

“I can handle that.”

“I’ll go first.” She brushes a strand of her straight, dark hair from her face. “I once won five hundred bucks on a scratch-off lottery ticket. I know how to play the saxophone. I’ve never eaten cauliflower.”

“You can’t play a lick on the sax.”

“How the heck did you get that so quick?”

He removes an aluminum post about a foot long from the headboard. “It’s psychological. The point of the game is to guard the lie. People feel vulnerable when something they want to defend is in an outside position. You said the sax thing second, in the middle of your two truths. You were protecting it.”

“Not fair.” She puts on an exaggerated pout like she’s mad at him, while her gaze suggests she’s impressed.

“So what’s your gripe with cauliflower?”

“Always thought it looked like little brains. Like they got it from the heads of mice.”

He grins. “Thanks for ruining it for me now. I’ll be staying away from cauliflower, not to mention butt-flavored cereal.”

She laughs. “I was nervous, that just sorta came out.” Those long-lashed blue eyes of hers survey him. “You learn that psychological stuff in the army?”

He nods while securing the headboard post in his jeans. It’d make for a decent weapon.

“I doubt they teach all that to regular soldiers,” she says. “You were involved in more serious things, huh?”

He’s lied about this to so many people for so long. But he’s put her through a lot today. She deserves the truth. “I guess you could say that,” he says.

“Jeez. What motivated you to get into all that?”

“I suppose it was losing my parents. Just a year later, when I was a freshman, Nine Eleven happened. So many kids were forced to go through what I did. I decided my time would best be spent trying to prevent an attack like that from happening again.”

She is silent and still for a couple seconds, thin bars of daylight from the blinds striping her face. Then she slants her head and nods as if she both understands his answer and appreciates it.

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