The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 61

They had two days to make formal arrangements for Lizzie's visit to Scooter's hotel and because Lizzie didn't want to make illogical, ridiculous, embarrassing plans, or worse, forget to make any plans, she left it to Sonya. Things usually worked out better that way.

Saturday morning, the plan was for Sonya to drive Lizzie to the Marriott and meet Scooter and his mother, Nikki in the lobby at ten o'clock. Lizzie didn't know how Sonya had managed it, but there was no further mention of swimming, so there was no reason to worry about drowning and no reason to worry about shopping for a swimsuit. (Worse than drowning)

She did, however, endure Sonya's barrage of questions like, "What do you want to wear on Saturday?" (It didn't really matter) and "Do you want to buy a new outfit for your date?" (No, definitely no shopping, and heightened anxiety about Sonya's calling it a date.) Then there were the repeated reminders to take a shower and wash your hair. Lizzie put it off until Friday evening and because she could only tolerate the hair dryer for five-minute increments, she and Sonya didn't get to bed until well after midnight.

The next morning, Lizzie was anxious. Not to the point where she'd consider hiding in a closet but she was getting dangerously close. She and Sonya ate a quick breakfast and then got into Sonya's car and drove south. They crossed the John A. Roebling suspension bridge, which spanned the Ohio River between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky.

"I read about this bridge," said Lizzie, attempting to distract herself from crippling anxiety. "It's a suspension bridge just like the Brooklyn Bridge. John A. Roebling designed that bridge, too. This one's older."

"This is a pretty bridge."

"All these cables are made of iron wire." She dared not gaze down into the water. "Oh, geez. They're the only things holding us up from falling into the river and probably drowning." 

Sonya had heard quite enough about drowning recently and decided to move past it. "Let's talk about something else," she said.

"Did you know you grow a whole new skeleton every ten years? In a few more years, I'll be on my third skeleton."

"Really?"

"It's called bone remodeling but our whole body is replacing itself, little by little."

Sonya said, "Did Scooter tell you why he was in town?"

"No."

"Didn't you ask him?"

"I forgot."

Sonya glanced over at Lizzie. "He and his mom are visiting an engineering school in Cincinnati. Nikki said Scooter is very good at math and he's interested in aeronautics."

"That's like airplanes and rockets, right?"

"I think so."

Now that they'd crossed the bridge and were back on solid ground, Lizzie's apprehension slowly disintegrated.

Sonya said, "Wouldn't that be exciting if Scooter stayed in Cincinnati while he was going to school?"

"I'm still thinking about being excited about seeing him at his hotel."

"You can be excited about more than one thing at a time."

"Oh, geez. I don't think that would work for me."

As she accompanied Sonya from the parking lot, Lizzie felt excitement building. Maybe there was more than one stream of excitement flowing through her. In a few minutes, she was going to see Scooter face-to-face. 

Lizzie's carefree walk was rudely interrupted by a generous portion of angst once she realized the fourteen-floor behemoth of a hotel looming over them was their destination.

"Is that it?" She squeaked. "Is that Scooter's hotel?" 

"I think so."

Lizzie's modest three-story school building was the largest structure she'd ever been in.

"Oh, geez. I bet there are a lot of people in there. Really a lot. A whole lot of people that are all strangers except maybe for Scooter and his mom and I really don't even know her very well."

"It's fine, Lizzie," Sonya said softly. "Really. Nothing to worry about." She probably shouldn't have added the last part because, with Lizzie, there was always something to worry about.

Lizzie wished she was curled up in her cozy chair at the window, in the comfort of her familiar room, with no one but her aunt to contend with. When she felt Sonya's tug on her arm, Lizzie realized that she'd stopped walking.

"My feet don't want me to go in there," she said, dwarfed by the mountain of a building, the sun cutting hard off its windows.

"Come on. It's after ten. We don't want to be late."

Lizzie didn't move.

"Scooter's waiting for you."

The thought of Scooter animated her. The sound of his name opened up something big inside her chest.

As they drew closer, Lizzie noticed two women and a man with a thick head of hair smoking cigarettes. She thought about how they seemed to perform the same rituals as the people who smoked cigarettes outside her apartment building, outside the Kroger, and the smokers a block away from her school as though they all belonged to a congregation.

Approaching the entrance, Lizzie noticed her reflection in a wall of windows. "Is that how I really look?"

"You look fine," said Sonya.

"I don't look like a girlfriend," she grumbled. "I look like I'm nine." For a split second, she considered pulling her hair out of her ponytail but decided she couldn't afford the risk.

With the woosh of the glass doors, a tide of cool air rolled out onto the walkway. So enthralled by the magnitude of the lobby, Lizzie almost forgot to worry about the swarms of people. She'd never seen a room so big. Giraffes stacked on top of each other still would never scrape their heads on the ceiling. She stiffened.

This was exactly what happened to Claude in the book, 'Courir, Claude, Courir!' ('Run, Claude, Run!') She'd read it once when she was five years old and it scared Maribeth so badly, it was the only book she ever threw in the trash. 'Courir, Claude, Courir!' was the story of a mouse named Claude who was chased through the sewers of Paris by a cat named Pascale who had severe aggression issues. (Maribeth didn't appreciate the humor in the author naming the mouse 'clawed.' In fact, it was unnecessarily mean.)

Claude felt certain he had escaped Pascale by squeezing through a small hole and emerging in the hall of a great castle but instead of relief, Claude was petrified. So stunned at the sight of the immense, grand, chamber he froze, which made him an easy target for an evil witch who swooped down and captured him.

Maribeth didn't know how the story ended, she didn't want to know. The illustration of the scary witch trapping poor Claude in an ornate glass jar traumatized the little girl. Now that Lizzie was paralyzed in the immense hotel lobby it all came rushing back.

Most mothers upon hearing the shrieks of their horrified five-year-old daughter would have offered comfort by holding her tight and saying something like, "Don't worry, baby. Witches aren't real. They're just made up."

But not Indigo. Lizzie remembered her mother's exact words. "Never, ever piss off a witch, Maribeth. She'll cast an evil spell on you and nobody will ever be able to save you."