We get out of the bus. Across the street is another red sign: Bianchi Market. Next to the motel is the Bianchi Laundromat. All three of the Bianchi’s businesses look a little rough. Bars on windows, peeling paint. Instead of flashing on and off, the neon vacancy sign above the motel winces and sparks.
Alexa frowns. “It looked okay on the website.”
“We didn’t expect luxury,” I say. “This’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Bev says. “It’s just a place to crash, right?”
Alexa nods, like she’s trying to convince herself. “And it’s close to the venue, The Basement. It’s just a few blocks away.”
We walk single-file into the market. An R & B song from before we were born crackles through boom-box speakers. Everything is coated in dust. An older woman with faded tattoos laughs loudly with a customer. Her name tag says Peggy, and I wonder if she’s a Bianchi.
Alexa strolls past Peggy, over to a girl at the far end of the counter.
“You checking in?” the girl asks, and Alexa says yes.
We crowd around the counter as the girl goes over the rules. She’s probably our age, maybe a year or two older, but it’s hard to tell because she looks nothing like us. She’s wearing baggy jeans and thick black eyeliner and her hair is pulled back into a ponytail so tight it must be painful.
She sets a laminated paper on the counter for us to read.
NO SMOKING (THIS INCLUDES MARIJUANA!)
NO GUESTS
NO LOUD MUSIC AFTER 10 P.M.
NO SHOUTING OR YELLING
THIS IS A FAMILY PLACE. IF YOU DISOBEY THE RULES WE WILL CALL THE POLICE!!!
“Okay,” Meg says, clearly offended. “Got it.” She turns to the rest of us. “We should unpack our stuff and then go somewhere.”
Alexa checks her watch. “We only have until eight before we have to check in for the show.”
“That leaves some time, though,” I say. “We should do something.”
Even though Fort Bragg doesn’t seem to be the most vibrant town, I don’t want to go sit around the motel room, trying to avoid eye contact with Bev. And this is our trip, the first trip any of us have ever taken on our own, with our own money and our own schedule to follow and our own decisions to make.
“So what is there to do around here?” Bev asks.
The girl shrugs. “J.T.’s doesn’t card. Or there’s Glass Beach.”
She looks around, sees the older woman still engrossed in her conversation, and says, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I wouldn’t unpack if I were you. Your stuff’s definitely safer in the car.”
Meg raises her eyebrows.
“Okay,” she says. “Well, thanks for letting us know.”
We turn to leave and then I remember the photo plan from this morning, when we were crossing the bridge and my future was still something recognizable. I stop halfway down an aisle—in front of a few dusty flashlights and a camouflage-print umbrella—and say, “Hey, we’re supposed to get a picture of her.”
Alexa looks back at the girl, then shakes her head. The bells on her headband chime and she smiles a tight, nervous smile that means she wants to leave.
“I don’t know if she likes us,” she whispers.
Meg adds, “That list was kind of rude.”
“It wasn’t her list,” I say. “And sure she liked us. She warned us about the room.”
Bev has the camera around her arm, so Meg and Alexa look at her for the final decision.
“We’re taking photos of everyone, right?” I say.
She’s studying the girl, the surroundings, as if she’s imagining the way the photograph might turn out.
“Let’s go,” she finally says, and with this decision, abandons another good plan.
We drive by J.T.’s first. It’s on a side road and so shabby I would assume it was condemned if we hadn’t just been told to go there.
“That man has bad vibes,” Alexa says about a guy leaning up against the door. He sees us checking out the bar and sneers.
“Glass Beach, then,” I say, and everyone nods their assent.
So we drive a few blocks down the main road and turn where a small sign tells us to turn, and park the car and walk toward the water, Bev’s camera over her shoulder. Tall grasses and flowers grow through a barbed-wire fence on one side of the trail, and when the fence ends, the path opens to a rocky area above the water. We look over the edge. Not far below us, groups of people are spread out by the water, but instead of lying on towels and sitting in beach chairs, everyone is digging in the sand.
“What’s going on?” Meg asks. “This is weird.”
We hike down to find out. Once we’re with the rest of the people, we discover that the sand isn’t only sand. Instead, we stand on millions of smooth, small pieces of beach glass.
Alexa scoops a handful and holds the glass in her palm for us to see—brown, green, blue, and white.
“This is amazing. The pieces are everywhere.”
“Yeah,” Meg says. “But that’s not what everyone’s looking for.”
All around us, people are pushing the beach glass aside, searching for something buried deeper.
“I’ll find out,” Meg says, and takes a few steps over to where a little boy is hunched beside a rock with a red shovel.
“What is everyone digging for?” she asks him.
“Junk,” the kid says without looking up.