Mrs. Wendell Jackson opens the door to room 210, at the Coronado Motor Hotel, in Fort Walton Beach Florida and switches on the light.
The room always looks the same.
Strong evening sunlight threatens through the backs of the heavy, striped curtains.
She has no luggage. This is not a place in which she’ll stay.
Not for long.
The door behind her closes with a soft rattle.
She moves into the room and picks up the ashtray from the desk, frowning at the slogan on the matchbook lying in its black plastic hollow.
“ The smartest address on the miracle strip”.
She settles into the robins- egg blue chair by the drapes, smooths her skirt, lights a cigarette and begins her wait.
Two fingers of her right hand unconsciously tuck long, still damp, auburn locks behind her right ear and hover for a moment, making sure they stay.
Behind her, beyond the drapes, and the white- washed cinderblock of the “sun terrace”, is a turquoise pool surrounded by teal and white striped umbrellas. Beneath and around the umbrellas roam the usual hotel guests, unaware of the singularity in room no. 210.
Beyond them all, the Gulf of Mexico sparkles oblivious.
It is 5pm, October 7th, 1968 and in 90 minutes the sun will set and she will reach for the phone beside the bed.
As she smokes, she remembers seeing the motor hotel for the first time, back in ’64, when she and Wendell had chosen it at random from the AAA travel guide. It was their first trip together as a married couple and the motor hotel had looked so unremarkable.
It is 5:45 pm and she rustles across the studio room and sits on the bed, beside the telephone.
Her ghost gray reflection in the TV screen shows a hunched shouldered woman, miniscule in a halo of smoke.
In 45 minutes she’ll ring the front desk.
Their first and only night in the Motor Hotel had included dinner and drinks at the Hotel bar, followed by a late night swim, in the Hotels connected indoor and outdoor pool.
Wendell had stood at the poolside rail that night, smiling at her from the edge of the dimly lit, steaming water, highball in his upraised hand, toasting her as she submerged.
A burst of bubbles.
A cloud of multicolored light, from underwater lamps.
The sudden constriction of the tunnels brief interior and…
She’d expected to surface amidst the smattering of Hotel guests lounging around the outside pool, with stars overhead and Wendell behind her, beyond the foggy glass of the pools windows.
She didn’t.
She’d surfaced into strong sunlight, a crowded pool, no sign of Wendell and the stunned beginning her prolonged panic.
Some minutes later she’d learned that not only was it a different day, but a different year.
The days and weeks after were remembered as a disjointed blur of confused questions, badges, stethoscopes, prescription pads and streaked mascara.
Hotel management, police, private investigators and psychotherapists.
No one had an answer.
But she’d kept the room keys and made a standing reservation.
It is 6:29pm and she stubs out her cigarette, checks her mascara.
She grasps the heavy handset and drags the dial to zero.
The front desk answers and she asks for room 210.
She lays the handset back in its cradle, holding her breath.
There is an intolerable pause and the usual phenomenon of her mouth going dry.
The rotary phone rings twice.
“Hello?”
“Wendell? It’s me.”
“Helen?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“On the bed, next to the telephone.”
Helens breath catches in her throat, just like it did the first time she’d returned to this room, and made this call, amidst body wracking sobs and a sense of desperation driven whim.
“So am I… when are you now?”
“1968. When are you?”
“1975. I’m sorry.”
Each year she comes to the Coronado, swims through the tunnel and emerges into a different year, still herself, and everything the same but the date and the absence of Wendell. She makes this phone call and always he answers, but from a different year of his own, sometimes closer, sometimes farther.
It’s been twelve years since the first phone call.
The phone call will only last for thirty-eight seconds.
It took years for them to learn there was no time for answers or reason.
Only the date and hope in the random.
Helen Jackson sits for a moment, soaking in his presence on the other end of her only line.
“Maybe next time…”
The dial tone begins to leak in as he replies.
“Yeah, maybe next time…”
And then he’s gone. Again.
Helen hangs up and slowly stands, smoothing her skirt again.
Checks her hair.
At the door she pauses for a moment, staring at, but not seeing, the fire escape route map and checkout instructions.
One more deep breath and she enters the hall.
Behind her, on the striped bed cover, the impression where she sat is bigger than it should be.
