Loose ends

13.

Joy, we couldn't look more hungover, Maria thought, than if we'd actually spent all of last night drinking.

Breakfast was the morning buffet at the Denny's next to the Days Inn. Except for Liz, who was still recuperating in her motel room, and Max, whose turn it was to keep watch over Morton's temporary residence at the Motel 6, the rest of the vacationing teens were refueling with various combinations of coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, fruit, and breakfast pastries. An aspiring vegetarian, with occasional lapses, Maria had eschewed animal products in favor of toast, cantaloupe, grapefruit, and a plate full of melon balls, but her healthier diet failed to spare her from the subdued, enervated atmosphere at the table. Worn out by all their intensive snooping the night before, nobody was talking much, aside from Alex, who kept making sporadic attempts to get a smile or a laugh out of Isabel, who still seemed to be recovering, emotionally, from her nocturnal trek through Joe Mortons psyche.

"So how was the food at that imaginary casino last night?" Alex asked her with forced levity. He dipped a rather soggy piece of toast into some scarify homogenous-looking scrambled eggs. "Better than this, I hope."I don't know, Alex," Isabel replied humorlessly. She stared distantly at her plate, absently soaking a chocolate donut in a pool of Tabasco sauce. "I didn't eat anything."Oh," he said, obviously hoping to generate a bit more conversation momentum than that. An awkward silence followed, making Maria wince inside, until Alex adopted another tack. "How are you doing, Iz?" he asked solicitously, his guileless green eyes beseeching her to open up to him about whatever was troubling her.

That, clearly, wasn't going to happen. "I'm fine, Alex. Really." A touch of exasperation entered her dull monotone, and Isabel got up from the circular wooden table at which they were all sitting. Til be right back," she said, excusing herself as she headed for the ladies' room.

Alex watched her depart with a stricken expression, and Maria decided to take advantage of Isabel's absence to offer her friend some much-needed advice. "You're trying too hard, Alex," she informed him in a low voice, leaning over the table toward the wiry young man. "Just give her a little space, okay, before you really piss her off."But I'm just trying to help," Alex protested. Frustration was written all over his adolescent face. "I hate seeing her all broody and depressed like this."I know," Maria sympathized. This was none of her business, of course, but she couldn't just sit by while Alex let his good intentions lead him astray where his dream girl was concerned. She'd seen this vicious circle play out before, and not just between Alex and Isabel: Person A won't leave Person B alone, forcing B to withdraw, which just makes A redouble his or her efforts to overcome B's de fense, thus driving B even further away, and so on. "Look,"she said compassionately, "I don't pretend to understand all the intricacies of your relationship with Queen Amidala, but I do know that you can't force somebody to be happy] or to open up emotionally, and they'll probably just resent: you if you try.", Had she managed to get through to him? Maria wanted to think so. Maybe she couldn't cure Liz of her debilitating! post-traumatic whatsit, but that didn't mean she still! couldn't play a positive role in her friends' lives. She con-' sidered offering Alex a bracing whiff of rosemary or Cyprus, but then recalled that, along with every other guy she'd ever known, Alex probably considered aromatherapy irredeemably girly. Their loss, she thought, sighing inwardly.

"I guess you're right," Alex said glumly after a couple of minutes. Obviously, leaving Isabel alone right now was the last thing he wanted to do, but he appeared to have taken Maria's advice seriously. He threw up his hands in frustra tion. "It's just so hard, you know." "Tell me about it," Maria said, considering the lacoiw alien rebel sitting directly to her right. Michael had maintained a discreet silence during her heartfelt romantic strategy session with Alex, sulkily attacking his bacon and eggs instead. Was that because he was simply disinterested in such mundane, mushy matters, she pondered, or was his own bizarre sister/lover relationship with Isabel sufficiently complicated that he felt uncomfortable discussing her with Alex? Or maybe, she admitted to herself, he's still ticked-qff at me for forcing him to come along on this fun-filled road trip in the first place.

Between taking care of Liz and dogging Morton's every move, she and Michael had not had much time to talk since their carefree weekend excursion had turned into a film by Quentin Tarantino. She kept expecting Michael to say "I told you so," and couldn't quite figure out why he hadn't done so yet. Unless he'd been too busy dodging bullets, that is.

Maybe I should take some of my own advice, she thought. "Say, Michael, can 1 talk to you for a minute, in private?"His lean face immediately took on a wary expression, the universal male response to the prospect of a serious conversation with their significant other. "Sure, I guess," he said dubiously. "Where?"Maria pointed toward an empty booth at the back of the coffee shop. After apologizing to Alex for abandoning him, she and Michael transferred their plates and cups to the other table and settled in. "Okay," Michael asked once their relocation was complete, already sounding defensive. "What's this all about?"This isn't going to be easy, she thought, downing a gulp of fresh orange juice as she gathered her thoughts. "I want to apologize," she said finally.

Michael blinked in surprise. Usually, he was the one she expected to apologize. "Umm, what for?"For making you take a vacation when you didn't feel like it, and then giving you a hard time about not enjoying yourself." She poked at melon balls with her fork while she tried to explain what she meant. "It's like I just told Alex. You can't force someone to have a good time when they're worried about something else. You and Max and Isabel have a lot on your minds these days; it wasn't fair of me to twist your arm like that just because I wanted to pretend you and I were an ordinary couple for one weekend." She glanced out the window at the Motel 6 across the highway, and rolled her eyes. "And, boy, did this little brainstorm of mine turn out to be a complete fiasco!"No, no," Michael insisted. "It was a good idea, even if I was too stubborn to admit it. We were all stressed-out and needing a break." He reached across the table to pat her hand clumsily, an almost astonishingly demonstrative gesture by Michael's standards. "It's not your fault that Liz bumped into the shooter by accident."Yeah, but now look at her!" Guilt snuck up on Maria and whacked her over the head. "She's practically having a nervous breakdown, and all because I wanted to get out of Roswell for a while." Overcome with emotion, she told Michael about everything he had missed while trailing Morton, about Liz's panic attacks and post-traumatic flashbacks. "I'm really worried about her, Michael. I've nevei seen her like this."As edgy and guarded as he often was, Michael sometimes surprised her by revealing his true feelings. This was one of those moments. "I know what you mean," he confided in her. "Max is acting really strange, too. I don't know what's with him." He quickly brought her up to speed on all of Max's bizarre behavior, including the way he had almost lost control while spying on Morton last night in Slaughter Canyon. "It's gotten so that I'm almost afraid to leave him alone," Michael said, "for fear of what he might do without thinking."Maria suddenly wished that they had compared notes earlier. "Ohmigod," she gasped in realization. Her olive eyes lit up and she clutched her head with both hands. "Don't you see what's happening? Max has got it, too. The post-traumatic stress disorder!"Michael looked confused. "But Max wasn't shot."No," Maria admitted, still convinced that she had zeroed in on the truth, "but he mind-melded with her right afterward, while he was healing her." A vivid memory of Max, crouched over Liz's perforated body, flashed through Maria's mind. "Liz told me all about it, about how they shared their memories, and saw each other through the other's eyes." Even now the concept sent a shiver through Maria. Talk about romantic! "Don't you get it? Max must have absorbed everything Liz felt when she was shot by Morton, that's why he's reacting this way, too!"Michael nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that makes sense, sort of." She could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he digested her brilliant diagnosis. "But how come Max is on this whole bloodthirsty vengeance kick, while Liz ended up afraid of her own shadow?"Testosterone?" Maria speculated. She shrugged her shoulders, not feeling obliged to fill in all the blanks in this particular theory. "Alex said that post-traumatic you-know-what affects different people different ways, depending on their backgrounds, personalities, etcetera. The point is, both of them are having a delayed reaction to what happened at the Crashdown that day."Which means neither of them is exactly thinking straight," Michael concluded, sounding convinced at last. He hastily gulped down the dregs of his coffee and jammed one last piece of bacon into his mouth as he slid out of the booth at top speed. "Sorry to ditch you like this, but I've gotta talk to Max right away." He pulled out his wallet and threw down a twenty to cover his share of the check. Before running out, though, he paused long enough to give Maria an irresistible grin that made her feel like a million dollars. "Good thinking, babe," he said warmly. "And don't beat yourself up about that whole vacation thing. Nobody's blaming you for anything."Good to hear, Maria thought, smiling to herself as she watched Michael hurry out of the coffee shop. Especially from Michael Guerin, of all people.