I did mention the 'having way too much fun with this', right? And yet somehow, when I started this, I never thought that vintage Sesame Street tunes would be making it into this story. And yet here they are.
So really, this whole trip so far has been about *not* having a plan, about just going where they want to go, doing the things that they want to do, whatever that may be. Still, when they sit down over the breakfast table the next morning, trying to put together a schedule for the day, Patrick, well. Perhaps it's because he's been on the road for the last two weeks, doing something every single day. Or perhaps it's because he's been to Dallas already, that he did Dealey Square and the Sixth Floor Museum and Conspiracy Museum with Pete and Joe and Andy and Dirty, when they came through Dallas a few years ago. Whatever the reason, though, after a few minutes of discussion, Patrick says, "I think I sort of want to just sit by the pool for awhile, you know?"
Brendon nods along, says, "Yeah, I get that," and it's a plan.
Until they find out that the hotel doesn't actually *have* a pool. Which, okay, is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but Patrick wants to sit, poke around on his computer, and Brendon's okay with that for about an hour, two, as he writes emails, and shows Patrick all sorts of YouTube clips, as he chats with one of his nephews on IM, laughing every few minutes. But then lunchtime comes and Brendon says, "I'm thinking about wandering. Would you mind if I wander?"
Patrick doesn't, lets Brendon have the keys to the car. So, Brendon leaves, the noise as the door closes seemingly loud, and it feels wrong wrong wrong for about two minutes, until Patrick realizes that for the first time in two weeks, he is *alone*, and he has actually sort of missed that. Like, a lot. First, he stretches out on the bed. Then he turns on the TV and watches the last 20 minutes of The Young and the Restless, then the news, and then he gets lunch in the hotel restaurant.
Afterwards, he thinks about going up to their room again, but instead he goes up to the front desk and says, "Hey, so. Is there, like, a Borders around?" and the next thing he knows, the hotel shuttle is dropping him off about a mile away, and yeah, he may be half a country away from LA, but no matter the distance, no matter the location, all Borders stores are essentially the same. In a way, it feels like being at home. He grabs about 13 magazines off of the racks, takes them over to the cafe, and sits for two hours reading, his knee bouncing in time with the music coming over the loud speakers. He browses the books, listens to selections from the store recommended CDs, and doesn't look at his watch until his phone buzzes. Brendon, texting, *am bak. whre r u?*
*on my way* Patrick texts back, and he decides to walk it. Twenty minutes later, he finds Brendon in their room, watching Doctor Phil, and he's got a t-shirt for Patrick, from the Dallas Heritage Village. They get dinner at a place they'd seen on their way to the coffe place the night before, and Patrick listens as Brendon tells him about his afternoon, about the village with it's re-enactments and the tour and these little houses, Patrick, so small that Gabe or Travis or Bill never would have been able to stand up straight! There was a general store and a livery and donkeys pulling a wagon. Patrick listens and laughs along with Brendon's impersonations of the people who'd been doing the re-enactments, and then he mentions the two new artists he'd discovered at Borders, how he was going to check more of their stuff out.
After, they go back to the hotel, and Brendon collapses on one of the couches in the lobby, waiting for the milk and cookies. He tells Patrick about what news Ryan had told him the night before, how apparently the Cab kids are trying to figure out how to get in on this video tag thing, about how Shane is getting a script for yet another movie together, casting the parts. He doesn't sound wistful, though; not like he wishes he were heading back already.
Then, like he's reading Patrick's mind, he says, "Ryan asked when we were going to be heading back that way again, and I told him that we still had far too much of the country to see. And the inevitable road trip album to write."
Patrick laughs along, like the joke that it's becoming, and then a waiter decends with the milk and cookies. There are families clustered in the lobby with them, more coming down in the elevators, and when a three year old girl with pigtails begins a cookie chant--"cookie, cookie, cookie!"--Patrick sees that Brendon's grin is wide. They end up talking to the couple, in town overnight on their way to visit grandparents, and as the girl wiggles out of her father's grasp to make her way to the cookies the third time, Brendon says, "You know, this would be the perfect time to--" and he holds up his camera, grinning.
With the surrounding parents' permissions, the girl, four other kids, and Brendon and Patrick, end up sitting in front of the fireplace while the rest of the proud parents film them. "You all know this one, right?" Brendon asks, and the kids all do. He says, "Okay, Adelle? You start us off, okay? But first, everyone show off their cookies." They all lift their cookies to the cameras, and then Adelle starts, "C is for cookie! That's good enough for me!" Brendon and Patrick are about the only two who don't actually know the words, but they pick them up quickly, and by the time they get to the "cookie, cookie, cookie," part of the chorus, they're all pretty much shouting. And then they chow down on the cookies in true Cookie Monster fashion, spraying crumbs everywhere, and then several of the kids take a bow, and, well. Patrick can't help but laugh.
A lot.