by Mysti Parker
****
By 7:00 PM, we’ve reached a record half-full status. Carol’s long gone, and Susan is in the office, chatting happily with her husband, who still looks bemused by the hotel’s stroke of luck. A familiar face comes through the front door just as my stomach growls. I’ve not eaten since breakfast, when I enjoyed another chocolate-iced gift from Hermann’s Bakery.
This time, Henry the Donut Guy isn’t in uniform. He’s wearing an un-tucked dark blue shirt, with the first two buttons undone, allowing a peek at his tanned chest. His faded blue jeans are cut just right—loose in the leg and tighter on the hips.
A blush creeps up my cheeks. Though Henry gave me his number on my very first day here, I have yet to call him. My recent divorce from Nick has left a deeper scar than a cute donut delivery man can heal. I suppose it doesn’t hurt to look, so I enjoy the view as he walks across the lobby. He stops at the front desk and props his elbows on it.
“Hey, Jane. I didn’t expect you here this time of day.” His tone is relaxed, but tentative, as though he’s not quite sure how to handle me. We’ve spoken each morning over the past two weeks, but he’s never mentioned me not calling. I can feel it between us, though, like the proverbial elephant in the room.
“Working a double. We’ve booked half our rooms thanks to the Best Western’s sewage issue.”
Henry wrinkles his nose and laughs. Like an alien abductee, I’m helplessly caught up in his beaming smile.
I clear my throat. “This isn’t your usual time to be here, either, is it?”
“No. Susan called and wanted me to pick up an extra payment for a double order in the morning. I understand why now.”
On the counter is an envelope with Hermann’s Bakery written on it. “Oh, I bet this is it.”
I hand it to Henry, who peeks inside the unsealed envelope. “Yep, that’s it.”
He stands there tapping the envelope on the counter. I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear and rearrange some pens. I’m usually never at such a loss for words.
“So,” he says finally, “I was thinking—since I’m not doing anything and if you haven’t had a dinner break…would you like to go out for some Chinese?”
My stomach rumbles at the thought of Golden Wok’s MSG-laden goodness, but going there with Henry would amount to an actual date. “I really can’t leave with all these guests here. I’ll just grab something from the vending machine.”
“Oh.” He taps the envelope again, frowning, and then perks up. “Hey, I know. I can get take-out and bring it back here. What do you say?”
I hesitate. Saying yes would still be like a date. Then again, we’d be eating here in the hotel. Neutral ground. Perhaps it’s worth the risk—those egg rolls are really good.
Before I can answer, a suited man with a beer gut and loose tie comes through the door. I recognize him from earlier that afternoon when he first checked in. On each arm are two women who are at least half his age. One of them is a peroxide blonde with more boobs than she can afford on an escort's salary. She reminds me entirely too much of Nick’s floozy, Shelley. The trio heads past the front desk to the elevator, where the Shelley lookalike pokes the ‘up’ button with her press-on nail. Her high-pitched giggles make me wince.
Henry stares at them until they disappear through the elevator doors. He whistles and turns back to me with a grin. “He’s in for a good time tonight. I didn’t know they made skirts that short.”
I shove the tissue dispenser at him. “You can wipe the drool off your chin anytime.”
He shrugs and laughs. “Jealous?”
“Hardly.”
“So, how about that take-out?”
All I can see in my paranoid imagination is Henry and that bimbo frolicking in a hotel room. My stomach is in knots and couldn’t hold a grain of rice if it had to. Pulling from my drama-club experience, I apply my best Scarlett O’Hara arched eyebrow.
“Frankly, my dear, I’m not hungry anymore.”
His shoulders slump and he sighs. “OK, then I guess that’s a no. Night, Jane.”
I’m already regretting my knock off one-liner as he crosses the lobby and heads out the door. My stomach remembers its function again and growls painfully. I dig some change from my purse and venture out for a vending machine dinner. In go the quarters, I peck the A3 button for Doritos, but that’s not what I get.
I reach in and pull out my prize—an Oh Henry bar. Figures.
Episode #5: Business is Dead
“There’s a dead body in room 12.”
“What?” I hope I’ve heard Jerry wrong, but dead body doesn’t loan itself to misinterpretation. Not at 4:13 AM, and not with three cups worth of caffeine in my veins.
“Sort of half-in, half-out,” he says through his Sasquatch facial hair. “His legs are in the hallway, and his head’s in the room. Better call 911.”
Jerry’s serious. Without a moment’s hesitation, I pick up the phone and do just that. I call the Smythes next. Richard is silent for a few seconds, then says, “I’m on my way.”
I hang up the phone and shiver. I’ve been here all of two weeks, and now someone’s died on my shift? Of course, it has to be the guy who came in with the escorts last night. Will I be blamed for letting hookers in the hotel? Maybe they were too much for him. Whatever the case, I am not at all prepared for this catastrophe. I studied the hotel handbook. There was plenty on first aid, CPR, and other such interventions, but there was no mention of what to do when you find guests already dead.
Minutes later, the hotel is swarming with police, EMT’s, and the Fire Department. I’m not certain why all of them are necessary when there’s only one dead guy involved.
The questioning feels like an alcohol-induced dream:
“Do you know the names of the ladies he arrived with?”
“No, why would I?”
“Do you remember when they left?”
“Around 3:00 AM.”
“Did they seem distraught or upset when they left?”
“No, they were giggling and stumbling all over each other. They carried their high-heels, and one of them had a bottle of wine. They left in a cab.”
“Did the gentleman look to be in bad health?”
“No. He was laughing and a little red-faced. He paid in cash and asked me to not forward any calls to his room.”
One of the officers digs around in the lobby’s trash can. “Did Councilman Harris eat anything from the vending machine? Looks like this Oh Henry bar was expired.”
“Councilman? What? No…” With impeccable timing, Henry the Donut guy arrives at 5:00AM while I’m admitting to my less-than-ideal dinner. “…I ate that. I don’t know if the dead man, Councilman, whatever—I don’t know what he ate.”
The officers seem satisfied with my testimony and move on to question Jerry further. I feel sorry for him, having found the body. I hope they don’t finger him as a suspect. Sure, he looks like something you’d see in those blurry Bigfoot photos, but I think he’s pretty harmless.
“Are you all right?” Henry asks. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
I feel cold, so I hug myself and nod. It’s a little weird, Henry comforting me after my Scarlett O’Hara performance last night. He gets us both a cup from the breakfast area and comes back to my side, handing the steaming Styrofoam container to me.
“Thanks,” I say, taking a sip of the cheap brew.
The EMTs roll a stretcher through the lobby, with a sheet-covered body on it. A corner of the sheet snags on something and the Councilman makes one last public appearance. His eyes are wide open, staring up at the ceiling. His mouth is frozen into a Cheshire Cat smile, while his cheeks and neck are covered with lipstick stains in a hideous shade of orange-red.
“I guess he had too good of a time last night,” Henry whispers.
“Apparently.”
A few guests venture from their rooms into the lobby. They snap cell phone pics and send texts before the EMTs can block their view. They quickly cover th
e Councilman’s head with the fallen sheet and push him toward the door. I can’t stop staring and trembling as the stretcher bounces over the threshold and the body beneath wobbles from side to side.
Henry removes his jacket and puts it around me. He holds my gaze for a moment, and there’s real compassion in his eyes, not that yeah-yeah-you’re-just -overly-emotional look that Nick used to give me.
“I’ll go put out some donuts. Hopefully that will distract everyone for a while.” He carries the donut boxes over to the pastry side of the breakfast area. The guests-turned-spectators follow him like loyal sheep to get their hands on fresh glazed carbs.
Richard comes barreling through the door. He’s wild-eyed and pale, but goes straight for one of the officers and speaks quietly to him for a minute. He walks by the David statue, rips the napkin loincloth from the statue’s concrete nether regions, and dabs his forehead with it.
“This is bad, Jane,” he says. “Really, really bad. That guest was George Harris, a city councilman. The hotel won’t survive after this scandal hits the news.”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad.” I try to sound reassuring, but the local news thrives on any story beyond the usual pile-up on I-65.
“Can you handle the front desk until Carol arrives?”
I nod and resume my post, though I’m not sure I remember how to operate the computer. My brain feels like mashed potatoes. By the time Carol clocks in at 6:59 AM, the police are gone and Richard has dispatched Mrs. Gonsalves to clean the dead guy’s room. Henry returns from his other donut deliveries as I’m walking out the door.
“Glad I caught you,” he says, holding up a white paper bag. “I’ve got a couple of chocolate iced donuts with your name on them.”
All I really want to do is lie down and forget about dead bodies and crazy hotels. But, my rumbling stomach says it’s a bad idea to turn down free food. “Thanks.”
“Care to join me?”
Not a date, I remind myself, it’s just donuts. “OK.”
We sit at a table in the breakfast area. “Are you sure you’re OK? Can I call anyone for you?”
“No, I don’t really have anyone right now.” I chomp down on a donut. Henry must think I’m little orphan Annie.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” He takes a drink of his coffee and rests his elbows on the table. “You know, we’ve talked about donuts, a bunch of dead British people, and your Home Shopping Network addiction...”
“I’m not proud of that.”
He laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me. But, I want to know more about you, Jane. The real you.”
We’ve come to the litmus test for potential boyfriends. I wonder how fast he’ll run. “I’m thirty-three, divorced, with nothing to my name but a crummy apartment and a wasted college degree. The ex is now in sunny California with a hemorrhoid commercial actress. The only family I have is my mom, who’s in a retirement home. She doesn’t know me half the time.”
“You have my number, you know.”
“Seriously, Nick, I’m fine.”
“I’m not Nick,” he says with a frown.
And the Slip of the Tongue award goes to…Jane Seymour! I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose.
Henry stands, gathers our trash, and heads to the garbage can. “Nick’s your ex?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he’s an idiot.”
After he leaves, I head to my car, but spill my purse when I’m digging for my keys. On the pavement is Henry’s number, waiting patiently on the Roche Hotel sticky note. When I get in the car, I turn the radio to an 80’s station. Unfortunately, Phil Collins can’t drown out the thoughts in my head.
I slump forward and let my forehead go thunk against the steering wheel. “I’m such an idiot.”
Episode #6: Set the Night to Muzak
It’s 3:02 PM, the day after Councilman Harris died on my shift. I sit in the car and flip through the radio stations.
The female anchor on WAMM runs through news headlines like she’s had one too many Red Bulls.
“… Harris was intoxicated and in the company of two prostitutes, according to eye witness accounts. Police chief Owen Sanders says they are awaiting toxicology reports, but all evidence indicates the councilman died of a cardiac event. Richard Smythe, general manager of the Roche Hotel, has offered his condolences to the Harris family. He wants to assure the public that the hotel is secure and open for business. Now for your five-day forecast—70% chance of rain…”
I turn off the radio and grab my purse. Speedy Reporter Lady was right about the rain. Big fat drops splatter across the windshield. It would appear Richard’s prediction about the business suffering was also right. The parking lot sits empty except for a green SUV with a dented passenger door. The guests from Best Western’s sewage mishap must have ventured elsewhere.
I can’t really blame them. I don’t want to be here either. What if someone else dies? Maybe I have a bad aura. My mother dabbled with crystology. She used to wave jasper and onyx all around me to balance my energy. What if she screwed it all up instead of fixing it? I check my face in the sun visor mirror again—no visible auras unless I count the dark circles under my eyes.
The rain picks up its tempo. Flinging the car door open, I scramble out, slam it shut and jog to the hotel. Soon as I step inside, Cyndi Lauper accompanies the familiar sound of arguing, except it’s not me and my ex-husband for a change.
“How do you expect me to sleep with that ruckus all night?” Mrs. Roche is facing off with Richard, who is busy doing something to the wall near the front desk. “Playing that hipper-hop or rap-tap or whatever you listen to nowadays. You’ll scare someone else to death.”
Girls Just Want to Have Fun keeps blaring over the hotel speakers.
But, Mrs. Roche, with her hair pins sticking out and quivering like a mad porcupine, is clearly not having fun.
“That was an unfortunate incident that had nothing to do with this.” Richard pockets a screwdriver and extracts a tissue from the dispenser on the front desk. He dabs his forehead. “I’ve got a few kinks to work out, but it won’t be blaring all night. It’s called Muzak and once I get the settings right, it will play only classical music for our guests. Very quiet.”
“Like elevator music,” I offer as I head to the office door.
“Right. Precisely,” Richard says with more than a hint of relief. “Besides, we got it for a steal from that Executive Inn downtown. They upgraded to all wireless.”
“I don’t care what hocus pocus other hotels are doing.” She turns around and stomps down the hall, fussing all the way. “If I lose one wink of sleep, I’ll rip that thing out of the wall myself.”
Assuming my position behind the desk, I offer him the most sympathetic smile I can.
He rests his elbows on the desk and glances toward the hall. “The old girl lives five minutes away but insists on staying here most nights. I almost wish I’d never bought this place from her.”
He enters the office, where Susan is filing tax receipts. She embraces her husband and kisses him tenderly. A weird sinking feeling washes over me and churns my stomach. Squatting down where my purse sits on the floor, I pick through dirty tissues and miscellaneous receipts until I find the sticky note with Henry’s number.
I stand up and flip open my phone. Before I can snap it shut again, I dial 976-3122 and hold my breath.
After three rings, Henry answers, “Hello?”
“Hi, Henry. It’s Jane.”
“Oh…hi. Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. Listen, if you’re not doing anything, I thought we could share some takeout from Golden Wok.”
I realize how corny my offer sounded and feel like an idiot. Closing my eyes, I wait for him to say no.
“Yeah, I’d love to. What time?”
A woman’s faint voice drifts in from wherever Henry is, but I squash the paranoia. Henry’s not Nick, I repeat in my head.
“How about seven?”
“Fine with
me. What would you like?”
I smile. “Chicken fried rice and two egg rolls.”
“Ok, see ya at seven.”