The Lady in Residence

by Allison Pittman

  “Don’t be too impressed. They’re dispersing the cars up and down the block so the driveway doesn’t look crowded. One of them is the older brother of the birthday girl, and the other is his buddy. I think Jessica is signing them off as school community service hours. Anyway, more important things…There’s going to be a guy here, owns his own air-conditioning repair service, divorced”—this she whispered—“with the cutest little boy. His name is Marcus, the dad, not the boy, and—”

  “Stop,” Dini said, drawing the word out with a good-natured laugh behind it.

  “No, really. This guy is maybe thirty-four? Thirty-five? Probably younger. And super handsome, in that blue-collar, manly man kind of way. I met him at the kids’ Valentine’s Day party and had to convince Jessica to make this a boy-girl party so he could come and meet you.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have.” Dini was used to Arya’s matchmaking attempts—men from her church, her gym, her monthly Do You Need a Realtor? seminars. Thus far, Dini had agreed to a handful of dates: Bea’s pediatric dentist, the bass player in the church’s praise band, and a widower finally ready to sell the house he and his wife enjoyed for their five-year marriage. But none got past a third date.

  In fact, she wanted to tell her friend about Quin—not that Arya would appreciate the encounter. Her sole purpose was to find Dini the perfect man so that she could embark on Arya’s vision of a stable, conventional life, and a few conversations with Quin Carmichael were not going to result in that end. Still, it was the first time in—well, maybe ever—that Dini had the words I met a guy … burning on her lips.

  Jessica—thus far known to Dini only as Mrs. Vee in their email and text exchanges—was a tall, stringy woman wearing a powder-blue sleeveless jumpsuit despite the outside temperatures in the low 50s. She greeted Dini with a firm handshake before proceeding to lay out the agenda. The party started at 1:00 for mingling and free play time, lunch at 1:15, Dini’s show from 1:45 to 2:15, absolutely not beyond 2:25, as the cake cutter was due at 2:30, leaving only thirty minutes for presents and gift bags and a 3:00 pick-up time for parents who would drop off their kid and use Princess Vee’s party time as a free babysitting opportunity.

  Dini smiled and interjected, “Okay,” wherever necessary.

  “And,” Mrs. Vee said, “as adorable as you are, I absolutely do not want you out mingling with the children before your performance.”

  The screened-off area where the student volunteer had dropped off her trunk proved to be more spacious than she imagined and was outfitted exactly as she had requested in her rider. A four-foot table, over which Dini threw her most ornate purple velvet cloth, two bottles of water, and hand sanitizer with a pump dispenser. She opened her trunk and pulled out the flat craft supply tray, each of its squared-off compartments stuffed with balloons of all shapes and colors. Today’s balloon offering would be princesses and swords, in accordance with the theme. She listened to the arriving children, making note of their names, keeping a running tally of how many girls, how many boys.

  At 12:50 the room filled with a medley of Disney and Pixar princess songs, masking the sound of her balloon pump. She filled long silver ones for the swords, a variety of other colors for the hilt, so each boy (or girl, if she preferred) could choose. She also filled balloons for the princesses: various skin tones, pink, blue, purple, and green dresses. These would be entirely customizable—black hair, blond, or brown—and a cupful of sharpies to draw faces. This party marked the debut of her princess balloon doll, following hours of study from a YouTube tutorial and visiting a dozen elementary classrooms to hone her skill and speed.

  “All set up?” Arya’s face poked around the corner of the screen. “Are you hungry? The kids are eating pinkie sandwiches, but there’s a great baked brie and quiche in the kitchen for the parents. You want me to bring you a plate? Or, I could have that guy Marcus bring it back to you.”

  “No, thanks, to both. But save me some?”

  “I’ll try, but I got to tell you, there’s a lot of dads here using this time to do their fantasy baseball draft.”

  “Then, go. Make me a plate. I’ll talk to you after—there’s something I want to tell you.”

  Arya scrutinized her. “Something? Or Someone?”

  Dini gave a cryptic smile. “Both.”

  The show, thirty minutes of enthralled children, included a few card tricks played with a Disney Princess deck (given to the birthday girl as a gift), plus the usual array of interlocking rings, objects disappearing and reappearing, toy rings with enormous plastic stones fetched from behind ears, and Dini’s favorite—the little stuffed mouse that, seemingly on its own power, scampered up and down Dini’s sleeve. Then the children lined up for their princesses and swords—swords first, so that the boys, growing ever restless, could beat each other about the head and shoulders while waiting for cake. Dini twisted and assembled the princess bodies after enlisting Arya to draw the faces (even though she insisted Marcus might be quite handy with a sharpie), and by 2:24 on the dot, the professional cake cutter had arrived to turn a frosting-pink castle into a mass of small square servings. Dini, assured she would get one of the pointy white turrets, took herself off to the kitchen and collapsed in one of the chairs in the breakfast nook. There waited a paper plate, covered with another upside-down paper plate on which was written, Dini the Magnificent. Arya joined her with an ice-cold Dr Pepper in hand.

  “Good show, girl.”

  “Thank you.” She clunked her aluminum can to Arya’s bottle of water. “And how much are the parents going to love me for sending their boys home with those inflatable weapons?”

  Arya laughed. “You might want to rethink putting your business card in the goodie bags. Might wake up to some angry emails.” She leaned close and pointed—as if casually gesturing to the group of men huddled around the island—to a dark-haired man wearing cargo shorts and a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt. “That’s him. Cute, right?”

  Dini feigned scrutiny. “Maybe?”

  “Do you want me to go say hi to him for you?”

  “Arya, I love you. But just because I never went to junior high school doesn’t mean I want to start going now. He’s not my type.”

  “You don’t have a type.”

  “I have a type. Everybody has a type.”

  “So, what is it? Because I’ve never known you to embrace anybody.”

  Dini wound a slice of prosciutto around a small bit of cheese. “You won’t believe this, but I met a guy last night.”

  Arya’s eyes went wide. “And you’re telling me now?”

  “I haven’t had a chance. It was late, and today’s been crazy.”

  “Wait one second.” She disappeared and returned with a cup of pretzels and two hunks of cake. “Now, tell.”

  “Okay. Well, I know you’re going to think this is crazy, but…his name? Irvin Carmichael.” She paused for dramatic effect and was disappointed by Arya’s disapprovingly curled lip.

  “Irvin?”

  “Yes—but, he’s actually Irvin Carmichael the Fifth. He goes by Quin.”

  “So his name is Quin.”

  “Yes.” Somehow, Arya was slow to share her excitement. “As in, the fifth. Arya! He is a direct descendant.”

  “Of who?”

  “Irvin Carmichael.” She was tempted to shake her friend by the shoulders. “Detective Irvin Carmichael.” She waited for the light to dawn, and when it did, she felt more let down than before. Arya went from dismissive to disappointed before her very eyes.

  “Ah, Dini.”

  “What, Ah, Dini? Do you know how awesome this is?”

  “I know I wish you spent more time with real people. Like people who are actually among the living.”

  “I’m around people all the time. It’s exhausting.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Well, look here—I’m going to spend some time with this guy. And he is very much alive.”

  For the first time, Arya emitted a spark of approval. “
Is he cute?”

  “Very.” Dini surprised herself with how quickly she answered, along with the flush she felt.

  “Well, that’s a start, at least. Is he as obsessed with this whole Menger story as you are?”

  “Opposite, actually. He doesn’t even know it. But he has—I don’t even know what all. We’re meeting for brunch tomorrow.” She added quickly, “It’s not a date.”

  “It’s all right if it is, you know.”

  “It’s not. He’s not from here, doesn’t live here. He’s only in town for the week, so …” Dini let the sentence trail away in the guise of eating a guacamole-laden chip. Arya snagged a cube of cheese, and both used the silent chewing interval to cleanse the conversation palate.

  “Does that mean you’re not going to make it for the concert in the park tomorrow?” Arya asked.

  “Can you promise not to try to fix me up with some random saxophone player?”

  “I promise nothing.”

  Chapter 4

  Excerpt from

  My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause

  Published by the Author Herself

  I have never had the opportunity to think of myself as a lady of leisure. In fact, for most of my life, I don’t know that I could have presented myself as a lady at all without a healthy dose of irony. If my marriage to my late husband gave me respect—a name, a home, a desk drawer full of monogrammed stationery and calling cards—then my life at the Menger gave me all of the same, with the added elements of desirability and intrigue. My friendships here were transient at best. Fellow lodgers in town for business or leisure might invite me to their table for dinner after light conversation in the lobby. I often accepted, as politeness required, and thanked them with profuse incredulity and sufficient protest when they insisted on charging my meal to their room.

  I developed a thriving social life outside of the hotel, heavy with engagements and invitations. I learned of all the grumblings of the coming war while walking with an army officer through the Mexican Courtyard, his whispers no louder than the sound of the wind through the leaves. I joined a group on a walking tour of the surrounding Catholic missions—long abandoned but still holy enough to inspire a convicting reverence. Over the course of a week, a state senator escorted me to two concerts and a charity banquet before he—with great reluctance—informed me that his wife would be joining him for the remainder of his stay, and he would be removing himself to the Beverly Hotel across the street.

  I’d also taken up going to the theater. Not to the shows, exactly. To buy myself a ticket remained beyond my budget. Instead, I’d don my finest evening gown (wishing each time that I’d thought to pack more than one) and take myself to the newly opened Empire Theater, timing my arrival to coincide with the show’s intermission, where I could indulge in a glass of champagne and introduce myself to some of the local people of worth. Sometimes, if I lingered long enough, I had the occasion to meet a few actors who would go on to be silver screen stars, though I’ll not name them here. Stardom, like youth, is fleeting.

  One evening, during a run of the popular play Sadie Love, which would be the stage debut of the beautiful actress Thalia Powers, after some artful positioning I caught the eye of a burly, unkempt man who was maneuvering through the crowd. He wore a bulky camera strapped around his neck and hoisted it to beckon me closer.

  I was on the fringe of a conversation, not quite invited in. Still, I excused myself with a touch of my gloved hand to a tuxedo sleeve and worked my way over.

  “Mind if I take your photo, ma’am?”

  “My photo?” I held my glass aloft. “Why, I’m nobody special.”

  “We can let the readers decide that, I think. I do freelance work for the San Antonio Express. They like pictures of the society people for the Sunday paper. Over here?” He indicated the wide staircase that led to the private viewing boxes. He walked backward, expertly, leading me. “The managers will only let me take one photograph—worried about the crowd and the flash, I suppose.”

  “And you’ve chosen me?”

  “You’re the only woman here alone. That’s interesting. All the men look alike, and the other women wouldn’t dare be photographed without them.”

  Spying the empty tripod at the foot of the stairs, I instructed him to move it. “You’ll want me standing on the first step.” I already knew how I would position my arm on the curve of the bannister. He had his camera mounted in a thrice and instructed me to hold still—very still—until he told me it was safe for me to move.

  I was wearing one of my most exquisite necklaces—an intricate design of a brass chain and beads with a heavy topaz pendant positioned perfectly above my neckline. Knowing better than to hold my face in a neutral expression, I tilted my head, thus elongating my neck, and set my lips in an enigmatic smile that would rival that of Mona Lisa. I followed the instruction to look at the camera but focused my eyes beyond it, to the crowd that stood watching, wondering—I supposed—just who this woman was to have garnered such attention. Someone shouted an offer to hold my drink, but I ignored him. Instead, I lifted it higher, careful not to obscure my face, as if offering a toast to whoever gazed upon the photo.

  “Three…two…one.” A flash of light then the smell of the burning powder. I willed my eyes to remain open, my body rigid, until my vision cleared. Spots remained as I stepped down where the photographer waited with a small notebook and grubby pencil. “Can I get your name for the caption?”

  “No,” I said, mindful of my need for some level of anonymity. “Refer to me as Mrs. K., a widow. Newly arrived to the city, currently residing at the Menger Hotel until a more permanent situation can be found.”

  He looked up. “You want all that in there?”

  “Of course. The titular character in the play is a widow, as am I. The detail will make the photograph more”—I paused for the impact of his own word—“interesting.”

  My photograph appeared alongside a tepid review of Sadie Love. I don’t normally take the paper in my room, preferring to read one abandoned in the lobby. This morning it arrived courtesy of a sharp rap on my door at the ungodly hour of seven o’clock, folded open to the page, delivered by one of the messenger boys on a tray with my customary coffee and pastry.

  “Why, thank you,” I said to the boy as both of us tried to ignore my haphazardly belted dressing gown. “What an unexpected surprise.”

  “And there’s this, ma’am.” Avoiding my eyes, he handed me the small, familiar envelope. I say familiar because I knew immediately who’d sent it. Mr. Sylvan. He and I had taken to communicating through short missives. In fact, he had warned me about the state senator’s visiting wife in such a manner a full day before the state senator himself did. This too was how we settled my bill. Rather than a common transaction at the desk, he weekly sent up a note with a figure written in his crisp, neat hand. I delivered said amount in the same envelope. What a comfort to do business with a man who understood how crass it is to speak of money to a lady.

  “Here you are.” I held out a nickel to the boy. “And be sure to thank Mr. Sylvan for the coffee.”

  I kept my smile frozen in place until the door closed completely, then tore into the envelope. Mr. Sylvan’s usual billing, inflated, with this explanation: We have added a $10 fee for creating undesirable attention.

  I felt my face flame, as if the man himself were standing beside me. Furious at the distraction from my first appearance in San Antonio society, I dropped Mr. Sylvan’s note into the waste bin, picked up the paper, and opened the curtains to the piercing morning light. I would never describe myself as an unusually beautiful woman. Still, I can say confidently that the image on the paper was stunning. The photographer—one J. P. Haley—framed it perfectly, including the half circle of the crowd who stood with their faces turned to me. I captured the effect I sought, looking mysterious and inviting, glass raised in tribute. Somebody, an editor I presume, captioned the photograph thus: While Miss Thalia Powers might have under
whelmed the audience in her tour as the widow Sadie Love, this widow captured everyone’s attention.

  I caught my smile beneath my hand, as if there were somebody in the room watching. All across the city people would turn to this page and see me. Those who were there would look at each other over their breakfasts and say, “Do you remember seeing that woman?” Wives would bristle in jealousy at their husbands’ raised eyebrows, but what did I care about that? I needed men to see me. Stately, eligible bachelors. Lonely widowers. Even a man living in the wake of divorce. Enough dining with businessmen and dignitaries passing through the city. I needed roots. A home. A means of support. I couldn’t live forever at the Menger Hotel—a sentiment truer than ever as I pawed through my resources to satisfy Mr. Sylvan’s demand.

  My photograph did not bring throngs of curious men into the lobby of the Menger. I was not a showgirl or some other morally questionable young woman. I had not advertised myself as a good to be procured, merely as a woman with the possibility to be found. And, a few found me. Local men of quality, equal to those who took rooms on their travels, walked into the lobby, took lunch in the restaurant, took a seat at the bar—all with a roving eye that came to rest the moment it fell upon my person. Then, a tip of a hat, a lift of a glass, a feigned curiosity that began with the same question: “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” At which I would laugh and say, “My goodness, that photograph has proven to be more trouble than I could have imagined.”

  One night in early December, my sixth week in residence at the Menger Hotel, I bid good evening to a man at the lobby door after a steak dinner that might have come from cattle on land he personally owned. He was a bit older than my preferred suitor (nearly the age of my late husband), and he confessed to have taken several whiskey sours at the bar for five nights in a row before summoning the courage to introduce himself to me. A sweet man, with florid cheeks and a hearty paunch, but by the time I was safely in my room, I’d set my mind not to see him under such circumstances again. It would be too cruel, I would tell him, to continue such a ruse when I was still in such mourning for my dear, recently departed spouse.