The Lady in Residence

by Allison Pittman

  Thus, a new fear. When I caught glimpses of myself in the glass, I saw a woman beginning to look her age. Beyond it, actually, her face pale and puffy, eyes dull, expression drawn. The spirit of Sallie White had stolen the spirit of Hedda Krause, and I was determined to reclaim it.

  Chapter 6

  The music of a mariachi trio underscored the Sunday morning sounds of conversation and clattering dishes. Waitresses bustled by with big sloshing bowls of menudo, and Dini’s stomach growled. Not for the traditional Mexican breakfast, not even really out of hunger. But nerves. There was a reason she glided through life alone—reasons like this. What if Quin didn’t show up? What if he thought it was a date? What if he didn’t?

  When she finally spied him at the check-in stand, all questions were put to rest. He was here, and it wasn’t a date. Because, as out of touch as she might be with what the kids on the dating scene were doing these days, she was pretty sure they weren’t showing up in running gear.

  For the moment, she had the advantage of the crowd while she assessed. Running pants, expensive shoes, and a close-fitting top that gave evidence to a regular upper-body workout. Thinking back to the picture on his driver’s license, the beard was meant to accentuate, not create a thinner face. His was a purposeful body, not one merely maintained.

  She was ready with a welcoming wave when he caught her eye, thanked the hostess, and made an easy way over to the table.

  “I’m going to go wash my hands,” he said, barely slowing momentum as he shrugged a string pack from his back.

  “Should I order you coffee?”

  “Just water, thanks.” And he was gone.

  There was something unsettlingly familiar in the exchange. Like they’d been doing this forever. Looking around at her fellow patrons, she saw one couple after another, some who had probably spent decades ordering for each other. She’d rarely ever shared a table. Most mornings here, she’d scoot back into a booth and hide away. Now she was supposed to order a glass of water for someone else? How weird was this?

  Quin was back at the table before she had the chance.

  “You ran here?” She sounded accusatory. Small talk had never been her strength.

  “I had to get here somehow.” He caught the waitress’s attention and ordered water between words. “You know, two birds, one stone.”

  “I thought you wanted to go to church?”

  “First Baptist on McCullough. 8:30. Beautiful service.”

  “So you’ve had quite the productive morning?”

  “I have.” He worked the opening of the bag and brought out My Spectral Accuser, wrapped protectively in a towel. “And, you’ll be happy to know, I finished my homework—”

  “Stop there.”

  Quin sat back.

  “We don’t talk about important things until after we order,” she continued. “Otherwise it’s all interruptions and questions. Takes you off track.”

  “Okay. So, tell me about this place. Why did you choose it?”

  “Ah, this place. It’s a San Antonio microcosm. You go either every Sunday or once a year. Lifeblood, or special occasion.” She paused for a moment to look around, inviting him to do the same, leading his gaze to the mural depicting the images of dozens of men and women that dominated one wall. “It’s called American Dream—great leaders of Hispanic industry and culture.”

  “Do you know who all those people are?” His eyes tracked the sea of faces.

  “No, but I should. It’s been a work in progress here forever. From before I was born, at least. If you look close, you can see that some of it is three-dimensional.”

  He turned his head and squinted a little. “I see that. Cool. So you’re a magician, a tour guide, amateur historian, and restaurant mural docent?”

  “Something like that. The paper flags hanging from the ceiling?”

  “The ones that make it look like a piñata exploded?”

  “Those are called picados. There. Now I’m a cultural liaison too.”

  The waitress turned up at that moment, set a glass of water in front of him, and pulled her ordering pad out of her apron pocket. “Do you know what you want? Or do you need more time with the menu?”

  Dini said, “More time,” just as Quin said, “I’m ready—” and he prevailed, ordering four eggs scrambled soft and two pieces of toast.

  “Stop,” Dini said, this time to the waitress, who kept her pen poised. “You cannot come in here and order four eggs and toast. Not here. You can order that anywhere. You can cook that at home.”

  “It’s what I eat for breakfast.”

  “Every day?”

  “Every day.”

  The waitress followed the conversation, head turning back and forth, obviously amused.

  “He’s in San Antonio for a week. He has one, maybe two shots at getting a decent breakfast. He’s here, where breakfast comes to life. Promise me”—she glimpsed at the girl’s name tag—“Crystal, promise me you won’t let the kitchen cook his stupid eggs and toast.”

  Crystal, a sweet girl with doe eyes, smiled and tapped her pen against her dimple. “How about we scramble them up with some steak fajitas and onions? Tortilla strips and peppers?”

  “Exactly,” Dini said, decided. “Those are called migas, my Virginia friend. Beans and potatoes on the side?”

  “Do I have a choice?” he asked.

  “Not really. And, since it seems like you might be wanting to keep the thousand or so calories at bay, I’ll happily split with you.” She looked up at Crystal. “Divide it between two plates? We don’t really know each other that well.”

  “Of course.”

  “And six flour tortillas.”

  “Six?” Quin sounded genuinely appalled.

  “What? They’re small,” Dini said, scooting her coffee cup to the edge for a refill.

  Crystal dispatched, Quin once again reached into his backpack, only to be stalled again by Dini.

  “Not until after the food gets here. Otherwise it’s all ‘Careful, hot plate,’ and, ‘How does everything look?’ and ‘Do you need anything else?’”

  He studied her. “This really isn’t your thing, is it?”

  “What isn’t?”

  “This. Talking. Socializing. Conversation. Because it is possible, you know, to have a natural flow. Little interruptions and then right back to it.”

  “Sorry,” she said, not feeling nearly as self-conscious as she knew she ought. “I haven’t done anything like this—haven’t had anything like this for…I don’t know how long. I don’t remember.”

  “Since you’ve had a date?”

  Now it was awkward. “A date? No. I mean, sure, that’s been a while too, but I meant a talk about Hedda Krause. New information, new—anything. I’ve exhausted my resources.” A soft laugh bubbled out. “And I’ve exhausted my friends talking about her. You’re new territory.”

  “So you’re using me for my …” His voice trailed, and she rushed in to fill it.

  “For whatever you have. My friend Arya thinks I’m obsessed.”

  “And are you?”

  As an answer, she filled him in on everything he might not know about the Menger Hotel. How it was initially a brewery and eventually one of the most prestigious hotels in Texas. Its famous guests—Babe Ruth and Teddy Roosevelt the only names he recognized—its scope and renovation. And, of course, its reputation for ghosts. “But you learned all about that on the tour.”

  “So, after talking for five solid minutes, do we conclude that you’re not obsessed?”

  His delivery didn’t carry a bit of malice, so she took no insult. “There’s something. Something I don’t know. Which means there’s something nobody knows, because I know everything. You’re going to give me that something.”

  He was laughing now, soft and affirming. “So, clearly, this is not a date.”

  She was spared a response when the trio of musicians stopped at their table, the tenor singing a mournful song, drawing out the notes like a stream telling a
story. She couldn’t understand a word of it and suspected Quin couldn’t either, but the way the singer’s eyes twinkled as he enunciated amore, sweeping his guitar as if binding them together, made it impossible to focus on anything other than the ornate stitching around the brim of his wide hat.

  The three took their leave as Crystal approached. She gave the customary warning about the dangerous hotness of the plates and the cheerful invitation to enjoy. A tiny strip of tortilla poked out from under the lid of the warmer. Dini lifted it and bounced the steaming, piping-hot disk on her fingers, cooling it. “Have to be careful you know,” she said. “These hands—they’re my life. But”—she rolled the tortilla and dipped it in the mass of beans and took a bite—“totally worth the pain.”

  She chewed, watching Quin use his knife and fork to cut through the near solid mass of cheese-covered egg and meat and peppers then spoon the refried beans and diced potatoes into its midst, giving everything a swirl before taking one forkful that miraculously contained a bit of everything. His eyes closed for a brief second in appreciation. She kept her own open to experience the deliciousness of the moment vicariously.

  “I’ve never seen anyone do that before,” she said.

  He lifted a questioning brow.

  “Mix it all together, like a casserole.”

  “I eat everything that way.” He lifted out a tortilla. “And this, by the way, is amazing.”

  “But you don’t get to isolate the flavors.” She used her fork to spear a perfect piece of steak. “You’ll never know how amazing this—”

  “Let’s talk about Hedda.” He offered it like a distraction. “It’s time now, right?”

  She moved to the edge of her seat. “How far did you read?”

  “Just as far as you said. The voice at the door.”

  “And the conversation after.”

  “And the kiss.”

  Dini studied her food closely. “Yes. I love that. There’s a sweetness to it. An innocence. And it shows that a kiss doesn’t always have to be from some huge romantic buildup. Sometimes, it’s an acknowledgment of a moment.”

  “But most people don’t kiss each other unless there was something building up before, right? And some promise—some hope, I guess—of something to happen after.”

  “Something to happen?”

  “A relationship, I mean. You don’t think a kiss is a promise for a future?”

  “I don’t know, Quin. Have you had a future with every woman you’ve ever kissed?”

  He tore off a portion of his tortilla. “No, I have not.” He chewed, trying, she was sure, to hold an air of nonchalance, but something had changed. For the first time since he sat down, he wasn’t looking at her in the way that made it seem he was trying to figure her out. Like the rare equation he couldn’t solve.

  “How about we move on to a safer topic?” she said, before he could ask about her kissing history.

  “Okay,” he said, swallowing, recovered. “You don’t look like a magician.”

  She was expecting the conversation to veer back to Hedda, but the comment took her pleasantly by surprise. “What do magicians look like?”

  “Old men with top hats.”

  “Well, it should please you to know that I actually do have a top hat and have been known to wear it on occasion. With a tuxedo. Arya calls it my sexy penguin look.” It was out before she could stop it—such a well-worn, common joke between herself and her friend. She was rewarded for her gaffe by Quin’s outburst of laughter, and further with the distraction of Crystal, who chose that moment to come by and pour coffee. And water. And to ask how everything was. And if they needed anything else. Dini hoped the air would be clear by the time the waitress left, but no.

  “Sexy penguin?”

  Dini squeezed her eyes shut. “I should have just showed you my tattoo.” And then, at the invitation of his raised eyebrows, she did. It sat on top of her right shoulder and needed only the slightest push of her wide-necked sweater to reveal the black silk top hat with two bunny ears peeking out. “Now, on to you.”

  “I have a feeling I might die as the last un-inked man on earth.”

  “I mean, you don’t look like a math teacher.”

  “What do math teachers look like?”

  She busied herself, isolating three pepper strips and spearing them to a chunk of potato. “I guess I don’t really know.” Looking up, she saw nothing but kindness and logic in his eyes and thought, truthfully, she’d never seen anyone more like a teacher. “I never actually went to school.”

  “What?” Were it not for the music, the echoes of a hundred people speaking, the shouts of orders and instructions, the distant “Happy Birthday” song in the corner, his outburst might have been embarrassing. “How? Wait, homeschool?”

  She nodded. “But not, like homeschool homeschool. My dad was a magician too. Old-man-top-hat kind. And he traveled all over, Mom with him. And me. So I just had books and stuff in the back of the bus or on the train or whatever we were doing at the time. Backstage dressing rooms, places like that. Mom didn’t follow any kind of actual curriculum. I just, you know, learned stuff.” She turned the focus back to Quin. “Come to think of it, I’ll bet you’re a great teacher. Sleeves rolled up. Tie loose.”

  “I don’t wear a tie.”

  “Sitting on the edge of your desk. Letting the kids call you by your first name. Playing Led Zeppelin music while they take a quiz.”

  “So you’ve never been in a classroom, but clearly you have seen them on TV.”

  “I spent a lot of hours alone while my parents were performing. Mom was his glamorous assistant, folding herself up in the box and getting sliced to pieces every night.”

  “Fun.” He scraped at his food. “Do you ever perform with your dad?”

  “I did, some, when I was little.” And then, as she feared would happen, her throat closed. What was it about him that made her forget to plan her words ahead? Silently she begged, Please don’t ask. Don’t ask….

  “How about now? Is he still performing?”

  She could simply say no and change the subject. They were still strangers after all, and this was far too deep a wound to invite him to step in. Usually she was much better at keeping up the guardrails, cutting off any talk that would bring her to this point. But he had lulled her, bringing her to some place where bits of herself were floating, disconnected from the moment, and fair game to be rescued and brought up in conversation.

  The pause had been overlong. “Hey,” Quin said, “it’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  She took a sip of coffee—a test to see if she could swallow. If she could swallow, she could speak.

  “When I was sixteen, we were part of a big traveling talent showcase. Booked little theaters all over Nevada, California, Colorado. Months on the road. We were on a mountain pass in this huge rainstorm, and the road—the ground—just sort of slid out from under the bus. It killed almost everyone on it.” She put her coffee down. “I’m one of the almost.”

  “Oh, Dini. I’m so sorry.”

  She’d left her hand, warm from the coffee mug, sitting on the table. He reached across, covered it with his own, and she let him. Neither spoke, and he sent the ever-attentive Crystal away with a glance. Dini loved whatever intuition led him to stay quiet with her, where others would pepper her with questions. “Were you hurt at all?” “Where did you go?” “Did you sue?” Instead, there was only the protective cloud of restaurant noise—forks against plates, the rumble of the bus cart—and over it all, the mournful trumpet of a Mexican love song.

  At his elbow, Quin’s phone vibrated, and his eyes immediately glanced at the screen.

  “Go ahead,” Dini said, grateful for the interruption. She watched him swipe the screen, read it with a bit of a furrow to his brow, and then type out a quick message before setting the phone, screen down, next to his empty plate.

  “Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Back to Hedda. What do I need to know?”
r />   She was recovered, ready—at last—for this conversation. “It’s more like what I need to know. From you. Do you believe her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just from what you’ve read so far. Hedda’s account of that night. What she said she heard. That voice, the touch. Do you believe her?”

  “I believe she believes.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  Quin took a tortilla out of the warmer and tore it in half. “These are amazing. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve had.”

  “That is your third. And don’t change the subject.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Because it does.” Dini knew she sounded…crazy? Obsessive? Basically everything Arya accused her of being. She didn’t want to scare Quin off. Not yet anyway. Not before she’d seen what he’d brought from the rest of the story. Without asking, she took up the other half of the torn tortilla and softened her tone. “Because it matters to Hedda.”

  “My first instinct then, quite frankly, is to say no. I don’t believe her, because I don’t believe in ghosts. We are all susceptible to suggestions and fears. She was a woman in a precarious situation. She needed sympathy? Attention?”

  “Sallie’s throat was crushed. She didn’t speak a word for three days. Hedda is the only person who ever heard her speak.”

  Quin’s voice was low, his tone patient—as if explaining to a child for a third time that the monsters in the movie won’t follow you home. “She heard someone speak, but it wasn’t Sallie White. It’s like solving any problem. Once you know what the answer isn’t, you can go back to the beginning and start over, look for something you didn’t see—some small miscalculation.”