by Cindy Jones
At the high mahogany desk, the young attendant smiled and slipped an envelope across the cold marble countertop before I'd said a word. Apparently he'd been expecting me. Another young male, perhaps the concierge, watched from the nearby desk as I pulled a plastic access key and a thick square of the hotel's cardstock from the envelope. A note in Randolph's handwriting said, Please wait in my room. So sorry to be late. I touched the embossed hotel name and studied Randolph's one-word signature at the bottom: Weston.
In the elevator, my reflection revealed every angle of the diaphanous ankle-length empire gown, borrowed from costumes and accessorized with Bets's goth jewelry. It looked like something an actress would wear. Vera had thought to send a shawl, beneath which I shivered, cold and nervous. My Jane Austen slipped into the elevator behind me. Inserting the access card into the slot on the door handle, a frightening vision flashed before me: my new friend Weston waiting inside, naked in the bed. But the door opened to reveal a large silent room where an unoccupied bed waited in the soft yellow light of a table lamp. I closed the door and entered carefully. What if Randolph was one of those people who jump out and scare you, then think it's funny. Although the hotel was quite old, the room's furniture was contemporary and masculine. A framed photograph of a man laboring at a desk, perhaps the hotel's founder, hung on the wall. A bottle of mineral water from Blenheim Palace (home of Churchill) and a bowl of cherries (me) posed together on the bedside table. The digital clock said 7:38.
Unsure where to wait, the bed and a single chair provided limited seating options. When Randolph arrived, one of us would have to sit on the bed. I chose the chair. My Jane Austen hovered in the background with the drapes. I laid the business plan on the table next to a phone, a laptop, and personal papers. Seated, I smoothed my gown over my knees and began waiting. The clock read 7:41. What should I be doing when he arrived? What tableau should I create for his pleasure? Woman Reading Scary Essay on Fanny Price offered itself as a possibility, except I'd left my book at home. Woman Reclining seemed like a bad idea. Leave him wanting more. I glanced at the debris littering the table. Would I hear him before he opened the door? If I jumped he would think I had been snooping through his papers. How unromantic. But his personal things lay on the table for anyone to see: papers, envelopes, a portfolio. Don't look. I listened carefully for footsteps in the hall. Nothing.
The clock said 7:44. I wondered what he was doing, and with whom. Were there others besides Sara Stormont? Lots of others? It didn't seem so when we were together. Perhaps I would gain insight into this man's life if I looked at the papers on the table. Under those terms, it wouldn't be snooping. Of course it would. Don't look. 7:47 P.M. The room was so very quiet except for my beating heart.
My Jane Austen was creating another list. I was getting a little tired of her lists. Who was she to divide the world into good and bad? Where would her own name fall on one of her lists? "I don't even know you," I said to her. "You're not Jane Austen. Who are you and what are you doing in my head?"
I stood and walked to the bathroom. Oddly, this bathroom had no shower stall. The whole bathroom was the shower. A narrow slice of glass acted as barrier between sink and shower head but water would flow directly into the room. Unless the drain could work really fast, it appeared the room would flood with every shower. The sink offered no counters. No place for a woman's things. And the only electrical outlet was an oddly configured plug for "shavers only." Must be the Caveman Suite. I opened my tiny bag and pulled out my lipstick. Well--Bets's lipstick, I liked the color and Bets had abandoned it. Would he open the door and find me applying lipstick? I leaned in to examine myself in the mirror. Was that me? The real me or the fictional me? Willis would know. Some people understand you so clearly, and others just don't. Most don't. Why is that? I dropped the lipstick into my bag and drew it shut, then checked my breath and decided I could stand a mint, which I didn't have. Toothpaste. Surely he had toothpaste in here, but where? I looked for a Dopp kit but the maid had obviously cleaned; nothing lay about, no razor, toothbrush, or comb. Towels hung neatly folded. I imagined him opening the door just now and finding me embracing the chrome towel warmer for heat.
The last essay I'd read was still talking to me, saying, Nobody falls in love with Fanny Price. "Nonsense," I said to the mirror as I found toothpaste hiding behind shower gel. "Edmund falls in love with Fanny Price." I pointed to make sure the mirror understood. "I'm wrestling with this," I continued. "Don't tell me Edmund doesn't love her. I felt the chemistry. You felt it, too, Willis? That fizz of connection? Just curious: Do you feel it with Philippa?" I squirted a tiny dot of toothpaste on my finger and rubbed it around the inside of my mouth. What if I spit in his sink. Better not. But I could collapse in a puddle of Regency gauze and cry on the lovely caramel tile floor. "I miss you, Willis." My Jane Austen looked up from her corner. She seemed a bit dimmer, as if she might faint again.
I left the bathroom and struck a pose near the window where I could stare at the London night sky, eyes relaxing, casting the sparkling lights into a blur, wondering if Jane Austen had completely tricked me about Mansfield Park. "Did I miss something? Was I supposed to dislike Fanny Price?" I asked. "Was this your joke on us--designed to separate the lightweights?" But the black window made me feel abandoned and alone. Like the window at day care when I was five, waiting for my father to pick me up. Other parents had claimed their children and gone home for dinner and bedtime. My teacher and I waited alone, her purse and keys on her desk. Most of the lights were switched off and her lips pressed together as she searched the darkness for my dad's headlights. I watched her, feeling the deep isolation of the night, wishing my dad would come so she could go home. But my dad's real life happened somewhere else where the people were more important than me. I'd always known this. And because of the unimportance of me, my teacher had to wait.
7:51. Randolph should be here by now. I went back to my chair by the desk. Funny how the bathroom looked so neat and the table was such a mess. Perhaps the maid didn't touch papers. Or maybe he messed them after the maid cleaned. I looked in the trash can and found several crumpled papers indicating he had worked in here after the maid cleaned. Woman Examining the Evidence:
"And where were you at 7:51 on the evening of the eighth of August?"
"I solemnly swear I spent the evening in Lord Weston's hotel room, going through his trash."
The phone rang and I jumped. The moment of truth. Should I answer? Two rings. 7:53. My pulse raced. What if Randolph was calling me? If a woman answers, hang up. My Jane Austen and I watched like cats as the ringing stopped, another sound took its place, and paper ratcheted into a printer. The fax machine zipped into action, feeding the paper into the waiting trough. My Jane Austen read the paper as it spooled through the printer. Could I read his faxes? No. But I could read his trash. Trash is considered public domain.
I stopped talking to myself, proceeded directly to the trash can, lifted the three crumpled balls from the bottom, and recognized the sensation of seeking painful truth. Where was my dad when I waited all those nights in the dark day care center? If she knew, my mother never told me. She put me in the car and drove in silence, the green freeway signs communicating distance. I feigned sleep, imagining the story of her grief.
Shaking, I dropped the three crumpled balls on my lap. One fell to the floor. I didn't even look at the time. No time to look at the time. The first trash item was a pink carbon copy of a claim check from a tailor, Savile Row. Name rings a bell. The second trash item was a phone message from Chris, no last name, no call back number. I recrumpled the two trash items, and rethrew them into the bin. I fished the last ball off the floor and smoothed it in my lap. A transmission report from the fax machine. 14:38. I endured the snarky glare of the fax machine on military time. I threw the last ball back into the trash. I'd made no progress in my quest for insight. But having crossed the line into reading trash, I felt compelled to move on to bigger things. 8:01. Time flew. The idea that a paper in thi
s room would tell me everything I needed to know about Randolph Weston and the role I played in his life consumed me.
Or did I seek a hit of familiar pain?
8:05. Woman Reading Personal Papers. I helped myself to the personal papers on the table. A bill from Pratt's. Bank statement (still in the sealed envelope). An invitation to a dinner benefiting the Osteopathic Centre for Children, a newsletter still folded from Alliance of Independent Retailers, a fax from Tony Palmer Investments "looking forward to meeting on Tuesday." I carefully restored every paper to its exact original position.
No dance card, no love letter, no broken engagement. Nothing about me. 8:11. I sat perfectly still, but my heart pounded, blood raced through my veins, thoughts skittered in all directions. Looking up, I saw the girl from Texas reflected in the mirror on the opposite wall. What are you doing here? I asked her. Do you crave love or pain and are they the same thing to you? She leaned over and lifted the fax out of the trough. Reading, she found a listing agreement for Newton Priors signed by Tony Palmer.
This wasn't my novel. I wasn't the protagonist. I was a secondary character hidden in the hotel room. Sara Stormont didn't know about me. I was the secret; the bad surprise that ruins the main character's day--the mad woman in the attic, the villain destined for a disastrous end. 8:21.
The door opened and I jumped.
My tableau was realized: Crazed Woman Sitting on Chair.
"Hullo, Lily."
Randolph smiled at me. "Did I frighten you?" he asked, very handsome in his black tie, in spite of his hair loss.
My hand flew to my heart and I assumed an innocent smile. "Hullo, Wes--Randolph." A man who considered his opportunities, of course he would entertain listing agreements. He hadn't signed anything. Perhaps I had been wrong again. I extended a hand and he pulled me into an embrace. He smelled of alcohol and I sensed myself numbing, the walls blurring into once upon a time. Letting go of me, he loosened his tie. "What a bore, knowing you were here, waiting." He tore the tie out of his tuxedo shirt--eyes on me--and tossed it into the lap of the other chair. "You look lovely," he said.
What would it be like--beloved of an English lord? We were slipping into the faux familiarity again, conveniently holed up in the Royal Bachelor Pad. I watched to see if he would stop with the tie as My Jane Austen asked, What about dinner? What about the business plan? Sitting on the bed, he touched a panel on the bedside table and a soft electronic buzz sounded as a very large television emerged from the surface of the desk. The 007 Suite. He touched again and the drapes began to close, flushing My Jane Austen from her hiding place. He switched on the TV and a cricket match filled the screen.
"Aren't you hungry?" I asked, standing midway between the bed and the TV.
"Only for you, love," he said, eyes on the cricket match.
"I thought we were going to dinner," I said, touching my elegant dress.
"I'm sorry, I've eaten. But we could call for room service," he said, fondling the remote. Randolph removed cuff links and studs, placing them on the surface of the bureau. He threw the shirt and tie onto the chair and then looked at me, his chest bare. Obviously, I was dinner. He held his arms open and I knew if I went to him, I would lose My Jane Austen. "I appear far more committed to this relationship than you," he whispered, referring to his state of undress.
The slightly aloof prince. I crave this. Part of me wanted to go to him and see what it would be like--happily ever after with an English lord. What if this was the real thing--or could become the real thing? If I backed out now he would be mad at me. My Jane Austen grew withered and pale, less vivid every moment, fading while I stressed. She chose that moment to turn her completed list so I could see it, but I already knew what the list said. She'd written across the top: "Lily's Life." And made two columns: one for protagonists, and another for secondary characters. The list of protagonists in my life was very long, among them Sara Stormont. But the list of secondary characters was short; only one name and it was mine: Lily Berry, playing herself over and over in other peoples' lives. When I backed away, my shawl fell to the ground and My Jane Austen vanished. Gone. I bent to retrieve the shawl and restore it to my shoulders but she didn't reappear. I kept blinking hopefully, searching for her in my peripheral vision. Whoever she was, a projection of myself, my mother, bits of the great writer thrown in, she never returned after that moment.
Randolph worked around my shawl, "What do you look like under all this?" he whispered, searching for the zipper of my gown. He found the secret seam under my armpit. He held at the top and tugged with his other hand. "Any calls while I was out?" He smiled, removing my sleeves from my shoulders, but had to stop there since I crossed my arms in front of me. "Lovely." He bent to kiss the breasts bulging over my folded arms. I held my clothes on, resisting the urge to fall into this familiar place, to please a virtual stranger. And things around me weren't transforming. My shoes wouldn't stop being real. The chair and desk remained firmly real and the bowl of cherries sat there slowly rotting. I felt a little pressure behind my eyes, a touch of nausea, and I began to understand how I would feel when this ended.
"Just one call," I answered automatically, before registering his smile and the joke that he was undressing his secretary. "But it was a fax."
He grew sober and left me to fetch his fax. I pulled the gown back over my shoulders as Randolph lifted the paper from the fax trough. The soft light shone on the floral bedspread, recalling the chintz sofa where my mother read to me. Here I was at last, the roses, the soft light, and the prince, all for me. Randolph pursed his lips the way Omar did when he read books on Shaw, the way Willis did when he typed. Randolph signed the paper and loaded it back into the fax machine. He looked up the number and pressed the buttons. The signed document went flying back to Tony Palmer. Then he stood and removed his trousers, throwing them on the chair. "Come now, forget about all that." He reached for me, "Let me help you out of that tangle of clothes."
He would sell Newton Priors. Without even telling me. He pulled the floral bedspread down, the prince bedding Rapunzel. My mother knew. Of course she knew.
"Come now, forget about all that," Randolph repeated, reaching for my hand, no longer smiling. But without "all that" I was just a face, just a body--how little he understood me; my total lack of artifice. I wasn't Rapunzel and he wasn't the prince. Everything about me was the same as always and I could see that after this ended, I would feel bad. Randolph took the shawl from my arms and tossed it at the foot of the bed. Tears pooled in my eyes as I stood, confused. He sat on the bed and searched my face, clearly at a loss with my behavior. But I was better than Maria Bertram, who fell for Henry Crawford every time we played the scene. We play it over and over, five times a week, and she never evaluates her situation; she never thinks about approaching her life with a different end in mind. She can't learn from her mistakes because she is nothing but ink on a page. Fanny Price got in my head. A sensible girl would flee. Sounded so familiar, my own words, unheeded again and again. Fear like yours is not normal.
"Is something wrong?" Randolph asked.
"Yes," I said. "I'm not a professional actress."
"I know. I Googled you; you're an address in Texas," he said. "Vera's little friend." I remembered now: The Look Randolph and Philippa had shared across the hospital bed when Vera announced I was an actress. The information held particular significance for the three of them. He reached to pull down my sleeves, but I grabbed his hands and pushed them to his lap, holding them there. "We don't know each other," I said. Reaching for the zipper of my gown, I pulled up, catching tender flesh. I saw myself returning my Regency gowns to the costume wardrobe, folding the undergarments and tucking them into their drawer before Suzanne arrived. "You're going to sell Newton Priors, aren't you?" I said.
He smiled, falling back on a pillow, his palm on his forehead. "Do you really care?"
"I care very much. So do Nigel and Vera and a lot of others."
He sighed, staring at the ceiling, and I re
cognized the look of someone planning the best way to deliver bad news to me. "The truth is I can't afford Literature Live," he said, sober. "My accountant has reviewed everything, including your ideas, and advised me to sell the estate if I want to avoid ruin."
"When were you planning to tell us?" I asked.
He paused, rubbing his temples. "Perhaps this is a disappointment to you. But, believe me, Nigel has known for some time." He turned on his side, propping his head on his elbow, patting the bed next to him. "I want you," he said.
I threw the shawl around my shoulders and gathered my business plan. "No," I said.
"That's it? The house is out--so now you're going?"
"Of course not." I could see myself leaving this hotel and leaving Newton Priors, as if I stood on the roof watching myself go, a normal girl. "I've realized something that actually has nothing to do with you."
"So we can still have fun together."
"I'm afraid not." I lifted Vera's fringed bag from the chair, willing to concede a civil good-bye, sparing bridges for the good of the organization. But then he wrapped his arms around a pillow and lowered his voice to a whisper.
"Just think what you can tell your friends when you get home."
I walked to the door and paused; turning to face him, I saw his cell phone in his hand. He slipped it behind his thigh and out of my view, assuming an innocent expression when our eyes met for the last time. "Call me when you grow up," I said. I walked out before he could punch the next girl's number in my presence. 9:06 P.M. Texas Girl Escapes London Hotel.
Twenty-seven
Vera answered her door. "Lily, you're back," she said; a bright smile lit her face, the room behind her somber, perhaps kept dark for Nigel's benefit.