by Alix Strauss
Bernard hasn’t caught a glimpse of me yet. He’s talking to the hostess, holding a dark bottle, glowing like the proud father of a newborn. If I wanted, I could leave. Slip out unnoticed. My hand is already on the doorknob, cold brass in my grip. I twist the round handle, feel the lock release and the door push open, feel a sudden surge of guilt rise like bile in my throat. A sliver of cold air enters as I exit.
Chapter 2
Morgan
The Executive Offices
I wake to the sound of my own breathing rather than mine matched with Bernard’s. There’s no arm thrust over my shoulder. No one to fight for bed space. No bad breath I have to worry about masking. Knowing this bathes me in relief. I can move at my own pace, make coffee thick and dark, the way I like. There’s no racing against a steam-filling bathroom as I rush to put on makeup in the mirror and Bernard takes his long hot shower. It’s just me. And Dale.
The morning concierges, Julia, Cecile, and Anne, are waiting for me at the round table downstairs in the executive offices. We girls meet once a week to go over management issues and the ever-present feeling that the hotel business is testosterone driven.
I’m running late because I thought I was having an asthma attack this morning. I was getting dressed, and as I bent down to put on my socks and boots, found myself gasping for air. Now I keep trying to yawn, hoping that will help cure the problem, but as soon as I do, I’m back to feeling breathless. Air hungry. My guess is it’s suppressed guilt for standing up Bernard. I called his cell from outside the restaurant, explaining I had to work late, that I didn’t know if he was already waiting for me, and would he mind if I canceled.
“No problem,” he said, his voice void of disappointment or irritation. “I completely understand.” He was so nice about the whole thing I found it extremely frustrating.
The sound of Julia’s spoon clinking against the china cup is driving me crazy. I put my hand over hers hoping it will bring some silence. She smiles embarrassedly.
“Sorry. Terrible habit, I know. Jason’s actually removed the silverware from the kitchen. I’ve resorted to stirring with the plastic salad tongs his mother gave us.”
I watch Anne fiddle with the sugars in the glass container, watch her run her fingers back and forth along the tops, as if she were petting a shag carpet. Cecile clears her throat and Anne removes a blue packet. She hesitates, then puts it back and takes a pink one instead.
“Don’t they all taste the same?” Julia asks.
“I think the pink is sweeter,” I venture.
“And gives you cancer,” Cecile adds, licking her spoon.
We wait while Anne rips the saccharine pouch halfway through the large red musical note, and pours the entire contents into her drink. Then she sticks the ripped piece inside the packet and folds it in half. When Anne stops shifting in her seat and settles down, I start the meeting. As I open my mouth, I see her index finger tap the table, as if she’s got a twitch or something, as if she’s bored and is anxious for me to start.
I lean forward, “So, with Thanksgiving four days away, I wanted to know if we’re prepared. Each guest needs to be aware that a special dinner is available—housekeeping should have received an updated list with this year’s holiday room amenities. We need to be concise about which rooms are blocked and which are blown. The turnover is going to be a bitch, so please have half-hourly interactions with housekeeping, catering, and room ser vice—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if we can request vacation time,” Julia says. “Last year it seemed like the guys got time off before the women. Didn’t it?”
Cecile nods. “We were thinking of doing a family thing. Disney World, I guess,” she shrugs and rolls her eyes. “Where else do you go when you have kids?”
The photo of Dale in the mouse hat materializes before my eyes. I barely remember the trip. Instead I have bits of memories. Tiny pieces of moments reinforced by the photos in the family album: us in a yellow teacup, our mother in the middle; us in the “it’s a small world” ride; a floating ghost from the haunted house. But there are no feelings of these experiences. Just visuals of a sister I no longer have.
The meeting turns into a gabbing session with Julia talking about her problems with Jason, Cecile hating her nanny, and Anne giving us a play-by-play regarding some man named Gage, who she met on the Internet.
“He’s an artist who uses objects that he’s found on the street and incorporates them into his work,” she explains.
“So he goes around the city collecting garbage?” Cecile asks.
“No, not exactly. These are things he finds like bottle caps or metal objects or pieces of discarded picture frames…He’s very talented…”
“And you met him on the Internet?” Julie interjects, trying not to smile.
I can see Anne’s face getting red, and her foot starts to tap under the table. I want to tell them about Bernard. About the breathing problem and if they think the two are linked, but talking seems too hard a task at this moment.
As we head upstairs, I hear Anne’s tentative, soft voice behind me.
“Morgan, could I talk to you for a second?”
I see Cecile and Julia exchange looks with each other, then with me.
“Sure.”
We park ourselves near the Fifty-seventh Street entrance. I scan the enormous lobby, marvel at how the hotel has been transformed since last night into a decorative rustic scene. Branches with moss, red berry clusters, and colored leaves hang down from the ceiling. Green vines with golden yellow and rich brown rosebuds popping out run up and down the eight columns that surround the room. Massive pumpkins rounded to perfection have been purposely placed in several popular spots on the marble floor. Near the front desk station are two baskets, one is filled with packaged chestnuts, a mini silver cracker attached to each, the other has baby-size pumpkins, fresh apples, and brown pears.
Anne is shifting from one foot to the other, antsy and fidgety. She looks like a librarian-in-training. She’s what my grandmother would have called “dowdy mousy.” For some reason I have a soft spot for her. It makes me want to apply some blush to her cheeks, paint her lips a soft tawny red. Add some life to her face. Help her become the person I think she aches to be. Even though she’s only a few inches taller than I, I always feel short standing next to her. She’s in high heels, which she doesn’t need, and it accentuates her lean, lanky frame. But today she seems especially off. Tired. Her frizzy hair appears extra coarse, her pale skin extra ashen. Her lips are dry and cracking, her eyes are slightly glassy, and her pupils look small. Perhaps there’s been a death in her family or someone near to her is ill.
She crosses her arms, wraps them tightly around herself. “I was wondering if anyone found my bracelet. I checked with the front desk this morning but they don’t have it.” She smiles nervously. “It has a lot of sentimental value. You don’t think a guest might have picked it up and hasn’t brought it to lost and found yet, do you?”
I try to take a deep breath. “Well, I…”
“Perhaps I could slide a personal note under everyone’s door. I’d be happy to type a letter explaining the situation, and I’d do it during my lunch break so it wouldn’t be on company time.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not allowed, and to be honest, it’s not my call to make.” I finally get a gulp of air, and it must seem like a disinterested sigh to her. “I sent out an e-mail to the staff yesterday, and put a note up on the employee bulletin board so everyone’s aware you’re missing it.”
I hear her mumble something, see her lips twitch ever so slightly, like she’s cursing me under her breath.
“I really appreciate your help.” She looks at the floor, then back to me, “I just feel really naked without it.”
“Of course, I’ll let you know the moment I hear something.”
She nods and I watch her walk away, her head down, shaking it slightly from side to side.
I remember when Anne came to the hotel
four years ago. She showed up in the same army green sweater during the entire week of training. She seemed so uncomfortable during hotel bingo and Four Seasons Jeopardy that I thought she’d never appear for her first day of work. But she did. And four years later it seems like all she cares about is finding a lost bracelet rather than preparing for her annual evaluation.
My chest still hurts from gasping for air. At work I lift my shoulders, try to breathe in like they teach in the yoga classes at the hotel. I attempt to intake air though my nose but it doesn’t work. It’s not enough. Frustrated I put my hand to my chest, push in, and lean forward onto the front part of my desk. I feel my heart beating fast and when I push in harder I’m finally able to get a deep breath. I make a mental note to see my internist.
In fact, I write this down. Then I play my messages while still in breathing position. I talk to the photo of Dale on my desk, tell her I miss her. Whisper it softly, like a lullaby. I trace her face with my free hand as the woman from the art gallery flashes in my mind. I suddenly need to see her. I suddenly, desperately want to have lunch with Trish Hemingway. I could lie, stating I need her to sign another form I forgot to include last week when she inspected the party room.
I take down Trish’s gallery invite and dial the number listed on the back. The machine picks up. “Hi Trish, it’s Morgan Tierney from the Four Seasons. I realized I forgot to have you sign one last form. If you want to come by the hotel, we could have a bite of lunch, my treat for the inconvenience. Or if you’d like I could mail you the sheet. Please give a call and let me know what’s easiest for you. Many thanks.” I leave my number, then spend the next forty minutes creating a phantom form regarding damages and responsibility for hotel property.
As I walk through the lobby, I catch the elevator doors opening, which reveal a well-dressed, but harried man fixing his tie. He stops fidgeting when he sees me. The agitated look is replaced by surprise, which quickly morphs into a pinched half smile.
“Well how’s this for timing,” he says, walking toward me.
As he leans forward to kiss my cheek, I catch a whiff of perfume, which I know doesn’t belong to Faye.
“Was your stay a pleasant one, Dr. Radkin?” I tease.
“Always.”
“And how’s the book coming?” I ask my uncle Marty.
“Very well,” he says, patting his leather briefcase. “I wouldn’t be able to do it without you. You know, Faye means well, but she hovers. I can’t seem to write a thing in the apartment.”
“Perhaps you should see a professional about that,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “Actually, I guess you could just talk to yourself and send a monthly bill to your home.”
“It’s amazing what you can get done when you’re not distracted.”
He holds my stare for a moment before looking at his watch. I wait for my uncle to mention Dale, to acknowledge the passing of her birthday. To ask how I’m doing. Offer some helpful words, the kind I suspect he snows his patients with, but realize I don’t want anything from this man, a hack of a shrink who fucks his clients in my hotel. It’s enough I discount his room. That I keep my mouth shut. That my mother is unaware her only sibling might be more fucked up than the women he sleeps with.
“Will you be having breakfast with us today?” You and your lovely girlfriend/patient, who, I bet, is still upstairs. Who may or may not know that you’re married. That your wife is a perfectly lovely woman who I sat across from days ago at the Thanksgiving dinner my mother had catered. That she helped clear the table, brought flowers and dessert, laughed politely at my father’s jokes. And how old is this one? What mental illness does she suffer from that you feel you can better cure by sticking your penis in her mouth rather than listening to what she has to say?
“Well, I’ve got people to see. Problems to listen to.” He glances at his watch again. I wince as he kisses me good-bye, while whispering “thanks” in my ear.
Feeling dirty, I enter the employees’ bathroom, desperate to wash my hands and cheek, and hear crying coming from one of the stalls. I know it’s Anne because of her weirdly distinctive perfume. Clove and sandalwood. “It keeps away negative energy,” she once told me. We’d laughed because I’d asked if there was one that did the same for mothers. Now I wonder if she has some to spare.
“Anne is that you?” I bend down to look at the feet and legs of whoever is inside and feel validated when I see the black loafers. There’s some sniffling, the sound of a flush, followed by the opening of the stall’s metal lock. When Anne appears, her eyes are red, cheeks blotchy. They match the color in her printed flower dress. She steps toward the mirror, her perfume filling the room. Mascara and eyeliner have left a dark crescent under her lower lids so that she looks like a football player.
I’m not supposed to know about her dismissal, so I ask if she’s upset about her bracelet. This only causes her to sob harder. Her face becomes distorted, like she’s having a stroke, and her shoulders shake. Seeing someone fall apart is frightening. It reminds me of the way my mother looked before she and my father left to go to Dale’s funeral. I found her crying hysterically in her room, trying to put on her makeup. Her face was streaked with mascara, like Anne’s. Her eyes were bloodshot, she had too much perfume on, her shirt collar was smeared with foundation. She looked like my mother, but not.
I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral. Instead, our neighbor came and took me to the zoo. When I came home, the apartment was too quiet. Dale’s hospital bed was gone, and a new mattress and bedspring were in its place. Her belongings had been removed, too. Like Anne. Like Dale. The magician puts the lady into the box, he seals the door, and with a flick of his wrist, a swing of the wand, poof. All gone.
Toward the end of Dale’s illness, when she was still at home, an oxygen tank and morphine drip kept close by, I’d place my hand over hers and sometimes sleep with her even though I wasn’t supposed to. I reach for Anne’s hand now, want to give it a supportive squeeze, and as I do I feel her stiffen.
“It’s fine. I’m fine. I just need to get myself—” She stops and turns around. “Today’s my last day.”
“What?”
“Yes, it’s true.” She has on her librarian expression now. Everything is stoic and she’s speaking matter-of-factly, like a robot trying to get humanized. “You didn’t know?”
“We could have drinks or something after work if you’d like. We could invite Julia and…”
“That’s sweet, but I think I’ll just go home.” I see her tap the marble slab that separates the sinks from the mirror two times with her index finger. She does it twice more.
“My fingers are always falling asleep,” she says, shaking her hands like a doctor flicking off the remaining water after he’s cleaned them before an operation. Even though she’s closer to the door, she doesn’t move toward it, and it’s only when I swing it open that she passes through.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t think so, but thanks.”
We stand outside the bathroom in silence for a moment.
“I should have known this was coming. It’s Tuesday, I forgot to wear brown, and it’s the seventeenth, the most unlucky number of the month.”
Is she kidding? “That’s the reason you were given for being fired?” My father, an avid golfer, used to wear the same ratty old pair of socks on a tournament day. He was the only one who could touch them. They never went in the laundry. Often, we’d find him washing them in the bathroom sink.
“No. It’s just, it’s hard to explain.” She shrugs, looks down at her feet. “It was nice working for you, Morgan.”
“It sure was. You’ll be missed,” I add. Someone calls to me, and as I turn my attention away for a moment, I can already hear Anne walking away.
I’m at the desk station for my weekly fix. Room number 2002 pops up—a winner. This is one of our nicer, larger suites and I proceed to the elevator looking as if I’m off to somewhere very important. I realize as I ride up t
hat I’ve never had drinks with Anne casually after a shift like I have with other co-workers. I’ve never seen a photo of her friends or family, never been to her apartment. I don’t even know if she owns a dog or if she’s a cat person or if she’s still seeing that guy she met on the Internet. The artist who finds objects and adds them into his work.
By the time I slide the key into the electronic lock, I’m back to being breathless. I need to quit smoking. Once inside I ritualistically take a moment, scan the room. It has a messy, almost dirty feel to it. Housekeeping has yet to show and the stale odor of what? Not old food but…sex. Musty sex. It hangs in the air, as if locked inside. I inspect the living room closely and find two used condoms in the trash can. On the desk is a large white envelope with a hot pink lipstick mark that’s been planted smack in the middle. Then, as if the lips are talking, the owner has written “Open Me.” The package has not been sealed, and inside are three pamphlets and a note: “Just what the doctor ordered. No prescription necessary.” Two Viagra pills tumble out into my palm. I lay them on the desk. They sit there, like large calcium tablets on the dark leather blotter.
The pamphlets are cotton candy pink and the letters TES are printed in fire red. Underneath reads: “Please remember that TES was founded by masochists for masochists and only later became an S/M liberation group.” Further inspection leads to a list of meetings and a calendar of programs, events, and classes.
The Novice Group, who meet on the first Wednesday of each month, offers an Introduction to the Scene with Ms. Queen. Flogging 101, whatever that is, meets on Tuesdays. Mike Bond and Master Jim teach the Switchables Group on Fridays. “The Power of Spanking,” and this is a nice touch, is delivered by Dee God over brunch on Sundays. My personal favorite, a treatment they don’t offer at the Four Seasons’ spa, and who can blame them, is the bondage class, “Mummification with Michelle.” Michelle is a mummification enthusiast, and will discuss and demonstrate the fine art of wrapping. Perhaps we should offer this special service. It could follow shiatsu with Gilda or a stone massage with Troy.