by Cesare, Adam
“Okay.” The girl’s lip trembled. She looked a second away from melting into sobs. Claire was trying to hold back her smile by focusing on her guilt in the matter.
Allison brushed a reassuring hand against Kim’s shoulder and picked up her own clipboard. She turned to Claire. “Let’s get going,” she said.
They turned, but a squeak came from behind them.
“Allison,” Kim said. “How do I get home?”
Allison laughed and started giving directions to the lost little girl.
At least Claire’s thoughts were away from Mickey for the moment, because all she could think about was how badly she missed college. Kim was going to have the time of her life, and she didn’t even know it yet. Claire envied her.
After Allison had scooted the girl on her way she turned back around.
“Let’s go get shitfaced.”
Chapter Two
Claire woke up drunk, but not sick. Not yet, at least.
“Fuck.” She took a deep sniff and the acrylic smell of the carpet made her gag. She rolled over on the floor, realizing that she’d been kicked out of the bed.
Grabbing on to the comforter, Claire clawed her way up. Allison was sprawled on the bed, sheets wrapped around her legs, breathing loudly through her mouth. She was naked, her large breasts sunny side up in the late-morning light.
They only had the one bed and Allison had it to herself on most nights. Claire slept over at Mickey’s a lot. That was one more thing they’d have to figure out once she pulled the trigger and kicked Mickey to the curb.
Claire dressed for work to the soundtrack of Allison’s mouth breathing.
She fished her keys out from yesterday’s dirty pants and was startled when a voice broke the silence.
“Go get ’em, tiger.” Allison had one eye peeked open, and most likely spoke without realizing the Spider-Man reference.
“What? Put a shirt on,” Claire said.
“You’re on the market now. Or about to be, correct? I’m just trying my best to get my name on that rebound spot.”
“In your dreams.”
“Yeah, my wet dreams,” Allison said. Her joking sometimes toed the line into full-on repression.
“Don’t you also have a job to get to?”
Allison’s flirty composure evaporated. She scrambled to the edge of the bed, flipping over the alarm clock and jumping out of bed.
“I am so not used to this yet! But don’t think you’re off the hook,” Allison said, flicking an accusatory finger at Claire. Allison wiggled into her T-shirt and Planned Parenthood vest, no bra. “Dump that fucker or don’t bother coming home.”
“Don’t worry about me. Get going,” Claire said, watching Allison bounce out the bedroom door, one shoe on and the other in the process.
The front door slammed and the apartment held the deserted calm of a tornado-ravaged Midwestern town. Claire continued getting ready, brushing her teeth and checking her phone.
There were three emails and ten text messages from Mickey. The correspondence was a story unto itself, with peaks and valleys, exuberance and manic depression.
The exchange started with, What u up to?
Continued with, Sure ur not coming to mid estat?
Bottomed out twenty minutes later with, R u pissed at me!?!
Rebounded into, U know I love u so much.
Relapsed into, Fuk you then!
The final message was time stamped 3 a.m. U goNNa B @ Wk tomo? GOODNight.
This was going to be a rough day and Claire wasn’t even out of the apartment yet.
*
The sirens were in THX Surround Sound. They bounced between the tall buildings and courtyards of Boylston Street as Claire walked to work. She took the long way there to think over the decision, to breathe some fresh air as she pinpointed how she was going to word it.
The emergency vehicles seemed to move with her, and then finally streamed past her. As she got closer to the edge of the park, Claire could see that the flashes were red, white and blue, belonging to emergency vehicles off all types.
Her first thought was an electrical fire at the Park Street T stop. The trains of the Green Line seemed to spend more time aflame than they did running. But as she got closer, she could tell that this was a street-level emergency.
Smoke billowed up from one of the side streets, tall enough that the stench of burning plastic was wafting over the park. The pillar was dense and black, inky in the center with gray edges that gave each separate puff its own unique shape.
The smoke was coming from Sunrise Cantina.
Claire’s job was on fire.
Firefighters and looky-loos crowded the mouth of the street.
Sunrise was nestled in one of the few areas of urban grit that still clung to downtown Boston. It was plenty safe to walk around, still an area that tourists could move around comfortably, but it did retain a good number of colorful characters with neck tattoos and rowdy homeless guys.
Claire quickened her step, parting the crowd of onlookers the best that she could.
“Hey, girlie!” It was Dale, one of the drunks from the bar. Tommy stood next to his buddy, bleary-eyed and sipping from his coffee cup too deeply, letting Claire know that there was probably more Jameson’s than Dunkin Donuts inside.
“We were worried,” Tommy said, eyes still fixed on the flurry of activity around them. “We thought you were a crispy critter.”
If Dale and Tommy were from anywhere else, you’d have thought they were lovers. A sociologist would describe their relationship as homosocial. They would also have some choice descriptors for the sociologist, too.
Dale and Tommy were improbable holdovers from a time when most of the neighborhood looked just like them: drunk, heavily accented, mildly racist and too proud.
“What’s happening!” Claire grabbed hold of Dale’s shoulder, getting jostled by passing rescue workers as they parted the crowd.
“Fahkn’ bah’s burning down,” Dale replied.
“Yeah, it’s been going since about eleven. That’s when we been here since,” Tommy added, taking a belt of his coffee. It was good to know that Sunrise was such a fixture in the pair’s life that they arrived a half hour before the doors open.
“Have you seen Mickey?”
“Who?” Dale said. He had only been half listening, distracted by the commotion. The crowd undulated as the police tried to push the line back, wedging Claire between Tommy and Dale. She had never been this close to them before and had never noticed how terrible they smelled or how murky and smudged the silver of Tommy’s Patriots jacket was.
“The cook! My boyfriend with all the tattoos,” Claire said, not realizing how frustrated and scared she was until she heard it in her voice.
Tommy rubbed a freckled hand against his temple. “Shit, I haven’t seen that guy all morning.”
“Get out of my way,” Claire said and pressed against the two old men, using them to get a boost through the rest of the crowd. The people were packed tightly, as though they were watching a parade or a concert, not a fire in a major commercial district of the city.
“Officer,” she yelled to a cop who was threading police tape over a wooden barricade. He ignored her. She dipped her head under the barricade and was suddenly a whole lot less crowded standing where she wasn’t supposed to be.
The firefighters had broken out the restaurant’s glass storefront and were blasting water into the dining room. A cool mist speckled Claire’s face and, when she wiped it away, her hand came back dirty.
“Lady, you can’t be here.” The cop who wouldn’t answer her before now had his hand clamped over her shoulder.
“I work there,” Claire said. It seemed like the right answer as she formed the words, but she realized how ridiculous the sentiment was as soon as she saw the cop’s reaction.
“Not right now. I’m thinking that you have the day off.” He rubbed his salt-and-pepper mustache.
“I need to know if my friends are all right,” sh
e said, shaking away from his grip. “My boyfriend is the cook.” This was the second time in five minutes that she’d been forced into labeling Mickey as her boyfriend, probably not psychologically conducive to their in-progress break-up.
The cop glanced down at her chest. He was either checking out her tits or noticing that she was wearing her Sunrise Cantina T-shirt. With Boston cops, it could have been both.
“This is going to sound weird, ma’am,” he said and hiked up his belt, sucking in his gut. “Is your name Claire?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You should come with me. Your boyfriend’s been yelling for you since we got here. He’d pretty fucked up.”
“What happened?” Images of Mickey burnt to a cinder filled her mind. Her sense memory gave her a whiff of a well-done hamburger crackling on the Sunrise stoves. She began to retch as the nerves twisted around her anger. What kind of cop would use the term “fucked up” to describe a burn victim?
Seeming to read her mind, the cop raised a hand to stop her from bubbling over. “Calm down. He’s fine. What I mean to say is that he’s drunk.”
The cop led her over to an ambulance. Both of the vehicle’s back doors were open, Mickey sat on the bumper wrapped in a blanket, sucking on a tube of oxygen. He pressed the plastic mask so hard over his face that it was beginning to leave marks.
Mickey caught sight of her and dropped the mask. He had black marks running into each nostril from where he’d been huffing smoke. Claire’s mind raced to piece together what had happened. Had Mickey, thinking she had been on time for work, run into a burning building to try and save her?
“Silverfish,” he said, poking a few fingers out from under the blanket and waving her over. Claire was about to be embarrassed by hearing her high school name spoken aloud, but she caught herself. I should just be happy that he’s okay.
“Where were you last night? Why didn’t you call? I was so worried,” Mickey said, his speech slurred. “Did you get my messages?”
“Yeah, I got them this morning. Sometimes I need to be alone,” Claire said, now conscious of the cop and several paramedics that were listening in on their conversation.
“I love—” He couldn’t get the words out before a coughing fit turned into a puking fit. Claire was happy that she’d worn close-toed shoes as the vomit speckled her Converse.
As Mickey swiveled to hold on to the ambulance banister, the blanket dropped away and Claire could see it.
She turned to the cop. “Why is he handcuffed?”
“Because we’re pretty sure that your boyfriend burned the place down on purpose.”
“Not true,” Mickey said, babbling and coughing. “My fire was under control when I went to sleep, but when I woke up there was smoke all over.” He spit a glob onto the asphalt. “I was so scared.”
Claire looked at Mickey, then back at the cop. They both looked like they were waiting for her to say something.
“Fucking pathetic,” she said.
Chapter Three
“What are you doing?” Claire asked.
Allison was sitting on the end of the bed, Claire’s laptop on her knees. She didn’t respond.
Claire sat up and rubbed her eyes. She tweezed the sleep out with her pinky and thumb, and then rolled it into sandy globules.
“Helping you out with the job search,” Allison answered after a few more seconds.
“I just checked everything yesterday, made some inquiries. Nothing looks promising.”
“No, you checked everything in Boston. I’m widening the net,” Allison said. She was fully dressed, blue Planned Parenthood vest and all. “Waking up earlier than you and going to work is beginning to freak me out.”
Claire reached to the floor next to the bed, fishing her phone from her jeans pocket. The time was 11:25, a new unemployment oversleeping record. “You’re already late for work,” Claire said.
“I know, but this is more important.” Allison clacked the keyboard. “How does Ben & Jerry’s sound?”
“Delicious.”
“No. How does working for them sound?”
“The one on Newbury?”
“The headquarters. In Vermont.”
Allison giggled, but it was too quick and told Claire that she wasn’t one hundred percent joking about the job.
“There’s nothing else in the state?”
“Waitressing jobs are totally out of the question?”
Claire gave her a blank stare that said “better dead than Red and better Red than a waitress again.” Waitressing was no longer an option that Claire could stand.
“Everything else requires experience. You’ve got to hit the bricks, show employers that winning smile,” Allison said. “Maybe a little of that rocker chick cleavage too.”
Claire shot her a rocker chick bird.
“Or there’s always the oldest profession.”
“You’d let me get a foothold in your market share?” Claire’s quip fell flat. Allison was already over the exchange, ignoring her and hunched over the laptop.
“How does Mission, Massachusetts, sound?” Allison said.
“Where the fuck is Mission?”
“It’s right…” Allison paused and Claire listened to her make a few frantic keystrokes, looking up its location. “It’s Western Mass., only a two-hour drive,” she said.
“With or without traffic?”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s a position as seasonal staff at a hotel, you get room and board with the gig,” Allison read.
“So, it’s two hours without traffic then.” Claire pulled a pillow over from the other side of the bed and pressed it against her eyes, trying to drown out the sunlight and Allison’s help. It didn’t help.
“I don’t know. This sounds pretty good,” Allison’s voice was muffled but still audible. Claire ran her tongue over her teeth: fuzzy with whiskey and whatever she’d been mixing it with. Coffee? Gross.
Claire felt the bed shift and the blankets pinching her thigh as Allison crawled up beside her.
“Is Mission in the Berkshires?” Claire asked, breathing her own hot exhalation in as it bounced off the pillowcase and back into her mouth.
“Close enough, by the looks of it.”
Claire removed the pillow from her ears, feeling the blood return to her cheeks. She knew that she had the fabric design stippled into her face.
“You’re trying to get me to move out? Trying to get rid of me?” Claire tried to sound like she was kidding, but the kidding part of their conversation seemed to be at an end. Now that she was fully awake, she didn’t feel like it anymore.
She’d been sleeping a lot since the fire. Drinking and sleeping. Despite what she told Allison, she hadn’t been looking too hard for work.
“Oh honey. Never.” Allison pushed the open laptop onto Claire’s knees to free up her own hands. Claire waved off the hug before it could reach her.
“Let me take a look at this.”
“I’ve got to go to work,” Allison said. “I’m not kicking you out, but a little time away from the city couldn’t hurt and you don’t want to go home, do you?”
Claire thought of New York and shuddered.
“Then this one looks semi-promising,” Allison continued. “Keep an open mind. Besides, who is more hospitable than you?”
Claire pulled the screen towards her and read:
Come join our Family. The Brant Hotel is looking for a dedicated, hard-working and personable guest liaison to join our staff for the summer. Hospitality experience is encouraged but not required. Serious inquiries only, please. No solicitation.
At the bottom of the post was a phone number and address.
“Give them a call, at the very least.”
Claire nodded at her and heard the front door close. She highlighted, copied and pasted the address into Google maps and watched green fill the screen. This job would definitely get her out of the city.
Allison had been right. It wasn’t the Berkshires, not exactly. The closest outc
ropping of humanity seemed to be Springfield, but Mission was far enough away that it wasn’t Springfield’s suburbs. It was the sticks.
Claire checked the timestamp on the post: almost three days old. They’d probably had several responses by now and the chances were slim to none that the position was still open. She felt for her phone under the comforter.
Was she really going to call them right this minute? No more investigation into the business, only the faintest idea of what a guest liaison could be? Yes, she was. She dialed the number and hit send, using the laptop to type Brant Hotel Mission MA into the search bar as the phone started ringing in her ear.
The website was about what she’d expected, a few pictures of a quaint hotel. The white siding and potted plants on the steps made it look more like a private residence. The website was so simple in design that it bordered on antique (Sign our Guestbook! a banner at the bottom of the page implored).
“Hello, Brant Hotel, how can I help you today?”
The voice on the other end of the line surprised Claire, as if she hadn’t expected anyone to pick up. Now she was going to have to ask about the job, possibly set up an interview.
“Hello? Is there anyone there?” The woman on the line kept her voice cheery, ready to help whatever tongue-tied schmuck was wasting her time.
“Hi. Sorry, my cell phone was having problems, I’m here now.” Claire started off this relationship with a lie.
“That’s fine, sweetheart. How can I help you?”
“My name’s Claire Foster and I’m calling in regards to your ad on Craigslist for the guest liaison position. Has it been filled?”
“Hello, Claire,” the woman said, giving Claire a picture of a matronly old woman with a soft smile, someone that fit with the bed-and-breakfast images on her laptop screen. “If I’m not mistaken, I think you’re the first person to reach out about it. Are you interested?”
The question somehow threw Claire. Was she? “Yes, very much so. I was just looking up the hotel online and it looks quite beautiful.”