by Marcy Blesy
Me: Meet me at 8:00 in the library.
Lawson: No. Plans to meet at 7:00 at stage.
Me: Meet in library before we go upstairs. I’m busy until 8:00.
Lawson: Deal’s a deal.
Me: Still have a deal, just shifting time.
Lawson: Forget it. I’ll c what Rachel and Raquel are doing tonight. Maybe they’d like to c my uncle’s suite.
Me: I hate you.
Lawson: No you don’t. You love me. Because you need me.
I throw my phone on the floor, not even caring if it’s broken. Now what? Finn hates Lawson. Whatever. I’m gone as soon as this summer is over and I get the answers I need. The only person I can count on is myself. I take one more look in the mirror, wipe off my lipstick so I don’t look too eager for this “date,” and lock the door behind me.
The lawn is busy tonight as it’s been every night this week, only there are an extra amount of kids. The little leaguers seem to be mixing nicely with the Girl Scouts. Lots of squealing and high-fiving is happening. Not a single lawn game lies dormant. The chairs around the stage are all occupied, too. Finn is sitting cross-legged on the stage like I used to do in elementary school. Surrounding him in a semi-circle is a group of those kids, mostly little girls who are laughing at whatever Finn is saying. His guitar rests on his lap as the kids take turns using his pick. One of the girls is Amanda, the young girl who lost sight of her mother this morning. I imagine her mother standing nearby, not taking her eyes off her baby girl, and it makes me sad.
I see Lawson walking down the sidewalk out of the main entrance from the lodge. He’s wearing khaki shorts and an orange polo shirt. Great, we match. This night is getting even more perfect.
“Hey, beautiful. Glad you got the wear orange memo.” He slips his hand into mine, and I shake it away. “You promised,” he says through gritted teeth.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I ask without taking my eyes off Finn.
“Fine, then let’s go watch the help strum his guitar.”
“You don’t have to be such an asshole.”
“And you don’t have to be such a bitch.” He puts his hand on the small of my back and pushes me in the direction of the stage. Hey, Lawson. Good to see you, Lawson. Let me get you a couple more chairs, Lawson. Whatever power he has over his employees could be deemed impressive to some, but it just makes my stomach churn. Or maybe it’s that I know Finn is going to see me anytime now that makes my stomach start reeling like I’ve been on the high seas all day.
Lawson snaps his fingers, and an employee I’d never seen before, an older man who looks like he should be enjoying his retirement rather than catering to Lawson, moves two recently vacated Adirondack chairs so that they are center stage. Lawson points to the chair closest to him, and I sit, because what choice do I have at this point?
The kids are getting up from the stage, all of them laughing at whatever joke Finn has just told them, and the happy parents are clapping. A stool is brought onstage for Finn. He sits down and starts strumming Layla by Eric Clapton. My grandpa used to listen to Eric Clapton and other classic rock when he would read the paper. He’d said that classic rock set the tone for the news, no matter whether it was good or bad news. I used to think it just sounded angsty and angry, but there’s a lot of beautiful melody in the music, too. Finn stops playing mid-chorus when he looks out at the crowd—and sees me sitting front and center with Lawson. He finishes the song and goes right into You Oughta Know by Alanis Morrisette. I can only imagine the looks of shock on the faces of the same mothers who’d applauded Finn’s sweet interactions with their children moments ago as he now sings about a scorned lover. At least he has the decency to change the swear words. But he returns to his normal set for the rest of the show. I try many times to get Lawson to leave. He ignores me and pretends to be enthralled with Finn’s singing. When Finn starts singing Brown-Eyed Girl, it takes every ounce of courage I have to not claw out Lawson’s eyes and make a public apology to Finn in front of all of the guests, but then I remember why I am here, why I came to Tremont Lodge…and I suffer through it—for answers. Finn closes his set by making humble apologies for setting out his guitar case for tips. Many little girls turn to their parents for money and go squealing up to the stage to drop in a dollar or two. Lawson reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. He takes out a crisp, single dollar bill, and hands it to me.
“You have got to be kidding,” I say. If looks could inflict pain, Lawson would be begging for the paramedics right now.
“What? Didn’t you enjoy the show?” he says. I stand up to leave, but he puts his hand on top of mine. “Don’t you think the help deserve their due pay?”
“Go to hell, Lawson.” I walk toward the lodge and don’t turn back to see if Lawson is following me, or worse yet, if Finn is not.
I storm into the library because I know that’s where Lawson will come…and because I know I’m not done with this night, not by a long shot. I pull the Tremont Lodge history book off the shelf that pictured my mother and Blake at the pool. I turn to the page with their picture. A perfect stranger could see the love and joy in her face. No cause for alarm. No plan to leave. So, why?
“That was not cool,” yells Lawson, storming into the library and slamming the door shut behind him. “I have a certain reputation to uphold here, Reese. No one walks out on me. No one.”
“Then maybe you’ve met your intellectual and emotional superior, Lawson Oakley, and I don’t give a flip about your so-called reputation. You took me to that stage tonight to rub Finn’s nose in the fact that you’re with me this evening, and that’s juvenile.”
“Then it’s true what they’ve been saying?” he asks.
“What have people been saying?” I am so mad I nearly rip the page in the book I am still holding open.
“That you and Finn are an item?”
“Dammit, Lawson, I…we…it’s none of your business. Take me to your uncle’s suite.”
“Fine, but you still owe me dinner. You are not getting out of that promise, and I will make your life a living hell if you bail.”
“Unlike you, I am an honorable person.” I slip the book into my purse and walk toward the library door with Lawson following on my heels. I just pray that tonight will pay off the way I hope, or I’ve ruined a perfectly good maybe with Finn.
In the lodge, Lawson greets more staff members and questions guests about their accommodations. As much as I detest him, he really is good at his job. If I were a guest at the lodge, he’d get high marks for asking me if my stay was comfortable. I push the kind thoughts about Lawson to the back of my mind and try to concentrate on the task at hand.
We walk down the long corridor in the opposite direction from the gift shop and past the large Winter Haven Restaurant that, at the moment, is packed with guests. I wonder if that’s where I will have to suffer through a meal with Lawson later. At the end of the hall, Lawson pushes the button for the elevator. When the door opens, he holds out his hand to usher me inside first. The elevator fills with a frazzled-looking dad and his two young kids who are wearing bathing suits and dripping water underneath them.
“Did you have a nice swim tonight?” Lawson directs the questions at the girls. The older of the two hides her head in her dad’s leg, too shy to answer the stranger. The littlest one, though, starts chattering with Lawson about how many times she jumped off the diving board into the deep end and how she played Marco Polo with her dad.
“Well, I’m so glad you had a nice evening. My name is Lawson, and I’m the general manager. If there is anything at all you need, please don’t hesitate to contact me.” He hands the dad his business card and holds the door open for them when the elevator gets to their floor. I just roll my eyes.
“What?” he asks, inserting a gold-colored key card into a slot on the elevator floor pad I’d never seen before. A yellow light illuminates the button for the penthouse floor.
“You should try treating everyone the way you treat the
guests.”
“If I did that, the staff wouldn’t respect me,” he says.
“I don’t think that’s true. I, for one, respond to authority figures better when they treat me like a human.”
An evil gleam flickers from Lawson’s eyes. “Do you mean to tell me that if I used proper manners with you and catered to your every need, that you might forget about Finn for a minute and give your whole self over to my whims?” The elevator door opens directly into Mr. Oakley’s suite, through which I proceed, ignoring Lawson’s ridiculous question. Like he could even begin to act human.
Lawson pulls out his phone while I inspect the penthouse. “Yeah, you heard me right,” I hear Lawson say into the phone. “Get someone over to elevator A with a mop in the next five minutes or your ass is fired. I don’t need some damn lawsuit because Granny slipped on water and broke her hip.”
“You are quite a peach,” I say sarcastically.
“At your pleasure, my dear.” I shrug away his hand and walk toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the lawn. The view is stunning. I could just imagine the snow-covered mountain with skiers flying down the slopes in winter. It would be like participating in your own movie, only with interchangeable characters. For being the owner of the largest ski resort in the Midwest, though, the penthouse is sparsely decorated. I suppose Mr. Oakley’s style could be described as modern minimalist. That will just make snooping easier on my part.
“Breathtaking,” says Lawson.
“Yes, I guess it is,” I say, leaning my head against a window to get a better view of the lawn below.
“I was talking about you, Reese.” Lawson moves beside me, his breath leaving a condensation mark on the window.
“That is not how you work on your manners, Lawson.” For a brief moment a human Lawson looks embarrassed. “Can I see your uncle’s history room now?”
Lawson runs his hand through his hair, every strand falling back into its place, and he shakes his head. “You are something else, Reese. Follow me.” We walk down a narrow hallway to the room at the end. He punches buttons to a security code and pushes the door open. Opposite of the bare apartment, this room is cluttered, everything so tightly packed we can both barely fit into the room. “What are you looking for exactly?”
“It’s really hard to say. I don’t think I’ll know until I see it, but if you have any clue as to where I might find those guest registries, that would be great.”
He points to a large filing cabinet. “They are in there. The last ten years are digitalized, but anything before then is still in paper form. I don’t really understand what you’re looking for. There are thousands and thousands of names.” I don’t want to involve Lawson in my drama, or share my business with him, but I need his help, though just thinking that I need him in any way makes me sick.
“Look, Lawson. I’m going to eat a nice dinner with you and make friendly conversation. I’ll uphold my end of the deal. And I really appreciate you bringing me here, but I can’t give you all the answers you want, not yet at least. Do you think you can play nice…for once?”
“You are getting on my last nerve. Just tell me what you need.”
“I need to see the registry from July or August 1998.” Lawson doesn’t so much as scrunch his face in judgment but goes straight to the file cabinet and starts pulling open drawers and looking at labels on the guest books. I survey the rest of the room, thumbing through photo albums, capturing the joy and relaxation that vacations are supposed to embody. Trophies from youth hockey league teams sponsored by Tremont Lodge line a shelf over a desk. Blake plays hockey, but he never won trophies this grand. Does everything that Mr. Oakley touches radiate success? A picture of a woman in a photo frame on the desk captures my attention. I pick it up and study the pretty smile and wide set eyes. She looks familiar, but I can’t place her.
“Put that back,” Lawson hisses. I nearly drop the frame, placing it back on the desk.
“I…I’m sorry. I was just looking….”
“It’s okay…sorry to snap, but—here are the registries you were looking for.”
“Thanks.” I sit on the floor because there are no other open places and thumb through the book. The signatures are accompanied with hometowns and states of the visiting guests. When an overview gives no answers, I begin a meticulous search name by name.
“We’ll get out of here faster if you let me help.” I look up at Lawson who is standing over me. Another flicker of human crosses his face. I scoot over so that he can sit down next to me, so close that our knees are touching.
“Look for Bridgman, Michigan.” He takes the August registry from my hands and begins combing through the thousands of names. We work in silence, the only sound the turning of crisp pages.
“Here’s a Bridgman, Michigan entry,” says Lawson, pointing to a page in his book. I grab the book out of his hands and read the name. It’s no one I know. I drop my head into my hands and sigh. Breathe in. Breathe out, I tell myself. This is too small of a space for another panic attack. I’m liable to tear the room apart. “Reese.” Lawson sounds miles away, the static in my brain growing louder with each breath. He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me even closer. I don’t even push him away, everything that I need seeming so unreachable. “Reese, I’m sorry that wasn’t what you were looking for. Let me take another look.” He skims the registry in silence while I stand up to get a water bottle out of my purse. “Here’s another Bridgman, Michigan,” Lawson says, “but let me read the names to you—John, Frannie, Reese, and Blake Prentice.” I fall to my knees and grab the book from Lawson. Touching the names is like an electric shock pulsing through my body. It’s almost as if I am touching the very person who wrote these names once upon a time because they were real. My family was real. “You’ve been to Tremont before,” Lawson says. “Did something happen?” My eyes tell a story. I can’t help it, and Lawson knows the answer. “Tell me.”
“I wish I could,” I say, “but I don’t know. I was too young to remember.”
“And that’s why you’re working here this summer—to try to remember.” I shake my head yes. “Let me see the book again.” I hand it over, my fingers dragging across the page as if I’m losing a piece of me again. “You stayed in room 1014.”
“I know. I have a postcard my mom sent to my grandparents.” I’d found it by accident when looking through my grandmother’s dresser drawer for some costume jewelry to wear to an 80s party the summer after my freshman year of college. It barely touched my fingers before she snatched it out of my hands and accused me of snooping. I didn’t understand the big secret then. I certainly don’t understand now, but it hadn’t taken long to read the message because it didn’t say much.
Dear Bev and Jim,
We’re all checked in at the lodge. Room 1014 gives a great view of the lush lawn below. The trip was uneventful. Hoping for good weather the rest of the week. See you both soon.
Love,
Frannie, John, and the kids
“Do you think going back to that room might trigger something?”
“I…I don’t know. Maybe, but we have strict instructions from Helen to not go onto any floors that we don’t clean. Everyone has a stake in their own turf, I guess.”
Lawson gives me a funny look, arching his eyebrows and rolling his eyes. “Reese, have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I can get you into that room.”
“You’d do that?” I ask.
“Sure…but you owe me something a little more than a date.
“Lawson, stop. I’m not interested….”
“Sure you are. You need me, and one of these days you’ll figure it out that I’m good at more than just giving you access to parts of the Tremont that are off-limits to you.” I highly doubt a passing moment of decency will change my mind about Lawson Oakley, but I need him, and the sole purpose of my coming to Tremont Lodge forces the answer before I have time to ponder its implications. “Yes, but nothing funny.” I stand up and assess the room on
e more time, taking in the artifacts that tell the history of Tremont Lodge. My eyes fall again to the picture on the desk. “Who is she?” I ask. Lawson follows my gaze.
“My mother,” he says.
“Why does your uncle have a picture of your father’s wife on his desk?” Lawson slams the file cabinet closed.
“Save the questions for your own life, okay?” I grab my purse and follow him out the door and down the hall to the elevator, pissed that I asked the question but even more pissed that I didn’t get an answer to the question.
During dinner at the Winter Haven Restaurant, Lawson and I receive the best service of my life. I can barely finish half a glass of my wine before there is a waiter there filling it up again. “Is this your plan?” I ask, nodding at my wine glass after the waiter leaves. “Get your dates drunk so they’re more likely to sleep with you?”
“I don’t need to get my dates drunk for that,” he says, winking. “The ladies are attracted to my wit and charm.” He smiles, and I cringe. “But if you need a little help, then by all means, drink up.”
“I think water will be fine,” I say.
“I understand. You need your senses to stay sharp since I’m so irresistible.”
“Why won’t you give up?” I ask in all seriousness.
“Because you’re not like the rest of them. Don’t get me wrong. I have fun with the rest of the them, but I think I’d have a hell of a lot more fun with someone who makes me work harder. Every part of the experience will be heightened, if you know what I mean,” he says, winking.