The Chosen

by Edward Lee

  “Let me see if I can guess,” Vera ventured. “Wroxton Hall is haunted.”

  “That’s right, miss, and don’t you laugh. There’s still some folks in this town that remember. Weird goin’s on up there.”

  “Well, we’ve already had the ghostbusters go through the place. It’s clean.”

  The woman smirked. “Go ahead and laugh, miss. You’ll be sorry. Lotta folks ’round here’re still sorry they ever heard of that godawful place.” She propped her glasses back up on her deeply lined face. “Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Actually, yes,” Vera said. It was none of her business per se, but, after all, she was management, and she did have authorized access to the account Feldspar had opened for the restaurant. It was a legitimate curiosity, wasn’t it?

  Vera held up the Magwyth Enterprises account card. “I’d like to know how much is in this account.”

  The old woman inspected the card again, then double-checked Vera’s driver’s license to make sure that the names matched. Then she pointed over the counter and said, “Just punch up the account number in the jahoozie box there.”

  The bank, spare as it was, did not fully lack modern conveniences. On the counter was a small keypad and LED screen, so customers could check their accounts themselves.

  “Then press send,” the old woman added.

  Vera punched in the account number and her access code. Then she pressed send. Working, the screen read. Please wait.

  Vera tapped her foot, waiting.

  Then the screen rolled on: Magwyth Enterprises, Ltd. Auxilliary Account: Carriage House, Access Vera Abbot ID Code 003. Please wait.

  Then Vera gasped.

  Your account total is $1,000,000.00.

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Hey, loverboy. Rise and shine, will ya?”

  Lee opened one eye amid the crush of bedcovers, at first believing it must be a bad dream that stood beyond the gloom of his room. But it was only Dan B., whose chubby face intruded through the gapped door.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” Lee objected.

  “Knocking? I’ve been knocking. You got potatoes in your ears? And how come you’re sleeping so late? You on another all-night hump with the mattress?’’

  “I was humping your sister,” Lee countered. “The girl just can’t get enough.”

  “Idiot, get some glasses. That was your sister. Last night when I was done putting the blocks to her with her feet pinned back behind her ears, I slipped her an extra five-spot to come and do you. Figured it was the only way you’d ever get laid.”

  Lee was used to this kind of abuse; he and Dan B. were friends so it was all in fun. But it reminded him of the abuse he’d taken last night from that snide motherfucker Kyle…

  “What time is it?” Lee groggily inquired.

  “Time for you to get your hand out of your boxers and shag ass.” Dan B. shot his watch. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

  Two in the…Then Lee remembered the rest of it. He’d been up till seven in the morning cleaning up Kyle’s room-service kitchen. And he didn’t dare tell anyone, that and his catching Kyle beating up on that fat maid. I squeal on him, and he squeals on me for drinking on the job. Who’ll Feldspar believe?

  “We gotta start prepping for dinner in an hour,’’ Dan B. ranted on. “So get the lead out.”

  “I’ll be down,” Lee groaned. “Where’s Donna and Vera?”

  Dan B. laughed. “Shopping, where else? Isn’t that just like a couple of women? We’re not even open two days, and they’re out shopping. Looks like us guys gotta do everything.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the one who’s gotta do your mom. And let me tell you, that’s some real work.”

  “Idiot, get some glasses. That was your mom.”

  Dan B. closed the door. Lee rarely got in the last word, which was just as well. Trying to out-do Dan B. with the gross jokes was like trying to drive nails with a French bread. It didn’t matter how hard you hit ’em they wouldn’t go in. Lee climbed out of bed, still muttering less than complimentary remarks under his breath, re: Kyle. He punched on his boom box, cranked up a little Pontiac Brothers, and went to the shower.

  It was a nice pad they’d given him here, one door down from Dan B. and Donna’s room, and Lee couldn’t beat the price. Shit, a room half this size would run him seven hundred a month back in the city. They’d filled it with a lot of old-fashioned furniture and dark rugs that reminded him of his grandmother’s antique shop when he was little, that and the big, high bed with carved-wood posts. The free room and board, plus the generous wage, would enable Lee to sock away some real scratch, get himself a car, get back to school. Dishman was honest work, but he didn’t want to be doing it the rest of his life. Let somebody else take a turn washing grub off rich people’s dinner plates.

  Lee stepped on the scale in the bathroom. 217. Fuck it, he thought. It didn’t bother him much that he had a gut on him like a feedbag. He was fat, and he was proud. He could do without that Kyle motherfucker calling him fatboy, though. Lee’d tried all the diets: Dr. Atkins, Dr. Tarnower, Dr. Bullshit, The Rice Diet, The Zero Protein Diet, The Zero Carbo Diet. He fasted once for six days, thinking he’d slim down for Ocean City, and had blacked out watching Hogan’s Heroes—the last thing he remembered hearing was: “Klink…shut up,” and next thing he knew he was in the hospital. The Tomato Juice and Sardine Diet hadn’t worked much better. That had been pollen season, and every time he sneezed, he’d rip a mean Hershey squirt in his drawers. He didn’t lose much weight, but he sure lost a lot of underwear. No, Lee reasoned that life was too short and beer was too good. He could be honest with himself. One thing he positively couldn’t stand was fellow comrades in tonnage making excuses for their waistlines. Oh, but I’ve got a metabolism problem or I’ve got a glandular problem. Bullshit! Lee would say. What you’ve got is a food to mouth problem, like me, so be real and admit it!

  Yeah, fat is where it’s at, he thought, quoting Root Boy Slim as he toweled himself dry after the shower. He didn’t mind Dan B.’s ribbing over the lack of success in his sex life. Actually Lee wasn’t the twenty-year-old virgin that Dan B.’s jokes implied; he’d gotten it on with plenty of girls in his time—well, two, really, but that was plenty to him. Lee had sold ice cream his first summer out of high school; that’s where he’d met Belinda, the Good Humor girl. Blonde, flighty, cool, and cute as all. Lee didn’t understand how she could be so adorably slim driving an ice cream truck; hell, Lee himself probably ate a quarter of his inventory every day. They’d gotten together one hot July evening after their routes, and after a few T.J. Swans, one thing led to another. “The thing with girls is,” his buddy Dave Kahili told him, “you gotta show ’em you’re sincere, and not just out for a nut. You gotta go down on ’em.” I’ll show her I’m sincere, Lee remembered the words in his first and only clinch with her, in the woods behind Allan’s Pond. What Lee didn’t take into account, however, were certain consequences relative to personal hygiene. See, Belinda had been selling ice cream under the July sun for the last twelve hours, and Lee only realized the full, uh, impact of this once he got down to taking Dave Kahili’s advice—a bite-your-face-off stench like that of a fish market dumpster in high summer. It killed his sex-drive for about a year. That’s when he met Liddy, a busgirl at The Emerald Room. She was even cuter than the Good Humor girl, and she washed. “Liddy with Big Titty,” Dave Kahili called her. “She’s a hot number, man, and she likes you.” Me? Lee thought. And, by golly, it was true. Liddy hauled Lee’s ashes all summer, but what Lee didn’t know was that she’d been hauling the ashes of every other guy in town too, at the same time. Fortunately Lee had had the foresight to purchase condoms before every date. Too bad rubbers didn’t protect you from crabs.

  You live and you learn, he rationalized. And I’ve learned. He strolled naked back out to the bedroom; it wasn’t like anyone was around to see him, was it? Then he stopped cold, his eyes bugging, a
nd yelled, “Jesus!”

  A woman sat on the edge of the bed, with her hands in her broad lap. She was looking at him.

  Fat, naked, and jiggling, Lee froze in his impulse to dash. Where could he dash to? “Goddamn it! Doesn’t anybody knock around here! What, you just walk in?”

  The woman made no reply. She just sat there, looking at him. Lee recognized her now, of course. It was the maid, the short, rather corpulent woman with frizzy bunned hair and pale eyes. Her bosom jutted, nearly laying in her lap.

  Lee grabbed the Heineken beach towel he used for a bath towel and quickly draped it around his girthy waist. What the hell is she doing here, anyway? She was just sitting there. “What, you here to clean my room or something?” he guessed. “Well, don’t worry about it, I can take care of my own place.”

  Still no reply.

  “How about leaving?” he said. “You know, go away. I gotta get ready for work.”

  But she wasn’t leaving, and clearly had no intention of doing so. Instead, she stood up. She gave him a paper bag, then turned around, unbuttoning the top of her housemaid’s dress and lowering it to her waist. She lay facedown on the bed, reached behind, and unhooked her bra.

  Then it hit him. She wasn’t here to clean his room, she was here to thank him for getting Kyle off her last night in the room-service pantry. This was her way of expressing gratitude. But—what the hell? he thought. What’s she doing? She was just lying there with her back exposed.

  Then, peering closer, he thought: Holy shit…

  Her entire back was a mat of coarse, crisscrossing scar tissue. Someone’s been whipping the shit out of her, and for a long time, he couldn’t help but conclude. A shiver ran through him, next, when he reached into the paper bag and withdrew its slack contents:

  A black rawhide whip.

  “Look, lady,” he said. “I’m not into kinky stuff like this.”

  Eventually she turned and sat up, her forearm holding the large cups of the bra to her bosom. She seemed confused for a moment, as though it were a shock that he didn’t want to whip her. But then the confusion in her eyes paled to a look of resigned despair. She reached into her apron pocket, withdrew a small black-plastic pouch and gave it to him, then lay back on the bed.

  Lee almost puked when he opened the pouch. At first he thought it was a sewing kit, but then he remembered. He’d seen stuff like this once, on a high school field trip to New York City to see some Egyptian museum exhibit. He and Dave Kahili had slipped out to an adult bookstore on Forty-second Street, and he’d seen things identical to what he now held in his hand. Needles of various lengths, leather lashes, clip-pins and nipple-screws. This was no sewing kit—it was hardcore S&M gear.

  Lee put the pouch down. Just holding it made him feel sick. “You want me to stick needles in you? No way. I already told you, lady, I’m not into it. It’s not my scene.”

  Judging from the web of scars on her back, she was well-used to shit like this. Lee realized no pleasure in pain, giving or receiving. It was sick. How could anyone get a charge out of whipping a woman, or sticking pins in her? Sick motherfuckers like Kyle, Lee thought. He’s probably been doing shit like that for years.

  The woman sat up again. She seemed frustrated now, desperate to please him but not knowing how. She re-clasped her bra, and slid back up to the edge of the bed.

  Some weird expression of relief came over the pale, doughy face. She looked up at him. She smiled.

  Then she got down on her knees and began to unwrap his towel.

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Business didn’t pick up much over the next week. One night The Carriage House did seven dinners; Vera could have keeled over. Another night they did thirty-seven—a record—but still nothing compared to the hundred-plus they’d done on weeknights at The Emerald Room.

  Vera, generally the most stable of the bunch, had become suddenly the least tolerant of the start-up drag. Dan B., Donna, and Lee, took it all in stride. Why couldn’t she? The others actually were taking to The Carriage House quite well. Dan B. whipped up specials of unheard of standards, multistage souffles, intricate flaming beef entrees, and many other dishes that The Emerald Room’s big crowds never gave him time to attempt. And since Donna was the only waitress, her tips were good most nights. Even Lee, paid the least of all, seemed more content here than Vera had ever seen him back in the city.

  She’d felt distracted throughout the entire week. Her very libidinous dreams had not abated; instead, they’d intensified, leaving her to wonder further about herself. She slept in fits. Feldspar was scarcely seen at all; the few times she’d gone looking for him, she instead found Kyle, who persistently made snide comments about The Carriage House’s trickling turn-out. “Yeah, we’re slammed every night over at room service,” he’d say. Then he’d grin. “How about you?” Asshole, she’d always answer in thought. Then he’d always ask, “When are you and me going to go for a dip? Oh, that’s right, I keep forgetting, you don’t have a swimsuit.” That’s right, Kyle, and I’II never have one as long as you’re around.

  Their second weekend, Vera was surprised to book a few guests into the small wing of second-floor rooms that she’d been put in charge of. The mayor had some relatives in town, and there were a few others. Vera made sure that their rooms were in pristine shape, and that anything they’d order from upstairs was of the highest quality. It infuriated her, though, to discover that Kyle’s room-service elevators bypassed the second floor, which meant that her food orders had to be carried through the atrium and up the stairs. Afterward, she’d received some odd comments, however. “I hope you enjoyed your stay,” she remarked to one couple. “Oh, your accommodations are superb,” the wife had replied, “but it’s a bit loud, isn’t it?” Loud? Vera thought. “We kept hearing this thunking noise—” The doors on the room-service elevators, Vera suspected; she’d heard them too, opening and closing. “We had a very nice time,” another couple cited to her, “but your housemaids aren’t very friendly.” Shit! Vera thought. Yet another couple had actually submitted a complaint card about similar noises and smirking housemaids. She felt it her responsibility to report the complaints, but when she mentioned them to Feldspar, he didn’t seem to care at all. Instead, as usual, he commended her on the job she was doing, and claimed that the upper suites were booked solid. “Business couldn’t be better,” he’d said, and then invited her to sample a glass of Montrachet ’83.

  She’d hotly wanted to point out to him the foolishness of maintaining such a large inventory account for the restaurant. A million dollars? It was ludicrous. Less than a hundred thousand would be more then ample; the rest could be put into a higher-yield CD and at least be earning interest for the company till. But she never brought it up, far too used now to the man’s lackadaisical attitude toward financial management.

  And all the while, her distraction deepened. Paul, she thought. That final night, and its obscene imagery, had never ceased to churn through her memory. She hoped she never saw him again, but that was a false hope. Sooner or later, she’d have to see him. There were still a few things back at the apartment that she needed to retrieve.

  Sooner or later, she knew, she’d have to go back to the city. She’d have to face him one last time.

  ««—»»

  Dinner wound down. The third night of their second week. Twenty-two dinners tonight, she thought. Not bad. Breaking twenty dinners per night was their new goal, akin to breaking one hundred in golf. Not too good, but better than shooting sevens on every hole.

  The last of the diners complimented her as they left. “A simply lovely meal,” an elderly, perfumed woman gushed, donning a mink stole. “I’m glad you liked it,” Vera replied. “Please come again.” “We will,” promised the younger man with her. He looked like Dapper on The Three Stooges. While the rest cleaned up, Vera meandered to her office in the west wing. She cashed out, wrote up the night’s receipts, and logged in the payroll hours. All the while, though, her mind w
andered, never stopping on a single thought, image, or notion. Paul. Feldspar. The Carriage House. Paul. She poured herself a Cordial of DeKuyper Cinnamon Schnapps and felt even more remote. Paul. Sleep. The dream. Feldspar. Kyle…sex.

  “There I go again,” she muttered to herself, and locked up her files. Poor little oversexed Vera.

  The Inn was quiet; her office felt unoccupied even with her sitting in it. Then she noticed the package.

  What is this?

  It looked like a present—a thin, wide box in white gift-wrap. A cryptic notecard unfolded to read, simply, midnight in tight felt-tip. Midnight? she wondered. She opened the package.

  You dick, she thought.

  It was beautiful, a Bill Blass corselet-tank swimsuit, in a gorgeous bright-fuchsia. A half-front lace up. Her size, too: 7. Her lips drew to a tight, exasperated seam. I am not going to go swimming with that presumptuous prick, she told herself. But it can’t hurt to try it on.

  Suddenly she felt giddily enthused and could name no reason. Was she so bored that trying on a swimsuit, which she had no intention of swimming in, seemed like a paramount event? Yes, she answered herself, quickly locked the office, and scurried up the stairs.

  Minutes later she was stepping into the swimsuit before the mirrored bathroom wall. She laced up the front in a big, pretty bow. Her amethyst flashed. She turned in the reflection. This looks great, she assayed, turning again for a side view. Too bad I’m not going to…

  She strayed to the bedroom. The mantel clock ticked, luring her eyes. It was midnight.

  No, she thought. You’re not.

  She poured herself a dab of Grand Marnier, thought about it. You’re a big girl, Vera. Why should you not do something you want to do because of some guy? It was a flawed rationalization—never mind that Kyle had invited her, and had given her the swimsuit—but Vera let that pass. What the hell, she dismissed. She put on her robe, grabbed a big terry towel, and went downstairs.