When Katy’s taxi pulled into the drive of the Georgetown Four Seasons she hesitated to get out. And when she paid her fare and did leave the taxi, it was with a heaviness that made her immune to the comforts of luxury so carefully gathered there. Even at home she had no item of clothing as ebulliently starched as the uniforms of the doormen, porters, and clerks who greeted her. These same porters seemed wounded when she insisted upon carrying her own small bag, and, she thought, wearily, that they attributed this to a doctrine of feminism or equality, or a desire not to part with the tip.
She spoke to a giant young man who, after almost seizing her bag, stepped back when she held on to it, and looked at her, affronted and hurt. “It’s not anything,” she said. “I just want to carry my own bag. I’m not in a good way.”
Rather than enjoying the carefully plotted elegance within—colors scientifically and artfully coordinated, a perfection of finishes, precisely engineered lighting, carefully determined architectural proportions, and flawless cleanliness, all of which were choreographed to impart a feeling of well-being—she felt a defensive tightening of her muscles, especially those of her core, which served to negate and dismiss the otherwise powerful effects.
She hadn’t requested it, but they were attentive enough to put her in the room in which she had always stayed whenever work took her to Washington, in a corner overlooking the pathetic junction of the diminished C&O Canal and Rock Creek before, under a braided lanyard of overpasses and roads, they seeped together to join the Potomac. This time, it would be on her own dime, but she didn’t care. And then she brought herself up, quite painfully, for not caring, as it was too much like when her parents had died, and in the process of returning home in the emergency, the spending of money went unnoticed. She wanted to be upset about what her stay would cost her, so she could feel that everything would come right in the end.
No one had died yet: it was okay, as one would normally, to think about money.
As she always did in hotel rooms, she arranged her things in the closet, on the desk, and in the bathroom, where she laid out her toiletries along one side of the sink in the order in which they would be used at night. Before bed, she would lay out the morning items in this fashion as well. And when she checked out, despite knowing that the maid would strip the bed, Katy would make it up so well that it would take a detective to ascertain that someone had slept in it. And she would fluff the pillows, clean the mirror in the bathroom, fold the used towels neatly in a pile on the floor, wash out the soap dish, bundle up the garbage, and leave a very generous tip accompanied by a note thanking the maid for how nice the room had been kept when Katy took possession of it. That was just the way she was.
After showering, and then combing out her hair, she dressed in one of the robes from the closet. As the heat of the day dissipated into night, she sat for such a long time watching the lights of Washington come on that her hair was dry when she finished. Contrary to what she had feared, sleep came immediately, it was deep and uninterrupted, and it lasted until nine the next morning.
Feeling stronger, if numb, she walked into Georgetown to have breakfast. As always, she ate like a health-conscious bird. Given her exercise, athleticism, diet, and self-control, Stephen had always said that she would live forever. As if girding for battle, she wouldn’t, but there was something to his pronouncement. With her muscular strength and her frame, in comparison to most people she lived as if in lesser gravity. And although her walk, especially when she was in heels, was—or seemed, anyway—remarkably tense, she moved as if she floated unburdened by excess, unconscious of her body except of its strengths, its graces, and its pleasures.
As she stepped into the elevator on her way back to the room, her phone rang. But as she answered, the elevator doors closed and she was cut off. She looked anxiously at the screen. The caller was Freeland. Her room was on the top floor, and the ride up seemed interminable. She unlocked her door, threw her purse onto the bed, and, on her way to the window, pressed call-back. As she stood close to the glass, heart beating fast, Freeland answered on the second ring.
“He’s alive. They got him. He’s in the sick bay on one of the French ships. He’s got some broken ribs and a superficial head wound, he’s severely dehydrated and pretty worn-out from going back and forth between hypo- and hyperthermia, but no permanent damage as far as they can tell. The French are treating him like . . . I don’t know . . . Ulysses, Achilles? He and the CO of his SEAL detachment held off a thousand enemy. A thousand! You can’t ignore that. It’s amazing, and it’s not possible to downplay.”
In the joy of the first few seconds as Freeland spoke, all the luxury Katy had denied she now felt flowing into her as if she were being lifted by water flooding a lock. Now she wanted to enjoy everything around her, from the million-count sheets to the marble halls, to the pain au chocolat and lovely-sounding china as it was struck by clinking silver. She wanted to walk on the deep, cushioned carpets, to hear her heels click on marble floors, or just to lie in the full sun, in a cool breeze, overlooking an Eden of pines and palms and flowering trees.