CRAIG WELCH
ALEXIS FOUND HERSELF ALONE, COMPLETELY alone, for the first time in days.
She moved along Broadway, an occasional gust whipping the skirt around her hips. The denizens of Capitol Hill busied themselves along the sidewalk, basking beneath the glittering sun. No one paid her any attention, but she still felt awkward, a child in her new-old clothes, walking alone on a street that suddenly seemed unfamiliar. She remembered clearly the last time she’d felt this strange and out of place in her own neighborhood. It had been Christmas, and her Uncle Burr had come without warning. He’d insisted on taking Alexis and Edith to dinner, urging them to dress as he did, talk as he did. Alexis had felt like an impostor then in her egg-colored skirt. The whole night had been uncomfortable, her uncle trying to learn how she was “faring” at school, about her friends, whether she “enjoyed” the Angeline’s residents. She’d been just ten years old, but she’d sensed something between the two adults, an old argument just below the surface.
She remembered the drive home, her face plastered against the rain-splattered window in the back of the BMW, her eyes scanning the red brick of a Capitol Hill still lined with construction cranes. The bits of old Seattle were more visible then—the cracking plastic video store marquees, the remnants of car dealerships, the litter. The big boxes were going up, yes, but they hadn’t yet taken over. The night had ended with her walking up the stairs and hearing fierce whispers between her two family members.
Alexis moved toward Elliott Bay and the Sorrento, her eyes on the people she’d lived around her entire life. She’d been so preoccupied for so long, she hadn’t noticed them lately, but the events of the past week had settled in her heavily and she found herself happy for the distraction.
At the 7-Eleven she saw the corner boys—the white kids not much older than her who sold dope to the drive-bys, the outsiders who cruised in from the big homes on the plateau. The dealers all thought they were Eminem, with their finger snaps and their yo-yo-yos. She spied one just then, holding court, shooting spittle at a middle-aged guy in cream khakis. The dealer pointed at the guy’s shoes and elbowed his buddies—“Dude’s wearing slippers, man.” The man stared off, beaten down and oblivious.
Alexis had overheard LJ telling people that marijuana was getting tougher to find, something about how the border patrol’s crackdown on terrorists seemed to bring down mostly dope runners instead. Alexis didn’t know anything about that, but it sure didn’t look like there was any kind of drug shortage.
LJ . . . LJ liked his secrets, no doubt, but Alexis couldn’t recall him ever being quite so mysterious. She wondered, not for the first time, if she should be worried—not just about what he might be doing but about him, about his stability. What was he up to? She quickly let it go. LJ was LJ. He’d be OK. She’d never been able to figure him out anyway. She had to trust that he could take care of himself.
She’d trust, all right, but she’d verify, too. Tonight.
Alexis hugged her bag closer and moved past Rudy’s Barbershop and the poster-strewn poles outside the Comet Tavern. She watched a father grab his toddler by the hoodie just before the child darted into an intersection. Would her father have done that for her? Her father. He’d been on her mind a lot lately, thanks to Mr. K’s gift of the violin. Then again, what hadn’t been on her mind?
She could see the hospital up ahead, which meant she was just a few blocks from the Sorrento. She could already feel the mahogany beams beneath her fingers. The hotel was nothing like the Angeline, and its clients were another species altogether. The men wore sweaters tied around their necks. They ironed their jeans—or, more likely, had someone ironing the denim for them.
Thinking about the Sorrento now brought back memories of Mia. It had been Mia who suggested, back when Alexis was in sixth grade, that they wander the halls and try to hunt down the ghosts. The kids in their neighborhood knew the stories about the hotel, about the couple that had been gunned down on the third floor by a burglar in the ’20s, about the bride who’d fallen to her death on her wedding night. They’d all heard about the rooms with doors that slammed shut by themselves. Mia had insisted Alexis come with her to investigate.
They’d made quite a little team back then—Alexis so young that the cleaning women barely noticed her, especially when she was with Mia. No one missed Mia. Tall, thin-nosed, with a dancer’s grace, Mia was fearless and breathtaking. She lied with such ease that the girls always managed to gain access to a room and they would spend hours rifling through drawers, the thrill of the illicit making Alexis’s skin tingle.
They mostly found other people’s secrets—receipts from Nordstrom, dog-eared scraps of paper with scribbled directions. But in a drawer by the bed in every room, the Sorrento kept a book of hotel history. Mia didn’t care much for reading—she didn’t have the patience—but Alexis liked flipping the pages, taking in tales of President Taft’s first visit or the stories behind the carvings etched into the woodwork. The last time they’d been there together Mia had found a gold hoop earring beneath the bed. Alexis had found herself suddenly wanting it. She reached out and Mia, an odd smile curling her lips, had held it aloft.
“It’s gonna cost you,” Mia said, teasing.
“What do I have to do?” Alexis asked. But even then, she had an idea.
Mia, without warning, leaned in and kissed her. Alexis, startled, pulled away. She’d never been kissed by anyone who wasn’t her mother or LJ. She flushed and looked at Mia, but Mia just smiled and stared back, one eyebrow slightly raised. Alexis felt the redness in her face deepen. Her mind was a blur. She grabbed the earring from Mia’s hand and, without another word, bolted from the room and the hotel.
Walking now, toward the iron gates of the hotel’s entrance, Alexis thought about how many times she’d come back to the Sorrento alone. She wasn’t sure she could explain what drove her. Mia’s kiss, of course, was always on her mind. But something else, too, drew her to the hotel. She’d wander the halls, trying desperately to carry herself as if she belonged, trying to mimic Mia’s confidence, pretending she was a guest’s child. Alexis would search until she found an open room and another copy of the hotel’s history. For hours she would sit below a window in that room, studying the stories of former guests, as if their stories somehow held a key to her own.
There was the alcoholic who’d had his last drink near the fireside lounge, who’d returned thirty years later clean and sober. She read about the Air Force pilot who’d broken his back in a fall. He’d spent sixteen months in a hospital in Seattle and recuperating at the hotel—away from friends and family and everything he knew—before he eventually returned to active duty. There were weddings and funerals and Thanksgivings and vacations, and even the sad stories gave Alexis a little lift. These were rich people, sure, and she detested this world. (What would LJ think if he knew she came here? Oh, God, what would her mother think?) But these were families doing what families do, living the kind of lives Alexis only knew through TV. She hated them for that. But she loved them a little, too.
Inside the lobby, Alexis tried to shrink. Men wandered about in the same black vests she remembered. The women still wore those dark, somber suits. She was supposed to meet her uncle in the lounge, and she wanted desperately to get there without having to speak with anyone. She feared what might tumble out of her—about her uncle, about LJ, about her mother still tucked neatly inside her coffin, about their silly plan to raise all that money. (Had she really thought they could do it with a concert?)
Alexis slipped into the lounge without opening her mouth and moved quickly to a chair by the fire. She turned it to face the door. She was early, but she knew her uncle would be, too, and she was there less than a minute before she saw him.
Uncle Burr’s hair and beard had gone white, and he looked like he’d lost weight. He saw her and tried to smile, but he looked like he’d bitten down on a pickle. Alexis had always hated the weakness in his features, the way he seemed filled with worries bigger than her world. Seeing him, she felt all the old anxieties returning. She recalled the overheard arguments with her mother, the formal way he always spoke to them both, and she knew right then that she needed to trust her instincts. Alexis knew she was right to hate him.