Chase
The spell is broken when we see Allie Jo at the front desk. Her hair swings in front of her face like a curtain. She’s polishing the brass rails and her whole body sways left and right, like someone standing on a ship in rough water.
“Hey!” I shout, expecting her to jump out of her skin like she did last night.
Instead, she turns with what seems like her last ounce of energy. “Ha, ha,” she says. “Hi, Sophie.” Then she goes back to her polishing.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask at the same time Sophie’s saying, “What’s wrong?”
Allie Jo glances between us. “I can’t say right now.”
I realize she’s been working without me. “Hey,” I say, “you leaving any brass for me? I want to get paid today!”
Sophie whispers to Allie Jo, and Allie Jo points her to the office. “Second door,” Allie Jo says.
She waits for Sophie to leave, then lowers her voice. “Tara.”
Leaning in, I whisper too. “What about her?”
Glancing at the door again, she puts the rags down and leans closer to me. Then she tells me this weird story about frogs and fish and Tara leaping out of the water and later manatees bumping her around and Tara saving her.
Then she tells the part I know, about giving Tara a room, only the story ends with Allie Jo getting caught. Now she’s being punished.
“That stinks.”
“What stinks?” Sophie emerges from the office.
Allie Jo bends her head and starts polishing again. Sophie gets a quizzical look on her face.
“Oh, nothing,” I say. Then, to Allie Jo: “Want some help?”
She looks up from her rags. “That would be great.”
“I’ll help too,” Sophie says.
I grab more rags and another bottle from under the desk. As I do, I spot a pink shirt in the Lost and Found. I think of Tara and her one outfit, so I jumble the shirt with the clean rags and deposit it behind the vending machine before leading Sophie to the French doors.
“Um, I don’t really know how to do this,” Sophie says.
“C’mon, I’ll show you.”
I give her a quick lesson on brass polishing. I notice the top of her head as I talk, the part on the side, the hair that’s escaped the part.
Sophie flicks her hair with her hand. “Is there a bug in my hair?”
“No,” I say, and smile. “Your hair is just right.”
She smiles too. I smile and she smiles. We’re still smiling when Allie Jo pops up from behind the desk and calls out, “I’m sure glad I’m not paying you today.”