Cody has four rooms to do. Mingo thinks that it’s more efficient if they do all the rooms together, but she’s discouraged him from joining her, telling him that she thinks that doing them separately gets them done faster.
“What ev.” He grabs what he needs from the one housekeeping cart that the business owns, then heads downstairs to do up room 4.
Cody unlocks room 11. It’s late enough in the morning that the guests, an older couple from Michigan with a dachshund named Slinky, have headed out to see some scenery. They are tidy people, here for three nights. No clothes are draped over chairs; the remote is where it belongs. No dirty glasses on the nightstand. The used towels have been hung up, the universal signal that no change of towels is necessary. Ecology-minded tourists. Yippee. Less to deal with.
All of their various and sundry toiletries are neatly arranged on the bathroom shelf. All of their medications, his on the left, hers on the right, nothing more interesting than all too common Lipitor. A blue vial sits in the center of the shelf. Apparently, Slinky has back problems. Tramadol. Pain medication.
It isn’t even in a child-safe vial. Cody pops the top off, extracts two of the pills and carefully sets the blue vial back between the human meds. She slides the pills into her hip pocket, where they mingle with the rest of this morning’s finds: a Vicodin, an Ambien, and a pair of Demerol tablets. The vial of Percocet she found in room 15 had only two left, so she put it back. No one will miss one dose if the bottle contains enough pills, but there’s no way that a guest wouldn’t miss one out of two left in his prescription.
Cody finishes up the room, unplugs the vacuum, wheels the cart to the next room. One more to go.
Unlike the people with the dachshund, this single guest is a slob. Clothes, towels, empty beer bottles, half-empty soda cans strewn on every surface. A pizza box with two slices left in it sits on the floor between the double beds, one of which looks like the occupant had been fighting with the blankets; every pillow, decorative or otherwise, is on the floor and the covers are all twisted up. Cody starts at the perimeter, leaving the bed till last. She hates picking up a stranger’s clothes, but she does, draping them over the back of the chair. She tosses the nasty pizza into the trash bag, the cans and bottles into the recycling bag. She’s sticky and feels disgusting. Her mother has talked about getting uniforms for her, something she says will make her look more professional as she does her work. Cody’s fought the idea, but today, in this mess, she wonders if a uniform wouldn’t be a good idea. Something she could strip off and save her own clothes from contamination.
The bathroom is as bad as she’s expected. Whoever this guy is, he’s got lousy aim. Rubber gloves on. She’s going to ask for a raise. Not just a raise, pay. This bullshit about it being her unpaid job because it’s their living and she’s got to pull her weight has got to stop. Doesn’t she deserve at least some pay? Having her mother buy her whatever she needs isn’t even the same as getting an allowance; not to say getting actual pay for work. She ought to take it up with the Democrats. Never mind raising minimum wage, how about simply getting a wage? This is nothing better than slave labor.
Cody finishes up the bathroom. Nothing more interesting in there than toothpaste and a razor filled with hair. Done, she finally approaches the bed, half-expecting to find something really nasty. She pulls the coverlet off the storm-tossed bed, then yanks on the top sheet to pull it off. Something flies through the air, lands at her feet, its contents spilling out. Like she’s playing jacks, Cody scoops up the majority of the pills with one hand, then hunts around the beige carpet between the beds for any that may have gotten farther afield. There’s the vial. She reads the label. She’s got sixteen little tabs of diphenoxylate in her hand. She doesn’t exactly know what it is, but anything with the middle syllable of oxy has to be good.
“Cody.”
At the sound of Mingo’s voice, she nearly jumps out of her skin.
“You done yet?” He leans into the doorway.
She slips the pills into her pocket. “Not quite. This guy’s a slob.”
“’Kay. I’m done. Catch you later.”
She must have some kind of weird expression on her face, because he pauses, gives her a look, like he’s about to ask her something, then just walks away.
Cody drops the amber vial to the floor, kicks it so that it rolls beneath the edge of the coverlet on the other bed, the one not slept in. Like any cheap hotel bed, these are on platforms, with fake headboards nailed to the wall, no underbed. She runs the vacuum between the beds, back and forth, back and forth, sucking up every hair and fleck of lint. She does a really good job, and if these carpets had a deeper pile, she would be leaving a track, but they don’t.
This is a one-off. This will be the only time she provides what Black Molly is demanding. She’s told her that it’s just this once. Just to keep the Secret safe.
* * *
I am standing outside as Adam and Chance pull up into the parking lot, and I wonder if it looks like I’ve been waiting for him. Obviously, I haven’t been. Not exactly. If I’m looking more forward to his arrival than that of any other guest, it’s probably because it gives me something more pleasant to think about than the increasing truculence of my daughter. I look forward to a pleasant exchange, something more substantial than the monosyllabic conversation I have with my only family. A grown-up back-and-forth. Adam and I know each other well enough by this time to actually talk about more than the weather.
Here’s Adam. I come down off the porch and greet him like a friend. Chance sits and waves one paw in the air, wanting his special greeting, too. Not satisfied with simply shaking hands, as it were, he starts to lick the back of my hand, working his flat, wide tongue up my arm until I pull it away. He stares at me with these bulgy eyes, his face a little like Winston Churchill’s with the weight of the country on his shoulders. I stand up, shoulders back. Adam puts both hands on my shoulders. “Check me in later. Let’s go get lunch.”
We head into what passes for a town center for this town, a crossroads really, but the variety store there has a pretty good natural-foods bar and we can sit at one of the little wrought-iron tables on the wide front porch to eat our sandwiches, and the dog can sit with us.
“So what’s going on?” Adam picks the sprouts off his sandwich. “You look a little down.”
“The usual.”
“Bookings?”
“No. Actually, that’s improving. Bills all got paid this month.”
“Miss Cody not behaving herself?”
“It’s not misbehaving; it’s more attitude. More attitude.”
As usual, Cody ate her breakfast without comment, and I fussed with last night’s dishes, two women in a kitchen with nothing to say to each other.
“I don’t know, Adam. She looks unhappy and she has looked this way for so long that I almost don’t notice. I know that she’s been unhappy at school, but it’s summer, and surely she can put a bad school year behind her. She’s unhappy with me, and there’s nothing I can do about that. I want to believe that all children, on some level, hold their parents in contempt, but this seems less an adolescent attitude than something deeper. More troubling. Something from which she may not recover.” I take up one half of my sandwich. “I gave my mother hell, so perhaps this is just karmic payback. I cringe to think that maybe Cody is just carrying out some kind of genetic predisposition toward making a mother’s life pure hell.”
I pray, agnostic that I am, that Cody doesn’t ruin her life in the way that I did just for the sake of defying me. No. That’s not quite true. My association with Randy was wrong and misguided and dangerous, but I have Cody, and I wouldn’t have her if I hadn’t fallen for him. My life wasn’t ruined; it was changed.
“I’m sure you’ve asked her. And probably gotten the cold shoulder, but keep asking.”
“She used to tell me everything, Adam. Almost too much. And, then one night…” I can’t go on. It’s too painful. How in the aftermath of Randy’s death, my daughter slammed the door on our relationship. I haven’t told Adam anything of who Randy was. How he died. How can I start now?
“And then one night she turned into an adolescent. It’s the oldest fairy tale in the book.” Adam puts his half of sandwich down. Pats my hand. My own sandwich is untouched.
“I wish that’s all it was. She has physically alienated herself from me. We used to sit on the couch and share a bowl of popcorn; now she sits apart, as if she would be contaminated by getting too close to me.” I yank a paper napkin out of the holder, blow my nose, but I’m not embarrassed. This is a guy who had his own battles with his daughter. “But maybe you’re right. You’ve been through it. Maybe it’s just extreme adolescence in her case.”
“Skye, Ariel hated me because I did something heinous, not imaginary heinous, but actual. It cost me everything, including her. It took a very long time to normalize relations, and, sometimes, it’s still obvious that I ruined her life.”
“I can’t believe that of you.”
Adam doesn’t say anything for a moment, shifts his eyes away as if looking at something distant. Chance stands up, plants his boxy jaw on Adam’s leg. I watch as Adam visibly relaxes. “The point is, I deserved her anger, and I knew it.”
I wonder if he’s suggesting that I look deeper into myself, but I don’t have to. “I know in my heart that Cody’s transformation has to have something to do with Randy’s death.
“That night, after Randy’s funeral, I’d wanted to do something cozy, to purge away how we’d spent our day. All day Cody had been dry-eyed, even at the graveside. Even I had shed some tears of grief, of regret for his sad ending. So I suggested a night of movies and ice cream sundaes, dressed appropriately in our jammies, our go-to happy place. She and I made the sundaes, flipped through Netflix, found something to watch, and planted ourselves on the couch, where she cuddled up to me. At some point, I felt her shaking, and squeezed her gently, whispering to let the tears come, that they were a good thing. I told her, ‘I love you.’
“She said, ‘Don’t touch me.’ In the next moment, she was gone, off the couch and behind her closed door, where she still is.”
“Maybe it’s latent grief.”
“She never, ever, speaks of Randy. It’s like he never existed for her.”
“How did he die? Maybe she’s afraid she’ll die the same way. Kids fear heredity.”
Would it be better if my ex had died of cancer, or in a car accident? Would it be easier to have this conversation? Adam is so willing to listen. Living up here, so far from my old friends, there hasn’t been anyone I’ve been able to talk to in so long. So I tell him. “He was gunned down. Randy was a small-time criminal. A drug dealer who pissed someone off.” Adam has the grace to say nothing, just quietly takes my hands.
* * *
Four little cottages, spaced fifteen feet apart, close, but not too close. The first occupied by Skye and Cody. The second is still in its tumbledown state, green moss growing thickly on its ancient roof, porch posts tilted. The fourth is the doggy day care/spa, empty right now; all the dog people have taken their dogs with them on their Berkshire drives. The third cottage is situated between the tumbledown one and the dog spa. New screens protect freshly washed windows, sparkling in the afternoon sun. The porch boasts hanging baskets of geraniums, bright red against the blue door. It looks like a fairy cottage, a welcoming hideout for a man sorely needing refreshment.
Skye unlocks the front door, which opens silently on greased hinges. The screen door slams behind them. It’s beautiful, bright, and sunny, and equipped with a small kitchen behind a peninsula counter topped with butcher block and complete with two bar stools for early-morning sitting and admiring the view of the hills outside the window. He has four blessed weeks to enjoy this little place with its sketchy Wi-Fi and ever-evolving cast of characters.
Skye points out the few pots and pans she’s supplied, where the dish towels are. “We’ll do linen changes twice a week.”
“Skye. Stop. Stop being an innkeeper for a minute. Sit down.”
They sit on the couch, but clearly she’s not comfortable relinquishing her role now that they are back on the property. He asks if she wants a cup of tea.
“Oh, no. Thank you.”
“Actually, I don’t think I brought any. But if I had, I’d make you a cup.”
* * *
The humans are settling down, so I mosey over to the couch, sniff at both of them, and then settle myself on the rug at their feet. I stretch out, exhausted after our long journey, more exhausted by the emanations of powerful emotion I’ve had to cope with since we got here. Not Adam’s, but Skye’s. She’s quivering with emotion—fear, anger, and that peculiar one humans alone can claim, frustration. Sadness. She’s kind of like some of the dogs I knew when I was much younger. Always expecting a challenge. Unable to accept consoling. A little like Adam was when we first paired up. I yawn, close my eyes, then open them. This is a bit unusual. Adam is doing the consoling. Skye has let him put his arms around her. He looks at me over the curve of her shoulder and raises one eyebrow. Their voices do not lull me into peace. I keep my eyes closed, but my ears are wide open as Skye uses copious tongue language and Adam uses words that I know, his soothing ones that he speaks whenever I am confused or, rarely, afraid. Okay. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.
* * *
“Really. I should get back to work.” Skye gently shifts away from him. “Sorry to have dumped all that on you.”
She has been so open with him that the only thing he can do is be honest with her. Friendship cannot survive without revealing the key elements of a life. It is no longer enough that she knows about Gina, or about his work with human and animal nonprofits. Or that he depends on Chance for some unspecified therapy. She needs to know that he’s a bit like Mingo, an abandoned child; a foster child for whom anger became a defining attribute. An anger that elevated him into power, an anger than brought him low. “Skye, I should tell you something.”
She listens without a word. When he finishes his story, she looks him in the eye. “Gina was right. You’re not that man anymore.”