As far as she could tell, everything in the room was antique. All the furniture had a heavy, brooding feel. The deep chest of drawers seemed filled with darkness, and there was a label in it that showed it had been made in Philadelphia, Olson Brothers, 1885. The mirror on the dresser was cloudy like mother-of-pearl, the light in the room a hard, waxy yellow. It was a sober and serious room, and sometimes she loved things that were sober and serious, which was probably how she got mixed up with Tonio in the first place. The room was sober and serious like the tree-lined hills out the window in the falling snow and the black mine shafts she knew tunneled down into those hills from a long time ago. If she tried hard she could almost feel herself going down into them, feel herself bottoming out, as if someone had scraped her empty. Some elusive connection to this place, something she couldn’t put her finger on just yet. She hoped they would stay a few days, that the heaps of snow in the street would turn truly mountainous, that the wind would blow unceasingly. Who knew? Robbie might even turn up again.
She hung her clothes back in the closet and put Dewey’s things in a drawer and left Tonio’s clothes for him to put away himself. She lay down on the bed. It had been almost an hour since Tonio and Dewey left for the lobby. For the first half hour she hadn’t been concerned at all, probably because they’d mentioned buying a sled, although she hoped Tonio would have enough common sense to come back to the room and put on their boots and warm coats before they went out to find a sledding hill. There was no sound at all, anywhere, except for the creaking of the old hotel. After a while it was too much for her. In what she guessed you’d call the sitting room, there was a TV, an old wooden console, and though she seriously doubted it would work, she turned the knob anyway. And something did come on. It was like the old days with the rabbit ears, like when she was a girl in San Diego, Lompoc, Modesto, Mount Shasta, Eureka, Monterey, Santa Cruz—so many places. The picture was obscured by snow and there was no sound, and whatever was on didn’t look like a show from any regular broadcast or station. It consisted primarily of hazy figures moving in vague, languid patterns, as if they were slow dancing, or sleepwalking, she couldn’t tell. It occurred to her that it would probably be a good idea to go find Tonio and Dewey.
Something passed by in the hallway and she turned and saw Robbie there—Robbie, plain as day. By the time she got to the doorway she could see only his feet—she felt certain those were his boots—going up the stairs. Without saying anything she followed.
When she reached the third-floor landing Robbie was nowhere in sight. It didn’t seem to matter much for some reason. It was just like Robbie to saunter past when everyone was looking for him and then disappear again. The Addisons were a peculiar bunch. Inarguably, being part of the family conferred privileges; when you wanted to buy a car, a house, a small tropical island, maybe, there were the Addisons, checkbook at the ready—any amount of money was fine, just so long as you didn’t ask them for an emotional response to anything. But they were definitely eccentric, possibly a little bit insane, and certainly exasperating, every last one of them, Robbie included. She didn’t really believe in God, but she did believe in the idea of penance, and she was ready to accept the Addison family as an elaborate form of it, but still—they were getting on her nerves. She’d take one good look around for Robbie, but that was it.
Obviously the third floor had not been renovated—there were holes in the walls and holes in the planks of the ceiling and in one place she could see all the way up through the fourth floor and the roof. Only one door in the hall stood open, and she found herself in the doorway, room 306. She stood there in the half-light from the window and her hand stretched forward into the space of the open room, as if she were trying to push aside a screen. But there was no screen.
Room 306. A room of light and air, so different from room 202, where they were staying. This room let in the whiteness of the snow through every window; it had a pure, crisp whiteness. Everything smelled of…what…jasmine? Jasmine, with a hint of oil and smoke. The furnishings too were white, like an embodied form of air. She sat down on the edge of the bed and stared out at the world of snow and whiteness. She picked up a snow globe from the nightstand. She swirled the fake snow and it came down thick, so thick she could barely make out that in the globe was a hotel, a hotel just like this one. She lay down on the bed and watched the whiteness out the window spread and spread, and she determined she would not go anywhere until she could sleep. As she drifted, she noticed one last thing—the door had shut behind her.