My passport had previously only been used for trips to Mexico and a single jaunt to Vancouver; I had never experienced the joy of traveling more than three time zones in a day. I’d heard of jet lag of course, but I figured it was an exaggerated complaint by people who didn’t understand that they’d be sleepy when their body thought it was two a.m.
We’d left around six p.m., and when we arrived, the clocks said it was half past noon on Saturday. By my calculations it was four thirty in the morning, but it shouldn’t have been worse than pulling an all-nighter, which I’d done several times in recent memory. We’d get to the hotel in time for me to catch a shower and a few hours’ sleep, and then I’d be on my proverbial feet in time for supper at something approaching local time. Right?
Wrong.
As soon as we got off the plane, my entire body rebelled in ways I’d never dreamed possible. I was so disoriented that the customs people had to ask everything three times, and I couldn’t seem to remember how to work my prosthetic legs gracefully. I staggered jerky-legged through Heathrow like a zombie.
We’d checked a folding wheelchair with our luggage; Caryl was kind enough to unfold it immediately and push me around, though she was looking a bit undead herself.
Alvin, the bastard, looked fine. “I’m used to this,” he said, as if it mattered. Maybe it did; I didn’t have enough travel experience to know.
All I remember about my first ride on the Tube is the clack-clack-rush of the tunnels by the windows and the way everyone politely gave my wheelchair clearance. I remember staring blearily around me at the busy station when we changed from the Piccadilly to the Central line, musing—as Caryl helped me push my chair through a turnstile—that fey would find it all but impossible to take underground mass transit.
We got off at Marble Arch and made our way around the corner to our hotel, which was just across from Hyde Park. The exterior was overwhelming; my vague impression was of weathered white stone and red brick towering over the three of us as uniformed attendants in top hats—top hats!—assisted those who had arrived via car.
Alvin checked the three of us in; we’d been granted three of the luxury hotel’s more modest rooms, all adjoining. Alvin claimed the room between mine and Caryl’s, possibly to prevent her knocking on the adjoining door in the middle of the night and crawling into bed with me.
By the time I got into my room after several failed attempts to properly time the insertion and withdrawal of the key card, I was so tired I couldn’t remember my name. I had never felt fatigue like this in my life; the closest sensation I could remember was the drugged, brain-damaged fog I’d lived in when first waking up in the hospital a year and a half ago. I stood in my room doing absolutely nothing for two or three minutes simply because I was overwhelmed by indecision about whether I should shower.
Finally, I decided to give it a try, since my residual limbs needed time to dry before I put my prosthetics back on, and I had nothing to do for several hours. It seemed like a good time to scrape off the film of miscellaneous travel filth, then catch a few hours’ sleep that would hopefully reboot my brain.
The bathroom completely stymied me, though. Assuming that I was capable of bipedal movement, Alvin hadn’t made any special accessibility arrangements, which meant the chair wouldn’t fit into the bathroom. My usual habit after an evening shower was to put on my robe and get into the chair in the privacy of the Residence Four upper bathroom, then wheel myself back to my room and sleep before putting my legs back on.
It took far too long to occur to me that I had privacy in the entire hotel room and therefore could just do my three-legged crawl across the carpet to the bed if need be. It would feel weird, but at least no one would see me.
The bathtub was nice, noticeably absent the horrific stains that discouraged me from reclining in the one at home. I soaked until I caught myself falling asleep and realized that drowning in a luxury hotel, while high on my list of ways to go, was not part of the current plan. I gave my face one last scrub and then pulled the plug, looking forward to collapsing on the huge wide bed around the corner.
It’s amazing the small cultural things we take for granted—for example, that all American bathtubs are built so that their bottoms are at exactly the same height as the floor next to them. While trying to do my usual trick of using my good knee to vault the rest of me over the side of the tub, I misjudged the distance, causing my body to do an unexpected and violent pivot. After doing unspeakable wrenching things to my crotch on the side of the tub, I landed hard on the tile, half on my elbow, half on the side of my head.
It hurt so badly that all I could do was lie there and groan for a while on the clean white bathmat. Grateful for my solitude, I vowed never to speak of the incident to anyone and crawled my way, painfully now, to the bed.
Ah, it was worth it. I almost wept with relief at the chance to be horizontal under a fluffy comforter, to let my spinning (and now bruised) head sink into a down pillow.
• • •
Later, Alvin swore up and down that he knocked repeatedly on my door, then went down to the front desk in alarm to get them to break into the room and make sure I was all right, whereupon they found me sound asleep and snoring under the covers. I can’t verify any of this; I only know that when I eventually attained something resembling consciousness, the clock on my bedside table said 11:49 p.m., and there was a note saying KNOCK ON MY DOOR WHEN YOU SEE THIS—A.
I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for the fog to clear, in vain. I felt like a spectral rhinoceros was sitting on me. But my legs were dry, so I put on my prosthetics, a rote exercise by now, lotion on one, powder on the other. I got all the way to the door between our adjoining rooms and had just raised my hand to knock when I realized I was still naked.
Jesus Christ on a unicycle.
I put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt I’d brought to sleep in, then knocked. Then realized I was knocking on my own door, unlocked my side, and knocked on his. Apparently jet lag was everything that sucked about being drunk, without the fun part.
When Alvin came to the door, it was obvious he’d gone to bed already; he was in a pair of elegant striped pajamas, and his hair was all rumpled. Still, he was disgustingly bright-eyed.
“Did I wake you?” I said. “I, uh, saw your note. So. I am knocking. Because . . . note.”
“It’s fine,” he said, strangely garbled. “Just one second, though, let me take out my retainer. I wanted to make sure we’re on the same page about tomorrow.”
I started giggling as he turned and disappeared into his bathroom.
“I’ll just take a seat I guess,” I said, and moved to the comfy-looking chair over by the window. His room was a near mirror image of mine, except that there was a second door beside his bed leading to the third adjoining room. I wondered if Caryl was sleeping soundly over there. I wondered what she was wearing. I forced my brain to think about Alvin’s retainer instead.
“Okay,” he said, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “I won’t keep you long; we could both use some rest. Well, I could. I think you’ve rested enough for three people. But I wanted to confirm that you’re good for a meeting tomorrow right after lunch?”
“I can’t guarantee I’ll be coherent. Are you sure it’s a good idea to bring me? Maybe I should just rest in the hotel so I can be ready later that night.”
Alvin scratched at his goatee. “The agenda kind of demands that you be there,” he said. “It’s the only way I could justify bringing you to London.”
“What is the agenda exactly?”
“I set it all up with Dame Belinda on the phone; you just have to show up. Then later that night, after everyone but Fred’s gone, we go back to get the Vessel.”
“How do we get in?”
Alvin gave me a strange look. “Millie, this is the part you and Claybriar arranged.”
Christ. He was right. What the hell was wrong with me?
Chill rivulets of panic began to trickle their way through the cracks in my bravado. I caulked them up quickly.
“Right,” I said. “Sorry, jet lag. I’ll get as much rest as I can before then. I should let you get some shut-eye yourself, so you can lie your face off to Dame Belinda tomorrow.”
For a moment he looked like he wanted to say something, but then thought better of it. He gave me a smile, instead, but it had a pained edge. “Good night, Millie,” he said.
I smiled back, a little uneasy, then rose and ambled toward the adjoining door. It felt as though gravity worked differently on this side of the pond. I opened his door and then stopped.
“Shit,” I said.
“What is it?”
I pressed my hand against the flat wood of the door I’d let close behind me. “There’s no knob on this side. And I . . . left my key in there.”
“I got a spare from the front desk earlier,” he said. “I’ll just dash out in the hall and open it for you.”
“Thank God,” I said, following him out.
When he slid the key into the door and pushed it open, it stopped with a thunk after a couple of inches.
“Millie.”
“Alvin.”
“Did I?”
“I’m looking at it.”
“Well,” I said. “I don’t want to go down to the front desk in shorts, and my pants are all in my room. Can you change and go down for me?”
“To what end, Millie? So they can give me another key that won’t work? Just what exactly do you expect them to do?”
We stared at each other in the hall for an excruciatingly long time, because neither of us had any idea.
“Hey, Millie,” he said finally.
“Yes, boss?”
“It’s possible I’ve put a bit too much confidence in your planning skills.”