Twenty-six
The hotel by the ocean was called Sea Cliff. She had been familiar with it for some time. When she was little and her grandfather was still alive, he’d show her pictures of grand old hotels, images he’d clipped from magazines of venerated establishments, places that hosted royalty, movie stars. Princess Grace stayed here, he’d say. Or They made a movie with Cary Grant at this one. And Mary would sit on his blue-polyester-clad lap and stare at the pictures, at the colors that looked so bright they couldn’t be real. And the girl who loved stories understood that hotels were their repository.
But she knew of Sea Cliff from elsewhere.
So after she and Hannah had first seen Sea Cliff, they drove to a beach nearby and parked the Blazer by the side of the road. With a blanket wrapped around her, Mary walked down the old wooden stairs to the sand. It felt cooler down by the water by a few degrees.
“I like it here,” said Hannah, as she stared at the shore birds diving and calling overhead.
Mary blinked. The morning sun on the water made everything look faded, pastel. “Yeah,” she said, her head nodding to one side with fatigue from the drive. “I knew you would.”
Mary lay down and she slept, the sand working its way into her black hair. And Hannah walked knee-deep into the water, letting the frigid, foamy surf swirl around her legs, feeling it rock her back as it spilled onto the shore, then watching the sand change under her feet as the Pacific took another great breath in.
When Mary had dozed away enough of the drive, she sat up with red-rimmed eyes closed against the light. “We need to get some food,” she said, to the air around her, having no knowledge of exactly where Hannah stood, only knowing that she was near. She was always near.
“We passed a place,” answered Hannah. “It looked like a bakery.”
“Are you hungry?” asked Mary.
Hannah watched as a ship moved slowly along the ink-blue horizon line. “Yeah,” she said, reluctant to leave the water. “I guess so.”
The Chase girls climbed the wooden stairs back to the street and drove to the bakery. Outside, they sat on the curb and ate their cinnamon buns, taking huge mouthfuls, not pausing to breathe or speak. Finally, Mary said, her mouth full of pastry, “I’m going to go to the hotel and get a job.”
“Do you think they’ll hire you?” asked Hannah. She was watching the cars pass, trying to hide just how much she wanted to stay there, in the town by the sea, where the sun sank rather than rose over the ocean.
“I don’t know,” said Mary. But right down to her bones, Mary knew that they would. Mary sensed some finality here, in this town. Some inevitability. A lovely trap, the door locked tightly. “But I bet they will. Hotels always do.”
And when she walked into Sea Cliff and asked to speak with someone about a position, she was ushered to a small conference room and offered a seat. As if her hair wasn’t matted and sandy. As if she wasn’t wearing the clothes she had put on the morning before. Human resources would be right with her, she was told.
And human resources arrived in the form of a portly man as pale as a poached chicken with thinning drab blond hair. He squeezed himself into the seat across from Mary, the thick of his thighs pressing against the arms of the chair.
“Bob Kossel,” he said, extending his hand.
Mary took it, feeling its damp warmth. “Mary Chase,” she said.
And the interview began.
“So have you worked in hotels, Ms. Chase?”
Mary gave him a solar grin. “All my life.”
And she went on to tell him about the storied East Coast hotel she had grown up in, the one that had closed last year, the one her father had managed.
“Well,” he said, his voice as wobbly as a top. He looked over what appeared to be a schedule, pushing his glasses up his nose. He was a man to whom things happened. A man whose choices were made for him. “I guess you came at the right time. Half the staff just went back to college.”
“That’s fantastic!”
“It’s a front-desk position.”
“Great!”
“Yeah, well . . .” He gave her a wagging finger—an attempt at authority. “You’ll have to start with the night shift. The girl who works it now has been waiting to move to days.”
Mary’s smile came slow and genuine. “The night shift is perfect,” she said.
Bob looked at her, his suspicion piqued. No one wanted the night shift. Not ever.
“I have a sister,” Mary said. “She lives with me. I can sleep while she’s at school.”
THE GIRLS FOUND AN APARTMENT above a Laundromat in a building behind the town’s grocery store. The landlord met them at the property the afternoon that Mary got her job at Sea Cliff. He watched Mary as she walked through the space, her hands clasped behind her.
“So utilities are included?” she asked.
“Gas, water, and electric. You have to pay for the phone. And cable if you get it.”
Mary paid the first month’s rent and deposit in cash. She’d done pretty well that summer and had managed to save a bit.
It was a small one-bedroom, smaller than even the trailer she and Hannah had lived in, but it was clean, or smelled so at least, with the warm scented air wafting up from the enormous metal driers that churned and spun all hours of the day. It would get hot, Mary knew, in the summer. But they had arrived in early fall, when fog rolled in from the sea and settled into the valleys, sapping the heat out of the nights.
Their first evening there, Hannah kneeled by the front window and peered out. She looked down to the metal slot through which the postman would slide their mail, down to the doorway that led to the stairs, down to the Dumpster, where they were told they would put their trash. “I like it,” she said.
Mary sat down on the carpet behind her, but she didn’t say a word, she just watched Hannah, watched her face become illuminated with the headlights of passing cars. And that night the Chase girls pulled their sleeping bags out once again and set them on the floor. They opened the windows wide, trying to lure in the ocean air. And as they lay beside each other, Mary spun her finger through one of Hannah’s curls.
“It’s going to be tight for a while,” she said, feeling the beginnings of sleep start to spread through her body like a thin layer of ice on water. “Until I get paid.”
Hannah nodded. She understood.
“And I’m going to have to be at work while you’re sleeping at night. But I’ll be home early. Before you leave for school.”
Without seeing Hannah’s face, Mary knew that joy had spread across it. And when Hannah spoke, her words galloped with anticipation. “Do you think the school here will have lockers?”
“Probably,” said Mary. “Mine did.”
Hannah inhaled. “That’s so awesome,” she whispered, the words rushing back out.
“We’ll call the school tomorrow. I’ll find out when you can start.”
Then Hannah rolled onto her side and curled into Mary, laying one arm over her sister. She buried her face into Mary’s sleeping bag, and her words were muffled when she said, “Thanks, Mare.”
The next morning, from a pay phone in front of the grocery store, Mary called the local middle school. She had to speak with three different people and wait on hold for several minutes before the principal got on the line to talk about Hannah and her situation, as it was termed.
“And she’s had no formal schooling?” His voice crackled over the line; the receiver felt slick in Mary’s hand.
Mary leaned against the glass wall of the phone booth. “No, she has,” she said. “She went to kindergarten. Since then, I’ve been teaching her myself.”
There was silence on the line. “Well, she’ll need to take placement exams so we can find the right spot for her.”
“When?” Mary asked. “When can you do the exams?”
The placement exams were to be administered in a few days. The girls spent the rest of the day doing what little they could with the money they had. They bought some groceries. Mary put gas in the Blazer. They were coming back from the beach when they passed a house with two bikes out front. There was a cardboard sign on them. FOR SALE.
Mary pulled over.
“Look,” said Mary, nodding toward the bikes. One looked like it would fit Hannah. Mary unfastened her seat belt and opened the truck door. “I’m gonna see what they want for it.”
Mary knocked on the door. Two minutes later, she was pushing one toward the car.
“Get the back!” she called to Hannah.
Hannah scrambled out of the Blazer and pressed hard to pop the heavy tailgate of the truck.
“You like it?” Mary grinned as she reached the truck. “It’s your new bike.”
Hannah looked at the bike. It was metallic green, with long antennae-like handlebars and a big white banana seat. Hannah laughed, her hand running over the top of her head. “It’s crazy.”
“Okay, try and get it in the truck. I’m going to go get the other one.”
“What do you mean?”
“It needed a sister,” said Mary, without looking back as she marched toward the house.
As the girls drove away, Hannah watched the bikes bounce and shake behind her. “How much were these things?”
“I got ’em both for twenty bucks.” Mary joined Hannah in looking at their new acquisitions in the rearview mirror.
Hannah leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. “We should name them.”
“No,” replied Mary, patting the dashboard. “The Blazer would be jealous.”
“You . . . are so weird,” said Hannah, smiling.
WITHOUT A TABLE OR CHAIRS, the girls ate dinner that night on the floor, resting the once-frozen French-bread pizza on the torn-in-half box that it came in.
Mary took a bite. “Don’t open the door,” she instructed, wincing against the scalding cheese. “Ever. When I’m not here.”
Hannah swallowed down a more diminutive bite. “I know, Mare.” She had been through all this before. Hannah had been spending nights alone since she was six. “I’m not stupid.”
Mary looked around the barren room. There was no television. No phone. Just two sleeping bags on the floor, a clock radio that had been left in the apartment, and some of the girls’ paperbacks. “If something happens, just go to the grocery store. Someone will be there.” Hannah was reading the box she was using as a plate. “Bunny?”
“I know, Mare,” Hannah said, positioning her pizza in front of her mouth for another bite. “Go to the grocery store.”
Mary was always like this when they first arrived in a new place. She left for work that night as Hannah was in the bathroom getting ready for bed. “I’ll be home before you wake up,” she said, loitering in the doorway, watching Hannah brush her teeth.
“I know,” Hannah said, her mouth full of foam. She waved. “Good luck!” Then Mary stepped into the hall, shut the door, and the sisters were apart.
On her way to Sea Cliff that night, Mary rolled the windows down and drove the distance as fast as the roads would allow, feeling the wind animate her hair. The windows in the houses she passed glowed yellow in the dark, and the temperature was dropping. Mary turned on the heat, hearing the low growl of the vents as they burst with hot air, feeling it hit her before it rushed out the windows and became part of the night. She loved driving with the windows open and the heat on. It was, to her, an unrivaled indulgence.
When she arrived at Sea Cliff, she parked and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Then she pulled out her makeup bag. With the interior of the Blazer illuminated only by the lights from the parking lot, Mary drew a dark thick line with an eye pencil along her lashes. It made her look exotic, like some ancient queen. She brushed her hair, stroking it roughly with a pink bristled brush until it was smooth and glossy.
The doorman opened the brass-and-glass door for her when she arrived, nodding cordially. “Good evening.” She introduced herself at the front desk and was ushered to the night manager. He gave her a uniform. He gave her a name tag. She was taken on a tour and introduced to various staff working the night shift. The hotel operated with a skeleton crew at night, which was part of why Mary liked it.
“It’s slow, your shift,” the night manager said, as he loitered by the front desk, his hands in his front pockets. “Just you and Curtis most nights.” Curtis was the bellman who stood at the entrance to the lobby, his right arm bent and contorted, his hand resting in his pocket. His left shoulder sunk slightly, and his back curved into an unnatural hump. His uniform hung loosely on his thin, twisted frame. But his eyes, though shadowed, were quick, and they darted around the room with a facility that his body surely couldn’t.
“Oh, okay,” Mary said. Oh, okay. As if she didn’t know. As if she hadn’t grown up at the Water’s Edge. They used to lock the office at night. Put up the closed sign. Anyone arriving later than ten o’clock could fend for themselves or knock until Diane rushed from her bedroom, wrapping her robe tightly. I’m so sorry. We thought all of our guests had arrived.
The night manager nodded toward the girl next to Mary. “Sam can tell you,” he said, as if Mary doubted him. “She’s been on this shift for months.”
“Yeah, no,” said Mary. “I bet.”
When the manager left, Sam and Mary stood in silence. Sam was supposed to be training Mary, but Mary kept finding her sneaking glances, looking at her in the way that women sometimes did, with a desire and eagerness that wasn’t sexual but was desperate all the same. Sam wanted to be her friend.
“Where are you from?” Sam asked.
Mary gave her a glance, then turned her gaze back to the vast lobby, with its marble and columns and big beautiful flowers. “Back East.”
“How did you end up here?”
“I drove.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Mary chuckled quietly. “No.”
There was a brief stretch of silence, and Mary picked up a pen from beside the computer’s black and green screen.
“I’m moving to second shift tomorrow,” the girl offered, hoping to interest, to impress. “I’ll get off at ten from now on.”
But Mary was silent, her pen winding gracefully over a Sea Cliff notepad. She was drawing Curtis the bellman, drawing him with a cloak and staff. As he sensed her eyes, his chin lifted and he pulled his body ever so slightly straighter, ever so slightly heavenward.
As guests checked in, he slunk up behind them, cart in hand, hauling their bags onto it before they could refuse. Even those ready to voice protest, about to insist that they didn’t need any help with their luggage, seemed unable to refuse him—the bent man ready to offer his service.
On his way back from one such delivery, he passed by the front desk. His eyes met Mary’s only briefly. “Welcome to the Hotel California,” he said, as he hobbled by like some ruined prince.
Mary and Curtis worked in silence those first few nights, each of them assessing the other. And Mary kept waiting for Curtis to sit, for him to sink into one of the plush club chairs that lined the lobby. But Curtis remained upright, though Mary could see that fatigue burdened his body more than it would most.
On the fourth night, during that dark dead span of time when nothing in the hotel seemed to move, when the bar adjacent to the lobby had gone dark and all the guests that were going to arrive had come, Mary’s eyes settled on Curtis. He noticed at once, she could tell, but he kept his stalwart gaze straight ahead for as long as he could. Finally, he looked at her. They stared at each other in silence until Mary asked, “How long have you been here?”
Curtis’s brows lifted in mischief or amusement or some combination of the two. “Eight years.”
“Why are you still on the night shift?” No one stayed on nights for longer than they had to, always moving to days when someone left and their schedule became available.
A small smile started at the corners of Curtis’s lips, and he nodded toward Mary. “Why are you on the night shift?”
Mary’s head dropped to one side as she looked at Curtis. And without thinking about why, she knew she could trust him. “Because no one’s really watching us,” she said. It was a sentiment she knew Curtis would understand. He didn’t like to be watched either, though for different reasons. She picked up a pen and began to draw. “I’m drawing you,” she finally said, her eyes focused on the paper. “Do you want to see?”
Hannah was still asleep when Mary arrived home that morning. She crept through the empty apartment, which was just beginning to brighten in the early-dawn light, and crawled into the sleeping bag next to Hannah. Without waking, Hannah rolled against her, closing the space between them. And there, with her body again part of Hannah’s, Mary fell asleep. Her uniform was still on and her name tag still pinned to her jacket, but the rest she found was deep and dreamless. The sort from which you never wanted to wake.
Mary didn’t know how many hours had passed when she finally woke up, only that the late-afternoon sun was pouring through the bare windows. She winced away from the light, rolling so that it warmed her back. With her arms above her head, she arched against it. From the tiny kitchen, not fifteen feet away, she heard Hannah singing along to the tinny music coming from the little clock radio. It was that Madonna song.
Still sunk into her sleeping bag, Mary smiled to herself and listened. From her spot on the floor, she called, “You sound like Mom.” She sat up and looked through the doorway at her sister, whose head was bobbing with the music as she pulled a jug of milk from the refrigerator. “She used to go nuts whenever Carole King came on.”
Hannah, for her part, continued on. Like a virgin. Ooo-ooo-oo-oooo, like a virgin.
Mary pulled her jacket off and tossed it. Then she again noticed the position of the sun. “What time is it?”
Hannah’s singing stopped only long enough for her to answer. “I think it’s like four.” She poured the milk into a bowl of cereal.
Mary eyed her purse, which sat slumped by the doorway to the bedroom. “Want to see what I got from work?”
“Okay,” Hannah replied, padding across the floor. She stopped at the doorway to the bedroom, tilting the bowl back into her mouth, swallowing down both Toasty-Os and milk.
Mary nodded toward her purse. “Hand me my bag,” she said.
Hannah picked it up, noting its weight, and tossed it over. It landed with an awkward thump. Mary reached inside. After pawing through it for a moment, she pulled out a spoon.
“Here,” she said, extending it to Hannah.
Hannah immediately sunk it into her cereal. “Awesome.”
“I’ve got four whole sets.” Then Mary dumped the contents on the floor by her sleeping bag and out spilled shampoo bottles, sugar packets, and tiny jam jars. Out came miniature soaps, cashews from the mini bar, and even a guest-room phone.
Hannah immediately reached for a jam jar and read the label. “These are really fancy,” she said, intimidated, if one could be, by preserved fruit.
“I know. They’ve got good stuff at Sea Cliff. We’re moving on up, Bunny.”
Hannah set the jam jar back down. “You’re not going to get in trouble for taking it, are you?” she asked. She wouldn’t want to invite trouble. She wouldn’t want to leave.
“No,” replied Mary. “It’s totally fine. They would never even know.” But what Mary knew, what Mary had always known, is that when you stay still, leg in a trap, trouble can find you.