Hotel No Tell Page 10

  “Wow,” I said, and burst out laughing, giddy with the knowledge that I was still the object of Gregory Samson’s love. “That last one’s hard-core.”

  He shrugged, embarrassed.

  “And disloyal.”

  “What!” He looked anxious. “How?!”

  “Fairway? You’re totally cheating on the Village.”

  He snorted with relief. “Okay, maybe it was Murray’s Cheese.”

  “So it’s really the cheese that’s integral to the fantasy,” I bantered, stalling for time. I still didn’t know where any of this was going. My elbow brushed his, and I tried to ignore the heat that jolted through me. “I don’t think I knew your passion for Gouda ran this deep.”

  “You should talk,” he said, shorthanding a reference to my unappealing habit of gnawing on blocks of cheddar at home. I knew the relationship was serious when he stopped slicing off the teeth marks.

  Gregory reached over and took a sip of my water. I tried not to stare. He acted as if he didn’t realize what an intensely personal act it was, a vestige of intimacy. It was agony to be this close to him and not touching. Unnatural.

  He put down his glass—my glass, our glass—and leaned over and kissed me. Then he pulled back, waiting for any kind of reaction, and when I remained speechless, he put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me again. Second Person Kissed Since Gregory, I thought, and it’s Gregory.

  “What are we doing?” I murmured anxiously, his lips still on mine.

  “Kissing.”

  “When you were in Alabama … Never mind, don’t answer that.”

  “Zeph …” And then he shook his head.

  “What? What were you going to say?” I broke away from the embrace but took each of his wrists in my hands—his strong, beautiful wrists that I’d kissed a hundred times.

  Resolve dissolving, I thought, rubbing my fingers over the tendons. There it goes, carried off by the heat and the rumble of Bar Six. This was not the smart thing to do. This was not what an almost-thirty-one-year-old woman with any instinct for self-preservation should do. But how often in a lifetime did a person get to feel the kind of longing that I felt at this moment and have the instant means to satisfy it? Everything was going to get messy and, right then, even as a fire engine roared by, reminding me of the pole not slid, I didn’t care. The only people who could get hurt were the two of us.

  “I want you,” he said urgently, plaintively. “Now.”

  Dammit, Janet.

  Chapter 6

  At seven A.M. the next morning, I was in position at the front desk of the hotel. My eyes were gritty, my legs hollow, and I sipped steadily at my second cup of coffee from Ciao for Now, willing it to transport me back to the land of the living. I pulled my bulky thigh-length sweater tighter around me to hide my wrinkled hotel uniform. The hardest part of going undercover was having to think two outfits ahead—a challenge, needless to say, for someone who could barely dress herself in one complete outfit. When it wasn’t on me, my uniform was usually in a ball at the bottom of my backpack. I hoped we’d be too busy today for Hutchinson to remark on my need for an iron.

  “I wish I could just give Rosie a big hug,” Asa cooed, thumbing through the Times. “He’s working so hard to make everything all better, the money stuff and the health stuff, and those nasty Southerners are just getting in the way.”

  “Not all Southerners are nasty,” I felt compelled to croak.

  “What’s wrong with your voice? It’s very hoarse. Want me to make you a little chamomile? I got three boxes yesterday from Good Earth, and all I did was ask them where they grow their leaves.”

  Asa neatly folded the paper and dug through his oversize striped beach bag, which he toted around in all seasons. Inside, it looked like he’d robbed a mini-mart.

  “Voilà!” he sang, brandishing a tea bag. “I’ll be right back.” He grabbed a mug from the cabinet that held extra toothpaste and razors and waddled off in the direction of the hotel restaurant, leaving me to man the desk alone. I really hoped Hutchinson wouldn’t come by and catch Asa AWOL again, but mostly I prayed to the gods of timing that Samantha Kimiko Hodges wouldn’t leave the building while I was solo.

  The glass doors slid open and a young woman who looked as tired as I felt trudged in, rolling a suitcase behind her.

  I put on my best smile and straightened my collar, acutely aware of how much I enjoyed my phony job. All those wasted hours studying for the MCATs and LSATs could have been spent hanging out here with Asa, earning decent wages.

  “Hi there! Welcome to New York!”

  She tried to return the smile.

  “Hi,” she said quietly, scratching her head through a mound of honey-colored curls. Her voice sounded as rough as mine. “I have a reservation. Last name is Herman. Zelda Herman.”

  “The Z club,” I observed, typing in her name. “My first name begins with ‘Z,’ too. Actually, so does my last name.”

  She nodded politely, and I decided to take the unforthcoming follow-up question to be a sign of exhaustion rather than rudeness.

  “You’ll be in room 232. Are you named for Zelda Fitzgerald?” I couldn’t help asking, even though, according to the reservation notes, she was from Sonoma County and had just survived the red eye. She didn’t need to be saddled with small talk.

  Zelda gave another quick nod, determined to nip any conversation in the bud.

  As I programmed a blank key card in the VingCard machine, I surreptitiously glanced at her. There was something familiar about her, something about the square of her chin, or her high forehead, or her long lashes and almond-shaped eyes. Either that or my attraction to long eyelashes was approaching affliction status. She caught me staring and shifted her weight slightly away from the counter.

  “Sorry,” I babbled, even as I knew I should shut up. “I was just noticing that your eye makeup is perfect, even after an overnight flight.” It was, in fact, flawless.

  “Tattoo.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My eyeliner. It’s tattooed on. Permanent.”

  “Ouch.”

  She shrugged, as if she’d had this conversation before. “Saves time. And I can cry.”

  I cleared my expression, returning it to cheerful and objective. “Okay, well. I see you’re staying with us for two nights. Will you be needing any restaurant or theater reservations?” I chirped, handing her the key card.

  She managed a snort. “Definitely not.”

  I hid my surprise. “Do you want to leave your bag for us to bring up, or will you be—”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the small quick movements of Samantha Kimiko Hodges, a streak of red silk (this being Tuesday) bustling out of the elevator and heading through the lobby. Right behind her was Asa, carefully balancing a mug of tea on a square teak tray.

  “Asa!” I called out. I turned suddenly on Zelda Herman. “Asa! Asa has brought you a cup of chamomile. We always do that for our early-morning arrivals. We’re all about the service!”

  I ducked under the counter to dig my wallet out of my backpack—if I was going to chase Samantha, I needed to be prepared to pay for any mode of transportation—and heard our guest comment with surprise, “That is good service!”

  Followed immediately by the Drawl: “Puh-leeze. What did they pay you for that?”

  Noooo, I thought, leaning my head against the wall of the counter. Why was Hutchinson forever materializing out of thin air? Did he do nothing but sit in his office watching the security monitor? The thought made me queasy, as did the knowledge that Samantha was almost at the front door.

  I popped up, startling everyone at the counter.

  “Jesus, Zephyr!” Hutchinson crabbed. With his blow-dried hair, salmon polo shirt, and pressed khakis, all that was missing were a martini, a yacht, and a No Coloreds sign.

  “What did you say about paying me?” Zelda demanded coldly to Hutchinson. She looked pale, even paler than she’d been moments ago. Hutchinson, Asa, and I looked
at her blankly.

  Samantha turned left out of the hotel. I could only hope her short legs would slow her down.

  “I’m sorry, I meant …” It was lovely to watch Hutchinson fumble. “About saying the service is good …? I was joking.”

  Zelda blushed. “Of course. God, that’s embarrassing. I’m just very tired.”

  I had no idea what was going on, but I took the opportunity to escape, mentally thanking Zelda for distracting Hutchinson. I popped around the desk and slipped through the doors while Hutchinson tripped over himself trying to make amends with the small-boned beauty. She was the type for whom he and Jeremy would have displayed their finest financial footsie at the hotel bar.

  Jeremy.

  I hustled out the door and peered down the block. Samantha hadn’t made it far; she was headed into the park from the northwest entrance. I picked up my pace, dodged a line of cabs turning south on MacDougal, and fell into step beside her.

  “Mrs. Kimiko Hodges!” I said, as though surprised and delighted to find a fellow early bird taking a morning constitutional.

  She glanced over at me, not breaking her stride. The corners of her lips turned up for a moment, acknowledging that I was not a pickpocket or a drug dealer. Despite the park’s face-lift, both thrived, the latter to the general benefit of the neighborhood. A well-known, if unspoken, symbiosis still existed: The dealers protected the NYU faculty kids who lived around the park and made sure no one sold to them. In return, the professors turned a deaf ear to the urban susurration, “Smoke, smoke?”

  “You leave the fairy to run the desk?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Hodges!” I said, laughing despite myself. It was so mean and so outdated.

  “Kimiko Hodges. What, he’s not a fairy?” She stopped abruptly and pulled a handkerchief out of her knock-off Gucci handbag. She dusted off a bench and sat down.

  “No, no, he’s a fairy.” I watched her settle in. “Very nice guy, though.” I waited until she was done adjusting her tiny rear end, then sat down beside her.

  “Never said he wasn’t.”

  A pack of three dogs zoomed across the lawn in pursuit of a traumatized squirrel. Samantha tsked and shook her head, presumably at the regulation that permitted dogs to be off leash before nine A.M.

  “How’s the guy?” she said.

  At first I thought she meant Gregory, whom I’d left sprawled diagonally in my bed about an hour earlier. Despite my exhaustion, I felt a bullet of adrenaline launch from somewhere behind my heart. It had been a long, active, imprudent night, one during which we’d blissfully managed not to address anything other than the business at hand. But had I ever mentioned Gregory to Samantha? Was she spying on me? Was everyone watching me on monitors, witnessing my monumental lapses in judgment?

  “Who? What guy?” Calm down, Zephyr.

  “The dummkopf.” She flipped the back of her hand at me. “The one who got sick.”

  Something lurched inside my belly. All plans for slowly broaching the subject had been a waste of precious brain power.

  “Jeremy?” I said carefully.

  She rummaged through her purse. “I don’t know. Was he the upside-down copper top?”

  “He’s still in the hospital,” I said, watching her take out a small comb and run it through her hair, which shone brilliantly in the morning sunlight. “Psych ward. He’s going to be there awhile.”

  One of her shoulders twitched and I waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, I took a deep breath and jumped in, all but squeezing my eyes shut.

  “He mentioned you gave him some kind of love potion—doyouhaveanythingforme?”

  She put her comb away, keeping her eyes on her purse. “You? What do you need a love potion for?”

  She wasn’t denying she’d given him a drink! Slowly, Zephyr, slowly. The thought crossed my mind that even though I was only a block from the hotel, I was a universe away from the case I’d been assigned.

  “I do,” I protested, surprised to realize it was true. I longed for a potion to make me want kids. Or to make Gregory not want them. I wondered if there was a formula to hasten reconciliation. “What was in it?”

  She looked at me sharply. “Ancient Chinese secret,” she said in a ridiculous imitation of a Manchurian accent.

  “You’re Japanese,” I reminded her, then thought of her Yiddish locution and wondered if she would dispute this label.

  “Schlemiel doesn’t know the difference. It’s all the same to him.”

  “Come on,” I wheedled. “What was in it, Mrs. Hodges?”

  “Kimiko—”

  “Oh, cut it out,” I snapped, and regretted it instantly. I sweetened my voice again. “Just tell me, what’s your secret ingredient? Maybe it could work for my problems.”

  “What are you, some kind of a detective?” I froze for an instant, but she continued. “Look at you, you don’t need a potion. You’re …” She turned her head to give me a blatant once-over. “Well, you’re not drop-dead beautiful, but you look like one the boys would like to squeeze.”

  I snorted with embarrassment, but then I considered her assessment.

  “It’s true,” I admitted, watching the dog owners corral their charges. “I don’t have trouble getting—” I couldn’t say “laid” to this woman, could I? “Dates.”

  Samantha rolled her eyes. “Don’t make it family-friendly on my account,” she sniffed, snapping her purse closed, folding her arms, and turning her face up to the sun.

  “I’ve still got my problems,” I protested.

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, the man I love wants kids and I don’t.” This conversation was the stuff of the psychiatrist’s couch (or a Sterling Girl couch), not standard investigative protocol, but I flattered myself by thinking it was an excellent and innovative use of my natural, overly personal conversational skills. Perhaps I could codify it and trademark it and call it the Zephyr Technique. My mom and Roxana could use it—

  “Kids are a pain in the tuchas,” Samantha decreed.

  “Do you have them?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated like stepkids?”

  “Complicated like dead kids.”

  I sucked in my breath. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  A pack of testosterone swathed in NYU track jerseys and shorts jogged by, each pair of muscular legs a glistening testament to the triumphs of natural selection. With a start, I realized I was too old to respectably date them.

  “So you think it’s okay not to want kids?” I asked, wondering if I actually cared about her opinion or whether I was that desperate for a sounding board.

  She shot me a look of irritation.

  “Well, but I love this guy. And I don’t want to be seen as stunted and irresponsible just because I don’t want children.”

  “Is that what he thinks?”

  “It’s what my mother thinks.”

  “You’re marrying your mother?”

  I pulled my sweater around me defensively. How many of my choices were still influenced—clouded—by my mother’s opinions?

  “It’s not even about what he thinks of me,” I informed her. “It’s that we’re at an impasse.” A jolt of anger shot through me. If Gregory hadn’t changed his mind, then why had he started up with me last night? I remembered the feeling of freedom and excitement I’d felt while kissing Delta, even with a climbing harness digging into my crotch. Was Gregory going to appear anytime I had a shot at moving on?

  “You have to end it,” Samantha said.

  “We already did.”

  The Japanese bubbe turned fully on the bench to stare at me. “So what are you bothering me for?”

  “Because we could get back together.” I wondered if that was true. “If there was a potion to—”

  “Don’t start again with the potion mishegas. You two shouldn’t get back together. Children aren’t something you negotiate. What, you say you’ll pop ’em out, but he’ll be the one to
raise them? You do that, you better start saving for their therapy now.” She closed her eyes again. “On the other hand, you might find you like ’em.”

  “Then you do think I should have them!” I felt betrayed.

  “I didn’t say that. Kids make everything harder. I’m just saying, my first husband got a cat and I thought I’d hate it, but I loved it. Loved it more than the husband. Which is why I moved on to the second husband.”

  Samantha stood up suddenly.

  “Where are you going?” I demanded.

  “It’s not a free country?”

  “Depends on who you ask,” I quipped, buying time.

  “I’m tired of talking to you. I’m not used to so much talk anymore.”

  “Mrs. Hod—Mrs. Kimiko Hodges,” I said desperately as she began to walk away. I resisted the urge to grab her tiny wrist. “Why did you put Ambien in Jeremy Wedge’s drink?”

  I had just nudged a two-ton boulder over the crest of a hill; I could almost hear the villagers screaming as they ran from it. A light sweat broke out on the nape of my neck.

  She froze mid-stride for a split second, then kept walking.

  I jumped up and followed her.

  “There were lethal amounts of Ambien in that drink!” I yelled at her rigid back.

  A woman wearing Julius Caesar lace-up sandals and a leather jacket sporting an anti-fur button glanced up from her bench and openly watched the free spectacle.

  Samantha stopped, and this time she whipped around. Her eyebrows furrowed until they merged, and she pressed her lips together so hard they turned white. She pointed at me, her hand shaking. I leaned back under the force of her fury.