Hotel No Tell Read online

  The mayor struggled into a sitting position and waved to us as we headed unsteadily to the door. He was utterly unembarrassed to have his former constituents witness his pouchy, speckled body, a body that was no longer called upon to lead a city.

  “Jewish acupuncture!” the mayor wheezed, pointing to the platza.

  “There is no superego in this town,” Gregory murmured as he headed for the bathroom.

  I sat down on a damp bench beside the cold-plunge pool to watch the half-naked parade: saggy, perky, wrinkled, taut, some with hints of mud still clinging to them. And if I’d ever wondered what Humpty Dumpty looked like in a towel, I now knew. An ostrich egg of a man brushed past me, turgid belly protruding over a small towel, and reached for the can of shaving cream chained to the communal sink. As he began to draw a razor across his jowls, I wondered what it was that inspired men to take me on dates whose pleasure quotient was not immediately identifiable. Five days earlier, Delta had treated me to an evening that involved a harness and raw fingertips. Not unfun exactly, but not clearly fun. Now this. Last I checked, shaving in a towel was something reserved for the privacy of home or at least the men’s room.

  I dropped my own towel on the bench, inflated my lungs with warm air, and jumped into the cold pool. My screams drew only a few cursory glances. I willed myself to stay in and, after a few seconds, I felt as though I’d drunk a triple espresso after a twelve-hour slumber. Floating on my back and examining my unpedicured toes, I sized up the evening. My interaction with Gregory so far appeared to be an exercise in false comfort: We were reverting to our old, easy way of respectful, thoughtful exchanges, slipping into the grooves we’d so lovingly worn over the years. That wouldn’t be a bad thing save for the subject we were avoiding, the bomb we weren’t detonating.

  But now, I thought—my mind racing from the cold with optimistic, practical, and ultimately specious certainty—now it seemed we had lit on a brilliant new possibility. In fact, I couldn’t believe the idea hadn’t occurred to me sooner.

  Friendship. We could be great friends. Amazing friends. If this date—comfortably discussing work in our bathing suits, wandering around under fluorescent lights and surrounded by dingy white tiles—was a sign that the romance had taken leave of our relationship, then I might not even need two more weeks to decide on a course of action. I would call Lieutenant Fisk that evening and fully embark on the next chapter of my life, one in which Gregory and I looked on at each other’s weddings with a kind of sibling love and pride. It would be a friendship admired for its rich history and mature resolution, nothing short of a brilliant way to handle our fatal fertility flaw. It had been absurd to think two people could come to a happy agreement about whether to become parents! I almost laughed out loud at the childish fool I’d been until thirty seconds ago.

  And then.

  Right behind two men whose concave chests and goatees screamed liberal arts came the perfect, luminous face that made everything around it fade to black and white. The strong chin, the long cheekbones, the full chestnut hair—all of that was beautiful and in the right place and in the right proportions, but what was it about him that made him shimmer, that made everyone else around him recede into two dimensions?

  I watched him scan the room. His hazel eyes, bright with flecks of gold, held back until he spotted me. And then he gave me the look that I’d never seen him give anyone else, the look that I hadn’t had the good fortune to receive until we’d been together for a year. It let me in, all the way in, even now, after months of being apart and, before that, months of heartbreak and painful disintegration. At that moment, in a room that shared all the best characteristics of a morgue, I was elated and terrified. It’s not that I feared no one would ever look at me that way again. It’s that I didn’t want anyone else but him to look at me that way.

  With only a slight shudder, Gregory eased himself down the steps of the pool and floated next to me. We watched Humpty Dumpty pat his face dry, study it in the mirror. What did he see? What did his wife see? Since starting at the Hudson Street Nursing Home, I had become painfully aware of how my gaze dismissed the elderly on the street as uninteresting. The thought of being rendered invisible in just a few decades had sobered me, and now I made a point of seeing past the old to the person. Unfortunately, my train of thought still degenerated into a cataloging of all the ways gravity could exert its fierce force and wondering which of my features would go south first. But I was working on it, training myself to wonder who had been a food scientist, who was a taxidermist, who had translated the Arabic of royal families, who had recently discovered an unknown sibling from a parent’s long-ago dalliance, who had won a Pulitzer, who had just buried her best friend.

  The shaver caught us watching him in the mirror and grinned, a big grin that showed a mouthful of gold. He rattled the chain on the Barbasol.

  “Good ting dey tie dis down—I mighta wanted to tuck it down my trunks!” He chortled, gathered his things, and, with great effort, made his way toward the stairs.

  I gazed at the stained ceiling and savored the awareness of Gregory’s half-naked body floating beside mine. His long fingers grasped mine and, despite myself, I relaxed.

  Thirty minutes later, we had showered and dressed and were sitting beneath the clanking pipes of the reception area/café while we sipped at our celery-apple-beet-carrot juices and waited for our food to arrive. For a while, we said nothing, just watched Stanislav grunt and toss locker keys at his clientele. Gregory traced the tendons in my hand, then leaned down to kiss each of my fingers. I was thinking that I should go easy on the potato dumplings—first cousins to cement—if I wanted to fully enjoy the imminent bedroom acrobatics.

  “I have a proposition,” he said as a narrow-faced girl plopped plates of yellow-beige food in front of us. She glanced at him. “Not for you,” he said, a faint blush coloring the tips of his ears. She shrugged and slunk away.

  “A proposition,” I repeated, biting into a pierogi and immediately letting the scorching mouthful fall back onto the plate. “Yikes!”

  “Lovely. Yes, a proposition.” He wasn’t eating, just watching me intently. I took a sip of cold juice and swirled it around my burned tongue. “I’m proposing that you not say no right now.”

  “Not say no to what? Sour cream?”

  “Kids.”

  I swallowed my juice, feeling the evening come to a screeching halt. I wanted to delete that four-letter word and start over.

  “Why did you even call me?” I asked him tiredly. “Last week, I mean. Why start this again?”

  “Wait, Zephyr. Please listen,” he urged. “Listen to what I’m saying.”

  I put my chin in my hand, bristling with impatience.

  “What I’m saying is that I want to be with you and take a chance that you’ll never want kids—”

  “What do you mean chance? Where the hell have you been during this yearlong argument—”

  “Would you please shut up? I’m willing to be with you and take the chance that you’ll never want kids, if you’ll agree to just think about it once a year.”

  I stared at him.

  “Once a year we revisit the subject. That’s it.”

  “Until?” I felt like I was talking to a drunk. I’d humor him, pretend we were having an intelligible conversation, bide my time until I could escape.

  “Until you change your mind or we’re too old to reproduce.”

  My head began to throb.

  “Unbelievable,” I concluded.

  “It’s not.”

  “No, actually, what it is is insulting.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Zephyr, I’m conceding. You win. Hooray. Fireworks. We can be together. How is this insulting?”

  The waitress appeared and thrust a small metal bowl onto our table.

  “Sour cream,” she grunted, and left again.

  “Insulting,” I told him, leaning forward, lowering my voice, “because it’s infantilizing.”

  He slammed his palms on the
table. “Infantilizing?” he growled.

  “You’re assuming I’ll change my mind, right? You think I’m selfish and immature and soon I’ll see the light. Just like my mother does.” I wondered why this sounded like a childish comeback.

  “Well, now you do sound childish,” he confirmed. “What is the fucking matter with you, Zeph? Have you changed your mind about me?”

  My chest closed in. “God, no,” I whispered. “But you’re humoring me.”

  “How?” he pleaded. “By asking you to revisit the subject once a year?”

  I thought of the schedule I’d planned on proposing that evening, the one that called for checking in with each other annually if we were still single. The two proposals were alarmingly similar, but his made me realize that both were, at best, absurd and, at worst, futile.

  “Because you’re assuming if I just get a little older, I’ll change my mind.”

  “Not assuming. Hoping. Not assuming,” he emphasized.

  “Why can no one accept that this is not a phase?” I asked the clanking pipes.

  “Why can’t you see past your stupid, idiotic, misplaced pride?” he asked.

  I shook my head, scrounging around for the right words. “Even if we followed this ridiculous plan, what’s to keep you from becoming bitter and resentful in ten years when I still don’t want kids? Because I’m not going to want them,” I said, more certain than ever.

  I thought about Jeremy Wedge and Zelda Herman and Samantha Kimiko Hodges and the hotel and how thrilling my work was—okay, at the moment, a little too thrilling—and I thought about how good it felt to see my beloved city clearly and freshly, not myopically, with stroller brand names and mashed-up organic vegetables clouding my vision. To not have anyone else to worry about if I lost my job. To be able to give myself entirely to a man, a partner, a fellow adventurer, not be part of a tired, diluted, stressed relationship. I was saving money and I planned to see the world, not Disney World.

  I thought about what my mother said, about the other option being saving the world. Maybe she was right about that part. Maybe that was a condition of deciding not to raise kids. Certainly it would be easier to, say, start fighting climate change if I had no progeny to suffer the consequences of a lost battle. I could throw myself into planet-changing struggles and have adventures and have the freedom to put myself in danger without worrying that I might leave a child motherless. Hell, I wanted the freedom to contemplate suicide if times got rough. Not do it, just keep it as a reassuring ace up my sleeve.

  People who had children would always think there was something unfulfilled about my life and I would always think the same of them. Eternal détente.

  Gregory shook his head at me. “I’m doing this because I love you, Zephyr, and I want to marry you. Why can’t you believe me when I tell you I won’t be bitter?”

  “Because,” I explained quietly, “if you’re so sure I might change my mind, then it’s entirely possible you might change yours. I can’t risk you hating me for this.”

  Gregory poked holes in his pierogies, his eyes bright with tears. “So you’re saying no? You’re actually saying no to this, Zephyr? To me?”

  Chapter 14

  Early the next morning, because I was distracted by grief and because I had run out of ideas and was spinning my wheels, I hunched over my desk and dialed Large Tomato Walking Tours. I tugged at the blue tailored shirt I’d let Macy talk me into buying, in an attempt to look like I had moved beyond college, wardrobe-wise.

  “Special on the gay and lesbian tour this weekend!” someone answered, just as Tommy O’Hara thumped on my cubicle wall. I hung up.

  “You learnin’ some history?” he accused me, peering at Large Tomato’s website on my computer screen. He was wearing a gray suit that set off his rosy face, making it shine even pinker than usual. “Hey, I hearda these guys. They oughta hire me—I could give some tourists a run for their money. Heah? This heah’s where we nabbed that superintendent sellin’ jobs to principals outta her car. And ovah heah? This bar, this is where the deputies at County Health used to meet during taxpayer-funded work hours to place their bets on the horses—and by the way, ladies and gentlemen from Omaha, the bookie doubled as a college guidance counselor!” He chortled fondly, recalling pleasant memories.

  “What can I do for you, O’Hara?” In truth, I was glad for the distraction.

  “Aw, you got such good manners, Zepha. It’s what I can do fuh you.” He bowed low. “I’d be honored if you’d let me drive you and Alex to your WAC.”

  I looked up at him blankly.

  “Your weapons acquisition ceremony. Ain’tcha gettin’ yuh piece today?”

  I hadn’t forgotten. Not exactly. Well, one part of me knew it at some point, but the other part had definitely forgotten. Or not gotten around to believing that all my hours logged at Rodman’s Neck, shooting paper people in pouring rain and scorching heat and sneaking up the stairs of the tactical house, ready to be fake-assassinated by a fake drug lord, would actually result in someone handing me a lethal weapon and a license to use it. Early on in my employment, I had asked Pippa whether I could forgo this part of the job. She had regarded me steadily and then suggested, for the sake of my reputation, that we pretend I’d never asked.

  I puffed out my cheeks and exhaled. “Yes. Yes I am.”

  “What’s wrong witchoo?”

  “I don’t know. Weren’t you sort of a little nervous when you first got your gun?”

  Tommy grabbed each of his elbows and gazed into the forest of corkboard-lined cubicles and swivel chairs.

  “Nope.”

  “Great. Well.” I eyed the pad of paper on my desk, which bore Summa’s phone number and address as well as Zelda Herman’s cellphone number. Regardless of whether I wanted to go get my weapon—and I didn’t—I had no time for a ceremony and an oath-taking. Not today. It was a formality held every month; I’d reschedule. I needed to get to Summa, find the person who’d hired Samantha, and start making some arrests. I hadn’t yet had the guts to tell Pippa my cover was blown, but I had a feeling that, once I did, she’d want to move quickly.

  “I can’t do it today. I need to find Pippa right now.” I stood up.

  “Chicken.”

  “I am not!”

  “Bok, bok.”

  “I’m sorry, how old are you?”

  “Old enough to know a scared little girl when I see one.” He tore a corner off a piece of paper and put it in his mouth to chew.

  “Oh, ouch, kick me where it hurts.”

  “You’re a funny kid, Zeph,” he said. “Can I call you Zeph?”

  “Now you ask?” I tried to walk past, but he put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Seriously, I want to drive you guys. It’s a big deal, and you and Alex are my favorite probies.”

  “Because we laugh at your jokes.”

  “Because you buy me green bagels on Saint Paddy’s Day and Alex does backflips in my office.”

  “I appreciate it, Tommy, but, seriously, not today. Next month. I’ll do it next month, and you can drive me.”

  “Aw jeez, really?” He clasped his hands in front of his chest and let his knees buckle slightly. “So when are you and Poker P gonna let me in on yuh secret case?”

  Tommy didn’t even need a weapon; he had his timing. I summoned my own best poker face way too late.

  “Don’t even try, Zepha. I know you got somethin’ good. I just wanna know when you ladies are gonna let me in on it.” He spit the wad of paper into my trash can.

  I looked at him with what I hoped was a patient, empty expression.

  “Awright, awright, you keep yuh little secret for now. But you go tell the commish I want in when you take it down.”

  “You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said lamely, grabbing the notepad off my desk.

  “Yeah, well.” He winked at me. “I know the commish is wearing a dress that looks like one of my wife’s oven mitts. Put a burn mark on her ass and it’s a dead ringer
.”

  I groaned. “And so that’s all I’m going to be able to think about when I go into her office.”

  Tommy grinned and waggled his fingers at me. “I play dirty, Zepha Z.”

  * * *

  Pippa spritzed a clear liquid across the three Lucite handbags she kept on display in her office. I suspected she periodically rotated them in and out of her home collection, though I couldn’t be sure, since they all looked the same to me. As I tried to keep my eyes off her polka-dotted butt, which did indeed resemble an oven mitt, I wondered why anyone would collect sea-green Lucite handbags—why, really, anyone would intentionally amass anything. I spent an ungodly amount of my time trying to fight the natural accumulation of stuff, probably in reaction to a childhood of near engulfment by the detritus of my parents’ hobbies. Perhaps one day I’d work up the courage to ask Pippa why she was drawn to these handbags.

  “Who else knows?” Pippa asked sharply, her back still to me.

  “I don’t think anyone, but …”

  “You didn’t think Hodges was on to you, either.”

  I looked out Pippa’s window. We were on the thirty-second floor, and even though our offices were nearer the west side, the island was narrow enough down here that I could see out to the ferries coasting up and down the East River. I allowed a moment to wish myself away from this meeting and onto one of those boats.

  “All right, here’s what we’re going to do. You’ve got that Zelda woman’s phone number?”

  I nodded.

  “Ring her.”

  “Right now?”

  “Right here, right now. Then, after the WAC, we’ll head straight to Summa. I’ll drive you myself.”

  “I don’t need to get my weapon today,” I assured her.

  Pippa tapped a fingernail against the smudgeless handbag and looked over her shoulder at me, eyebrows slightly raised.

  “Okay, okay,” I muttered, reaching for Pippa’s phone. I glanced down at the pad of paper in my lap and dialed. “Any particular questions you want me to ask?”