“Yes, we do. I will make the change now. Thank you.” Thankful is not how she sounds. She hands my cell phone back to me.
“…is disgraceful. How does it feel to be so incompetent a customer has to complete even the most perfunctory of tasks for you?”
“Mr. Canon,” I say after waiting for him to take a breath.
“Ms. Baker?”
“I take it that you resolved things, sir.”
“Not ideally. You were right to call. Set up there and come back. We should be out around five.”
At least it won’t be a late night. I think of my email inbox once again crammed with unwatched lectures and the copious number of briefs I need to read or write. I feel like joining the clerk in her sniffles.
Moments later, I’m being handed two access cards and a signature page.
“Your room is here,” she says and circles a corner room on the top of the main building. “Room service is twenty-four-seven with a limited menu after ten in the evening. If you need any special accommodations—” she looks up at me as if, having spoken to Canon, she is well-aware that this is a given “—please let us know.”
I sign and wait.
And wait.
“Did you need help with your bags?”
“Well, yes, that would be nice, but we need to finish the paperwork for the other room.” I manage to keep the irritation out of my voice.
“There is no other room. I…I had to…I bumped a late-arrival party and gave you their suite,” she splutters.
“One room?”
“There are separate sleeping areas.”
Oh, well, indeed, yes, that is a great comfort to be sure. I may swoon.
“One room?”
“There are rooms within the room. Separate sleeping areas.”
“Yes, you said that. But we are sharing a room?” I say, and she nods. “I’m sharing a room with that man?” I will have no break, no respite from that man? She nods. I am not entirely sure she hasn’t heard my thoughts.
I snatch the cards from the counter and glare at her as if it were all her suggestion. I barely remember to wait for the bellhop.
It is a lovely room. The nicest I have ever stayed in. Pale marble. Sage green silks. Soft cottons. Deep mahogany woods. One actual bedroom. Living area with glass doors to a balcony. In front of the doors, a sleeper sofa I will be calling home. Small kitchen. Huge plasma. One closet. One bath.
One friggin’ closet.
I hang the clothes. His shoes on the floor, mine on the shelf. He gets the top drawer. I put my stuff in the bottom. His stuff was on the left of the sink in the old hotel, so I put it there and put mine on the right or out of sight completely. I order extra towels and blankets. The room already has a coffee pot.
One friggin’ bath.
Plug his charger in by his nightstand. Make sure the in-room alarm is not set from anyone else.
One friggin’ room.
I’m at a loss for where I can keep all my school reading material. It ends up in a suitcase.
One friggin’…How the hell did this happen? I have tried to take it in stride, to go about my business, but how the…what the…I can’t room with my boss! I can’t room with a guy I shoved around and dropped to my knees in front of and sucked the stuffing out of. Went all “wham, bam, you better call me ma’am” on.
Sweating. Not perspiring or glowing or any of those ladylike things. I am sweating. Even my ass cheeks are sweating.
I splash my face at the sink. My reflection seems foreign. These are not my clothes. Not my hair. Not me.
The reflection stares back. Judges.
Perhaps I’m berating myself too much over last night.
How am I going to study? Get dressed? Relax enough to sleep?
Maybe you should try talking to him about what happened…
Voice of Reason…do you have an invite?
I am not allowed reason in this room situation. I have to take it in stride. He set this up. If he is okay rooming together, I have to act like I am as well.
Do what he says, when he says, without question.
I leave for work. I need a raise.
5:25 p.m.
*
Location
: Entryway of hotel room.
*
Pin
: If one dropped, you’d hear it.
STAGNATION GETS TO ME. “Shall I show you where everything is?”
His lips are pursed, tense. His eyes dart to the sofa, the bedroom, the bath, and back again.
“The bulk of your things are here,” I say and beeline for the bedroom. He shows up in his own time.
I begin opening or pointing to everything. I’m like Vanna White if Pat Sajak had his sex appeal ramped up by infinity.
“I put your things in the top drawer. The rest are in the closet. Shoes on the bottom.” He opens the closet and peers in while I rattle on. “Charger on the stand. Alarm is already off. I have sanitized the remote.”
I think I hear him say “perfect” from behind the open closet door.
“You may notice a few things missing. I have sent them to the cleaners due to the extended trip. If you will follow me, sir, there is not much left.”
Instead, he actually leads into the bathroom. My heels click across the tile. “I believe this is everything you had out in your old room.” I touch near his things at the sink. He glances at them, then around the small room until his eyes fall on the few items of my own I have left out. For a moment, it almost looks as though he is going to pick up my perfume, but he doesn’t. “If leaving this out here is going to be a problem, I can keep my things elsewhere.”
“No, no,” he says rather softly. It’s a small space. Intimate. Something shifts in the air.
I cough to clear my throat and throw open the shower curtain. “I have noticed you are nearly out of shampoo. Shall I pick some up for you or will the furnished kind be sufficient, Mr. Canon?”
“You don’t have to do that.” His hands are in his pockets.
“Very well. Shall I order dinner, sir?” I leave the bathroom as I speak. Flee, actually.
“What I meant was that you really don’t have to keep using ‘sir.’ And I feel like Mexican food,” he says, still in the bathroom for some unknown reason.
Not good. I have already read it over, and there is nothing like that on the hotel restaurant menu. “I can run out and pick something up.”
His tie appears on the doorknob. “Get changed.”
“Sir?” It’s a habit at this point. He flinches a bit at the word but says nothing.
“We will go out. There is bound to be a decent place around here. A chain or something.”
He disappears into the bedroom. I sit on the sofa, fingers drumming my skirt.
Changing as fast as men tend to, he’s out in jeans and surely a garment of some other kind. I’m fixated on the jeans.
Denim in long expanses. Barely contours to his thighs. Thighs I have leaned against but not touched. Bare feet.
Barefoot! Put some shoes on, already! How am I supposed to look unaffected and asexual with all this unfair fuckery happening?
He sees me sitting. He stops short, looks back toward the bedroom.
“Um, it is all yours.” He pulls his shirt down and steps to the side. A gray, long sleeve, V-neck tee. I pass silently and close the door.
I really want to lean my back against the door and breathe deeply for a few moments. A few hours. Fill my lungs. Decompress. Instead, I grab out my jeans and a white pullover. If I were home, I would wear my favorite electric blue sweater.
As I slide on my clothes, it occurs to me I’ve missed the opportunity to search for restaurants.
It’s getting to me. I’m slipping.
A quick search on my phone finds one within walking distance and several others nearby. Shoving my phone back in my pocket, I vow to keep my head in the game.
Grab door. Yank open. March.
“Ready, Mr. Canon?” My words are followed by a clatter in the open bathroom.
Canon walks out, nodding.
I check the mirror and think I might smell my perfume in the air.