She liked feeling a little grubby, a little sweaty, a little tired, and knowing the spinach lasagna she’d put together earlier only had to slip into the oven.
“It looks very attractive.”
“It looks great,” he corrected.
“It looks great. But it’ll look better in another few weeks. It was nice having help.”
He shot her a grin. “Really?”
“Really. Would you like a beer?”
“I’m on call, so better not. Could use a Coke.”
“All right.”
So simple, she thought, as she went inside. She liked getting him a drink, fixing him a meal. Cooking for someone besides herself, she’d discovered, brought serious satisfaction. Just as she liked him suggesting he bring home a pizza or Chinese or toss some burgers on the grill.
She’d thought it would feel crowded—the house, her life, her routine—with him in it, but somehow it felt bigger. She’d worried that her work—the business and her personal agendas—would suffer with someone else taking up her time and space, but she’d been very productive the last couple weeks. So many of the little tasks or chores took less time, as he pitched in to help or just did them himself.
They weren’t living together, she reminded herself, as she poured the Coke over ice. She couldn’t let it go that far. But he had a toiletry kit in the bathroom, a few clothes in the closet.
She liked looking at them when he wasn’t around. Just looking at his shirt, his razor, a pair of socks.
They served as tangible evidence he was in her life.
Or the life she was trying to build.
She glanced out the window as she heard the dog’s bark, Brooks’s laughter.
Bert chased the yellow tennis ball as if his world relied on its capture. The play equaled not only fun but good exercise. Still, it was odd to watch the dog respond so easily to the man.
Ami, she thought.
Yes, they’d become friends.
She picked up her glass of ice water, carried it and his Coke outside.
“Thanks. That dog would chase a ball to Texas if I could throw it that far.”
“He enjoys the run, and it’s good for him. He likes it when you throw the ball, because you can throw it farther than I can.”
“He’s giving me a workout. I won’t need any infield practice on Saturday at this rate.”
When the phone rang, it relieved her. He wouldn’t ask again, he wouldn’t pressure her. But she knew he’d like her to come to the park on Saturday where he played softball.
She wasn’t ready, and didn’t know if she’d ever be ready, to face all the people who’d come, who’d talk to her or about her.
She picked up the wet, mangled tennis ball, threw it so Bert could continue his game.
She heard Brooks say, “I’m on my way.” Then, when he stuck the phone back on his belt, “Crap.”
“There’s some trouble?”
“Spoiled rich kid gets high, trashes hotel suite, slugs hotel manager.”
“Oh. Your friend Russ Conroy?”
“Yeah. Justin Blake equals spoiled rich kid. He tried to fight with hotel security, and is now being held by same until I get there. I’m sorry.”
“It’s your job.”
“And this one’s going to take a while, as it involves a belligerent troublemaking asshole; his annoying, enabling and influential father; and the long-suffering lawyer the kid’s behavior keeps in Gucci loafers and Chivas Regal. I may not make it back tonight.”
“It’s all right.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re not missing lasagna.”
“I’ll keep some for you. It holds well.”
“Thanks. I’ll call you either way. I’ve got to wash up some before I head in.” He took her hands, leaned in to kiss her. “I’ll miss you.”
She liked to think he would—a little, anyway. Being missed by someone was another first in her life.
The dog trotted up as Brooks went inside, then simply stood, panting a little, the ball clamped in his mouth, his eyes on the door.
“He’ll come back if he can,” Abigail said. “We have to be all right without him, too. It’s important we’re all right on our own.”
As she threw the ball again, she thought she’d just make a salad for her dinner. Eating the lasagna by herself seemed too lonely.
The Inn of the Ozarks stood on a gentle hill just inside the town limits. The four-story Victorian had been built by a successful bootlegger back in the twenties as a country home. His success had come to a hard stop just days before the end of Prohibition, when a rival had shot him with a Henry rifle while the man took a turn on his veranda with a Cuban and a glass of moonshine.
The widow had never returned to the house, and for some years thereafter, it fell into disrepair. The oldest son, who liked to play the ponies, sold it the minute it came into his hands.
Russ’s grandfather rebuilt and redesigned it largely on his own, and opened it as a hotel in the spring of 1948. While not a raging success during Cecil Conroy’s day, it held its own. As the artist community took shape in the seventies and eighties, it graced many canvases, one of which had the good fortune to catch the eye of a wealthy collector in New York.
Inspired by the painting, the collector, as well as some of his friends and associates, began to make the hotel the base for getaways, business/pleasure interludes and assignations.
As a result, by the turn of the century, the hotel had earned a face-lift and the addition of a spa and an indoor pool.
Its fourth floor included the perk of twenty-four-hour butler service, and held the most prestigious suite in the building.
With Russ beside him, Brooks stood in that suite, with its pale gold walls, its dark-toned, gleaming antiques, its glowing local art.
Glass sparkled on the polished chestnut floor from the broken prisms of the once grand parlor chandelier. The heavy blown-glass vase that had surely been thrown into the sixty-inch flat-screen TV lay shattered on the handwoven rug that bore stains from the contents of one of three empty bottles of red wine. The remains of a Tiffany lamp shone on the debris of dishes, wasted food, overflowing soap dishes filled with butts and a scattering of porn DVDs.
The blue-and-gold silk of the sofa fabric bore cigarette burns like ugly eyes.
“And you should see the bedroom,” Russ commented around a split and puffy lip. “Motherfuckers.”
“I’m sorry about this, Russ.”
“The master bath’s jet tub’s stained with this wine, with piss. One of them broke the faucet clean off. Don’t ask about the toilet.”
“We’re going to need pictures, before and after. Can you ballpark the monetary damage, just to give me a picture?”
“More than seventy-five thousand, probably closer to a hundred. Jesus, I don’t know, Brooks. Could be more once we get under what we can see. And smell.”
“How many were in here?”
“Three. Girls in and out, too. They booked it under Justin’s father’s name, used his card at check-in. Justin and a girl. That was last evening. Sometime last night—we’ll check the lobby security tapes—the other two boys—that’s his usual crew, Chad Cartwright, Doyle Parsins—and two more girls came in. Justin told the desk to let them up. No law against having guests in your room. They stayed the night. The desk and security fielded a few complaints about noise from the other guests. Best I can tell the girls left this afternoon, and the other three spent the day smoking weed, ordering room service, watching porn. About six we started getting complaints again—yelling, crashing, wild laughter, banging. They had the damn door barricaded, wouldn’t open it for the floor manager. I came up. Jesus, you could smell the weed in the damn hall.”
Brooks just nodded, let Russ spill it out. His friend’s hands still shook some from what Brooks understood was rage and a kind of grief.
“I told that little fuckhead if he didn’t unblock the doors I’d be calling the police and his father. Nothing against the fear and awe you generate, Brooks, but I think it was the threat to call his old man—and the rest of their parents—that got me in. Then that cocksucker sneered at me. Sneered, and told me to fuck off. The room was paid for. I could see what they’d done here, or some of it. See the other two sprawled out on the floor. I was too mad to let loose, you know what I mean.”