Chapter 15
I'm at the front desk, pulling delivery slips for the tenth floor when she walks in.
Lila.
She's in a dress that costs more than my rent for the quarter, heels that should be impossible to walk on the marble of this lobby, and a small bag the color of a blood orange.
She crosses the room like she has the right to be here.
Carmen is on a phone call. Frank is at the concierge desk. The two of them have not seen her yet.
I have.
I keep my face down. I sort the delivery slips by floor, pretending I’m busy, sliding each one into its pile like a small excuse to go unnoticed.
Lila reaches the desk.
She does not see me at first. She smiles at Carmen, who has just hung up the phone.
"Hi. Could someone point me toward Mr. Nightingale's room? He's expecting me."
Carmen opens her mouth. The irritation is right there in her eyes. Knowing her, she’s about to say something to Lila that’ll have her crying for weeks. But then Lila's gaze sweeps across the desk — and stops on me.
Her face changes by maybe a quarter inch. She does not acknowledge that we have met.
She tilts her head. Her mouth smiles. Her eyes don't.
"Oh. Housekeeping is so helpful. Aren't you a dear?" She tilts her head the other way. "Could you point me toward Mr. Nightingale's room?"
I look at her.
Carmen looks at me.
I'm not dealing with her and what's inside me right now. I'll face it later, alone, in the dark, with my brush and a blank canvas.
But I respond for courtesy's sake.
"Penthouse floor, ma'am. Twenty-second. The private elevator is at the end of the lobby on the right. You'll need a key card, but if you call up, he can send the elevator down for you."
"What suite?"
"The penthouse, ma'am. There's only one."
"Of course." She smiles wider. "Thank you."
She turns and walks toward the elevator, heels ticking on the marble.
Carmen doesn’t look at me, doesn’t say anything, but she knows.
I go back to my cart and rush down the corridor just to keep moving. The jealousy is sitting in my chest like a coin I have swallowed wrong.
She's up there now in his suite.
He didn't tell me she was coming, but maybe she came on her own.
Twenty minutes later, I'm in the staff lounge with Carmen and two other housekeepers I know by name and not much else. Carmen is telling a story about a guest who tried to bribe her to leave the minibar unstocked. I'm eating a granola bar I don't taste.
My pager buzzes.
Roger.
Service desk. Now.
Carmen looks at me.
I shrug and go.
He's at the desk, holding an order ticket in one hand and a pleased expression on his face.
"Penthouse ordered lunch. Take it up."
"That's not my job."
"It is now."
"I'm housekeeping. Room service is its own department."
"Room service is short-staffed."
"Then call another department."
"I'm calling you, Suzanne."
"Roger — "
"I'm the manager." He sets the ticket down on the desk between us. "You will do what I tell you, or you will consider yourself terminated. Pick."
I look at the ticket, then back at him.
Carmen is in the lounge doorway, pretending to refill her water bottle. She shakes her head no, as if she already knows what I’m about to do.
I take the ticket.
The kitchen has the tray ready with a white cloth, two covered plates, a bread basket, a bottle of Pinot in an ice bucket, and two glasses. I push the cart out of the kitchen and toward the service elevator, and there in the corridor is Carmen waiting for me.
“What was that about?” She glances at the cart. “Roger has you delivering food now?”
I nod.
“Why? What happened to the service staff?”
I shake my head. “What do I know? Roger gets off humiliating me.” It must be some sort of payback for whatever Cade said to him when I left.
“Do you want me to take it up for you instead? I saw that lady go up. I assume you don’t want to be there right now.”
“It’s okay. I’ll do it. It’s no big deal.”
Her eyes bore into mine. She knows it’s a lie. It’s pretty obvious because I’m not a very good liar. Carmen offers me a strained smile and steps aside. I instantly wish she’d tried to stop me.
She squeezes my elbow on her way past, whether for good luck or to warn me to be careful, I can't tell.
I push the cart to the elevator.
I don’t look at my reflection in the brushed steel and at the small white card on the bread basket that has the suite number written in Roger's handwriting.
I knock.
Cade opens the door.
His face flickers when he sees me, then closes up. He sees the tray. The flash gets bigger. He looks at me, then at the cart, and his jaw tightens.
"I'll take it from here."
"It’s fine. I’m here to do my job. It’s what I’m paid to do."
"Suzanne, I'll take it from here."
"It's fine," Lila calls from the dining area. "Let her do her work."
Cade lets out a breath and doesn't pick it back up.
"I have it," I tell him, quietly.
I push the cart past him into the suite.
She is at the dining table. She has made herself comfortable in the chair facing the windows. She has a glass of wine in her hand, poured from a bottle that was not on the cart. Her shoes are off. Her legs are crossed.
I plate the food, pour the water, and set the bread basket.
I don’t look at her face.
"Could you pass the butter, dear?"
I pass the butter.
"And the pepper. Thank you."
I pass the pepper.
"Could you refresh the wine?"
I refresh the wine.
Each request is pitched in the bright, performing voice. She watches me perform service like it's theater. Cade is at the head of the table with his glass in his hand and his eyes on her. He is not eating, and his jaw has not unclenched.
Fourth request.
"Could you bring me a napkin from the kitchen, sweetheart? Cloth ones. Not these."
Cade sets his glass down. "Lila."
"What? I asked nicely."
"Lila, you can serve yourself." He turns. "Suzanne, sit down."
"I'm fine."
"Sit. Down."
I sit.
The chair he gestures to is the one beside him, opposite Lila. I sit in it. I put my hands flat on my thighs under the table.
Lila's glass has stopped halfway to her mouth. She sets it down.
"Cade, what are you doing?"
"I'm asking my friend to sit down at my table."
"Your friend?"
"Yes, Lila. Do you have a problem with that?"
"Why are you doing this to me, Cade? After everything? After all this time? I’ve been waiting. I’ve been right here, I’ve been right in front of you, I’ve been…" She gestures at me. "And you’re choosing her."
"I’m not choosing anyone," Cade says calmly. "You’re the one acting like a brat. Get up. See yourself out."
"Cade… Cade. It's me. I — we — we have something. We've always had something. We're supposed to…"
"I won’t touch you with a ten-foot pole." The silence that follows has weight. "So stop asking."
She stares at him. "Cade, you don't — "
"And don't bother coming back. Don't call me. I'm sick of your petulant behavior, Lila. I’ve been sick of it for a long time. I thought I was being kind by not saying so. I’m done being kind."
"Cade…"
"I thought I made myself clear."
"You don't…"
"We're done."
She gasps.
She glances at me. The look is fast and ugly and not for me — it is for him, delivered through me — and she pushes back from the table, snatches her bag, and is in heels at the door before either of us has moved.
The door slams.
The silence after is very loud.
I sit still at the table, hands flat on my thighs, the slammed door's ring fading. We don't look at each other.
Her glass is still full. The bread hasn't been touched. Neither has the water I poured.
After a while, I unstick my hands from my thighs.
"I should go."
"Stay."
"Cade — "
"One minute. Please."
He moves to the chair across from me. He sits down, pours water into a glass, and pushes it across the table at me without asking. I drink half of it. My hand is steady. I wish the rest of me were.
"Eli Brandt got back to me."
"Who?"
"The gallerist. The first of the three I emailed about your work this morning.”
"What did he say?"
"He’s interested in your work. He'd like to meet you."
I'm quiet.
"There's a private viewing here at the Cresswell next Thursday. The Davies collection — emerging California painters. Brandt will be there. He suggested he could meet you there."
"Here?"
"Mhmm."
"In the hotel?"
"In the hotel."
I look at the water glass.
I can't imagine it — me, in the gallery space on the second-floor balcony of this hotel, in a dress, being introduced to a man as an artist instead of as the woman who scrubs the toilets on the eighth floor. This is so large that I can't look at it directly.
"Okay."
"Yes?"
"Okay. I'll have to be there anyway. Roger will definitely have me working."
“Do you want me to speak to him?”
“No. I can handle it.”
He watches me for the length of three breaths. "Are you okay?"
"Yes."
I am, mostly. I stand and turn toward the door, but he catches my wrist as I turn and pulls me back.
He kisses me — not gently, not carefully. I make a sound against his mouth I didn't plan. My hands reach his shirt before my mind catches up.
"I missed you," he says against my mouth.
"Me too."
His hand is at the back of my neck, then down my spine. My hands are on his shirt, then under it. The dining room is gone. The corridor is gone. The lobby, Roger, and Lila are all gone, and we are slowly walking backward toward the bedroom.
I push him through the doorway and onto the bed.
He sits.
I look down at him.
Then I see them on the nightstand beside the lamp, small and steel — the cuffs.
I don't know if he kept them on purpose, if a maid put them in a drawer and he put them back. If they were always in the drawer, or if he left them out for me. It does not matter.
I pick them up and look at him.
His eyes are on the cuffs, then on me, and his mouth opens and closes once. He lets me.
I cuff one wrist to the iron frame of the bed, I climb on top of him, and I take my time.
He is at my mercy, and he knows it.
The light moves across the room.
He says my name. He says it more than once. Suzanne… Suzanne… Suzanne… He says other things between my name. I want you. I need you. Stay. He says them low, into my hair, just below my ear at the base of my jaw, and I don't stop him from saying them.
I whisper the only thing I’ll tell him today against his lips.
"I know."