Chapter 7 Luisa #2
She digs into her purse, nervously pulls out a package of crackers, then rips the foil open, sending crumbs flying everywhere.
“What am I gonna do?” she blurts out, nibbling on broken pieces of cracker that have landed on her chest. “I can’t start all over again from nothing.
Once should be enough. Shouldn’t it?” Her cheeks go pale as her hand suddenly drops to clutch her stomach.
She sucks in a gulp of air before announcing, “I think I’m gonna be sick again. ”
She rushes past me, hitting the round table on the way and almost knocking down the giant flower arrangement.
I catch it in the nick of time, then follow her into a well-stocked vanity room, like something from the Regency era.
Her knees hit the tile floor of one of the floor-to-ceiling stalls, as her arms wrap around the toilet seat and her head sinks inside the bowl to retch.
I move to hold her hair, stroking circles around her back, like Carola did with me so many times during my college years.
“You’ll feel better after you get it all out,” I say gently. When she’s finished, I let go of her hair and flush the toilet. She leans against the stall, eyes closed, breathing hard, legs splayed on the cold tiles. I step back, giving her some space, debating what to do next.
“Are you a new member?” She opens her eyes to take me in.
“You’ve been so nice. I’m so, so sorry,” she blubbers, pulling way too hard on a too-long thread of toilet paper that she uses to wipe her face.
“Please don’t tell anyone you found me this way.
I promise it’s never happened in the eighteen years I’ve worked here. ”
“Wait, you work here?” I ask, reaching down with one hand to help her stand. She staggers toward a vanity and plops on top of a stool, which incidentally is also upholstered in faded fabric. What’s with this place?
I sit beside her, rummaging through the free toiletry basket in search of makeup remover.
The woman looks like a rabid raccoon. I fish around an absurd selection of hand lotion, toothbrushes, tampons, breath mints, and chocolates wrapped in royal-blue foil stamped with the Dogwood Hills coat of arms. I unwrap one and put it in my mouth.
Dammit to hell, it’s a little morsel of heaven.
Fucking rich people always hoard all the best things for themselves—first the saltines and now the chocolates. Where does it end?
“I’m the events manager,” Holly says. “It’s supposed to be my day off.”
God, this is worse than I imagined. This affair could bring her career to a dead end. And maybe even her livelihood. The women always pay the price of the affair. The men wear it like a badge of honor.
Against my better judgment, I feel a protective, sisterly instinct kick in as I hand her a brush and some makeup remover, then pull a scrunchie out of the backpack I use on assignments—used to use, anyway.
“He’s got this hold over me,” she says quietly, unwilling to lift her head enough to glance at her reflection in the mirror. “He will ruin my son’s life. I know he will.”
I manage to press my lips shut before the next logical question can burst out of me: Does she have a child with that man?
“I just don’t know how we will ever extricate ourselves from that man,” she whispers.
That makes two of us, I want to say.
A loud bang rips through the silence we’ve fallen into. It’s followed by a violent rattling of the door handle. “Please open this door,” a man’s booming voice orders from the hallway.
“I can’t even drive myself home,” Holly says, her voice exhausted.
I decide to ignore the Open this door right now! command and try my luck with a door at the far end of the room.
“That’s the service door,” Holly remarks, dejected. She rests one elbow on the counter, then squeezes her temples between her thumb and index finger. “I’m so screwed. Everyone will know.”
I peer out the door, which seems to shoot into a hallway near the kitchen. “Can you get us to the parking lot?” I ask, collecting our bags, then pulling Holly up to stand. She nods.
We make our way through the kitchen, dodging cooks and waiters.
I only slow down at the sight of those buttery crackers, wishing I had time to ask for the recipe.
Within seconds, we burst out of the service exit and into the pollen-covered parking lot, a by-product of the neighboring park’s hundreds of April-blooming dogwoods.
“Thank God,” Holly exclaims, swallowing a gulp of fresh air.
“Come on—” I force her to keep moving, away from this place. “I’ll drive you home.”
In the car, Holly pulls up her home address and gives me her phone. It takes precisely two minutes after we leave the Dogwood Hills Country Club for her to pass out.
I wind through the tree-lined streets of the Midtown Garden District, driving by a few 1970s-style brick apartment complexes, left over from Atlanta’s brief period of white flight to the suburbs, and pull up to her address.
The house is one of those slightly run-down Penn Avenue craftsman bungalows, split into four apartments.
The property is surrounded by fully renovated American foursquares—tasteful, bespoke, ungodly expensive.
Old Money meets Garden District meets Gay District in all its cultured, sophisticated, fabulous glory.
I pull over, then save my contact information in her phone, and nudge her awake.
“I saved my number in your contacts,” I say, handing her the phone. “Griggs Johnson has a few other secrets I think you should know.”
“Other secrets?” she mutters, still half-asleep.
I sigh. “Aside from—” You, I want to say. “He has some… business secrets,” I tell her instead. “I may be able to help you and your son. Let’s talk when you’re—you know, not drunk.”
Holly nods, her cheeks burning red.
“Call me when you’re ready.”