Florida(33)

When a kind of night fell over the afternoon, she felt desperate and tied a plastic shopping bag over her head and wore the only trench coat she’d brought, because it was supposed to be summer in the Southern Hemisphere, after all. She ran, holding her shoes, to the convent-cum-fine-hotel at the end of the street. At the very last second, the bellhop opened the door for her and she burst into the lobby, laughing and shaking the water from her yellow hair and untying the plastic bag from her head in a vast gold-framed mirror. This was much better, she thought as she surveyed the hotel with its jungle of plants and woodwork, then checked her hair and makeup. She was flushed and very pretty. She slid on her shoes, and the bellhop gave her a little applause and gestured to the fire.

But she shook her head and went over to the bar, which was normally too expensive for her. The storm had kept her in the night before and she couldn’t give a fig for budget; she needed to make up for lost time and her sort of businessman frequented this kind of hotel. She caught her breath and sipped her Scotch and watched the display behind the bar, blue-lit bubbles in some kind of oil, rising with preposterous slowness.

There was a pair of American men who smiled back at her, but who were joined instantly by their wives in print dresses. She winked at an old fellow who looked alarmed and tottered away; she slowly put on a coat of lipstick in the direction of a Japanese businessman who had eyes only for his computer. There was no one else, and the bartender was a woman. Helena ordered a hamburger with a luxurious heap of fried onions and gorgonzola on it, and ate it slowly in neat bites, watching the doorway where nobody came in.

The lights flickered and went out, but there were candles on the table in a soft constellation. She watched the bartender light more until the room was again twilit.

She felt full of frantic energy by the time she had finished her food, but from the deafening sound of the rain outside, it was going to be a dud night. Nobody in his right mind would go out in such weather. Reluctantly, in the light from the fire and the scattered candles, Helena tied the shopping bag over her head again and slid on her unpleasantly soaked trench coat. At the door, however, the bellhop shook his head and said, No, no, miss! and waved his arms.

I know it’s storming, but my apartment is literally fifty feet away, she said, touched by his distress. She tried to show him through the glass, but the rain was so thick and the night so dark that the world melted away a foot from where they stood. She grinned at him—he was cute, big-eared; in such a pinch he would do—but he only turned toward the reception desk and called out something. A woman rushed over. She was tall, a German Brazilian, Helena thought, with hazel eyes and long streaked hair, and Helena felt a warm burst of hatred rise in her, for the woman was more beautiful than Helena had ever been, even in her prime.

Miss, the woman said. We cannot let you go. It is a tremendous rain. With winds. What is the word?

Not a hurricane, Helena said. There are no hurricanes in the South Atlantic. She knew this because her mother had fretted, and Helena had found the entry on Brazil in the old set of encyclopedias to put her mind at ease.

Well, the woman said, shrugging. But even if it is only a storm, you must stay.

Helena explained again about the apartment, so few feet away, and suggested that she bring the bellhop with her, glancing under her lashes at him, wondering if he’d take the hint. But he took a step backward, and there was such terror on his pale little face that she laughed. I’ll be all right, she said.

Stay, the woman said. I will give you a room for half price.

Helena felt herself flushing, but said, Which is?

The woman said a price that was the cost of the entire month of her apartment’s rent. Too much, Helena said.

Quarter price, the woman said in distress. I am not authorized to go more low.

Thank you, Helena said. I’ll be all right. She took off her shoes, snatched open the door, marched out, and immediately knew that she had made a mistake.



* * *



—

The wind carried her breath from her mouth, the rain pounded into her eyes, and Helena stepped back until she felt the hotel’s stucco under her hand. She couldn’t see the doorway or the rug she had just been standing on, and she was able to breathe only when she made a windbreak of the crook of her elbow. She was not one to go back, though, not ever. Her place was a few steps away; it had taken her a minute, at most, to run here barefoot a few hours earlier. She dropped her shoes and felt her way painstakingly over the curve of the old convent to the wrought-iron fence around the courtyard. Here, it was slightly easier because she pulled herself hand over hand like a sailor up a mast, until she reached the next stucco texture, the next building.

By the time she got to this building’s doorway, she was weeping. She stopped and pressed her body against the glass and tried the door, but it was either locked or the wind was holding it shut. She breathed for a while in the lee of a mailbox until she stopped crying, and wiped her swollen eyes, and started out again. Stupid woman, she said to herself. Stupid, foolish, terrible woman. You deserve what you get.

She inched forward. There were three more doors, she thought, before her own wrought-iron gate that swung inward, that the wind would whip open as soon as she tried it, and pull her inside the courtyard, home. Or maybe four doors; she couldn’t quite remember, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t paid much attention before now.

But before she was even to the third door, she tripped over something and went sprawling and felt the skin of her knee open painfully. She curled into a ball to gather her strength and lay there, crying with anger and exhaustion. She was alone and she conceded to her aloneness, she would always be alone, she would always be in these puddles that grew even as she lay in them. For a very long time, she lay there, and it wasn’t terrible, despite the wind and rain upon her. It was only blank.