The Chelsea Girls(100)

When she was writing the first draft of Wartime Sonata, a walk by the water always helped her overcome whatever obstacle was bothering her, whether a weak plot point or a particular turn of phrase that needed to be fine-tuned. She’d enjoyed those early, quiet days in the hotel, when she felt she was part of something larger. A ship, Wanda or Winnifred had called it. A ship of fools, maybe, but at least they were trying to achieve something great, even if everyone was rowing in a different direction.

That was when she’d soared. Poor Maxine—and how strange that Hazel was already forgiving her, a tiny, tiny bit, imagining the terror she’d gone through at the hands of that brute Arthur—never had that chance. She’d never found her own center, always struggling to please everyone around her. Hazel’s lingering jealousy and resentment of Maxine’s success were slowly chipping away, like flakes of marble from a statue. In spite of it all, Hazel’s moral center had held, and she’d stayed true to her beliefs and values when so many others hadn’t. Just as Maxine had remarked last night.

Approaching Eighth Avenue, Hazel considered what forgiveness might look like. Could she forgive a friend who had ruined her, all in the guise of protecting her?

It hadn’t been a guise. Maxine’s whimpered pleas last night, with the party raging below them, came from a dark, dreadful place. She’d done some terrible things—no doubt Charlie could set Hazel straight on that front once they were done interrogating her—but she’d gotten tangled in the machinery of an organization that was much stronger than she was.

Outside the hotel, an ambulance had pulled up to the curb, and Hazel’s heart flipped. Over the past several years, she’d gotten used to seeing the elderly residents being trundled into the back of an ambulance and never reappearing. Give it a few decades and she would be the one being transported off to an old folks’ home, having fallen and broken a hip, losing her dignity and independence in one fell swoop. But right now, her first concern was Lavinia.

The front door opened and a stretcher appeared, the body on it covered with a blanket. Behind the stretcher walked a young man in a leather jacket, next to a woman with frizzy curls.

Hazel stopped them. “Do you know who it is?”

The woman snapped her gum. “It was one of the transients, not a permanent. Someone who was only here for the night.”

Relief settled through Hazel. Another drug addict, probably. Last year, a drug dealer had been shot dead on the fourth floor. Stanley denied it ever happened. If anyone asked, he said the man they’d seen slumped in the stairway in a pool of blood had just been taking a nap, before quickly changing the subject.

“Someone famous,” offered the woman.

The man looked annoyed. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

“Did they say who?” Hazel asked.

“Hmmm.” The woman considered the question, much to the irritation of the man. “She was an actress from the 1950s.” She looked at her boyfriend. “What was her name?”

He shrugged and stared off down the street.

Her face lit up with a dopey joy. “I remember, it was Trixie something.”

A shiver ran through Hazel.

Now the man was engaged. “No, stupid. Her name was Maxine.”

“Whatever.” The woman turned back to Hazel. “I saw her sitting here in the lobby last night, just hanging out. At, like, four in the morning. So sad.”

Hazel’s breath came in short gasps, she struggled for air. It couldn’t be possible. Maxine was downtown, with Charlie. The ambulance had already pulled away. Hazel rushed inside the hotel, almost slipping on the floor as she made the sharp turn into Stanley’s office.

The radiator hissed with steam in the too-warm room. Stanley was behind his desk, rifling through a drawer. He looked up when she came in and from the expression on his face, she knew it was true.

“What happened?”

“I didn’t even know she’d checked back in until this morning. The police said they found an empty pill bottle by her bed. This is terrible. The hotel will get a macabre reputation. I’m trying to make this into a decent, respectable residence, and now this. How could Maxine have done this to me?”

Hazel knew the answer. As she spoke, her voice broke.

“She wanted to come home.”

Hazel waited up on the roof for Charlie, shaking. He’d called soon after she’d arrived back at her room and she’d told him the reason Maxine had never shown up to her appointment. After hanging up, she had to get out of this room, where every corner held some memory of Maxine, dancing around with a martini glass in hand or pacing back and forth as she ran her lines, stamping a foot whenever Hazel corrected her or had to give her a cue. “Really, this script is terrible,” she’d joke. “God knows where they found this playwright.”

The memories crashed down on her. The two of them, in the ruins of Naples. Backstage at the Biltmore. In the safety of the Chelsea, where Maxine had found her final refuge.

The night before, while Hazel had been upstairs, staring up at the water-stained ceiling and trying to sleep, Maxine had been sitting down in the lobby. Had she approached the desk clerk to ask him to ring up, but then decided not to? If only Hazel had known.

Charlie burst through the roof door. Hazel ran to him, sobbing.

“We killed her.”

“No. She made some terrible decisions, one after another. Including taking her own life.”