The Dead Romantics (27)
“I dunno. I thought you were kind of cool in high school.” They leaned in, then, secret-like. “Could you really speak to the dead?”
“No,” I lied. “I just solved a murder. It was luck.”
“Still kinda rad.”
“And weird.”
“Weren’t we all? Anyway, you can have my favorite room—we call it the Violet Suite.”
I looked at the key, and the key chain that hung from it—a wooden violet. “Let me guess, there’s purple in the room?”
“Not as much as I’d like,” they replied indignantly. “Breakfast is in the morning from seven thirty until ten. I’ll be here all night, and John will be here in the morning—remember him? He was a few years younger than us. Scruffy guy, but he’s got a heart of gold once you get to know him.”
“Oh, right—you two got married.”
They wiggled their ring finger. It was a black band made out of meteorite. Of course they’d be cool like that. “Alas, off the market.”
“Well, congrats.”
They smiled. “Thanks! If you need anything, we’re the two you talk to.”
“Whatever happened to Mrs. Riviera?”
Dana gave a sad smile. “Oh, she passed a few years ago. Gave the whole damn inn to me.”
“Damn indeed,” I replied, startled. “Well—belated congrats again. The place looks great.”
“Didn’t think I’d stick around here for the rest of my life but . . .” They shrugged modestly, and sat back on their barstool again, absently opening their book to their bookmarked page. I caught a peek of the book—The Kiss at the Midnight Matinee. “Sometimes life takes you unexpected places. Let me know if you need anything, okay, hon?”
“Absolutely. Thank you.” I put the keys into my coat pocket, and rolled my suitcase over to the stairs. They weren’t as steep as the steps to my walk-up apartment, thank god, so I made it up to the second floor with my thighs of steel and rolled my suitcase down to the end of the hall. Each door had a cute little flower on it, carved into a plank of wood with an artistic hand, and they were all plants that could kill you. Oleander. Bloodroot. Foxglove. Iris. Marigold. Hemlock. The flower on the door at the end—the Violet Suite—was wolfsbane. I opened the door and, having not forgotten the crows perched on the roof, hesitantly peeked my head inside.
“Hello . . . ?” I whispered.
The room was dark, with only the golden glow from the streetlight on the sidewalk shining in through the window. There was no movement. No ghostly apparitions.
Coast was clear.
I flicked on the light beside the door and rolled my suitcase inside. The room was bigger than the one I paid for with blood and tears every month in Hoboken, New Jersey. There was a full bed big enough to fit me and all my baggage, a dresser, a floor-length mirror, and even a closet. There was a coffeepot on top of the dresser, and a boutique assortment of teas and instant coffees, as well as a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. The bathroom was beautiful, too, with a claw-foot tub and a large vanity. I was definitely going to take advantage of that. Traveling made me sore, and the stress from today had cramped my neck badly, and my orthopedic pillow was five hundred miles away. Dana was right, though; there wasn’t enough purple in a room they called the Violet Suite.
As I began to unpack my carry-on luggage, putting my underwear in the top drawer and hanging my black funeral dress in the closet, I honestly forgot about the crows on the roof. My hands were busy, and my head was—for the first time all day—mercifully blank.
And then I heard a noise.
I quickly grabbed my razor for defense—what could a razor do?—and rounded the bathroom doorway slowly.
“Hello?” I called hesitantly.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking for a six-foot-three romance editor in oxford leather loafers, argyle socks, a crumpled white shirt, and neatly pressed trousers. But there was no one in my hotel room.
“I’m losing it,” I muttered, and finished putting up my toiletries.
My dad was dead, and I didn’t need ghosts to complicate that. I didn’t need anyone to complicate that. My family was already complicated enough—never mind my history with Mairmont. If I started talking with ghosts again, I was sure to land in the Mairmont gossip circles within the week: “Did you hear, Florence is back and talking to herself again?”
Poor Florence and her imaginary friends.
Florence and her ghosts—
I swallowed the knot in my throat, and without saying another word, I turned off the lights and fell onto my bed and pulled the covers over my head.
All I could think of was how quiet the inn was, and how my thoughts were so loud against it, and how in New York I never had to hear silence. I never had to think about Mairmont, or the people here, or why I left.
For ten years, I hopped from one apartment to the next, chasing after a love story that wasn’t mine, trying to force myself to be the exception instead of the rule, and over and over again all I found was heartbreak and loneliness, and never once did I see a murder of crows in a dead oak tree, or a ghost on my front steps, because I was like everyone else, normal and lost, and my dad was still alive.
And just for a second—one second longer—I wanted to be that Florence, and live in that pocket of time again.