The Stand-In(11)

I texted Wei Fangli.

My body instinctively coils up tighter as I pinpoint my tragic error. Why didn’t I wait until the morning and sober reflection?

It’s too late now. I reach out and find my water bottle empty so I stumble through the dark apartment to fill it up. In the kitchen, I drink deeply, then refill the bottle and return to bed. My phone is lying facedown on the night table, and I grab it. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me; I only thought I sent the text.

Hotel Xanadu, Room 1573. Noon tomorrow. Wear a hat and sunglasses.

The text had been sent. The text has been answered. I’d put this in motion with wine courage. It’s only for more information, I argue with myself. I don’t have to take the deal. I can walk out at any time.

Right, that’s so like me.

I put the phone down and start an interior conversation I know will take me to dawn. It’s not so much a dialogue as it is my brain on a carousel circling through the same thoughts.

You don’t want to do this.

You must have wanted it if you sent the text.

You can say no. It’s not a blood contract.

Maybe it will be worth it. It’s a lot of money.

This is a bad idea. You don’t want this. This is a huge risk. Too many things can go wrong.

It’s not like things are going right at the moment.

What if you mess up? Everyone will know you’re an idiot. They’ll make fun of you and you’ll go viral and there’s no one you can turn to for help. You’ll never be able to go outside again, and every time you apply for a job and they search your name, they’ll find out and think you’re some desperate narcissistic poseur. Mom would be appalled if she knew you were contemplating sticking your head up like this. Who do you think you are?

The thoughts keep hammering me. In the end, it’s not dawn before I fall asleep. I don’t get back to sleep at all.





Five


At 11:50 a.m. the next day I do my best to swing into the Xanadu like I own the place. Although I know the hotel is one of the most exclusive in the city, I’m a little disappointed there’s no Olivia Newton-John memorabilia. The lobby is decorated with sleek black vases on spotless glass tables, each holding a single white poppy with a hot-pink stem. The faint, light smell of green tea and fig wafts through the space as an olfactory welcome.

As my heart thumps, I remind myself it’s only a hotel. I’ve been to a lot of hotels, including a honeymoon suite in Niagara Falls (not on a honeymoon) that had a heart-shaped red hot tub with short, curly hairs decorating the taps. But there’s no denying if I had to place the Xanadu and that tourist trap on a map, they would occupy diametric spaces.

I try to look like I belong as I search for the elevators, which I can’t find because the lobby has apparently been carved from a single slab of black marble traced with golden veins. I tilt down my sunglasses—I obeyed the disguise instructions, grateful because this wouldn’t have occurred to me at all—and assess the situation. A woman in a black suit, so slender she’s barely wider than her stilettoes, comes near me and I stop her.

“Sorry, can you tell me where the elevators are?”

She looks down her medically sculpted nose. “Do I look like the help?” Her voice is high and weedy.

Normally I’d crawl away and die after being given that look, but this time her attitude is like chewing on tinfoil. “Yes.” I glance at her projecting chest as though searching for a name tag. “Aren’t you Tracy? From the front desk.” Then I sidestep her and walk away, rejoicing in my single hit at the one percent. Eat the rich.

I eventually find the elevators at the back of the lobby near the recessed concierge desk. The elevators are black marble as well, and I spend the time going up to the fifteenth floor wondering if some poor sap spends their time polishing every square inch of this design nightmare. The walls shine like mirrors, reflective enough that I can take off my hat and give my hair a final fix.

The elevator doors silently open onto a monochrome-gray corridor with bronze sconces on the walls. My hand tightens on my purse, and I force my breath out through the lump in my chest. You don’t need to take any deals. This is an informational interview only.

I check the directions painted in script on the wall and find Room 1573 seven doors down to the left. My hand hovers near the peephole: I can knock or I can run.

The choice is taken from me when the door swings open to reveal a woman I don’t recognize. Her black hair is cut into a sleek bob that parts precisely in the middle to frame her face and swings forward when she nods at me. “Ms. Reed?”

“Yes.” I pull off my shades, and her eyes widen slightly as she gestures me in. I try to pretend this is nothing out of my ordinary, but this is no standard room. Every other place I’ve stayed has the closet to one side of the door, the bathroom on the other, and the bed in the room beyond placed on slightly stained industrial carpet, possibly with a faint pattern picked out in maroon. Here I stand on a thick, ivory-toned Persian rug laid over dark hardwood floors in a room larger than my whole apartment. A conversation zone of deep white-leather couches surrounds a large, glossy black coffee table. Floor-to-ceiling windows reveal the lake, and I can see the green trees of the Toronto Islands. The air is slightly perfumed with cedar from a line of flickering black-jarred candles lining the side table.

I do my best to not look flustered but I know the red is creeping up my neck from nerves.