The Elizas: A Novel(35)
The lobby is sparse this time of day. Sounds echo off the high ceiling. I close my eyes, enjoying the public bustle. I like that workers at a hotel have to be friendly and accommodating at all times. Like, if you have a meltdown in the lobby, someone at the front desk will hurry to your side and give you a glass of wine. A little kid plunges her hand into a basket of potpourri at the desk, and no one says anything. A man in a suit, perhaps a manager, notices me and gives me a wink. There’s something about his expression—or maybe being in a hotel, period, with its clean smell and sexy lighting scheme—that gives me a flutter of déjà vu, and then a bolt of terror. I look at this man again, certain he’s someone nefarious. He has already turned away.
Then I hear a voice. It’s golden-toned and snarky as it snakes across the lobby. I turn in the direction of the sound as someone stands. He’s got a shock of red hair, a large head, and a long, skinny body. The voice belongs to a boy-man on his cell phone. His walk is loping and bobbing, like a goose—but it’s a walk I’ve seen before. If my brain could vibrate, it would right now.
I know him. I just don’t know why.
I’m so startled I lurch back, banging hard into a table containing pamphlets for things to do in LA.
“Are you all right?” an older lady in a puffy-paint cat sweatshirt cries behind me.
I give her a distracted smile. My gaze returns to the redhead by the couch. Part of me wants to walk over there so he can see me, but being that I can’t place how I know him, maybe that’s a bad idea. I slink along the wall and settle into a chair that’s significantly closer to him. I tuck my head into my neck like a pigeon and ball up my body so he’ll pay me no mind. My hope is that proximity will spark something in my memory.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he murmurs into the phone. “It’s going to be fine.”
He plops back on the couch and puts his feet up on the coffee table. Rude, I think. I used to know someone who did that: Who? He has a mildewed laundry/male hormone smell billowing around him: unwashed clothes, dorm rooms, sex. My stomach twists.
“I don’t think the cops will ask anything,” he goes on. “I mean, why would they ask you? And you don’t need to bring up Eliza or Palm Springs.”
What?
A cold blast of air from the AC wafts up my shirt, only adding to my chill. The guy stands up again, and I look away, feeling caught, feeling visible. Amazingly, though, he doesn’t seem to see me. “Don’t stress about it, then. Anyway, it might blow over. They haven’t called you yet, right? They might not call.” A long pause. “Well, I can talk you through things to say, things that won’t make them ask more questions.”
Abruptly, he walks away from the couch nook and heads for the revolving doors to the street. I sit up straighter in my chair. Fumble for my phone. Still puzzled as to who he is, I snap a picture of his profile. As I slip it back into my pocket, he’s gone. How has he moved so quickly?
I spring up. The revolving doors are just ahead, but there are a bunch of tourists in front of me, some going in, some going out, and I have to let all of them go first. After a lot of bumbling suitcases and shopping bags and a fold-up stroller that comes unfolded inside the revolving door, after two teenagers chewing sugary-scented gum and a woman who literally stands right in front of me but doesn’t push the door to move, I step outside. The air smells like exhaust and Chanel perfume. The Walk of Fame, visible to my right, is madness: church groups in matching Tshirts, dirty college kids, pretty girls in short skirts and big sunglasses, mothers with babies strapped to their chests. I don’t see a redhead anywhere. I stand on my tiptoes. He can’t have gone far. If I could even see the top of his head, I’d know which direction to go. But it’s like he’s disappeared into a hole in the ground. My ears are still ringing. My body is slick with sweat. What did I just hear? How can I just be standing here, doing nothing?
The revolving door spins again, and three kids scurry out, knocking into me. I wheel back, and my bag upends, spilling onto the ground. “Oh,” their mother says, hurrying behind them as they run toward the street. “God, I’m sorry. They’re animals.”
She crouches to help me to pick up the Kleenex, wallet, and mascara that have tumbled out of the bag. “I’m fine. It’s fine,” I say, and she leaves. A copy of The Dots has fallen out, too; I placed it in my bag before I left today. The book has fallen onto a stack of rental property leaflets, upside down as compared to the rest of the titles. It reminds me of when a tarot card reader lays down a card inverted. I pick it up, wondering if, like a tarot card, the pages inside reflect the opposite message of what I originally wrote. I crack the spine and read a few sentences toward the end. And actually, it does seem to have worked. It’s Dot who’s acting like a monster, Dorothy the martyr. It’s incredible how language can turn in on itself so easily, containing so many different meanings.
“There you are.”
Kiki blusters through the double doors, now clad in a puffy-paint cat sweatshirt, too. She stops when she sees my face, her cheeks going pale. “What’s the matter?”
I look at her blankly, my throat dry. I call up the picture I just took on my phone. It shows the redhead, his chin jutting, his hair in his face, his eyes wide, two dirty skater shoes splayed out pigeon-toed. “Do we know this person?”
Kiki studies the screen, then searches my face. Her throat bobs as she swallows. “Eliza.” She speaks very carefully. “Eliza, that’s Leonidas. I’m pretty sure he used to be your boyfriend.”