I walked back to the room, eyes on the patterned carpet. Moments later I heard her footsteps near the door and then she pushed it open slowly. She hesitated, looking at me like she wasn’t sure she could come in, and then she pushed on, walking in with a decidedly determined stride. She put her bag on the nightstand, and then turned to me and kissed me on the cheek.
A ripple of electricity travelled down my neck at the touch of her lips and the surprise threatened to melt away my irritation.
“Ready for dinner, darling?” her voice was light, the pet name sincere.
I wouldn’t buckle. She couldn’t just walk way and expect everything to be alright.
“Where were you?”
“I went for a drive.”
“That was an awfully long drive. You had me worried.”
“I had a lot to think about. And you were out with your friends. I didn’t think it would do any harm. How was it?”
“How was what?”my voice snapped at the end, the response out of place, but she didn’t even blink, just looked at me with those questions in her brilliant eyes, really wanting to know.
She was so calm, my demanding questions seemed ridiculous. I shifted my weight to the other leg, and looked out of the window for a moment, trying to buy a bit of time.
“Your hike, darling, did you enjoy it?”
“Yes,” I hesitated, feeling out of my depth, “it was alright. I didn’t know the guys, but it wasn’t bad.”
“Beautiful area, isn’t it? It felt like the trees would never end when I was driving.”
I sighed deeply, letting out the frustration along with it. She wasn’t going to fight with me, no matter how agitated I was. Who was this woman? Claire was always ready to pick a fight or take me up on one. Her lack of response made me feel a little unbalanced. Almost like when you’re expecting another step on a flight of stairs, but you’re at the top of it already.
“Shall we go downstairs? I’m starving,” she said, and tipped her head to the side a little. She hadn’t done that in years. It made her look curious, like a child almost, and it had been one of the cutest things about her when we’d first met. I glanced out the window again, feeling shaken up by her unexpected one-eighty in mood, and followed her to the door.
We sat at a table against the far wall of the dining room, and it felt oddly private, even though there were waiters and two of the other tables were occupied now by what I assumed were more guests that had arrived. Claire had her back to the wall, the way she liked it, so that she could look across the room, and I sat to her side, not opposite, so I wouldn’t block her view. It felt like it did at the beginning of our relationship. It felt like we’d been transported in time. Maybe this getaway was working after all.
“I don’t know what I’ll have,” she said, eyes travelling down the tall narrow menu.
“Why don’t you have pasta? You used to love pasta,” I looked at her.
“Too many carbs, I don’t want to go back to that size,” she didn’t look up.
“I married you that size…”
Her eyes slid to mine over the menu, and she shook her head slightly, her eyes saying a lot of things she’d apparently decided for her mouth not to. Then she looked down again.
I kept looking at her. Her almost black hair was coming out of her ponytail in soft wisps that curled around her face, and it made her milky skin look almost like porcelain. My heart constricted a little and I wished I could freeze moments like these so that I could revisit them when we fought and she was so intimidating that I couldn’t look at her without fear. I remembered calling her my Snow White, when I’d told my friends about her after we’d first met. The only difference between her and the fairytale were her thin pale lips. The monotone made her flashing green eyes that much more brilliant.
A waiter came and took our order, and she ran her finger around the top of the wine glass. Her hands were elegant, but the rhythm slowed, and she was lost somewhere between the small bubbles that floated to the top of her glass and a world that I was never allowed in anymore.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
She looked up, surprised, and nodded.
“You just seem distracted,” I tried again.
“It’s just been a long day,” she answered. It was a standard answer, and the square feeling that I always got when she shut me out of her life hit me full on.
The waiter came to refill my glass. I just reached over to the bread basket when he wanted to put it down and we collided, the wine pouring into my lap.
I jumped up, the cold sensation running down my legs and I swore under my breath. The waiter apologized profusely. Claire laughed, and the world stopped around me. I forgot about the cold wet patch around my crotch and the rivulets that ran down my leg with a sickening slowness, and the waiter disappeared somewhere into the distance as I listened to her laughter dancing around the room like chimes in the wind. I couldn’t remember when last I’d heard her laugh, and nothing else seemed important anymore.
Her phone beeped, and her hand shot into her purse. She pulled it out, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth but she didn’t give in.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s, uh,” she scrolled down, her attention still on the message, “Nora. From work.”
“Can’t they leave you alone for one second?” I felt anger push up into my throat. She was always on that damn phone for work, even on weekends. “You’re on leave, for God’s sake!”
“I know, sweetheart,” she said, still distracted, “but there’s a crisis at work.”
“And there’s no one else that can handle it?”
“You know I have to do it. I’m not the manager for nothing.”
“I don’t understand what kind of crisis can happen in office management that needs your attention right now.”
She looked up at me, her eyes dull again, but her voice was still calm when she spoke.
“I don’t understand your work, darling, I don’t expect you’ll understand mine either.”
Halfway through dinner her phone beeped again. I looked at it, and I wanted to ask her to switch it off, but she smiled outright this time. Her features lit up, her green eyes shimmering. Her whole face changed when she smiled. A pang of jealousy shot through my chest. Everyone else seemed to be able to make Claire smile, even work. Where have the days gone where I had been the only one that could get a genuine smile out of her? I couldn’t help but feel that I was married to a stranger, someone encased in glass and I was always at arm’s length. I wished I could just reach out and touch her, reach out and be reminded that I was in that glass casing with her, and the world couldn’t touch us.
Chapter Eight - Claire
I lay in the darkness, looking at the moonlight that filtered through the lace curtains in front of the window and cast dapples on the carpet. Andrew was snoring next to me; he’d been fast asleep for over an hour.
He’d bought the story about work. I’d been relieved. I hadn’t thought he would believe me after I grinned like that, but I hadn’t been able to help myself. I couldn’t remember the last time a message from a guy had made me feel butterflies in my stomach. Such a simple message. Thinking of your beautiful face. And then the second one I know it’s still the same day, and that’s not how you're supposed to play it, but meet me tonight? They sell orange juice during happy hour too.
I looked at the clock on the nightstand. He would be there now, waiting. I hadn’t replied, and I had every intention of standing him up. I had been at dinner with my husband when the message had come through. Giving him my number at all was wrong. ‘Right’ had stopped just after I had accepted the orange juice from him. It hadn’t even tasted nice, the pulp had been so thick, and I hated pulp.
I slid out from under the covers. Andrew had had a lot of wine at dinner, he wouldn’t wake easily tonight. I tiptoed to my bag and then to the bathroom, pulling on faded jeans and a light top. I left my hair loose. You look like you need to let your hair dow
n he’d said. Quietly I slipped out of the door and closed it behind me.
My heart was thumping in my throat, and I struggled a little to breathe as I snuck down the stairs, cringing every time they creaked under my weight. I walked down the drive way too fast, wanting to break into a jog. I shook my head at myself. I was sneaking out like some kind of criminal.
The bar was loud and cheerful, and I wondered that I hadn’t been able to hear the noise at the hotel. I looked around the place and he waved from the back. I smiled, fighting the urge to raise a hand to my hair, and made my way to the table.
“I was starting to think you’d stood me up,” he smiled at me, and I sank onto the bench opposite him.
“I’m sorry,” I took a deep breath, trying to balance myself in the middle of it all, “something came up. I’m here now.”
He lifted his hand to attract a waiter’s attention.
“An orange juice, then?” he was still looking at me,“Or are you going to opt for something with a little more clout?”
“I can’t stay long,” I said and hoped he wouldn’t ask why.
“Anything I can get is fine,” the skin around his eyes crinkled with his smile, his eyes searching for a waitress at the bar, his hand beckoning when he saw one.
I looked out of the window, and rested my hand on the phone in my pocket. A tight fist clenched in my stomach.What on earth would I tell Andrew if he woke up to find the bed empty next to him?
A pulpy orange juice in a faded glass ended up in front of me, and it didn’t look as unwelcoming as I thought it would. I looked up into the dancing flecks of gold in his brown eyes. He leaned on his elbows on the rough table and studied my face like it was a piece of art.
I felt my cheeks grow hot and turned my eyes away, trying to hide my foolish reaction to something so simple.
“You’re really beautiful, you know,” he said.
“You really shouldn’t say that,” I quickly took a sip of my orange juice.
“Naah ...come on, you can’t tell me you don’t think it’s true. I’m an honest man, ma’am, and if I see a pretty girl it’s my duty to tell her.”
I laughed, and the tight fist in my stomach suddenly let go.
He was a carpenter, and everything about him was simple and straight forward.
“Have you always wanted to be a carpenter?” I asked.
“I don’t know, did you always want to be an office manager? Did you envision it as a kid?”
I laughed.
“I don’t know. I always knew I wanted to excel, get out of the hole I was stuck in and make something of my life. I don’t think I specifically meant for back office work to be the thing to get me there though.”
“Well, same here, I guess. My dad owned the business, and I always knew I would take it over. There wasn’t really any chance for wanting anything when I already had it.”
“But you had to have wanted something? When you were younger?”
“Not really, I wanted to make my dad proud.”
“Are you?”
He looked amused and then stared into his beer.
“Actually, no. He made decorative furniture. The stuff where woodwork is an art. I'm a framing carpenter. It’s no art, and he doesn’t think it’s worth my talent, but the money's O.K.”
“Is that important to you?”
“Not really, but neither is making something pretty for next to nothing. What have you always wanted?”
I had to think about that for a while. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked me that, and it caught me off guard.
“I don’t know what I wanted. I wanted a family. That I remember.”
“And? What happened?”
I sighed.
“I stopped believing in fairytales. I grew up.”
I was having fruit juice, but there was something intoxicating about the night. My head was light, the room around me felt like it was tilting just a little, and when we walked out into the chill of the early morning air, hours later, my feet were light on the stained carpet.
I was almost at the door when eyes burned into me, and I turned my head to look into a pair of black eyes in an arrogant face. It took me two seconds to shift through every face I’ve met recently before I realized that Gavin, from reception, was looking at me with a well-look-what-we-have-here look. My stomach turned heavily and I felt like I might be choking. I turned my head away, careful to keep my face expressionless, and took the last steps toward the door.
We stopped under the faded sign that I still couldn’t make out. The music drifting from inside had switched from upbeat to soothing, but my mind was racing, keeping up with the beat of my heart. The smell of second-hand smoke clung to my three-quarter sleeves and the hair that swayed around my face in the breeze.
Peter stepped a half-step closer to me, and my heart beat faster. My mind whirred with the many different things that were right and wrong about a night where I snuck out on my husband to meet a stranger in a bar, and his new friend had seen me. He was close to me now and he smelled a bit of tobacco although I hadn’t seen him smoking, and something warm and tangy that made me feel disoriented and dizzy, all the questions and panic fading away into an almost forgotten distance. He was a lot taller than me and his closeness made me feel safe somehow, the warmth bouncing off his body almost an invitation for me to step in closer too.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice low and smooth.
“I had a good time,” I was still shy. I couldn’t get over it. I couldn’t remember ever being shy with Andrew. Something in my chest tugged a little at the thought of him.
Peter lifted his hand to my face and with two fingers slowly drew a line down my cheek, pulling the strands of hair away from my face. His eyes were serious now, the golden flecks loaded with meaning, and he leaned in closer.
Little explosions erupted in my stomach, and his fingers left a trail of fire down my cheek. Whatever was still in my mind disappeared then. My breath caught in my throat when his face was only inches from mine. There was a moment, the smallest fraction of a second, where there was still a chance for me to change the direction of my life. But his lips were right there, so perfectly smooth and not too thin even though he was a man, and his golden eyes were looking into mine with a question that was more out of courtesy than uncertainty.
Then his lips were on mine, warm in contrast to the cold skin on his cheeks and electricity travelled through my body. A warm wave of something delicious followed and my fingertips went numb before I lifted them to his jaw. It didn’t last long, he pulled away, and looked around at the empty parking spaces. I felt like gravity had abandoned me.
“You don’t have your car?” he asked as if the world hadn’t just been recreated, and I shook my head, my tongue still tied somewhere between the butterflies that were causing havoc in my stomach.
“You’re walking?” he asked.
“It’s not far,” my voice sounded a little breathless and I looked down the road in the direction of the hotel, hoping he wouldn’t see my cheeks. They were burning, I knew they would be bright red.
“Let me walk you.”
He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and we walked together towards the hotel. My mind was spinning. My lips tingled where his had touched mine, and I hunched my shoulders against a cold breeze I almost didn’t feel. Facts about how unavailable I was started pulling at my conscience, but I furiously pushed them away, determined not to let it ruin the last couple of steps I had left before I knew I would have to wake up from the best dream I’d ever had.
We walked under the dark canopy that the trees created over our heads, the rustling of the leaves accompanying our silence. He walked next to me, his arm close but not touching mine, his hands safely hidden in his own pockets. I was relieved I wouldn’t have to figure out the question to holding my hand on top of everything else.
Before we rounded the last bend that hid the hotel from view I stopped.
“I’ll be fine from he
re,” I said softly, and he turned to me.
“When can I see you again?”
I hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
He looked at me, his face hanging between a smile and a frown, and I hated what would have to come. But he didn’t give me a chance to form the words my insides didn’t want to admit to.
“I’ll see you soon.”
He lifted his hand and held my chin between his thumb and forefinger for a second, tilting my head into the warmth of his smile before he turned and walked back down the drive way.
I sighed, waiting for him to disappear around the next bend before I turned and walked to the hotel.
The room was lighting up with the hint of dawn. Andrew was still asleep, lying on his back with his mouth open. I changed quietly and packed my smoky clothes into my bag. Then I crept into bed next to him, and curled on my side. I ran my fingers lightly over my lips, and my stomach fluttered again at the thought of his eyes boring into mine, asking me for something without a doubt of what the answer would be.
Chapter Nine - Andrew
“Do you have a minute? I was wondering if I could talk to you.”
I was standing in Olivia’s room. The smell that lingered in the air tickled my nose and I fought the urge to rub it while I was talking to her.
She looked at me through the mirror she was standing in front of. Her eyes were as dull and lifeless as her expression. I’d never liked this woman. She always made me feel uncomfortable even when she did absolutely nothing. And her perfume irritated me like an allergy.
DECEPTION HOTEL: A Wedding, an Affair, and Murder for Hire Page 4
