“Okay, I’ll text if I have any questions. Stay by your phone.”
“I will. Thanks so much, Tara.”
“No problem. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Rosalie hung up, satisfied for the first time with how a phone conversation with Tara had gone. Maybe they were better suited as friends.
But she was unsettled that her mother was staying in her apartment without telling her. She was about to call Marisol when she thought better of it. She already felt like she was hanging by a tenuous thread, and talking to her mother wouldn’t help. She could call the next day, and it would make no difference. Marisol rarely had time to talk to her anyway. She justified her lack of action further by thinking at least someone was looking after her place. She’d prepaid her rent for two months before she left, so it didn’t matter if Marisol was there. She texted her mom that Tara was going to box up her stuff and said nothing more, instead researching shipping companies to pick up and deliver the remnants of her life in Philadelphia to Ashhawk.
The bells on the door sounded, and Rosalie looked up, relieved to see it was Alex. She felt her body exhale, forgetting the strangeness of her mother living in her apartment. She could start the next few hours over fresh if she wanted to.
“Hey,” Alex said, breezing inside as an unself-conscious smile crept across her face.
“Hey,” Rosalie said. She recognized it as her natural voice, the one that didn’t conceal her tiredness or frustration for the sake of politeness as she did most of the time.
“What’s up?” Alex gestured toward the desk before scratching her nose and letting her hand hang loose at her side.
“Just lots of people coming in and out.”
Alex gave a distracted nod. “Seems like you could use a vacation.”
“You have no idea,” Rosalie grumbled. She hadn’t had a day off since she’d arrived in Ashhawk five weeks prior. She felt charred at the ends, as though the desert would start to blow bits of her away at any moment.
“I know you usually don’t want to do stuff when I invite you out, but I want you to come to Malcolm’s place in a few weeks. It’s one of his famous men’s weekends. I promise it’ll be fun.”
“I don’t mean to always turn you down,” Rosalie said, cringing with guilt.
Alex nodded, her expression conveying she was still uncertain. “If you can get Shelley or Susan to cover for you, I think you’d have a good time.”
Knowing Alex was looking out for her in a way no one else did, Rosalie decided she should seize the opportunity to get out of Ashhawk.
“What weekend was that?” she asked, opening her calendar.
“Last weekend of July,” Alex said, grinning at Rosalie’s apparent receptiveness to her invitation.
“I’ll call Shelley right now,” Rosalie said, reaching for her phone.
Alex rapped her knuckles against the counter in excitement.
“Maybe throw in an extra night here for her and Bobby to entice her.”
Rosalie nodded and mouthed Good idea over the receiver. She knew Shelley was desperate to get some alone time with Bobby away from her drunk father.
Alex rapped on the counter two more times in quick succession, then stood back, signaling she was heading out to continue working on something.
****
When Alex returned fifteen minutes later, she lifted her eyebrows. “What’s the word?”
“Looks like you’re gonna have to put up with me for two full days.”
Alex’s face jumped in a look of happy surprise. “Really?”
“Yep.” Rosalie felt excitement flowing through her. She couldn’t wait to get out of Ashhawk.
“Awesome.” Alex leaned onto the counter as though she hadn’t left. There was an easy familiarity to her posture. “So I had a thought,” Alex said. “I know we’ve got a big list of expensive things to do, but I was wondering what you thought of taking down the wallpaper and repainting some of the rooms to update the color scheme. After I fix another godforsaken sink.”
“The rooms need updating beyond the color scheme,” Rosalie grumbled.
“But this’ll do until you have money to overhaul the place,” Alex said.
Rosalie chewed on the idea. There was no reason not to make the rooms look nicer, and Alex’s labor was dirt cheap now that she was working in partial exchange for housing.
“Sure, paint away,” Rosalie said.
“What color do you want?”
“Whatever you want. Do you need me to write a check for the paint place?”
“You trust me to pick the color of the rooms? What if I pick burnt orange?”
“You wouldn’t.”
Alex hesitated. “Come with me,” she said, as though promising to make their outing fun.
“I’m chained to this desk.” Rosalie gestured with open palms to the plane before her.
Alex gestured with her thumb over her shoulder. “I think Susan needs a few minutes off her feet.”
Even if going to the paint store wasn’t a barrel of laughs, it was more fun than sitting in the lobby. Alex went outside to call out to Susan, who was sitting in an old, rickety chair smoking a cigarette. Rosalie picked up her purse and shut down her laptop, making sure everything Susan might need was in place. Alex stepped back into the lobby to wait for Rosalie, and as Rosalie walked toward her, Rosalie’s gaze fell to the carpet and its ugly, worn cattle brand pattern. She wondered what kind of carpet company would make a fabric so hideous.
“I hate this carpet,” Rosalie mumbled. “It’s so ugly.”
Alex smirked and held the door open for Rosalie. “Yeah, I’m not sure why anyone thought it would be a good design choice.”
“Gran made a lot of bad choices.” Rosalie sighed. “Like leaving this place to me.”
“You’re doing fine,” Alex said.
Rosalie shrugged, not willing to admit aloud she was at least doing a decent job of keeping operations going. Guests had plenty of complaints, but Rosalie always responded quickly, throwing in extra coupons for the local pizza place or tickets for an ice cream cone across the street. Rosalie could handle the comings and goings of the guests and the residents, provided Alex and Shelley and even Susan were around to help.
“Where’s the paint store?” Rosalie asked, pointing to her car, indicating she would drive.
“Next town over,” Alex said, curling around the car to get into the passenger’s seat.
Rosalie adjusted her sunglasses as she climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car.
As she pulled out of the parking lot, trying to ignore the depressed buildings around her, Alex studied the interior of the car.
“Estelle did a nice job keeping this thing clean,” Alex said.
“She didn’t drive it much. I rarely do.”
“Happens when you live at work, I guess.”
Rosalie was all too aware of the benefits and drawbacks—mostly drawbacks—of living at work.
When they neared the next town, Alex directed Rosalie to the paint store. They pulled into the parking lot, and Rosalie noticed as Alex got out of the car she adopted a bravado Rosalie hadn’t seen before. She wondered if this was a way of Alex indicating the paint store was her domain, an air of comfortable sovereignty. Her widened stance made Rosalie wonder again if she liked girls and if the people around her knew she liked girls. Was Rosalie being implicated by association? Would the men inside the paint shop assume she and Alex were a couple? Or was she taking her curiosity to ridiculous lengths during a simple errand to get paint?
Alex held the door for Rosalie and ushered her to the corner of the store where chips were stacked in ascending slots. She studied them, arms crossed over her chest. She was acutely aware of two men behind the counter, idly leaning against it, studying them. Rosalie wondered if they knew Alex.
Alex turned to Rosalie. “What do you think?”
Rosalie shrugged. “Looks like paint chips.”
“Maybe we should take a few back
and see if they look good with the current fixtures.”
“Sure,” Rosalie said, eager to get out of the store and away from the scrutiny of the men.
Alex gathered some paint chips and tapped them into a neat stack in her hand. She nodded toward the men as they left the shop, climbing back into Rosalie’s car and speeding back toward Ashhawk.
“You okay?” Alex asked once they were back on the near-deserted highway.
“Yeah,” Rosalie said, hoping it didn’t sound clipped.
Rosalie contemplated the paint store and how familiar Alex seemed with it. Rosalie didn’t have an equivalent domain. She withered in the lobby, pouted in her room, and cried behind the hotel with the small gray cat. She wanted somewhere she was queen.
Perhaps it was all in the attitude. If she could adopt any fraction of bravado, if she could fake authority, she would feel better.
When they got back to the hotel, Rosalie turned to Alex and said, “I want to fill the pool.”
Alex looked surprised. “Did you check with your insurance?”
Rosalie nodded. Gran had been paying liability insurance to have a pool and slide for however long the pool had been empty, another sign of her mismanagement.
“It’s dumb to have it sitting there like a tease for everyone who checks in. The website advertises a pool, so it should probably be functioning.”
“Probably,” Alex agreed. “Is the new website bringing in more reservations?”
“Some, yeah. Occupancy is up about twenty percent.”
“That’s great,” Alex said, displaying rare excitement. “You should be proud.”
Rosalie shrugged. It was hard to feel proud of anything lately.
“Want me to get the chemicals?”
“Sure. How do we fill the pool?”
“Put a hose in there and let it run. Probably overnight,” Alex said.
Ten minutes later, Alex had helped Rosalie get a hose out of the shed and attach it to the poolside spigot. They draped the hose over the lip of the pool and turned it on. It sputtered and gagged for a few seconds, sending a few bursts of water into the overheated blue pit. Rosalie saw steam where it hit the plaster. Finally, the stream steadied, and they were left watching the paint at the bottom of the pool darken in spots where the water hit it. The pit seemed enormous, as though it would take weeks to fill.
Yet they both stood there watching. After a few minutes, Alex looked around. “As thrilling as this is, I should probably go get those chemicals.”
Rosalie nodded, heading back into the lobby to coordinate the shipping of her possessions from Philadelphia.
****
Rosalie managed to avoid calling her mother for several days. Her belongings were already loaded into a truck when Marisol finally returned her inquisitive text.
Sorry, was out of town w the girls. Had a great chat w T while we packed up ur things. OK if i stay in ur place 4 a few more days?
Rosalie felt her frustration mount. Her mother’s cheerfulness was an effort to distract her. Rosalie knew she was being avoided.
Still, she didn’t have the energy to confront her mother. Getting through each day as the unwilling owner of a crappy hotel took all her strength. Figuring out what Marisol was doing was a task for another day.
Sure. Rent is paid through the end of next month.
Her mother replied back with excessive kissy face emojis. Great! Love you!!!
****
Rosalie surged with relief when she saw the delivery truck lumber into the parking lot, fatigued with desert dust and thousands of miles between its origin and Ashhawk. She was eager to see her belongings intact, to be reminded of who she was by the familiar feel of her pillowcase against her cheek, her favorite brush in her hair, the slap of her work shoes against the foreign concrete of Hearth. She thanked the driver and signed for the shipment after counting the boxes, wondering if there was any way to know if some of her precious pieces had been lost or damaged and if her signature was a resignation to living without those things.
The driver seemed unconcerned and unaware of what the shipment meant to Rosalie, doing little more than placing the boxes on the curb before yanking the door of the trailer down, latching it, and heaving himself back into the cab of the vehicle, settling back into its cushion as he journeyed on to deliver whatever else was wrapped in grouped packages in the truck. Rosalie watched him drive away, an odd, empty feeling settling into her. There was no comfort of home, no confirmation she’d be okay. No pieces of Tara or Marisol or her old office had fluttered out of the truck to alight on her. She was as alone and as unwilling to be stuck in Ashhawk as before.
Alex came out of the office, striding casually toward Rosalie. “Everything there?”
Rosalie surveyed the boxes, noting numbers one through fourteen, giving a vacant nod. “I think so.”
“Need any help getting them inside?” Alex offered.
“I got it.”
It wasn’t so much a rejection of Alex’s offer as a rote gesture of self-sufficiency. She was capable of lifting and carrying boxes a few yards into her little room. She felt she shouldn’t depend on Alex to help her.
But as she picked up one of the boxes, finding it surprisingly heavy, Alex stooped over another box next to her, heaving it up with ease. “Let me help you,” she said, following as Rosalie struggled toward her room. She didn’t object as Alex helped her carry in the rest of the boxes, stacking them against the wall so they formed a barricade over the door leading to the adjoining room. Once all the boxes were stacked inside, making the room feel even smaller, Alex offered more help.
“Want me to hang out in the office while you unpack?” she said, faintly breathless from the lifting.
This time, Rosalie accepted without hesitation, yet without enthusiasm. Alex strolled back to the office, opening the door and entering the lobby without looking back.
Rosalie studied the boxes before her. They took up more space than she expected. She opened the first, finding her yoga mat, running shoes, jewelry box, and DVD collection stashed haphazardly inside. Tara would never have packed her things this way. She pictured her mother, mojito in hand, casually tossing things into boxes with little regard for organization or categorization. She sighed, taking the yoga mat out to stuff it under the bed, wondering where she was going to put all her belongings.
Before she could even get started, Alex knocked on the door with a flustered, apologetic look on her face.
“I’m sorry, but I need to go help my brother.” Everything about Alex’s body was tense and agitated, and Rosalie felt a shock of concern for her.
“Of course,” she said, leaning forward. “Is he okay?”
Alex gave a frustrated sigh. “He’s into some tricky stuff,” she huffed, wiping her sweatless brow. “I gotta go.”
Intrigued by Alex’s vagueness, Rosalie nodded. “Yeah, no problem. Family first.”
It was a phrase she’d heard many times but never understood. Marisol hadn’t often put her first, and her father, though kind, was usually preoccupied with books or chess or calculus. But Rosalie willed it to be true; Rosalie wanted Alex to have a family that put one another first.
“Is this the brother with the place a few hours south?”
“No, no,” Alex said, as though the mix-up were comical. “This is my little brother, Jason. He’s...kind of a mess. That’s why I didn’t want to live with him anymore.”
Rosalie nodded as though she understood. As always, there was more to Alex’s story than Alex was telling.
“Sorry to run,” Alex said, glancing around at the mess of boxes, clothes, and books. “I’ll try to come back as soon as I can.”
Rosalie felt guilty for being another one of Alex’s burdens. “It’s okay. If I need help, Shelley has the night off.”
Alex bobbed her head. “Okay. Later.” She swung out the door and into her truck, zooming toward whatever problem her younger brother had created.
Rosalie emptied the first box, flattening i
t, and dove into the second, grateful for the doorbell Alex had installed that enabled her to stay in her room without neglecting the guests. As she dug deeper into the contents of her Philadelphia life, she felt a sense of confusion swirling up through her. Seeing her makeup mirror and clothing and accessories unearthed after months of being buried under the sediment of forgetfulness that was Ashhawk, she felt even more hopeless. She had hoped having her things would make her feel better, more sure of her footing, more certain she was capable of managing the hotel. She knew it was silly—a pair of shoes didn’t render her more capable of selling a piece of commercial property—but she had thought she’d feel better about being in Ashhawk once she was surrounded by familiar things. Instead, she felt more alone and sad. Her possessions didn’t belong here any more than she did.
By the time she’d finished unpacking, Rosalie was in a fragile state. Seeing all the pieces of her disintegrated Philadelphia life brought her close to tears. Knowing a distraction would stave them off, Rosalie called Shelley. They’d been getting friendlier over the last few weeks, sharing beauty tips and talking about the hotel and the sorry state of Ashhawk. Shelley had taken Rosalie around to all the shops and made sure the owners knew Rosalie was a local now. If she had to be in Ashhawk, at least she had a friend.
After checking that Bobby didn’t need her to watch the game with him, Shelley was all too happy to come over. She brought over some chips and soda, and Rosalie invited her to sit out back. It felt like the only place in the hotel they could have some privacy.
Rosalie studied Shelley’s face, how she was always so put together, hair perfectly styled even after a long day of work.
“Where do you get your hair cut?” Rosalie asked.
She’d seen a few salons across town as she drove through but none that inspired confidence. She’d rather not sit in the cracked fluorescent lighting in a worn plastic chair while a girl with too much hairspray in her over-curled bangs snipped at her, snapping her gum and looking impatient.
“You need a trim?” Shelley asked.
Hearts Inn Page 12
