Hearts Inn

by Lilly R. Mason

  She took a few steps toward the couch as Shelley slipped into the back room, emerging with two cups, which she filled at the cooler.

  Shelley settled into the couch beside Rosalie. “So what happened?”

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” Rosalie lied. “Drunken nonsense.”

  “Did you hook up with someone?” Shelley asked in a hush.

  Rosalie stumbled over the question. Was the color of her shame so specific that Shelley could see it?

  “Was he married or something?”

  “No.”

  “Did you forget to use a condom?” Shelley asked, voice hushed. “’Cause there’s this stuff at the pharmacy…”

  “No,” Rosalie said, grateful for Shelley’s obliviousness. “There was no guy.”

  Realizing she was veering too quickly toward outing herself, Rosalie constructed a quick lie. “There were some real estate agents there, and I should have used the time to network, but I wanted to relax and take a vacation, you know?”

  Shelley nodded, sipping her water. “Still don’t have anyone interested?”

  “Not yet.”

  Rosalie ran her fingers through the water accumulating on the outside of her glass. It felt good on her hands. She thought about the Cocheta property and the unopened proposal from George Tackett and wished she could talk to Shelley about that. But admitting she owned yet another piece of property in Ashhawk wouldn’t endear her to Shelley or anyone else in town. Gran hadn’t told people about the property for a reason, and Rosalie wasn’t sure why yet.

  Shelley gave a hum to indicate understanding and contemplation, but it sounded hollow.

  Rosalie realized she should have asked about business matters first. “How were things here?”

  “Totally fine,” Shelley said. “I had to go on a little hunt for some clean towels. I guess Susan didn’t move them from the laundry room to the storage closet.”

  “She’s getting a little old,” Rosalie hedged, trying not to sound like she was complaining. She wasn’t sure what to do about Susan, other than relegating her to the desk as often as she could.

  “Did you know she lives with a woman?” Shelley said, her voice hushed as though Susan’s living arrangements were gossip.

  Rosalie’s hackles rose, remembering Shelley’s casual use of the word dyke during her haircut.

  “So?”

  Shelley gave a shrug. “I thought I knew most people in town.”

  Rosalie tried not to squint at Shelley, to keep her voice from frosting. Shelley wasn’t saying anything inherently negative, but Rosalie was wary.

  “What’s wrong with living with a woman?”

  If Shelley was a bigot, she’d rather know outright than try to guess.

  “Like, as a couple,” Shelley said, almost in a whisper. “Like, they’re gay together.”

  Rosalie wouldn’t have suspected Susan shared her proclivities, but she didn’t expect much from Susan.

  What she did expect, at this point, was ignorance on Shelley’s part.

  “So?” Rosalie said, pressing her.

  Shelley shrugged again, as though backing away once Rosalie indicated she wasn’t interested in gossiping about her employees. “I just didn’t know.”

  Rosalie heard a bit of steel in her voice as she said, “I don’t care what my employees do on their own time.”

  Rosalie knew she sounded cold, calling attention to the power discrepancy between them while also dismissing the time she and Shelley had spent together socially as insignificant.

  Shelley’s gaze flickered to the side, uneasy with Rosalie’s chilly demeanor.

  A tense moment passed while Rosalie imagined that she was brave enough to tell Shelley she was gay, too, and if Shelley had a problem with it, she should find employment elsewhere. But such an order seemed harsh. Coming out to Shelley was a moot point anyway; Rosalie’s Sapphic inclinations were theoretical for the moment since Alex wasn’t interested and there didn’t seem to be any other lesbians in Ashhawk. Aside from Susan and her partner, apparently.

  A car horn sounded in the parking lot, and Shelley perked up like a trained animal, relieved to be released from the tense conversation with Rosalie.

  “That’s Bobby,” she said apologetically. “Sorry I can’t stay longer. Come by the diner later if you want.”

  Rosalie nodded, relieved to not have to lie about anything for the rest of the evening. She gave a lackluster wave and sighed into the empty lobby.

  Chapter Eight

  Communications Center

  A few hours after Shelley left, Alex came in the lobby looking wary. Rosalie cowered, lowering her head so her face couldn’t be seen from above the counter.

  “Hey,” Alex said, curling over the counter to try to get Rosalie’s attention.

  Rosalie burned with embarrassment. She wished Alex would leave her alone to pretend she’d never made a pass at Alex. It was bad enough they lived on the same property. Rosalie wondered if she could tack a to-do list on the shed every few days and let Alex do whatever maintenance projects interested her. It would be clean and easy, and Rosalie would spare herself being reminded every day what a fool she was.

  But Alex seemed to have the opposite plan.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Rosalie kept her head down, pretending to study an insurance document she’d unearthed. “Don’t worry about it,” Rosalie mumbled.

  In a way, Alex had done her a favor by disappearing. She hadn’t had to sit through hours of awful silence in the cab of Alex’s truck, sweltering with shame and exhausted by tension. Instead, the cool, tinted van Logan had driven her home in had shrouded her embarrassment enough to make it back to Ashhawk without collapsing in on herself.

  There was a tense silence, and Rosalie wondered if she wished hard enough, Alex would hear her thoughts and leave her alone.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Alex asked.

  “The sink in room seventeen is leaking,” Rosalie mumbled.

  Alex paused, adjusting her arms against the counter. “Okay...”

  There was no sense of sheepishness in Alex’s voice. Rosalie wondered at it; did Alex understand how she’d messed with Rosalie’s head? All these weeks Rosalie had wondered if Alex liked girls, only to be shepherded to a beautiful desert escape and learn Alex did like girls, but not her. It was the perfect seduction, only Alex had backed out at the last minute. After she got what she wanted—Rosalie coaxing her into bed—she’d refused, content with her unfulfilled conquest.

  Was this a game Alex played? Rosalie had no idea where Alex went sometimes. She could easily drive to another town to seduce other girls. Maybe she followed through with them. Maybe she even brought them back to the hotel after Rosalie was asleep.

  “I guess I’ll be in room seventeen,” Alex said, placing her hand on the counter for a second, as though to conclude the conversation with a pat.

  Rosalie dared to look up at Alex for the first time. Damn her. She was so attractive in her black tank top, curly hair falling down her back.

  Alex’s behavior only confirmed their kiss had meant nothing to her.

  Rosalie looked down at the desk again, and Alex exited, letting the lobby bells clang behind her.

  Rosalie let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She brought her hands to her face, exasperated with herself. She felt she was spinning out of control in a series of bad decisions. Since moving to Ashhawk, every choice she’d made was wrong. All her circumstances were beyond her control. From the way Rosalie was handling things, she thought Gran had to have been senile when she left the property to her. Only someone heading toward dementia would do such a thing.

  Rosalie had always been a bit indecisive, but not as cripplingly so as she’d become in recent months. She’d thought as she neared thirty she’d become more self-assured, but her journey thus far had mostly involved wishing she was in her teens again, when Marisol and Frank helped her make good choices. She had good judgment, but only with smart people advis
ing her. Now she had no one to advise her.

  Desperate for some semblance of control, Rosalie turned to her computer. Within minutes, she had found multiple listings for online hotel management courses. She scrolled through them, eyes bugging out at the price tags. She wanted to get better at her job, but she didn’t want to invest in something her heart wasn’t in. The courses would be there if she needed them. Right now, what she needed was a drink. Or maybe a good meal.

  She trudged around the building until she could hear shuffling inside the shed. Rather than face Alex directly, she simply called out, “I’m going to the diner,” before whipping around and walking out. She heard Alex call back Okay. She didn’t want to look back to see if Alex was watching her.

  She zipped down the street, angry and desperate for some kind of relief. She debated swinging by a bar but didn’t think it would be a good idea. She pulled into a spot at the nearly deserted diner and stalked inside, sliding into her usual booth without catching Shelley’s eye.

  Shelley came up to her immediately. “Hey,” she said, trying to be perky through her fatigue. “Long time no see,” she said with a wink.

  Rosalie sighed. “You guys don’t serve alcohol here, do you?”

  Shelley scrunched up her nose apologetically. “Sorry.”

  “Damn.” Rosalie picked up her menu and let the bottom edge slap against the table as she held it upright. As she did, she realized she probably sounded terrible to Shelley, who had an alcoholic dad and deadbeat boyfriend. “It’s okay,” she amended. “I’m fine without a drink.”

  “I can get you a chocolate milkshake?” Shelley said, voice curling up at the end of her non-question.

  “Yeah. And a big basket of fries.”

  Rosalie ate quickly, then wished she had brought her laptop so she wouldn’t be faced with either sitting idly at the diner or going back to Hearth, prickling with shame in Alex’s presence. She pulled out her phone, hoping Tara or even Marisol would magically know she needed to talk and would call or at least text. But there was no magic in Ashhawk. Only flies and dirt and hippies and rednecks and mice.

  As the food settled in her stomach, so did her desperation. She knew her extraction from Ashhawk would not be instantaneous. It would come bit by bit. First, she could divest herself of one thing, and then another, until she was free to return to whatever was left of her life in Philadelphia.

  Whenever she’d been panicked or overwhelmed as a child, her father had told her to take tasks one at a time, in manageable chunks. You don’t read a book all at once, he’d say. You read it page by page.

  Rosalie could stomach one page of her life in Ashhawk at a time. Right now, all she had to process was sitting in the dumpy diner and digesting the food she’d eaten, and in a few minutes, paying her bill. She could manage those tasks.

  And while she was at it, she could actually read the proposal from George Tackett. She didn’t have to make a decision about it.

  She pulled out her phone, waiting for the antiquated data roaming service to load the PDF. It took a full minute before it opened. Rosalie read it, trying not to let her jaw drop when she saw what Shaylin was willing to pay for the property. Soon the numbers were swimming on the page, and her heart raced with the pressure to make a decision. Before she even got through the first page, she clicked back and set down her phone. She wondered if anyone in the diner suspected she was the incompetent owner of such a big piece of the town as she sat there with her empty plate and glass.

  She felt sick again. She shouldn’t have read the email. It was too much, too big a decision for her aching head.

  She bit the inside of her cheeks repeatedly as she paid her bill and drove back to the hotel, letting the dull ache of her flesh bear the punishment for her behavior the night before. She settled behind the desk, looking through the previous week’s revenue reports. Even though revenue was up a surprising twenty percent, Rosalie didn’t feel good about it. She couldn’t feel good about anything.

  When her phone rang and she saw it was Marisol calling, she wasn’t sure if she should answer. Marisol had a way of dramatically brightening or ruining her day. Such was the power of mothers, Rosalie figured, which was precisely why she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to be one.

  Even though she knew it might be a mistake, her hope Marisol would be in one of her more maternal moods prompted her to answer the call.

  “Rosalie, honey, how are you?” Marisol cooed into the phone.

  Rosalie adored the sincerity and love she felt oozing from her mother when she had her attention.

  “I’m okay. Sorry I didn’t call you back right away. I was out of town for the weekend, and I didn’t know I wouldn’t have cell service.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “This little resort called Corte del Cuervo.”

  “By yourself?”

  “No…I went with—a new friend.”

  “New friend?” Marisol said knowingly. “What’s her name?”

  Rosalie felt herself blush. “Alex,” she said. “It’s not like that. She’s helping me fix up Hearth.”

  “Useful with her hands, huh? Lucky you,” Marisol said with a giggle.

  Rosalie flushed scarlet, never comfortable with her mother’s casual references to her sex life. Marisol was often more enthusiastic about the fact that Rosalie liked girls than Rosalie was. Perhaps because it was one of the few interesting things about her, and Marisol wanted an interesting life.

  “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When did I first laugh?”

  “First laugh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know. A long time ago,” her mother tittered.

  “Do you know what I laughed at?”

  “Probably your dad doing something silly.”

  “How old was I?”

  “Like six or eight months. Why?”

  Rosalie felt herself sink. “No reason.”

  “You thinking about having kids?” Marisol asked.

  “No.”

  “You know I’ll love you no matter what you decide,” Marisol said. “Right now, Hearth is your baby, isn’t it?”

  Rosalie bristled. She didn’t want any attachment to Hearth, much less the unbreakable sort that was motherhood.

  Rosalie didn’t doubt her mother was sincere in her apathy about grandchildren, but Marisol’s tone indicated she wanted to wrap up the topic so she could get to whatever she wanted to talk about next.

  Rosalie felt a rare swell of anger at Marisol. She’d wanted to learn something no one else could tell her, save for maybe her father. She wanted someone to shine light on who she was and why she never felt grounded anywhere. If she hadn’t laughed until late in her infancy, perhaps there was a part of her spirit that hadn’t wanted to descend from whatever celestial realm her ancestors were associated with. Perhaps she would always feel resentful of the earthly places she inhabited.

  Or perhaps she was putting too much stock in a belief held by a culture to which she didn’t belong.

  There was a pause that made Rosalie nervous. Marisol was usually bubbly, and a pause in conversation was never a good sign.

  “How’s Ahbie?” Rosalie asked.

  “She’s doing well,” Marisol said, sounding more distracted by the minute. “Baby, I wanted to tell you… Your father and I have been talking.”

  Rosalie stiffened. Marisol and Frank rarely talked. It couldn’t be a good sign if they were now.

  “We’ve agreed I should move out.”

  Rosalie was stunned. She had often wondered why her parents were married, but she never expected them to separate. As she thought about her quiet, gentle father, she knew it hadn’t been his idea. He would never have wanted Marisol to move out.

  “You’re separating?” Rosalie’s voice squeaked in disbelief.

  “We’re trying it out for a bit, yeah,” Marisol said, her voice dripping with concern for Rosalie. “That’s why I’ve been staying at your place. B
ut don’t worry. Your father and I have always been good friends. That’s not going to change.”

  Rosalie felt panic pushing up in her chest, and she had to fight not to blurt out that everything was going to change now.

  “Everything will be fine, I promise. I bet you won’t even notice the difference next time you’re home,” Marisol said, her voice too sweet and hopeful for Rosalie to believe it.

  Luckily for Marisol, Rosalie was too upset to protest. She thought of her dad, completely alone, eating his overcooked vegetables and chicken in front of the TV, hoping Marisol would come home a little earlier than usual. Her heart ached for him. She had never in her life wanted to hang up on her mother, but in this moment, she did, if only so she could call her dad and make sure he was okay.

  “And Dad is okay with this?” Rosalie managed to choke out.

  “He’s fine,” Marisol said. “He’s got a date this weekend with that cute librarian from the downtown library.”

  Rosalie felt like she was about to vomit. There was no way this was happening.

  “He’s dating?” Rosalie said, trying not to gag.

  The idea of her dad dating anyone was incomprehensible. She couldn’t even imagine Frank dating Marisol back when they’d met. Dating didn’t seem like something he was capable of.

  “He’s always had a little crush on her,” Marisol said so casually it hurt Rosalie. “I think it’s sweet.”

  “Mom…” Rosalie objected, wanting her mother to stop delivering harsh news in rapid sequence. “How long have you guys been talking about this?”

  “A few months,” Marisol said, as though Rosalie had asked her how long they’d been planning a weekend trip up the coast. “It just felt right.”

  It was quiet, and Rosalie felt herself getting light-headed.