by Cesare, Adam
Claire envied Allison’s Banana Republic good looks and wholesomeness, but there were times that Claire was positive that Allison felt the same about her. Claire was probably more Hot Topic than anything else, but fuck that store. The babbling brook of jealousy they shared helped to keep their friendship strong.
“Let’s get going,” Allison said, cracking her knuckles with her hands to the sky, belly button peeking out.
The pathway back to the front of the building was a lighted terrace overlooking a garden. Bags of top soil were balanced over the railing. Claire guessed they were part of the beautification process for the busy summer season.
Claire glanced at her phone. It was 8:05. Low signal out here in the boonies, but enough. No new texts. That was good. Maybe Mickey had given up.
“Cute,” Allison said, running a finger along the shutters that lined the terrace. Her constant need to talk dampened down by the long day. Now she only dripped adjectives.
The windows and shutters were green, freshly painted. White siding with green trim. The Brant was a classy joint.
They entered the lobby, the tinkle of sleigh bells heralding their arrival.
“Nice,” Allison said, but she didn’t keep it to one word this time. “Totally presh. If you fuck up your interview, you mind if I take the position? You can drive yourself back to Boston.”
It didn’t sound like a joke to Claire, but she forced herself to giggle just to keep the game going.
They were alone in the atrium, drifting towards the front desk with their heads on a swivel. The lobby smelled great. Claire guessed the smell was potpourri mixed with the freshly stained and polished hardwood floors.
Allison’s heels clicked and then went soft as they passed onto the rug in front of the desk. The rug was green-and-white fabric with gold thread tracing the shape of the jumping rabbit from the sign. They had a theme going here.
The front desk was oiled wood, old but well cared for.
Claire glanced down at the registry. There was no computer at the desk, only an old-fashion guestbook. Names, phone numbers, dates, number of nights. It was quaint, but under the front cover was a credit card swiper. Claire frowned. The machine ruined the back-in-time illusion.
There was movement somewhere down the hall. Allison dinged the bell on the desk and Claire gave her a look.
“What? Isn’t that what it’s for?”
The bell still ringing, a smiling older woman turned down the hallway and started walking towards them.
The woman’s back was stock straight, her dress floral and conservative. She had a few years on Claire’s mom, but she wasn’t old. Middle sixties, probably. The smile might have been real, might not have.
“Hello, I’m Claire Foster. Are you Ms. Brant?” Claire didn’t wait for her to answer, willing to gamble that this was her. “We spoke on the phone about the position.”
“Of course, dear, I remember. It’s nice to put a face to the name.”
Ms. Brant took her hand, not really shaking it, just holding it for a brief second and giving it a soft squeeze. She flicked her eyes over to Allison.
“Hi, I’m Allison. I’m just Claire’s ride. Lovely bed and breakfast you’ve got here.”
“We’re a fully functioning hotel, not a bed and breakfast, but it’s nice to meet you.” Allison didn’t get a hand squeeze, but at least she didn’t look like she was expecting one.
Brant turned back to Claire and spoke. The woman had thick glasses that made her eyes seem larger. The glasses could have made her look like a bug-eyed old woman, but instead they gave her a kind of cartoon power.
“I thought we might start with a tour, Claire, just to let you know where everything is, but it is getting close to bedtime for me.”
A little before 8:30 was bedtime? Claire thought, but didn’t push it. “I’m so sorry about that, we would have been here earlier if I had known.”
“Not to worry, I know how silly it sounds to be turning in so early. Maybe the best way for you to experience what we do here would be to stay the night. I can have my best girl show you around before you turn in. Quietly, of course. We do have guests.”
Claire watched as Allison tensed up.
“Staying the night, would that be okay?” Claire asked, unsure whether to direct the question to her friend who’d driven her there or to her perspective employer.
She caught Allison nod in her peripheral vision.
“More than okay, it would be essential for your understanding of what staying at The Brant is all about. Luckily we have two rooms ready, one for each of you.”
“That’s too much, we can stay in the same room,” Claire said, glancing at Allison, looking for some kind of direction.
“Yeah, that would be totally no problem. I’ve just got to call in to work, tell them that I’m probably going to need tomorrow off,” Allison said, flashing her phone at them both and backing out the front door.
“Your friend is very pretty. She is just a friend, I assume.”
Claire stared at her for a moment, getting the implication, but not one hundred percent sure how to answer.
“She’s my roommate, has been helping me a lot lately since I broke up with my boyfriend.”
“Then I don’t see a reason that you two can’t stay in the same room, if that’s what you want.”
Claire took a mental note that the new boss was a little conservative and attempted to change the subject. Was this still an interview? “How long have you owned the hotel?”
“It’s over thirty years at this point, close to forty, actually. The hotel changed the economy of Mission. I like to tell people that I turned a one-horse town into a five-horse town, at the very minimum.” Brant chuckled, folksy and practiced, but still enough warmth to ring sincere.
Claire felt her phone buzz in her back pocket, a text message. If Brant heard or cared, she didn’t show it. The text was most likely from Allison, some inventive profanity and spelling. Allison was not pissed about having to stay here for the night. She was upset by a decision being made for her. They’d had a plan: to stay somewhere halfway between here and Boston. Allison liked to stick to the plans that she’d made.
“During the off-season we keep a staff of only four, a skeleton crew of locals, but during the summer we hire on a few more. This year it will only be you and one of the local boys as a part-time handyman. It’s not that business will be slow, we don’t expect that, but,” Brant paused for effect, “the economy. Obamacare.”
Claire nodded like that made a shred of sense to her, not endorsing the statement but not condemning it.
Allison re-entered the lobby. “All set with work. I can stay the night.”
“Excellent. Let me call Daisy to give you that tour,” Brant said and glided behind the front desk, her dress billowing behind her. “But first, please sign in here. You won’t be charged for the room, of course, but you still should sign. Keeps everything consistent and official.” The older woman smiled and twisted the ledger towards Claire, offering her a gold pen on a red ribbon.
Brant picked up the wall phone behind the desk and dialed a couple of numbers, too few to be anything other than an extension within the hotel.
Claire filled in her information, aware of both her terrible handwriting and Brant’s eyes on her. When she was done she stepped out of the way and offered the pen to Allison.
“That’s okay. We only need one of you.” Brant cradled the phone against her shoulder and snapped the ledger shut with one hand, catching the ribbon in its pages and yanking the pen out of Allison’s hand.
“Hello, Daisy?” she spoke into the phone. “Can you come down to the lobby please? Two guests need to be shown to their room. No reservation.” She paused, listening to the other end of the line for a moment, listening to Daisy. “The new girl.”
“And friend,” Allison added, smiling at Claire.
“And friend,” Brant echoed, smiling but not really at all.
Chapter Six
Claire
and Allison had the covers pulled up over their heads and they were laughing like it was 1993 and they were having a sleepover. The tops of their heads made the blanket into a teepee above them. The air inside their makeshift fort was warm with exhalation and the sweat from the day’s drive. They whispered, unsure if they shared walls with any of The Brant Hotel’s handful of guests.
Like any young girls, their whispers had a target. The whole conversation was bitchy and mean and they never would have said any of it to their faces, but Ms. Brant was a mess and Daisy was even worse.
Shortly after being dialed up by Ms. Brant, Daisy was downstairs and ready for action. She was older than Claire, but not by much, thirty. Thirty-two, tops. Regardless of her age, Claire had dropped ecstasy at warehouse raves with less energy and natural enthusiasm.
Daisy was pop radio turned to max volume.
When you live on a college campus, you get used to a certain level of strained passion, go-get-’em charm that rarely charms anyone but the yokels and their grandmother, but Daisy put every campus tour guide to shame.
Claire and Allison had followed after Daisy as she beamed and blasted her way through the hallways of The Brant.
“Built in 1978, The Brant has served as a beacon of Western Massachusetts tourism for nearly forty years,” Allison said, affecting and exaggerating Daisy’s slight lisp. The lisp wasn’t a serious speech impediment, but even the gentle joking was uncomfortable enough to get them both laughing again.
The blue-and-white quilt around them glowed as Allison flicked on her lighter.
“What are you doing?” Claire asked, forgetting to whisper.
“Smoking a cigarette,” Allison said, still giggling.
Claire pulled the blankets off their heads, mussing Allison’s hair and letting in the cool air of the hotel room.
“You can’t do that in here. I specifically remember Daisy telling you that. ‘If it blackens your lungs, what do you think it will do to the vintage cotton drapes?’”
“Yeah, well, fuck the drapes and fuck Miss Mayberry 1991,” Allison said. She gave a meaner laugh this time, the kind that couldn’t have come without practice all throughout high school. Claire often wondered if they would have been friends in high school. Not in a million years.
Allison lifted a cigarette to her lips and began to light it. Claire caught her wrist and pulled it down.
“Don’t—I mean—it seems like I’ve already got the job, whatever that means, but please don’t ruin it over something stupid like this. They’re going to be able to smell the smoke in the morning.”
“You’re right.” Allison said, leaving out anything close to an “I’m sorry.” Allison Pomero didn’t do sorry.
“Let’s go outside. Quietly, so we don’t wake the lordly lady of the manor.”
Allison laughed. She was back with Claire, inching away from the abyss of asshole-ry.
*
A little after midnight, they snuck out of the hotel without event. It had been years since the two friends had held a conversation that lasted hours, but tonight was different.
“You’re really going to live here for three months? You don’t even have a cousin to marry out here,” Allison said.
On their tour, Daisy had told her all about the lodging she could expect as a guest liaison. She talked about the job just like Brant had, as if Claire had already begun working.
In Daisy’s words, the living situation was “Just like a hotel, only you have to clean up after yourself.”
“It’s not that bad. Most of the people that come through will be from Boston,” Claire said. “It’s not like I’ll be completely shut off. They’ve got to have internet somewhere. How else did they get that spiffy website?”
Allison ignored the joke. Brant’s outdated website no longer amused her. “Do you think they’ll fire you when they find out that you can’t make a bed?”
“Not true,” Claire said.
“That you’ve never successfully loaded a dryer?”
“I’ve told you a thousand times that the dryer in our building doesn’t work, that’s why I always have to run it again,” Claire said, laughing.
She laughed to shake the feeling that this cigarette break was a goodbye, at least for the summer. It was a shame that the last day she would see her friend for a few months was also the day that Allison seemed the most tolerable, the most worthy of being called a friend.
Allison pushed her chin up to the night sky and aimed a puff of smoke towards the amber flood light above their heads. The light overlooked the parking lot and the two stood under it, listening to the stillness of night in a small town.
There were the occasional sounds of animals in the woods, the tiny thud of moths crashing against the flood lights, but beyond that it was silent.
“I don’t mean to make fun of it. It seems like a great job and I think it will be good for you,” Allison said.
Allison knelt and stubbed the butt against the exposed brick of The Brant’s foundation. She flicked it towards the dumpsters that backed up against the woods. The cigarette wasn’t completely out and Claire watched the faint glow.
“Thanks. You going to have another one or are we done out here?”
“‘Breakfast will be served at 8:30, please be in the dining room no later than 8:15,’” Allison repeated Ms. Brant’s last words to them. Her Daisy impression was in the ballpark, but her Brant needed work.
“One cig more, then. Give me one of those,” Claire said, holding two fingers out for a cigarette.
“Should I enable you like that?” Allison said, smiling.
“If I’m in for a few months of clean living up here, I’m going to need a smoke for luck.”
“True. I didn’t think of that. No parties. That will be good for you as well.”
“For my liver and its self-esteem, at the very least,” Claire said and reached into the pack of Newports. Newports. Even Allison’s cigarettes were Connecticut assholes.
Claire leaned in to let Allison light it for her. She pulled a breath in, but felt the end of her nose glow red hot for a moment as Allison jumped back.
“Jesus Christ!” Claire shouted, holding her nose and looking up at her friend. The flame snapped back into the lighter, taking the orange out of Allison’s cheeks.
Allison clapped one hand on Claire’s shoulder and used the other to motion to the woods behind Claire. She then took a step toward the hotel, directing her body toward the service door and pulling Claire with her.
“There’s someone in the woods. Right there,” Allison whispered, eyes fixed on the tree line.
They both stood still, tensing, letting the other know that they were ready to run in an instant, making sure that they would escape together. No girl left behind.
Claire searched the darkness for movement. If there was someone there and they did intend to do them harm, they would have to cover about fifteen yards of parking lot before reaching the back of the hotel.
There was the snapping of branches that quickly became otherworldly loud as the blood pumped in Claire’s ears.
“I am so sorry,” a male voice called out from inside the woods.
Hands raised, a young man walked onto the gravel driveway, stopping a few feet before the asphalt of the parking lot started. It was the boy they had spoken to on their way into town. The guy who was with that group of kids, the ones that Claire had almost smeared across the road with the Elantra. The older one. Upon further inspection, he’d also been the handsome one.
“I’m here for the dumpsters,” he said and then allowed himself a beat. “Not to do anything ungentlemanly to you two ladies.” He tried to exaggerate the friendliness in his voice, let them know he was harmless enough to make a goofy joke.
“Here for the dumpster? At one in the morning?” Allison said, her voice thick with the kind of “likely story buddy” they taught you at girls-only self-defense class.
“I’m serious. The hotel doesn’t recycle. I come and get the bottles,” he sai
d. “Turn them in for beer money,” he added, like that would be the detail that proved it.
“Isn’t it, like, a little late for dumpster diving?” Allison kept at it, trying to vet this guy’s story.
“Let’s just say that the woman who runs the hotel doesn’t exactly like it when I do this,” he said. “She claims the bottles are her property and that I wake the guests.” While he was talking, he took a few steps into the lot, his trajectory aimed at the dumpsters, not the girls. He kept his hands out in front of him, though, just in case they didn’t see where he was headed.
“You hear that? He’s stealing from the hotel,” Allison said. She gave Claire a pat on the butt. “Quick, go stop him.”
Claire couldn’t tell if the tingle in her cheeks was from the blush or from coming down off of the adrenaline high.
“I’m Tobin, by the way,” he said.
Claire had met a Tobin once at an undergrad party that had gotten sloppy. He’d tried to go down on her in the coatroom, but had thrown up on the host’s floor instead.
That loser had been skeletal skinny and had beaten her at Settlers of Catan. This guy, the Tobin of Mission, Massachusetts, was tall and slightly muscular. He was the kind of guy she could picture hoisting bales of hay. Shirtless.
Tobin flipped open the plastic lid of the dumpster and backed his face away. Claire presumed he was trying to avoid the smell. “Are you girls guests at the hotel? Staying in town long?” He wiped his hands, reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a white garbage bag.
Claire took a step towards him so she didn’t have to talk quite as loud, worried about waking up the guests. Or Brant or Daisy. She was unsure which woman she’d rather risk pissing off.
“I’m going to be working here for the summer. Guest liaison.”
“Is that anything like a maid?” Tobin waved the bag in the air like a bullwhip, opening it up with two flicks of the wrist. The tendons in his forearms were taut like guitar strings, moving rhythmically with delicate strength.
“I’m guessing it’s exactly like a maid.” Claire said, realizing how close she was to this strange, hot guy. She was near enough to smell warm, early summer trash. When did the situation change so drastically? How did she get so comfortable?
