A Small Hotel

by Robert Olen Butler

  She straightens up fully now, squares around to face him. “I said I am falling madly in love with you.”

  She pauses. He waits.

  “I got the verb tense wrong,” she says. “Have fallen, my darling. I have fallen madly in love with you.”

  She waits for Michael to respond. He says nothing rather than what’s in his head: I don’t need this now.

  “It feels so like we’ve done this right,” she says.

  She pauses again. She sees Michael as a man of words. Words are his business. She is a bit awed by all the lawyers and how they live by words. She needs to work this out in words now. And having thus far found Michael’s reticence with her to be charmingly masculine, sexy even, she has no clue what’s going on in him.

  “Even us waiting to make love,” she says. “How right was that?” She would like a nod—if not a word—of agreement from him at this point, at least about how they were right to go slow. But he’s not giving it. And she suddenly thinks she understands what’s making him hesitate. It’s her image as a lightweight—and she’s at fault, she knows, for nurturing that. That silliness at their second meeting, for instance. She loves him even more for having gotten past that, but she’s afraid that he’s afraid she’s being superficial about her feelings. She says, “I don’t use the word ‘love’ lightly, my darling. Don’t worry.”

  He’s looking at her but he’s not speaking. The light is dim in the room. She needs to read his eyes closely and she can’t. “I’ve almost never said it to a boyfriend,” she says. “But you know me. I have to speak my heart when I feel something.”

  Michael, in fact, does not know this about her. He does not know what to say. He does not know what to do. He feels himself staring dumbly, and he thinks he does not know the first thing about women. Not a single thing.

  Laurie, aware that she needs to make sure her voice does not falter, but utterly unaware of her own gesture, lays her arm laterally across her chest, covering one nipple with her forearm and one with her hand. She says, “Am I at risk here?”

  “I don’t know what risk you’re talking about,” Michael says, not argumentative but truly baffled.

  “You don’t?” Laurie says. “Really?”

  He has no answer.

  “Any verb tense will be okay,” she says.

  Nothing.

  “The risk,” Laurie says, very softly, loving this man and trusting him, running out of breath and needing to start again, her arm falling to her side. “The risk is you’re not falling in love with me.”

  “I’m here. Isn’t that enough?” Michael says, though taking care to match the softness of her voice. “We did this,” he says.

  “Please tell me what that means,” Laurie says.

  He tries to distance himself with the notion that he has no idea what she wants. But he knows that’s not true. But knowing what she wants doesn’t make it possible for him to give it to her.

  “I need some help here, Michael. Tell me what you feel.”

  “Is it the word you need?” he says.

  “I guess I do,” she says.

  And he says, “Love means never having to say I love you.” Part of him truly believes this. But another part suddenly hears himself sounding like a bad country music song.

  Laurie rises abruptly to her knees. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know how many people in this world have been fucked up from the start by somebody having that idea?”

  He backs away from this. “I’m going to get some air,” he says.

  He rises from the bed, crosses the room, bends to his pants, pulls them on, his belt swinging heavily free, with his cell phone attached. As he reloops the belt, Laurie finally finds the voice to deal with his withdrawal.

  “Michael,” she says. He finishes cinching his belt, and then he turns to her.

  She is still on her knees on the bed. “I need this,” Laurie says. “People need this.”

  She is speaking softly again. Her need. People’s needs. He is bare-chested. Her nakedness, her quietness, her need: he feels these like a pressure on his chest, like her body falling forward and pressing into him after they both finished, her body still there when they should be separating for a time, her body suddenly too warm, too wet, too much.

  He bends, he picks up his shirt, he turns his back on her, puts the shirt on, buttoning hastily as he finds his shoes, slips them on. He has to get some air. He said that already.

  He is moving through the dim rooms, and in contradiction to his sounder, wiser, lawyerly judgment, he thinks: I’m fucking this up with this sweet and beautiful young woman. He is pushing through the screen door of the cottage. To ward off an even worse culpability over Kelly, he denies this one now. She’s a child. He’s old enough to be her father. What did he expect.

  He walks briskly a dozen paces away from the cottage and he stops. The moon is high. The smell of sugar cane smoke, of something sweet burnt down, is strong in the air. He shouldn’t be blaming Laurie. If it’s wrong with her, it’s wrong. But what made it go wrong so abruptly? He stands very still beneath the moon, and just as abruptly, he is uneasy with himself in many ways. Many. But he would have trouble clearly articulating any of them. And he and Kelly enter the room they have made their own over the years, Room 303 at the Olivier House in the Quarter. They’ve had dinner at Galatoire’s and she’s been very quiet and of course he has appreciated that, of course he has assumed that things are very good between them because she is happy to be quiet with him, and he hangs up his suit coat and he crosses the room loosening his tie and she has drifted toward the bed. He opens the French windows.

  “It’s hot in here,” he says. “Or maybe that’s just the oysters backing up on me.”

  He looks out at the moon, perched brightly on the farthest rooftop.

  He turns.

  Kelly is sitting on the side of the bed. She looks up at him. “Michael,” she says, and she stops.

  He takes a step toward her, and he waits for a moment. Then he says, “What is it?”

  She looks away. Her shoulders hunch a little. “It’s just the oysters,” she says.

  He accepts this. He has cufflinks. He thinks to take them off.

  “Was I pretty tonight?” she says.

  “Of course,” Michael says.

  She falls silent again. He’s not sure if he can move away to deal with his cufflinks now. There may be more.

  And then she says, “There are things I need. Things I’ve always needed.”

  And Michael turns around beneath the moon at Oak Alley Plantation, even as he hears himself say to Kelly “What things do you need?” He faces the cottage where Laurie waits. And he stands before Kelly.

  “Was I pretty tonight?” she says.

  “Of course,” he says.

  “There are things I need,” she says.

  “What things do you need?” he says.

  “I’ve been sleeping with a man,” she says.

  And he stops this now. His hand goes to his phone. He’ll try once more to get through. He flips open the cell and he has a message. The number is hers. It couldn’t have been long ago. He starts the message and puts the phone to his ear.

  And Kelly’s voice says, “It’s me. With things unsaid between us—forever unsaid—I didn’t want this all to end without my saying I’m sorry. I am. For this. For everything. You did the best you could. So did I … I hoped to hear a train tonight and just fade away with it down the river. But I know it’s almost time now, and there’s only silence … I love this room. Can you love a room? Or is that just a word? No. I love this room. I always have. Maybe I’ll haunt it … And my darling, I love you too. I always have.”

  Michael redials her number and he knows what will happen but he has to try, he has to hold himself in suspension till at least he tries. Her phone rings and rings and rings and rings and rings and it rings and it clicks and her voice message begins and Michael snaps his phone shut. He sprints to the cottage and he slams through the screen door and the
front door and he rushes toward the bedroom. Laurie has heard the violence of his entry and when Michael bursts into the room she has scrambled against the headboard. He sees her eyes wide and her hands flat hard against the mattress, pressing her backwards. “God no,” he says. “It’s not about you. I had a phone message. I think Kelly’s trying to kill herself.”

  Laurie rises to her knees. “Oh, Michael.”

  “I have to go,” he says, moving to the dresser. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she says. “Do what you have to do.”

  He grabs his wallet and his keys and he turns back to Laurie.

  “I’m sorry for everything,” he says.

  “Go,” she says.

  Michael nods and he rushes out of the room.

  Laurie sinks back down, presses herself against the headboard once more. She closes her eyes hard, waits for the tears. She wants Kelly to live. But she knows that whatever happens, she has lost Michael.

  ∼

  And Michael roars down the perimeter road of the plantation, not thinking yet, and the intersection with Highway 18 looms ahead and he hits his brakes hard and he feels a flutter of fishtail in his car and he asserts his mind, realizing he can’t help Kelly if he ends up in a ditch. He makes the full stop at 18. He has thought of a thing to do first. He opens his phone and scans through the phone directory and finds the number for the Olivier House. He dials the number even as he slides out onto the highway and accelerates, going as fast as he can and still control his car with one hand. He puts the phone to his ear and a woman’s voice answers.

  “Olivier House.” A familiar voice.

  “This is Michael Hays.”

  “Mr. Hays?”

  “Yes. I need to speak to my wife.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Room 303,” he says.

  “She’s not registered here, Mr. Hays.”

  Michael feels a slamming of brakes in him. Maybe he’s wrong. No. She was talking about their room at the Olivier, clearly. He says, “It’s Ramona, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ramona, I feel certain she’s there.”

  “I know Mrs. Hays quite well,” she says. “She’s definitely not here.”

  “You’re on nights,” Michael says. “You simply haven’t seen her. Room 303. Try 303.”

  And Ramona says, “Oh, I know who’s in Room 303. It’s not Mrs. Hays.”

  Michael just drives for a moment, just rushes in the dark past the stubbled cane fields white in the moonlight. He does have a shard of a doubt. He has to advocate here. For Kelly’s sake, he has to act as if it’s true. He says, “She’s told you to say this, Ramona. But listen very carefully. I have good reason to believe she’s harming herself. Right now. In your hotel.”

  There is a beat of silence on the other end. He wishes he could see this woman. He wishes he could watch her eyes. Is she hesitating because he’s right? Or is she offended at being called a liar when she’s not?

  Ramona says, “I’m telling you she’s not here.”

  “Please at least check on her,” Michael says. “Please.”

  “On who, Mr. Hays?” Ramona says. “I have to go now. I have someone checking in.”

  And she’s gone.

  Michael snaps his phone shut and lays it on the seat next to him. He has to act as if she’s lying. “Take your time, baby,” he says aloud as he puts both hands on the wheel and leans into the wide, white column of light he’s pushing before him. “Take your time.” And he accelerates, he races as fast as he dare along the river.

  ∼

  And at the Olivier House front desk, Ramona stares at the phone. She is not a natural liar. She is a reluctant liar. She hates to lie. She hates it so much, she knows the count. Six. She has lied six times in the past minute and a half. But it’s for a good cause. The husband was scary. Too intense. She could feel it over the phone. She could understand Mrs. Hays asking her to do this, to lie. And she needs to find something other than “Mrs. Hays” to call her. Would “Kelly” be too familiar? But even as she feels whatever is going on here is something sadly typical between a man and woman, Ramona, too, has a shard of doubt beginning to tumble through her head. A small shard, but a shard nonetheless.

  She pushes back from the desk and rises. She turns and crosses to the double doors at the back of the entrance hall and she opens them and steps out. She pauses. She doesn’t want to disturb Kelly. But if there is even a small chance that Mr. Hays is right, then she must. She moves on into the deep shadow of the loggia, the pool glowing ahead, and she emerges into the courtyard, focused now on making sure Kelly is all right. Vaguely aware, as she always is, of the thirty-foot ficus on the far side of the pool, a crazy overgrown thing, she turns to the staircase, utterly unaware of the young man and young woman from Room 107 in the middle of the pool, both of them naked, holding each other close. Their laughter, at their own paralyzed panic at nearly being caught, follows Ramona up the stairs.

  She is oblivious to it. She’s climbing the stairs quickly now, quickly, wanting to get this over with, wanting to put her own mind at ease. She emerges on the third floor and steps to the door of Room 303. She hesitates once more, but she must do this. She knocks. Too lightly, she knows. There’s no response. She knocks harder. “Mrs. Hays,” she says. “It’s Ramona.”

  She hears nothing from within. She’s hesitant. Kelly is getting some needed rest. Ramona’s disturbing her at the say-so of a controlling man. But she decides to try again. And she hears her own mistake. “I’m sorry,” she says through the door. “I mean … Kelly, isn’t it? Kelly, it’s Ramona.”

  Nothing. Ramona raises her hand again to the door. But she stops, unable to do a thing. She should just go. She should knock again. She should go.

  And the door opens. It’s Kelly.

  Clearly she’s been crying. Her eyes are wet. And they are trying to droop shut. She smells strongly of liquor. She deserves to get drunk in peace. Ramona has made a terrible mistake.

  “What is it, Ramona?” Kelly says.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she says, though she does have to ask, for the record. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ve been crying,” Kelly says. “I thought I’d finished. I wasn’t. But I am now. I almost am.”

  “I didn’t mean to bother you,” Ramona says.

  “I had to finish this first,” Kelly says. “I don’t know why.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “I’m going to go to sleep,” Kelly says.

  “It was your husband, is why,” Ramona says. “He called.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “You’re not here.”

  “Good.”

  “Have a nice long sleep,” Ramona says.

  “I will,” Kelly says, so softly Ramona can barely hear. But then Kelly speaks up, her voice reassuringly firm. “You cry enough,” Kelly says, “it all finally gets clear, you know?”

  “Oh I do,” Ramona says.

  “I’m feeling calm,” Kelly says.

  “Good.”

  “Good night,” Kelly says.

  “Good night,” Ramona says.

  The door closes. Ramona gives the door a little nod and she goes.

  ∼

  Out in the night, Michael is pushing hard, and ahead he can see flashing red lights in the night sky, floating above the horizon, and beyond is a vast yellow glow. The lights are the Gramercy Bridge. The glow is the alumina refinery. He’s still fifty miles from New Orleans. He will speed up, but he slows a little first and he reaches to his phone. He dials Kelly’s cell. It rings and rings again and he does not know that Kelly, returning from the door after speaking with Ramona, stands before the phone as it rings a third time, and he does not know that her tears have ended and that she takes the phone into her hand and steps unsteadily to the French windows and that she throws the phone into the night. And neither of them knows that the phone falls and falls and rings once more as it falls, turning the faces of a naked young c
ouple just in time to see a tiny splash of water at the far end of the pool.

  ∼

  And Michael drives fast and Michael tries not to think, tries just to keep focused on the road, the steering wheel, his lights out before him, and he is crossing the Gramercy Bridge with the bright yellow blare of the refinery beside him and its mountain peaks of alumina red mud and of gypsum waste and he is off the bridge and he slows for a stoplight, checking for traffic and cops, and he accelerates through and he’s racing in the dark and the pine forests scroll past on both sides and she is touching him, she runs her hand down his chest in the dark, his Kelly, and she sighs, and he shakes off this memory and he realizes he has opened by instinct, by his own preemptive preference, to a moment when she was silent, when perhaps she wanted to speak when perhaps she wanted to say these things she needed to say and perhaps she touched his chest instead, having touched him enough already, needing now to add words to the touching, needing this, but with him, married to him, made silent by him, she was able only to touch, and Michael grips the wheel harder and he presses on and the interstate is ahead at last and he follows a sign though it seems as if he’s simply veering into the woods and he follows this narrow way and he follows and he follows and it’s dark and he feels the pulse of his heart in his ears and at last the woods vanish and a bright-lit semi roars past him and Michael slides into the near lane of I-10 and he can make real time and he keeps sliding into the passing lane and he accelerates rushing past the truck and on and on and he has only the flare of his headlights before him and the pulse of the white lines beneath him and he stays mindless now he can stay mindless and the highway rises and the median vanishes and beside him is a dark void beyond a concrete rail he is in cypress treetops and for a time the world becomes for him, below and beyond and far beyond, a time of dark and light—the trees and motels and a Shell gas station casino and the distant orange skyline of a refinery and the tunnel of treetops again—and he feels Kelly out there dying, from pills he assumes, the fading away in a hotel room, the haunting, and he’s too late he’s too late he is driving fast and he is too late and it would be better for him just to turn the wheel just to embrace the silence that he has always kept before his wife just to turn the wheel and fly into these trees and be silent forever but he bursts from the trees now and he races along the causeway the vast void of Lake Pontchartrain to one side and the Gulf to the other both horizons invisible in the far and utter dark, and it is all slow now, it is this encircling dark and the far-ahead razor-slash of the lights of New Orleans, and he feels as if he is not moving at all, though his mind knows he is moving fast, it is as if he were in a craft out in the great emptiness of space hurtling unspeakably fast but without a near point of reference and so seeming not to move at all, and he has no point of reference, he knows she is dying, and he will rush on like this forever rush in solitary trajectory between the stars, rush on without end: for he loves his wife he does love his wife and there is a long long way to go to get her back but he seems not to be moving at all and he wonders if he himself has died, if he is dead already.