Honeymoon Hotel

by Bretton, Barbara

  "Miss Stratton! Sorry! Really sorry! 'Scuse me but I didn't hear you come in." He picked up his battered green cloth tool kit. "I'll get out of your way."

  What an odd thing to say. There was nothing even vaguely unusual about either a tenant fetching her mail or a super performing his duties, but then Stanley always managed to hit just the right note of slippery subservience that set Joanna's teeth on edge.

  He brushed off his hands on the legs of his khaki-colored coveralls and stood up. His short, powerfully muscled body seemed more imposing than usual in the confines of the tiny mail room.

  Although he treated her with respect, Joanna detected an unmistakable flicker of male interest alive in his dark brown eyes each time he looked at her, and so she always went out of her way to be scrupulously polite and businesslike and not the slightest bit interested.

  "Don't leave on my account, Stanley. I just popped in to get the mail." As if there could be another, more pressing reason for showing up in the mail room at one o'clock in the afternoon.

  However, Joanna knew that when dealing with Stanley's type of man, even the obvious had to be made more so.

  She rummaged in the pocket of her coat for the tiny mailbox key, searching through loose change and crumpled dollar bills. "I really should take a course in organization," she muttered as her fingers finally closed around her key chain. "One day I'll . . . "

  She looked up and her words died off as she saw two men, just past their teenage years, standing by the open door. Neither one looked familiar. One had longish red hair and bright blue eyes, while the other had close-cropped red hair and brown eyes, the same as Stanley. Both of them watched her with avid interest.

  She turned to Stanley.

  "Don’t worry about those two, Ms. Stratton," he said, picking up a tool from the floor and putting it in his tool kit. "They look like trouble, but they're okay."

  "Yeah," said the shorter of the two helpers. "We look like trouble but Stanley keeps us in line."

  "I wasn't worried," Joanna lied over the accelerated thumping of her heart. "You just surprised me."

  "They're my new assistants," Stanley said, his dark gaze fastened on the two younger men who lounged in the doorway. "We got a lot more work around here since we went co-op and the boss said I could hire on some help."

  Joanna unlocked the mailbox and pulled out Time, People, a fat phone bill and a thin airmail letter from one of her friends in Scotland.

  "Well," she said, acutely aware of the three men surrounding her, "I'll let you get back to your work." She noticed one of Rosie's fliers, advertising a tenants' meeting, on the floor near Stanley's foot and she bent down to retrieve it.

  Stanley motioned quickly with his right hand and the two young men parted like the Red Sea and made room for Joanna to pass. She paused just long enough to tack the flier to the bulletin board opposite the mailboxes.

  "You have a good day now, Miss Stratton," Stanley called after her. "You have a real good day."

  As Joanna turned the corner toward the elevator, she heard the rumble of male laughter and it wasn't difficult to imagine the kind of crude sexual innuendo that had precipitated it.

  To hell with Stanley and his pals, she thought as she pushed the button for the ninth floor and the elevator doors slid shut. The Carillon and its employees were Cynthia's problems, not hers.

  At the moment, Joanna's most pressing problem was figuring out how she would manage the makeup techniques Benny Ryan's job offer required.

  Although she fought Holland every step of the way when it came to aging and its inherent problems, much of what her friend had to say about the subject was painfully on target. Joanna had only to look at her own mother to see that.

  Cynthia Hayes Stratton Donato VanDyke del Portago prized beauty and youth above all else and, at the moment, she was enjoying both on a small Greek island with a bronzed giant named Stavros, who was young enough to be Joanna's kid brother.

  Cynthia had been chasing the fountain of youth for the past thirty years, stubbornly refusing to believe that nothing could stay the hand of time. Her search had led her through multiple marriages and numerous heartbreaks on five continents while Joanna grew up under the watchful eyes of a series of nannies.

  Joanna's search had been for something else entirely. Her father was a dim memory; her mother, a shooting star. The love and guidance her starving heart had craved couldn't be found in the paid affections of housekeepers and baby sitters. The pretty child had turned into a beautiful young woman raised to believe her own happiness was dependent upon the protection of a man.

  So it was no surprise that Joanna tumbled into love with the first young man who offered her a way out. Her brief marriage had been the one time in her life when she felt totally loved, totally necessary to another person's happiness. That made Eddie's death – and its shocking aftermath – that much harder to bear. But bear it she did, and in so doing she gained in an inner strength that no age spot or laugh line could destroy.

  Joanna got out at the ninth floor and let herself into her temporary home, closing the series of locks and bolts securely behind her.

  Even though Holland's apprehensions were the direct result of a career that placed as high a value on beauty as it did on talent. Joanna hated to see her friend begin the downward spiral that finally destroyed a woman's self-esteem.

  Joanna was sick to death of pretending she could make time stand still, of playing tricks with shadow and light to soothe the blistered egos of stars who had spent too many years in the Hollywood sun. The years of traveling from place to place, always one step ahead of her loneliness, held no further appeal. Love might not be on her horizon, but professional satisfaction was within her grasp if she was willing to branch away from the familiar and take a few chances.

  The more she thought about it, the more Benny Ryan's offer appealed to her sense of perverse whimsy. The prestige of fighting the tide of youth intrigued her. Maybe her work would never win the Nobel Peace Prize, but the thought that there was an alternative to discovering the perfect eye shadow applicator was incentive enough.

  The question was: Could she pull it off?

  She sat down at the desk and set the magnifying mirror into position,. Grabbing a headband she scraped her shiny black hair off her forehead and studied her face the way an artist studied a fresh canvas. Large, slightly slanted eyes. Thick, well-defined black brows. Narrow nose. High cheekbones, full mouth. Thanks to Cynthia and good genes, it was a face many directors had felt belonged on the other side of the camera. Now the trick was to take that particular combination of features and project them forty years into the future.

  Paler foundation. Heavy face powder and latex spirit gum to give the appearance of heavy lines beneath her eyes. Her fingers traced the hollows beneath her cheekbones. A fleshier face would be easier to work with. She'd have to remember to tell Benny that when it came time to cast the commercial.

  Quickly she daubed on some brown and grey shadows to simulate the effects of age on a woman's skin. She would need a trip to Ranaghan's for supplies if she was going to do this up properly, but she had enough materials at hand right now to start.

  Twenty minutes later Joanna looked into the mirror and saw her future self, circa 2025. The sight was enough to extinguish that lustful light in Stanley's eyes permanently.

  But she still hadn't faced the acid test: Central Park West in full early March sunshine, surrounded by Yuppies and street people and the usual Wednesday phalanx of ladies-who-lunch that moved up the avenue like a flotilla of mink coats with feet.

  If no one handed her a pack of Kleenex and a jar of cold cream, she was in business. And, if they did – well, it would still make a great dinnertime topic at Rosie's that evening.

  Joanna stuffed her hair into a bright red wool cap she'd bought in Switzerland, grabbed her coat and house keys and set out on a fact-finding mission; Whistler's Mother, in sweatpants and Reeboks, conquers the Upper West Side.

  #

&nb
sp; The laundry room of the Carillon Arms reminded Ryder of an old Odd Couple episode, the one where Felix and Oscar entertained dates to the accompaniment of soapsuds and liquid fabric softener. Despite the champagne and soft music, romance rarely flourished by the light of the Whirlpool.

  Of course, romance was not what Carillon's management had had in mind when they decorated the laundry room, but they certainly had tried very hard to lift it out of the ranks of the utilitarian and into the exalted realm of high-tech trendiness.

  However, not even wall-to-wall carpeting, over-stuffed chairs and a soda machine that dispensed both Pepsi and Perrier could hide the fact that whenever you put a washer and a dryer in the same room, you meant business.

  It was a far cry from the ultraexclusive, ultraexpensive O'Shaughnessy's in Boston, where he'd spent most of the afternoon enjoying lobster and shrimp and some of the best gossip that side of the White House. Alistair had gone all out to lure Ryder into reconsidering his threat to retire from PAX.

  Little did Alistair know that last month's trip back home to Omaha had done more to lure Ryder than all of the fancy apartments and private jets PAX could provide. He'd gone back for his niece's christening, expecting to be greeted as the conquering hero, his broken leg a testimony to the glamour and danger inherent in his mysterious profession.

  His suburban brothers, whose Bible was Consumer's Digest and whose creed was the adjustable-rate mortgage, would gnash their teeth in despair and yearn for days gone by. His sisters, mired in motherhood and drowning in domesticity, would sift through their lists of single friends, wondering if any of them would be sophisticated enough for their world-traveling brother.

  Ryder's expectations had been well defined.

  And none of them was met.

  #

  Omaha had changed. That was the first thing Ryder noticed as he drove into town. Where once it had ended around the West Roads Shopping Center, now it sprawled outward and beyond, a great, thriving city unlike the sleepy town he remembered from his childhood.

  The old landmarks were still there – the signs to Offutt Air Force Base, Southroads, the kids from the University of Nebraska and Omaha and Creighton dragging up Dodge Street – but somehow none of them seemed to fit any longer. Progress had swept through Omaha, surrounding Addison's Soda Shop and Swatek's Delicatessen, threatening to engulf them in nationwide chain stores that were the death knell of regionality.

  He chuckled as the limo driver turned onto L Street, which headed toward his mother's house. Ridiculous, sentimental thoughts. He'd been born with a passport in his hand, as eager to be free of familial restraints as he'd felt his family eager to see him go. His first memories were of his mother weeping in a dark corner of the bedroom while his father got ready for another night out with the boys.

  He'd hated his father for the demons that finally drove him out of their lives but Ryder had sensed early on that the placid domesticity that his brothers seemed born to had somehow passed him by. The world outside had called to him and he'd answered that call and never looked back until now.

  The limo pulled into the rutted driveway in front of the big white frame house with the black shutters that always managed to look just slightly askew. This is it, he thought as he maneuvered himself and his crutches out of the Lincoln. After two days of being treated as the conquering hero, of fielding his brothers' envious questions and the outright hero worship of his nieces and nephews, he'd be reassured that what he had with PAX was exactly what he wanted.

  #

  Nothing had worked out as planned.

  His brothers and sisters understood more about life and happiness than Ryder had ever dreamed of. They had woven their lives into the fabric of community and family, fitting their hopes and dreams into the pattern of continuity. No one wondered about his mysterious profession. No one seemed willing to trade Kmart and Baker's for the south of France.

  They were happy with their lives and with themselves. They were curious about his travels but not envious. Where once he'd believed his brothers to be lacking in daring, now his perception of what constituted daring changed.

  What really took more courage: facing bullet or facing up to the responsibility of family life? Years ago he would have known the answer. He laughed hollowly and, in that laugh, heard the echo of his father.

  Hell, years ago he wouldn't have asked the question. Time, however, didn't stand still. Not even for men like Ryder O'Neal.

  He wanted everything. He wanted the excitement of PAX, he wanted the danger and drama and, now in this thirty-fourth year, he wanted the one thing he'd always turned away from: he wanted love.

  Normal men didn't know how to disassemble a Kalashnikov rifle or understand how enough FOAM-X to blow up the World Trade Center could be hidden in a can of shaving cream.

  "You're not cut out for real life," Alistair had said when he dropped Ryder back at the Carillon an hour ago. "You're meant to live on the edge. You wouldn't know how to manage a normal existence."

  Ryder watched his laundry tumble around in the Whirlpool and wondered if maybe Alistair had a point.

  #

  The sullen teenager on the other side of the deli counter chomped on her gum and tapped her acrylic fingernails impatiently on top of the cash register while Joanna fumbled through her coat pocket for her money.

  "I know I have a single somewhere in here," she said with a smile of apology. "It'll just take another moment."

  "I don't got all day," the young blonde snapped, barely glancing at Joanna,. "There're other people in here, you know."

  Joanna went to step out of the way of a man who was waiting to pay for a pack of Camels when the sleeve of her raincoat brushed against the counter and tipped a cup of coffee down the front of her coat.

  The counter clerk's sigh of disgust could be heard in Delaware.

  "Do you have some tissues?" Joanna asked. "This is soaking right through."

  The clerk rang up the man's cigarettes and said, "In the back, behind the soup."

  Joanna took a deep breath. "I mean, do you have some you could give me right now."

  "If you want them, you'll have to buy them." She looked through Joanna as if she weren't there.

  Joanna turned and stormed out of the store. For the past hour and a half she'd been feeling slightly invisible, but the deli clerk's rudeness was the last straw.

  She'd been jostled in the liquor store without so much as an "Excuse me." In the bookstore a woman pushed ahead of her in line as if Joanna's business couldn't possibly be as important as her own. When a man in his sixties called her "ma'am," Joanna had to battle down the urge to kick him in the shins.

  It was a compliment to her artistry with makeup that the disguise, improvised as it was, had been so successful, but all she could think about as she let herself into the lobby of the Carillon was the monstrous coffee stain that was spreading across the front of her raincoat.

  Great afternoon, she thought as the elevator creaked its way down to the basement. Not only was her self-esteem a few pegs lower than before, but she had left the deli without her quart of milk and now she faced the drudgery of the laundry room.

  Perhaps Cynthia had the right idea after all. Maybe growing old gracefully was an outdated notion. Maybe it was better to kick and scream against time, then when all else failed, take a young lover and flee to Greece where they understood the splendors of older women.

  The elevator shimmied to a stop and Joanna hurried through the corridor to the laundry room. Greece and a handsome cabana boy certain beat an evening with a box of Tide and the promise of coffee with Cremora.

  She glanced at her watch. Ten to five. At least the laundry room would be empty and she could wash and dry her coat before the hordes descended upon it later.

  The TV was on, as always, and the end of The People's Court echoed through the cavernous room. Joanna slipped out of her coat and was about to pop it into one of the empty machines when she heard a low rumble.

  She turned and her
breath caught. A man of about thirty-five was sprawled in one of the brightly-colored chairs the Carillon's misguided management had strewn through the laundry room like overstuffed Easter eggs. His right leg, encased in a cheerful art-deco cast, rested atop a big stack of magazines.

  His eyes were closed, his arms folded behind his head. His shaggy dark brown hair was shot through with reddish highlights and looked as if he'd forgotten to comb it that morning. The low rumble she'd heard was probably an Upper West Side snore.

  Joanna tossed her raincoat into the washer and added detergent. Staring at a sleeping man seemed an invasion of privacy but she couldn't help herself. If those chiseled cheekbones and that strong, well-defined jawline were any indication that was one human being who would age beautifully.

  Maybe she'd have time to race upstairs, scrub off the old-age makeup and get back to the laundry room before the spin cycle. She reached for her house keys but they slipped from her soapy fingers and clattered to the floor.

  "Damn," she mumbled, bending down to fish them out from between two bouncing Whirlpools. The keys were just beyond reach. She got down on her knees, face pressed against one of the machines, red wool cap drooping over her eyes, and pushed her arm farther into the space between the washers.

  Five more seconds, she thought. Five more seconds and she'd beat a hasty retreat to the super's office and beg for help. She'd rather be embarrassed in front of a grizzled, grimy Stanley any day than be caught in her sweatpants and kinky makeup by this male Sleeping Beauty who –

  "It's not that I don't enjoy the view from here," a male voice said, "but I think you could use a little help."

  Let it be Stanley, she thought. Let it be Stanley or the man in 920 with the earrings or the woman in the penthouse with the glandular problem. Let it be Jack the Ripper, but please don't let it be the man with the broken leg and a cast straight out of the Museum of Modern Art.