“Alexis,” Kenneth said in that über-calm voice of his. “Why are you here?”
“I . . . uh . . .” Where the hell was she supposed to begin? She didn’t know how to talk to lawyers. Hell, she didn’t know how to talk to any adult who wasn’t at least a little bit insane.
“Her mom is dead,” Linda blurted out.
Alexis choked against the grief lumping in throat. She knew it was true, but it was so much harder when someone said it out loud. “My uncle . . . he uh . . .” She opened her messenger bag and dug around for the legal papers, grateful for the excuse to look away. She didn’t want him to see her face, not if she was going to cry.
“Here,” she said, thrusting the documents at him. “I found these in my mom’s stuff. I think my uncle is trying to steal the hotel.”
Kenneth took the papers and looked down at them. After a few seconds he flicked off the TV and asked Linda to turn on the light for him. Alexis waited nervously as he slowly made his way through the document, licking his finger before using it to flip each page. When he was about halfway through, he looked up and used his head to motion to a chair across the room. “Sit down,” he said.
Alexis moved awkwardly across the room. The furniture was modern and spotless, and the chair Kenneth had directed her to looked ruthlessly uncomfortable. She perched at the edge, watching him as he reached the final page of the papers.
“Can you help me?” she asked.
Kenneth set the papers down on the coffee table in front of him. “Did you read these?” he asked.
“I tried. I couldn’t understand them.”
Kenneth gave her a wry smile. “I’m afraid lawyers aren’t known for their clarity.”
“Well, what does it say?”
“Your uncle wasn’t trying to steal the hotel,” he said gently.
“Well, no,” Alexis said, starting to feel a little more at ease now that he was actually being nice to her. “But he was going to force my mom to sell it. They own it together, and I know that one of them can’t sell it unless the other agrees.”
“That’s true,” Kenneth said, “but your uncle wasn’t the one who wanted to sell the hotel. It was your mother.”
Alexis shook her head. “No. No, you’ve got it wrong. She would never do that. She loved the hotel.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Kenneth said carefully, “but for whatever reason, she was suing your uncle to force a sale.”
“No,” Alexis said again. Awkwardly, she came to her feet, bumping her thigh against the arm of the chair as she rose. “You’re wrong.” She looked over at Linda, desperate for someone to back her up. “Linda,” she said, hating the desperation in her voice. “Tell him.”
Linda looked back and forth between Alexis and her stepfather. “I . . . uh . . . um, I don’t think Edith would have sold the hotel. She really seemed to like it.”
“A building that size takes a lot of money to maintain,” Kenneth said.
“But we were doing OK,” Alexis said belligerently. It was two steps to the coffee table and then she snatched up the papers. “Forget I said anything. Forget I asked for your help.” She turned to Linda. “I’ll go.”
“No,” Kenneth said. He stood and put his hand on Alexis’s arm. “We can help you.”
Alexis looked down at his hand suspiciously.
“Who is staying with you?” he asked. “You’re a minor. You can’t stay in the hotel by yourself.”
“I’m not by myself.”
“Your tenants don’t count.”
Alexis thought about Ursula and Mr. Kenji, Deaf Donald and Otto. And LJ. She especially thought of LJ. Maybe they weren’t the kind of people Kenneth would ever deign to talk to, but they counted. They all counted.
“I’m leaving,” she muttered, yanking her arm free. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Alexis, you can’t go back and live at the hotel,” Linda said. “Maybe if LJ was still there, but he’s dead, too, and—”
“Wait a minute,” Kenneth said, his head snapping back and forth between the two girls. “Who the hell is LJ?”
Alexis glared at Linda. This was not about LJ, and she should have known better than to bring him up.
“Linda, who is LJ?” Kenneth demanded, when it became apparent that Alexis was not going to answer.
“He lived over at the hotel. He was—”
“Linda!” Alexis practically snarled the word. The little traitor. She couldn’t believe it.
“I’m sorry, Alexis,” Linda said, “but this is too big. You can’t handle it yourself.”
“Who is LJ?” Kenneth demanded again.
“He lived at the hotel,” Linda said quickly, before Alexis could interrupt again. “He died in that explosion last night.”
“What?” Kenneth swore under his breath. “Please tell me you didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“Of course not,” Alexis snapped. “But—”
“But what?”
“Nothing.” She hugged her messenger bag closer to her body. There was no way she was going to let him listen to the disc. He would think LJ was completely whacked out. He’d use it to—OK, she had no idea what Kenneth would do with the disc. But she didn’t want him to hear it. She owed LJ that much.
Kenneth let out a long breath. “OK, this is what we’re going to do. Alexis, you’ll stay here tonight.”
“No,” Alexis said automatically. She wasn’t staying anywhere with this guy.
“Look,” Kenneth said sharply, “I ought to call Child Protective Services right this minute.”
“Oh my God.” Panicked, Alexis shot a glance toward the door, trying to gauge how long it would take to get there.
“Listen to me,” Kenneth said, grabbing her arm again.
“No!” Alexis yelled. “I knew I shouldn’t have come over here. You’re just going to put me in some foster care so you never have to see me again, and—”
“Just stay here until I can figure out what to do,” he said. “What I was trying to say is that I should call CPS on you, but I won’t. Not yet. Let me look into this first. There might be some other solution.”
Alexis eyed him warily.
“I’m trying to help you, Alexis,” he said.
Maybe he thought he was. But what he thought was right and good would never be what was right for Alexis. Still, she knew that if she left right now, he’d call the police in a heartbeat. Better to let him think she had given up.
“OK,” she said. “I’ll stay here for now.”
“Good,” he said, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze. “You’re doing the right thing.”
“I know.” She nodded, trying to look like a good girl, whatever that was.
He seemed to buy it. “I’m going to go look into this.” He turned to Linda. “I’ll be in my office. Why don’t you two get something to eat?”
“Sure,” Linda said. Alexis nodded again. More of that good-girl thing.
But she wasn’t a good girl. She never had been. And there was no way she was spending the night there.
CHAPTER 23
MARY GUTERSON
ALEXIS WAS STARVING. GOD, WHEN was the last time she’d had anything to eat? She couldn’t remember. That morning? The day before? She remembered throwing up. That she remembered.
“So, what do you feel like eating?” Linda asked. “We’ve got everything you can think of. Steak? Macaroni and cheese? Tuna sandwich?”
“I don’t care. Anything. All of a sudden I feel like I’m going to pass out. This has been the longest day of my life.”
“Just go sit on the sofa. Let Linda take care of you.”
Alexis sank down into the deep cushions. Man, did rich people have nice sofas. And chairs to match. And nice coffee tables with framed photos. And paintings everywhere. Alexis wished she knew more about art. One of these paintings could be by somebody famous and she wouldn’t even know it.
What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she be like other people? Other people would know
who did these paintings. Other people lived in normal houses with normal families. Other people got up in the morning and ate pancakes and eggs instead of serving booze and tea to old people at four in the afternoon.
And college. Other people went to college. Alexis had never even considered going to college. What would she study, anyway? She had no idea what she wanted to be in life.
What a loser.
Alexis closed her eyes, remembering middle school and they way the other girls treated her—like she was poisonous or something. And they’d called her names. Lesbo. Ha! Well, what do you know? Turned out they were right! She was a lesbo! How about that!
She set her hands over her belly and tried to calm its growling. She was going to fall asleep. She could feel it coming over her, the urge to simply let sleep overtake her. No, she mustn’t let that happen. She had to stay awake. She had to get back to the Hotel Angeline.
“Here you go,” Linda said.
On the platter that Linda held in front of her sat a big bowl of tomato soup and a fat, doughy-looking roll. Alexis could almost cry, it smelled so good—like the smell of home, of the soups Edith used to make and serve with white toast, slathered with butter.
“Thanks,” Alexis said.
Linda sat down next to her. She lifted a hand to Alexis’s cheek and stroked it softly.
“I’m sorry, ” Linda said. “I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry your mom had to die and that maybe you’ll lose the hotel and that LJ is gone and all of that. But you know, I honestly think something good is going to come of all of this. I really do. I know you wish everything could just go back to the way it was before. But you know as well as I do that isn’t going to happen. It sucks, I know.”
Alexis took a big spoonful of hot soup. If only she could give in right now. Be done with it. Fess up to the police. She was tired of being so responsible.
“You look like you’re conking out,” Linda said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you just want to go to sleep here on the sofa? You can, you know. I can bring you a comforter and you can just fall asleep whenever you want. In the morning, all of this will be over. And it will all be OK, I promise.”
Alexis nodded, but inside she’d already begun to plan.
“A comforter would be great,” she said.
Moments later, Linda had tucked the comforter around her on the sofa and tiptoed out of the room, switching off the lights as she went. Alexis waited five full minutes, then opened her eyes and sat up. She was going to have to get back to the hotel. She’d come this far; she wasn’t going to let anything stop her now.
She switched on the lamp next to the sofa, stood, and listened carefully. Silence. No one.
As quietly as she could, she walked to the front door in the foyer and placed a hand on the door handle. Suddenly, a voice behind her made her jump.
“What do you think you’re doing, young lady?”
Alexis turned around. It was Kenneth, staring at her. He didn’t look happy.
“Oh. I. Well. I. I just wanted to get a little fresh air is all,” Alexis said. “That’s all I was doing. Just stepping outside for a moment.”
“How about we open a window in the guest room for you?” Kenneth said. He took Alexis by the arm and led her away from the door and down the hallway. Halfway down, he opened a door.
“In here, my dear,” he said.
Alexis looked inside the room. A bed. A bedside table. A dresser. A lamp.
“I’m sure you’ll find it quite comfortable,” Kenneth said. “Now, no more monkey business. We’ll see you in the morning.”
He shut the door.
“And by the way, I’ll be right outside, so don’t try anything!” Kenneth yelled through the door. “Sorry, my dear. But extreme measures seem to be in order for you.”
An hour went by. Maybe two. Alexis didn’t know how long she’d been lying on the bed awake, waiting for morning. She’d been so exhausted, and now she couldn’t sleep to save her life. Her head was spinning. First she thought about Edith and the place where she and Linda had left her. There had been something funny about that guy Clovis. Something wrong with the way he talked. Alexis suddenly wondered if it had been a huge mistake, leaving Edith with him. My God, who knew what he might do with her? How could she have trusted him? Oh, God, she was so stupid. And then she thought about Linda. She had thought Linda loved her and would take care of her and it turned out that Linda was a traitor. And then LJ, the only man she had trusted with all of her secrets, and look what had happened to him. Dead. Just like her mother. She couldn’t help it. She started to cry. And then she was weeping, the tears streaming down her cheeks. When she was a little girl and cried, her mother had come to pick her up.
Now she had no one.
She had only herself.
Alexis stood and walked over to the window, where she could look out over the viaduct. She opened the window and stuck her head out into the night air. It had rained earlier—poured, really—but it had stopped now and the air felt fresh, almost harsh, inside her nose. She had to think. Think. Think. Think. How was she going to get out of this room when there was only one way out and it was through the window? She looked down. There was a ledge, almost a small deck that ran the length of the building. To the right she could see the living-room windows. And farther down, the windows of the bedroom Linda’s mom and stepdad shared. All the lights were on and she could hear the sound of the television. Maybe Kenneth had gone back to the bedroom after all.
Linda would be sleeping soundly by now, in that deep sleep of hers where she couldn’t be woken, even by a hurricane. And Linda’s mother was out of town, probably a business trip. So it was only Kenneth Alexis had to contend with.
How many floors up was she? She looked down. Eight. That was a lot of flights. She didn’t want to fall and kill herself. That would be stupid. Well, she was going to have to try something.
She took a few deep breaths and then put one leg through the open window. So far, so good. She put the other leg up and then she was sitting on the window ledge, eight floors above the street. This was crazy. What was she going to do?
Then she heard something. Something familiar. She sat still as she could, listening as hard as she could. Yes, in the distance. The familiar cawing of a bird. Habib. Was it really Habib?
“Habib!” she said in a loud whisper. “Habib! Over here!”
The cawing grew louder and a moment later, there was the big black bird, swirling around in circles in the sky in front of her. He swooped and swirled and then dove toward where she sat, perching himself on the ledge next to her. Habib. The bird that had always driven her crazy. And now she couldn’t believe how happy she was to see him.
“Hey boy,” she said to him.
He dipped his head and allowed her to smooth the feathers of his back.
“What are we gonna do, Habib?” she said to him. “It feels like this is the end of the road, boy.”
At that, Habib flapped his wings and took off into the night sky.
“So that’s it, huh?” Alexis said. “You’re abandoning me too, are you?”
She heard the bird caw, and a moment later she heard a second caw and a moment after that came the sound of tens and then dozens of caws, and then a hundred crows suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Habib led them all, his fine black body making swoops and circles while Alexis watched in awe.
“Well, that’s all fine, birdy boy,” she said to him. “But whatcha gonna do for me now?”
As though he’d only been waiting for her to ask him that very question, Habib suddenly stopped in midair and gave the loudest, most ear-piercing caw she’d ever heard. All at once, the birds came flying—one huge black mass of pure energy, flying full-speed toward the building and then crashing into the windows of the apartment. The noise was deafening. They came in waves, crashing and crashing and cawing and screaming and making enough noise to wake a ghost.
“What the . . . ?” she heard Kenneth call.
Alexis leaned back into the guest room as she heard him lifting one of the windows in his bedroom.
“Get out of here!” he yelled, as several crows flew right past him and into the house.
He slammed the window down, and still the crows came.
“Oh my God!” Alexis heard him yell, and then he was running down the hallway and the caws were everywhere.
“Get the hell out!” he was screaming. “The birds are going crazy! I don’t know what’s going on, but we gotta get out of here.”
She heard a crashing noise and realized that the crows had smashed one of the living-room windows.
“Out!” Kenneth yelled—at her or the crows, she didn’t know. But she wasn’t going to stop to find out. As he turned toward Linda’s room—was she really still sleeping through all this?—Alexis ran out of the guest room and down the hall, now filled with crows. In the living room, Habib was leading dozens of birds in a sort of crazy crow dance, looping and sailing and making big circles right over the three-foot-tall Dale Chihuly vase that sat in the middle of the room on the coffee table. The room began to vibrate, and so did the vase.
“No!” Kenneth yelled.
But the crows didn’t care. At least two dozen crows converged in flight and dived for the vase. It swayed this way and that, and shuddered and trembled and then all at once it toppled onto the glass coffee table and broke into a million pieces.
“My Chihuly!” Kenneth yelled. “Oh. My. God! The world is going crazy.”
No shit, Alexis thought. Nothing had been right for weeks.
Kenneth began to leap around the room, grabbing vases and photographs and then trying his best to pull a huge painting off the wall. But each thing he tried to save only seemed to make the crows angrier. They swarmed the paintings, the vases, the tables, the sofa. They were everywhere.
Suddenly, Habib was on Alexis’s shoulder, and he was prodding her chin with his beak.
“Right, little fellow,” she said. “Let’s make some tracks.”
She ran for the foyer, opened the front door, and ran down the hallway to the staircase. Then she took all eight flights seemingly at once, ending up at a door that led into an alley.
Hotel Angeline Page 15
