Hotel Indigo (28 page)

I pull out my phone and read Marco’s latest email.
 

I really do love you, Lucy White,
he says in closing.

So I stab out a reply — the first I’ve sent, despite more than a dozen messages from Marco.
 

We both know that’s not enough,
I tell him.
I believe that you never meant to hurt me, but that’s the problem right there. We never had a chance. You’ve been hurt. I’ve been hurt. From the start we were both always afraid of being hurt again. I couldn’t take it, Marco, and neither could you. If we’d met somewhere else … then maybe. But there was never a future for us. We knew it from the start. If we’re brave enough to stop now, without chasing what can never,
ever
be, then at least we can keep the memories.
 

And after a moment I add,
I’ll remember you forever. And we’ll always have Hotel Indigo
.
 

Then I hit
Send
.
 

Marco is smart enough to understand how things stand, and strong enough to stop pushing — to let it be what it was and nothing more.
 

I know I won’t get a reply to my email.

And I don’t.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

L
UCY

C
ASPIAN
FINALLY
BREAKS
RADIO
SILENCE
and calls me four days later. By then I’m not quite as sad, at least most of the time, and I’ve regrown the thick shell necessary for dealing with life with Mom. I resist the urge to snap at Caspian for his non-involvement. I’m supposed to manage my mother, and Caspian says that it’s my choice, not his. He’s going to stay out of Mom’s affairs. It’s my business if I choose to stay — there’s no use bitching at him about it.
 

Then he asks me when I’m coming home. Hiatus is hiatus, but shit’s on fire at GameStorming. He’s rolling out this new module called Einstein, and has significant changes to his personal life that he grumbles about but that I know he secretly loves. My brother is like other men I know: hard on the outside, soft on the inside. He’ll let me get away with poking him, but those jabs only go so far.
 

I tell him yeah, yeah. I’ll book a flight.
 

Then I do.

Because the flight comes out of GameStorming’s coffers, it’s first-class and scheduled for only two days later. The price must’ve been exorbitant, but what does Caspian care? He could use wads of hundred dollar bills for toilet paper, given his twenty-plus billion.
 

I pack my bags and say goodbye to Mom. I even call Anna, and she goads me into telling her my whole vacation story. I start crying again. I figure she’ll buck me up, but Anna doesn’t even try. She asks when I’m leaving and what flight I’m on, and I figure she’ll follow that up by suggesting that she meet me at the airport to cheer me up there before I return to the fray. But she says nothing of the sort. Just wishes me well, and we make a vague vow to meet again soon.
 

I hang up, wondering if I’ll ever come back and see Anna. I suppose I will. Mom shows no desire to move again, and even seems happy in her miserable sort of way.
 

I head to the airport early. I want to allow for security, but the line is short. So I’m at the gate with plenty of time, looking out the window and feeling an odd strain of nostalgia. Vacation — both pleasurable, at the Indigo, and not-as-pleasurable, with my mother — is over. And now the real world is waiting.
 

I pick up a magazine and start to read it.

Then some asshole starts paging on the loudspeaker, breaking my concentration.
 

I try to read.

And the loudspeaker repeats.
 

But it’s not a loudspeaker, I realize as I look up. It’s the driver of one of those motorized carts used to ferry old people around the airport. The kind that beeps, annoying everyone.
 

The guy behind is repeating something, but my brain hasn’t registered what it is. I only hear “—afraid of?”
 

The guy on the cart is looking right at me. I lower my magazine and realize that half the people at my gate are looking at me, and the other half are looking at the guy driving the motorized cart.
 

“Well?” says the guy on the cart.
 

Again I look around, but the man is clearly talking to someone very near me.
 

Or, impossibly, right at me.
 

I touch my chest and say in a near whisper, “Are you …
are you talking to me?”
 

An old woman near the cart says to the man, in a cranky old-lady voice, “Tell her again.”
 

“Lucy White,” the bullhorn says, now sounding exasperated. “For the third time now: If you can get over a fear of heights enough to fly in a plane, what else could you possibly stop being afraid of?”
 

I look around. Everyone is staring at me. But whereas this strikes me as strange, it’s apparently not odd for anyone else. They all seem like they’re watching a show, vaguely smiling at either me or the man with the bullhorn.
 

He lowers the bullhorn, and I realize it’s Carlos from Hotel Indigo — who, apparently, moonlights as a transportation guy at the airport.
 

“Carlos?”
I’ve barely spoken to the guy, but he’s sure looking like he knows me.
 

Carlos shrugs. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it? The way you had to face your fears, but nobody else had to.”
 

Then I hear the strangest thing, from one gate over.
 

It’s a deep, bass-rumbling sort of voice. Like a big engine starting. And after a warbling sort of noise, I realize it’s a man. Singing “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers.
 

It’s
awful
. At first, I don’t even recognize the song, but after one long, hideously falsetto note bleeds into the next, I realize that has to be what I’m hearing. It’s mortifying to hear — especially with everyone staring at me as if
I’m
making those cat-killing noises, when in fact I only want to board my stupid plane.
 

I’m about to say something to Carlos — or anyone who might listen — when the now-standing crowd parts and I see Marco, arms spread wide, singing about
oh my darling
, and how he’s
hungered for my touch
. And the
lonely tides?
Shit, I don’t know about the tides, because his voice keeps breaking as he reaches for the high notes.

I haven’t seen Marco in over a week. I’ve spent that time being furious or sad. I want to act accordingly as he marches toward me — stare him down and tell him that nothing is forgiven.

But it all falls apart when he gets to the part in the song where he reaches for his nonexistent upper register, telling me how he
nee-ee-eeds my love
, and it’s all I can do to stay upright because I’m laughing so hard.
 

He’s belting it out.
Horribly
. Threatening to set off security alarms and shatter glass,
 
make dogs howl and old people murder their hearing aids.
 

Everyone starts to clap, watching us, as Marco kneels in front of me for the big finish.

I look away, embarrassed, until Carlos gets back on his cart and leaves. Then the crowd loses interest and I find myself able to face him, but still very confused.
 

“Wanted to see me off in style?” I say, knowing I should still be angry, but finding myself unable to stop smiling. It was a dumb stunt. But God help me, it’s won my heart.

“Maybe.”
 

“I didn’t know Carlos worked at the airport.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know, Miss White.”
 

“You could probably get arrested and get him in trouble, you know,” I say. Then, lower, and faux critical:
“You’re not supposed to be past security without a ticket!”
 

Marco hands me something. I recognize it, because I stopped at a United Airlines kiosk to print the same thing for myself.
 

It’s a boarding pass. For my flight.
 

For a long time, I can’t speak. I just stare at the paper, dumbstruck.
 

Finally, I say, “This was just a week-long thing.”

I look up at Marco. He’s shaking his head, a little frown on his face. “Then you’d better break the news to your friend Anna, because I led her to believe otherwise.”
 

I look back down at the boarding pass. I can’t even imagine how much this cost at the last minute. More than Marco could sensibly afford, for sure.
 

“She called you,” I say, recalling how interested Anna was in my flight time and number.

Marco nods. “It was almost enough.”

Almost
enough?

I look down again. He’s in first class. In the seat right beside mine.
 

“How did you afford this?” I ask.
 

“Anna didn’t know your seat number,” Marco tells me. “But your mother did.”

CHAPTER FORTY

M
ARCO

“M
ARCO
,”
SAYS
MY
BOSS
. “Y
OU
have a client.”

I sigh, then cross the patio, feeling the breeze and the warm California sun. My client is on the massage table, face down, her face in the donut. She’s already covered in oil, her sexy skin shining. This place is reputable, but sometimes clients take things too far. Like this one. The last time I massaged her out here on the private deck of Yoga Bear San Francisco, she took my dick out of my pants and sucked me off. Then I had to do other stuff to her, all in the name of business.
 

“Marco,” my boss repeats. “Get the fuck over here and massage my ass.”
 

I do as I’m told, because she’s the boss. And because she’s also the client. And I do it because I love her. Because she changed my life, and my fate.

I
literally
do what she says. I walk over and massage her bare ass with both of my hands. She’s totally naked — a perk enjoyed only by the boss, who doubles as my co-owner in this particular wellness franchise. I’m naked, too. Because it’s nice to be naked out here, and because these massages are usually
quid pro quo
, and it pays to be ready.

“That’s not a massage,” Lucy says, picking her head up out of the donut and looking back at my clumsy work.
 

“I’m rusty. I haven’t given a proper massage in months.” I part her ass cheeks and slip my finger into her pussy from behind.
 

Lucy jumps. “Hey! Keep it professional, Mister.”

“I’m not a masseur. I own this place. You get what you get when you insist on special treatment.”
 

“You don’t own it. You
co-own
it.”
 

I give her a well-reasoned response: “Bitch, bitch, bitch.”

“Keep it above the waist.”

I give her a little sarcastic half-salute and say, “Whatever you say, ma’am.”