Red House Blues (9 page)

One of the sinks was dripping, providing a
sort of white noise over the residual racket from the Germans down
the hall. Why hadn’t she packed earplugs? One summer after high
school she traveled across Europe, staying in hostels, backpacking.
The trip was her graduation present from her father. The memories
she cherished were of romantic Roman evenings and lazy Parisian
mornings, illustrating the selective nature of memory. Only now,
too late, did she remember why she once swore she would never book
into a hostel ever, ever again.

There was little chance of sleep. For one
thing the ceiling lights were on for the benefit of people
requiring late night trips to pee. And with the amount of beer the
Germans were putting away it was likely there would be a steady
parade to the toilets. Suzan hoped they were sufficiently hammered
not to notice her through the frosted glass of the shower stall.
The shower scene from Psycho sprang unpleasantly to mind. Still, if
the Germans ran screaming from the building, she would have her
bunk bed back. Which, compared to the shower stall, now seemed like
the ultimate in luxury.

The clammy shower stall
smelled of mildew and bad drains.
This is
insanity. I should be home in my own bed. And I would be, if I had
the sense of a gnat.
What did this
mindless journey prove except that she had some sort of perverted
need to suffer? If Norman Bates showed up with cutlery at this
moment, would even that be enough? What was she trying to prove?
The one thing she couldn’t find release from was the conviction
that she had utterly failed Sean in every imaginable way. It was a
litany that had her by the throat and wouldn’t let go.

It struck her that she had forgotten to
e-mail Claire that she had arrived safely in Seattle. That was the
first thing she would attend to in the morning, groveling abjectly.
Already messing up after promising to keep her posted every day

The tiny night sounds of the old building -
someone coughing at the end of the hall, the floor creaking as the
ancient timbers shifted, a purring sound like an elevator in the
walls, maybe a heater – strangely seemed to comfort her. She pulled
the rough blanket up around her neck and relaxed into the curve of
the stall floor like a mollusk repositioning itself in the sand.
Eventually she drifted into an exhausted sleep.

“Hey, you dead in there?”

The voice reverberated around the tile
enclosure. Suzan peered over the edge of the blanket. A shadow
filled the glass door. She was alone and trapped in a tile box,
nightmares seeping in through the cracks. Nowhere to go, nowhere to
hide. She strangled a cowardly whimper.

“Come on, I see you moving around. Some of
us have to go to work, here. You coming out any time soon? The
other fuckin’ shower is broken.”

“Okay, sorry.” Suzan struggled to unwind
herself from the blankets, losing her balance as she tried to
stand. Pain shot through her shoulder.

“Hurry up in there.” said the woman by the
door, tapping on the glass.

“Hang on.” Suzan unlocked the door and
stumbling over the sill, dragging the blanket after her like a
two-year-old.

“You’ve got to be shittin’ me,” said the
woman. “No way you were sleeping in there.”

“It’s hard for me to believe, too. My
roommates were partying pretty hard last night.”

“The Germans, right? God, I could hear them
all the way down to my room. Don’t worry, though. The room was
empty when I went by. Probably checked out at dawn.”

“That’s good news, anyway."

As the woman hung her towel on the hook and
stepped into the shower, Suzan caught herself studying the woman
with an artist’s eyes. Porcelain white skin scribed with more
tattoos than Suzan had seen on one human. Even in her groggy state
she was astounded at how beautiful the tattoos were. The designs in
black and red pigments began at the nape of the woman’s neck and
spread all the way down her back onto her upper thighs. From what
Suzan remembered of her Northwest Indian art class the designs
looked Haida. She was repelled yet fascinated.

What in the world are you thinking, Suzan?
Wash your face and pull yourself together before the tattooed lady
notices you’re staring and thinks you’re a lesbian. Things were
awkward enough without that particular complication.

The day Suzan planned over her breakfast of
runny eggs and greasy hash browns didn’t materialize. Not wanting
to risk roommates worse than the Germans, she tried to locate a
cheap hotel room for the remainder of the week. Cliff, the hostel
desk clerk, suggested three or four possibilities and let her use
the phone. Not one had a room cheap enough that wasn’t obviously an
hourly flop. There was some sort of convention in town. It was the
hostel or a night sleeping under a bridge.

That afternoon she used the hostel computer
in the threadbare lounge to e-mailing Claire, telling her that
everything was going really well but she hadn’t learned anything
new. The last comment being the only thing not a total lie.

There was now a steady stream of people
dragging duffel bags and back packs past Cliff. The hostel was
filling up fast for the night. She was glad she had hedged her bets
and not checked out.

She probably should decide where she was
going to get dinner. Not that she was hungry. The fish and chips
she had for lunch down on the waterfront were still leaden in her
stomach. But she couldn’t expect to learn anything hanging around
the hostel. She pulled up a map and info on Jax’s, the club where
Sean played the night he died. It was a bar. Maybe they served food
and she could talk to the servers.

“Took care of everything,” said a hoarse
whisper in her ear, sending her jumping out of her skin.

“Cliff, you scared me to death!” she
screeched. “What did you take care of?”

“Moved you in with Marla, one of our
regulars. Quiet type. You’ll be okay in there.”

“Thanks.”
I think.
“Regulars?”

“Yeah. She comes up from San Francisco every
few weeks on business.” He handed her the key to room Eight-B.
“Moved your gear for you.”

She suppressed an urge to tear into the man.
How dare he pack up her clothes, underwear and toiletries without
asking. Still, he obviously thought he was doing her a favor and
since she wasn’t in the position to get huffy about well-meaning
help she kept mum.

What kind business, wondered Suzan, could a
woman be in that she stayed at the Sea Turtle Hostel? Obviously not
an awfully upscale or lucrative business. Either that or something
not particularly legal.

No concern of yours, as long as she doesn’t
snore or smoke crack in the wee hours.

Room Eight-B turned out to be a corner room
overlooking Western Avenue on the west and a parade of rooftops to
the south all the way to the football stadium. It was empty except
for two pair of high-top Keds positioned under one of the twin beds
and a black denim jacket on a hook by the door. No bunks. Palatial
accommodations by hostel standards. The regular had clout if not
style sense.

Cliff had placed her backpack at the end of
the second bed. Suzan hung her clothes in the vacant side of the
closet, taking note of her new roommate’s small collection of
clothes. Shirts and jeans in funereal tones. Nothing Suzan would
normally associate with a business traveler though what did she
know?

After her miserable night on the shower
floor the simple bed looked heavenly. She stretched out on the
rough woolen blanket, hoping there might be enough time to close
her aching eyes for a few minutes before dinner. She couldn’t seem
get enough sleep any more. If only she could sleep for days on end
and wake to find that the last few years had just been a nightmare.
One sign of depression, part of the grief process, she supposed.
Something she would just have to outlive, like acne.

“I’ll be damned if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty.
I might have known. What’s the matter, the shower in use?”

Suzan opened her eyes to see the tattooed
woman of that morning, now fully clothed, looking down at her,
heavily illustrated hands on hips.

“And you must be Marla. Cliff took the
initiative of putting me in here. If you’d rather I move I’ll get
him to find me another room.”

“Hey no problem, as long as you’re here you
might as well stay. I’m not around much anyway.”

“I won’t be around much either. In fact I’m
going out tonight,” said Suzan. “I’ll try to be quiet when I come
in.”

“If I’m asleep, you won’t wake me. I suppose
you’re going to the Space Needle. All the tourists do,” said
Marla.

“What, is that a not-so-subtle way of asking
me what I’m doing in town?”

“Can’t blame me for being curious about my
new roomy. You don’t exactly look like the typical drifting dirt
bag that comes through here.”

“Thanks ever so much, I’m sure. Glad I meet
with your approval.”

“Okay, that didn’t come out right. I’m just
trying to be friendly, but suit yourself. You got one hell of a
chip on your shoulder, Sleeping Beauty.” said Marla, as she turned
to rummage through the closet, grabbing a black scrap that could
have been a top from one wire hanger.

What’s wrong with you, Suzan, that suddenly
you’re seeing enemies everywhere?

“I was out of line, Marla, I didn’t mean to
be such a bitch. I have some issues right now and I seem to be
taking it out on innocent bystanders. Can we start over?”

“No prob. You got a right not to have people
poking their noses into your business,” she said. “Hope you have a
good time tonight.”

“Thanks, Marla. As a matter of fact I could
probably use a friend who knows Seattle . . . that is if you still
want to be friendly with your bitchy roomy.”

“What do you need?”

“Do you know of a place called Jax’s?”

“You’re not thinking of going to that place,
are you?”

“A friend of mine is in a band that plays
there sometimes.”

Marla fixed her with penetrating ice blue
eyes that seem to see through the little falsehood.

“Well, child, if you’re going to Jax’s your
friend better be a very large, nasty friend or that crowd is likely
to eat you alive. You’re a little dainty for what goes down at
Jax’s. How ‘bout you drop your friend a note from a safe distance
instead?”

She’s taking me at face value, thought
Suzan, skinny, wispy blond with a baby doll face. She’s thinking I
must be a lightweight in the brainpan. Her brothers often made the
same misjudgment when they were kids and lived to regret it.

“Thanks, Marla. I’ll keep that in mind,”
said Suzan, as she slid off the bed and shouldered her purse. One
piece of info she was grateful for was that Jax’s didn’t sound like
a place she could expect to enjoy dinner. She would try to locate a
noodle shop or burger joint on her way to the bar.

She walked north on First toward the Pike
Place Market. Four blocks up she found a hole-in-the-wall
Vietnamese cafe redolent of sesame oil, garlic, and lemon grass.
She grabbed the postage stamp size table by the window and ordered
what she hoped was wafting through the air.

Eddies of people were rushing past the
window in all directions. The street itself was clogged with Metro
buses, taxis, and cars trying to cope with the outpouring of
commuters heading for home, and the influx of people coming
downtown for a night out at clubs and restaurants. And then there
were the poor befuddled souls wandering around looking lost,
studying maps and street signs.

The air stunk of diesel exhaust, burnt
coffee, and rotting garbage. Every bus whooshing by spawned
tornadoes of candy wrappers and newspapers. The cacophony of car
horns, engines, and shouting people was deafening. Suzan mentally
compared the chaos she saw from the window to the relative
tranquility of Bellingham, feeling as if she had been drifting down
a placid river only to plunge head first over a waterfall onto
sharp rocks.

It was way too early for Jax’s. The doors
opened at five that was still too early for the sort of people she
wanted to talk to. Closer to eight seemed right though once the
band kicked in it would be too loud for conversation. Somewhere
around eight-thirty then. Oodles of time to kill. Might as well
play tourist after all.

She refilled her cup of
jasmine tea, pulled out the guidebook from the side pocket of her
purse. Along the route to Jax’s was the world famous Pike Place
Market, a major tourist trap with its fish market and boutiques.
Still, the fact that she and the market shared a name settled her
on the destination. Fleetingly she wondered who the market had been
named for and whether he was Sean’s ancestor. Probably not, she
decided. More likely the name referred to a turnpike or something.
But then, who or what was Pike’s Peak named for?
What’s with my brain today? Flitting all over the
place. More tired than I thought or I’m tripping on the
jasmine.

Focus. She took a sip of tea and opened the
guidebook. The Pike Place Market, she read, was a beloved though
ramshackle remnant of early Seattle, originating in a time when
farmers from rural valleys trucked fresh produce into the city in
horse-drawn wagons. Every film shot in Seattle inevitably included
a market scene with fish vendors heaving huge salmon over the heads
of thrilled visitors. A trip to the market was touted to be
compulsory if you came to Seattle.

Nothing wrong with a taste of normalcy for a
change, she thought. Soon enough she’d have to deal with matters at
hand. It had been years since she did something just for the hell
of it, just for fun. So many years since fun had been in her
vocabulary at all. She wasn’t sure she remembered how to relax and
enjoy an unplanned moment. Perhaps a flying salmon was what she
needed right now.