The Resort (15 page)

But it wasn't just the desert that unnerved him. No, as much as he tried to restrict his imagination to the physical, biological world, that was not what frightened him.

He thought of the low chanting voice in the room next door, the poetic cadences.

There was something off about this whole place, something fundamentally wrong with the entire resort, and while he couldn't name the movie of which it reminded him, he was clear in his mind that whatever lay at the root of all this could not be explained away with a logical real-world rationalization.

There was movement on the sidewalk ahead, and he stopped cold, peering into the dimness. A pack of rattlesnakes slithered toward him, moving in unison, their undulations eerily synchronized. If he had not known it was a physical impossibility, he would have sworn they were remote-controlled and connected to the same command station. Behind them, spookily reflecting the dim illumination of the lights lining the sidewalk, he could see the eyes of what had to be a wolf or coyote, its furry bulk only a vague outline in the dimness. The animal growled savagely and, as if in answer, the snakes rattled in unison.

What the hell was going on here? He glanced from side to side, expecting to see bobcats flanking him, but the area beyond the sidewalk was so dark that he couldn't tell
what
was out there. In his mind's eye, he saw the wolf leap at him and rip out his neck while vultures and other desert scavengers came to feast on his gutted remains. He knew he should run, get out of the way of the beast, but he had no idea if he'd be jumping from the frying pan into the fire, and terror immobilized him.

There was sudden noise on the road up ahead: the hum of an electric motor, the clank of rattling metal. Low headlights illuminated the darkness, and the animals ran, the wolf dashing off into the night, the snakes slithering back into the shadows. A golf cart pulled up next to him, and painted on the side, above The Reata's logo, was the word
Security.

A lamp went on in the small cab as the cart stopped. Patrick saw an overweight man with a buzz cut and a brown uniform. “Are you Mr. Schlaegel?”

“Yes,” he said with relief. “Thank God you showed up. There was a wolf right here.” He pointed. “And seven or eight rattlesnakes.”

“Yeah.” The security guard seemed underwhelmed. “Now, you complained about noise in the room next to yours, correct?”

Patrick nodded.

“Well, I checked out room 217, and if anyone was there, they're gone now. You're safe.” It was hard to see the guard's shadowed face but it was impossible to miss the smirking derision in his voice.
“Fairy,”
was what the man was really saying, and Patrick felt not only embarrassed but defensive.

“I never thought I wasn't safe,” he emphasized. “I just couldn't sleep because those assholes were making so much noise.”

“Yeah,” the guard said noncommittally, putting his cart into gear. “Good luck with your wolves. And your snakes.”

He couldn't hear over the hum of the cart's motor, but Patrick imagined the guard chuckling to himself as he drove away.

He hurried down the sidewalk, passing by room 217 on his way back.

The party was still going on.

There was a knock at the door.

Jarred from his sleep, Lowell squinted at the clock. Six a.m.

Jesus Christ. This was supposed to be a vacation.

Next to him in the bed, Rachel had kicked off the blanket and was asleep on her stomach, legs spread wide, bare buttocks exposed.

Lowell covered her and sat up. The knock came again. Shorter, harder, more insistent.

He got out of bed, took one of the robes from the closet, put it on, and fumbled with the security lock before groggily opening the door. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Thurman?” The athletic looking man on the doorstep had the appearance of a football coach and the smile of a Realtor. “I'm the activities coordinator. I'm just here to remind you that we have a tour of the chef's gourmet garden this morning at eight, and then at nine is practice for this afternoon's pool volleyball tournament.”

He was having a difficult time concentrating, getting his mind around concepts that were no doubt simple and self-explanatory. “What?” he said.

“Your wife expressed an interest in taking the garden tour, and we were hoping you'd join us for a little fun in the sun. We're counting on you to help us out with our intraresort volleyball tournament.”

It was too much information this early in the morning, a lot to absorb all at once. “I'm not really—” he began.

“Oh, you'll have a great time! It's something we do each weekend as a diversion for our more active guests, a little friendly competition to liven up your stay, and a memorable part of The Reata experience. There are three teams: the Roadrunners, the Coyotes and the Cactus Wrens. We play both days, pool volleyball on Saturday and basketball on Sunday, and the winning team receives drinks on the house at the Grille.”

Now Lowell was awake. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm not interested.”

“Come on. The Wrens need you. The Roadrunners have a full team and so do the Coyotes. The Cactus Wrens are still one man short.”

“Sorry. We have other plans.”

“Too much of a pussy?”

Lowell blinked, unwilling to believe he'd heard what the director had just said. “Excuse me?”

“I just said that since the Cactus Wrens are one
man
short, that maybe I should be looking elsewhere for someone to participate.”

Lowell slammed the door in the activities coordinator's face. He was too old to fall for that sort of jock talk, the simplistic rhetoric that attempted to goad guys into action by making them feel obligated to defend their manhood. That idiotic tactic hadn't even worked on him in high school, and it sure as hell wasn't going to work on him now. Ignoring the continued knocking at the door, he shambled back to the bed, took off his robe and fell back onto the mattress, but he was wide awake and no matter how hard he tried, he knew he would not be able to make himself fall back asleep.

He sat up. The knocking had stopped—the activities coordinator having given up and no doubt gone away—and Lowell looked at the telephone next to the bed, wondering if he should call the manager and complain. It was inexcusable that he should be harassed in his own room by a resort employee. Weren't workers at The Reata specially trained to pamper their guests? That's what their Web site claimed. And whatever happened to the once universally accepted motto, “The customer is always right?”

But then he thought of what Rachel had heard in the bathroom, a manager berating an employee and throwing her against the wall. He remembered the spectral hand in the pool and the horrific zoo that was the Grille, and refrained from picking up the phone. For all he knew, The Reata had sent the activities coordinator here to do exactly what he had done. At the very least, the resort was complicitous by not ensuring that its employees treat guests with respect.

There was movement on the bed behind him. Rachel was awake, but she looked groggy, stunned, almost drugged, and he had the unsettling feeling that if he mentioned last night's bout of lovemaking—

—she would not remember it.

He turned away, looked toward the closed door that led to the boys' room. Why hadn't they all left? Why was he keeping his family here? It was a question that nagged at him but one for which he had no answer. The ostensible reason, the practical reason, was that they would still have to pay for the stay even if they left early. But the real reason was harder to pin down. By all rights, they should have decamped right after his experience in the exercise pool, maybe even after their encounter with the room-stealing Mr. Blodgett. And they definitely should have packed up and gone after that scene at the Grille.

But they hadn't.

Instead, they remained, and although these considerations troubled him intellectually, emotionally they didn't really register. It seemed entirely natural not to complain about abuse from the staff, perfectly normal to plan the day's itinerary assuming they would remain here through the end of their originally scheduled stay, and while he didn't feel the least bit dopey, he understood that his behavior was as passively accepting as Rachel's seemed to be.

He knew he should be worried about that.

But he wasn't.

Lowell reached over and gave his wife a quick kiss, ignoring her rather ferocious morning breath, then got out of bed, put his robe back on and went over to make some coffee in the coffee machine. A few minutes later, the boys came in to get muffins for breakfast, which they immediately carried back into their rooms so they could watch TV. “First shower!” Curtis called.

“Second!” Owen instantly announced.

“Last!” Ryan said, and Lowell had to smile. The kid had a sense of humor.

Obviously his brothers didn't think so. “What a dweeb,” Curtis said derisively before the door slammed shut.

“Dillweed,” Owen seconded.

Rachel, emerging from the bathroom, must have heard the exchange, too. “Do you ever think about how fast time is flying?” she asked.

“All the time,” he admitted.

“It seems like just yesterday that we were changing the twins' diapers, and next year Ryan will be going to junior high school.”

“How do you think he'll do?” Lowell asked seriously. “You think it'll be a tough adjustment?”

“Academically?”

“You know what I'm talking about.”

“His friend Roberto will be going to Brea-Olinda, too,” she said hopefully. “And Yung.”

He shook his head. “I just don't see it being an easy transition.”

“His brothers'll be there.”

“Yeah,” Lowell said sarcastically. “That'll be a big help.”

“What exactly are you worried about? That he'll be picked on and bullied? That happens more in elementary than junior high school, and he's doing fine.”

“Not that. It's just . . .” He sighed. “There's more social pressure. There's going to be girls and dances and dating.”

“That's three, four years away. By the time he's in high school—”

“He'll be just as shy and awkward as he is today.”

She put a hand on his arm. “You worry too much. Ryan's a lot tougher than you think.”

“Maybe,” he said, pouring a cup of coffee. “Hopefully.”

“Butthead!” Curtis shouted from behind the closed door.

“I'm telling Mom!” Ryan announced.

The twins' voices were suddenly lower, frantic, as they engaged in last-minute negotiations with their brother.

He met Rachel's gaze. “Do you wonder sometimes if we're good parents, if we've done right by those boys?”

She smiled. “Every day of my life.”

Lowell laughed. Rachel was right. He did worry too much. But it was hard not to. Especially with Ryan. The twins could take care of themselves. You could set them down anywhere and they'd come out fine. But Ryan was different, sensitive, more like himself in a lot of ways, and it made him overprotective to the extent that he sometimes underestimated his son's resiliency.

As if on cue, Owen and Ryan emerged from their room. There was the sound of water from their bathroom, where Curtis was taking a shower. “So, are we really going to Tucson today?” Owen asked.

Lowell grabbed a blueberry muffin. “That's the plan. There's a planetarium there. And a Spanish mission. They have a desert museum, which is supposed to be like a zoo but you can go underground and see the bats in their caves and the snakes in their holes.”

“I'd rather stay here and swim.”

“Not me,” Ryan said, but his dissent was halfhearted. He probably wanted to stay, too, but the lure of a Burger King lunch was too strong.

“Get dressed and get ready,” Rachel suggested. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we can get back.”

Owen brightened. “Then we can swim?”

“Then you can swim.”

The boys returned to their room, and seconds later Lowell heard the sound of fists pounding on the bathroom door. “Stop beating off and hurry up in there! We have to take a shower, too!”

Forty minutes later, they were dressed and ready to go. Rachel had her purse and her camera, Lowell was carrying a small ice chest filled with bottled water, and the kids had books and MP3 players to entertain them on the long drive to the city. As they walked down the short steps from the door of their suite, a fat man in a bathing suit passed by, carrying a volleyball to what was obviously practice for this afternoon's game. He wiped sweat from his oversized forehead and glanced at Lowell with an expression of disgust. “Pussied out, huh?”

“Excuse me?” Lowell said, a little too loudly.

The man kept walking.

“What did you say?”

A safe distance away, the fat man turned, walking backward. “The activities coordinator told us. You're the only male guest who refused to play in the tournament. He said you pussied out.”

Lowell's jaw clenched with anger, but when the man turned back around and headed up the sidewalk toward the pool, he let him go.

“What was all
that?
” Rachel asked.

He told her about the visit this morning, how he declined to participate in their volleyball tournament.

“How did that jerk even know who you are?” She lowered her voice. “Do you think the activities director gave out our room number?”