“That’s fine, I’ll be fine.” I sighed, now tired of this conversation. I wanted to unpack, settle in, and see what the hell else was weird about this place.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he replied, and as he stepped out into the hallway, he said, “Hope you have a great stay while you’re with us, Ms. Morgan.”
“Thank you, I— Wait a minute, what did you call me? Who are you?”
“Archie Bryant,” he replied, his grin now changing to something more like pure calculation. “Welcome to Bryant Mountain House.”
The door swung shut and I was left standing there. Glaring. Archie Bryant, the son of the man who hired me. Who knew exactly who I was, that I was very much not Melanie Bixby, and that I’d checked in under false pretenses.
Sonofa . . .
Chapter 3
I breathed in the cold air, exhaling in a puff as I contemplated how to deal with this wrinkle.
Once the fair Mr. Bryant had left, I headed out onto the balcony. Every room, no matter the size, came with a balcony complete with two beautiful antique rocking chairs. And you’d want the rocking chair, provided the weather was a bit nicer, because this view . . .
High up in the Catskills, the view was breathtaking. Even with the gray storm clouds it was stunning. The deep valley just below the resort gave way to the mountains marching off into the distance, the remains of the last snowfall still present on the tippy tops. Cold air swirled around my ankles, but I stayed a moment longer, lost in the quiet stillness. I rocked back and forth from the heel to the ball of my foot, my legs cramped from sitting in the car all day. I longed to get outside, stretch, run, my body screaming for a workout. But the rain had indeed turned to a wintry mix of slush and sleet, and I knew better than to take on a new trail in inclement weather.
But I couldn’t get my mind off the fact that the bellman was the owner’s son. I should’ve suspected. He was dressed awfully nice for a bellman—take away the fleece, which was covering up a white button-down and a tie, now that I thought about it, and those preppy chinos and shiny wingtips should’ve been a dead giveaway.
Ugh, and that ridiculous conversation about the TV, something he’d surely remember when I was introduced to him in two days, after “Clara Morgan” officially checked in.
Ah well. I’d had more controversial conversations with a hotel team than “get TVs, please.” I just would’ve preferred to begin that conversation on my own terms.
Seriously. No TV. What year was this? And a TV room down in the Sunset Lounge was quaint to be sure, but that didn’t exactly help me when I needed some background noise.
As long as I could remember I’ve preferred to have a TV on, even if I wasn’t watching it. When I ate, when I read, when I slept for sure, I needed the noise. I even left it on sometimes when I wasn’t home so it wasn’t so unearthly quiet, needing to hear something other than echoing silence when I came back at night. I’d scroll through until I found something that I could leave on in the background, interesting but not so interesting it would keep me awake. My favorite was when I could find an infomercial for one of those Time Life collections, maybe songs of the ’70s or my personal favorite, Classic Country. Nothing like a little Tammy Wynette or Marty Robbins to sing you to sleep, right?
The fact was, I hadn’t gone to sleep without a TV on in . . . Jesus, how long had it been? My mind was racing already at the thought of sleeping tonight, trying to sleep tonight, in all that empty quiet. I wasn’t even sure I could sleep without that noise to break things up.
When there was no noise, my mind began to take over. The nonanalytical part, where things were best kept packed up and sealed tight and stored away.
I shook my head to clear it, took another deep breath of the chilly air, and decided to head back inside to unpack.
“Oh, for the love . . . ow!” I shouted, as the bed banged down on my head for the third time. Unpacking proved difficult when the only closet in the room was in fact not a closet but a hiding place for another ancient contraption, the Murphy bed. Habit had me turning for the closet door as I unpacked each piece of clothing, and I kept forgetting that up on this mountain, with all the nature and the principled living, while there may not be a TV in every room there was most certainly a Murphy bed.
I rubbed my head as I pushed the stupid thing back into the “closet,” then headed over to the armoire with another stack of clothes. Then marched straight to my bag, grabbed a Post-it and a marker and stuck a note on the closet that read, “Don’t fucking open this again!”
I made another note, this one in my planner, adding something else to my list of things I’d need to address in this hotel.
And with that, I was unpacked with the ease and economy of someone who literally spends the better part of her adult life living out of a suitcase.
Not just her adult life.
I cued up a travel podcast on my phone and cranked the volume, knowing I certainly wouldn’t disturb anyone on this floor. I closed my planner, once more running my fingers across my name on the front. It was obvious to me now that Archie had seen it, read it, realized I wasn’t who I said I was . . . but decided to play along? Was that the reason I was stuck over here in no-man’s-land, in the one occupied room on an otherwise entirely unoccupied floor? And if he did know who I was, which he did, why was he such . . . hmm . . . well . . . an ass?
Deciding I’d better lay low until I figured out exactly what was going on, I canceled my dinner reservation and ordered room service instead. I contemplated calling back and asking them to send someone up to start a fire, but then realized they may very well send up Bellman Archie, so I put the kibosh on that real quick.
I took a long soak in the deep tub, an antique claw-foot, of course. I read back over my notes on the property, caught up on email, did some research on the town of Bailey Falls . . . and was bored out of my gourd.
I didn’t tell my girls I was coming to town—nothing betrays a pseudonym faster than two crazy people running pell-mell into the lobby and shouting, “Get your ass over here, Clara!” To be clear, while it would likely be Natalie doing the shouting, it’d be Roxie doing the pell-melling—no one would be safe.
But now, as it got later and later and I was running out of things to do, and no television in the near future, my mind was beginning to spread out a bit. Always dangerous.