Hotel Indigo Page 2

  “Are you sure?”

  I look down. My right hand is still on the mascara brush, but now the heel of that hand is resting on the marble counter. My left is flat on the other side. My jeans are on and zipped.

  So yes, I’m pretty sure I’m not masturbating, but I appreciate her reminding me to check.

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “If you must masturbate, I’d prefer if you did it in the bedroom. The sheets can be changed in there.”

  I look around the room. It’s all hard surfaces, save the towels and bathmats. It’s not like there are silk hangings around that I’d use to get off by seesawing them between my legs like an old guy drying his balls.

  I consider asking just what I could mess up in here by rubbing one out, but I know from experience that it’ll only make things worse. “I’m not masturbating, Mom.”

  “I understand that you have your needs. I did, before your father.”

  This should strike me as awkward enough to be funny, but instead it’s just sad. She probably meant that Dad satisfied her enough that she lost all interest in self-gratification, but the reality was surely different. Mom was only a girl when she met Dad — but once they hooked up, he probably beat all the desire out of her.

  I cross the Spanish tile floor and open the door. Mom stands there in one of those society suits she always wears. She hasn’t attended anything social since moving back to Inferno, but she always has her fashion on and her hair up as if prepared for a charity gala that might occur without warning — the rich lady’s version of a flash mob, perhaps.

  “Oh,” she says, seeing me clothed. This is either a reaction to my masturbation-free reality or her impression that I’m able to compose myself so stupidly fast. Like Superman, after he’s caught jerking off.

  “What do you need, Mom?”

  “Just letting you know brunch is ready.”

  “I’m good.”

  “Good at what?”

  “I mean I don’t need brunch.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t need brunch?”

  I resist the desire to roll my eyes. “I just don’t need it.”

  “Of course you need it.”

  “I already had breakfast.”

  “Why did you have breakfast? It’s Sunday.”

  “I eat breakfast every day.”

  “Even on Sundays?”

  I sigh.

  “Carlos made eggs Benedict,” she says.

  “I don’t like eggs. You know I don’t like eggs.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not overweight anymore.”

  I look down at my hips, which are totally fine but suddenly seem a mile wide. I’m fairly sure my stomach is flat, but start to wonder if I’m sporting a cookie belly, and in denial. Thanks, Mom.

  “You’re a grown woman,” she says. “You should have brunch.”

  “I don’t see the logical connection between those two things.”

  “At least have a mimosa.”

  “I don’t want a mimosa.”

  She looks me over, spies the mascara brush in my hand. It’s only makeup, but suddenly I feel like I’ve been busted for something. “Are you going out?”

  “Just to the grocery store.”

  “Carlos can shop.”

  “He’s only supposed to get stuff for the food he cooks, Mom.” I’ve actually had this chat with Carlos. Mom doesn’t have or want full-time help, but she hates cooking as much as she’s afraid (thanks to Dad, though she’d never admit it) of going out. So she hired a personal chef for a few meals a week almost the second she moved into this ludicrously expensive rental. Carlos is supposed to buy supplies for cooking, but my mother thinks he’s a concierge. She’s asked him to buy toilet paper and tampons; once she asked him to pick out a birthday card for Caspian. It was in Spanish.

  “Oh, he doesn’t mind.”

  “I don’t need brunch. I can do the shopping.”

  “That’s absurd. Caspian pays you half a million dollars per year.”

  I actually stop moving for a second. I’m not sure how she knows my GameStorming salary, but I’m torn between complaining about another breach of privacy or rebutting her.

  “Anyone can shop,” I say, “regardless of income.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “I want to.”

  “Why would you want to?” She wrinkles her nose.

  I think: So I can get out of this house and away from you. Because I lied to myself when I came here to help you through your breakdown after Dad’s death, telling myself that a hiatus from San Francisco would double as a vacation here — yet I’ve barely had a moment alone. And I need it, Mom. I love you, but holy shit do I need a break from you sometimes.

  “I just want to get out, is all.”

  “Out?”

  “Yes, Mom. Out of the house.”

  “I need you to take me to the lawyer’s office later today. And the banker handling your father’s estate.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “We’ve paid enough that they can be available when we need them.”

  “That’s not the kind of out I have in mind.”

  She glances at my makeup. “Well. Then you should really tone it down. You look like a prostitute.”

  I feel a strong urge to make a defiant teenager face and say, Nuh-uuuh! Instead I stare at her.

  “You should be glad I’m telling you. Men won’t want you if you seem too … adventurous.”

  This feels Freudian to me. I’m pretty sure she’s talking about herself. From the stories she’s told as her grief-slash-release-from-captivity passed in the wake of my dad’s death, I get the feeling Mom used to be a free spirit. Dad trained her right out of that. The mother who raised me was gravestone silent when the man of the house was around, practically tiptoeing through life as if afraid of being noticed. When he went to work, she moved into her other mode: obsessive helicopter parent, where there was no rule or expectation too minor for Caspian and me to live and die by.

  “I’m not adventurous, Mom.” I hate myself a little for saying it, but at this point I only want the arguments to end.

  “Many of my friends have sons they’d love you to meet.”

  Friends. It’s a funny choice of words. Mom hasn’t seen these people she calls friends for twenty years, but somehow the same old society circles have kept spinning in her absence.

  “I’m not looking to meet anyone.”

  “You just said you wanted to go out!”

  “To the store. Maybe to Hill of Beans?”

  “Hill of Beans! Who are you going to meet at Hill of Beans?”

  “I don’t want to meet anyone other than a barista!”

  “Why would you want to meet a barista?”

  This time, I actually roll my eyes. I don’t know what’s more insulting: that she keeps trying to hook me up at the worst possible time for a relationship, or that she’d honestly be angry at me if I happened to ever date anyone who made less than seventy bucks an hour.

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “You stay in my house, you’ll respect me.”

  “I’m here for you! I came here to help you out!”

  “And this is how you help? By rolling your eyes at me?”

  “Don’t turn this around.”

  This is an argument we have a few times a week, but it never gets resolved. Mom acts like she’s putting me up during my time of need, but the inverse is true. I’d rather have stayed in San Francisco. I’d rather still be working. But no matter how much Mom pretends that her moving away from the home she shared with my father was business as usual, the depth of her mental breakdown was apparent since long before the funeral.

  And who would keep her sane? Who would stop her from taking all of her sleeping pills at once and never waking up? Caspian? No, of course not. He’s too important, too busy. He cut the apron strings long ago — maybe around the time my father burned scars into his arms and Mom b
uried her head in the sand.

  “You chose to come here, Lucy.”

  Finally, a “Lucy.” But the word sounds painful

  She goes on: “I didn’t ask you to follow me to Inferno.”

  “You needed me.”

  Her face has twisted a bit, becoming more of a sneer. She’s done a chameleon’s flip, from henpecking to aggressive. This is how she handles hurt. I keep trying to remember that when she cuts me with words, it’s because she can’t face her own pain. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

  “I didn’t need you.”

  “You were—”

  “I never needed you. Your father was sick for a very long time. And who dealt with it just fine on her own?”

  “You weren’t dealing fine. You were—”

  Again she interrupts me, her eyes like daggers. “I sure didn’t need you back in the old house. Who went to all his appointments? Who took care of him every day?”

  “I was over there all the time!” I feel my own hurt mixing with anger. The only thing worse than watching my father die week by week is being yelled at for it. I get the worst of both worlds: the pain of being there for them, and the guilt that comes with Mom not noticing, or thinking it was never enough.

  I want to throw Caspian under the bus. He never showed up, not once. But Caspian made his stand long ago. I was the sucker who let these people keep their hooks in me.

  “I washed him,” she spits. “I tended to him and waited on him. I kept him company. And you? You were out being an entrepreneur.”

  “That’s not fair, Mom.” I’m less angry than I should be. My eyes prickle with moisture.

  “So you want to go? Fine. Go out. Gallivant around. Have fun out there.”

  “I’m just talking about going to the store!”

  “Are you?” She gives me a gotcha expression. “I found that brochure in your room.”

  “Why were you in my room?”

  “It’s my house!”

  I’d ask which brochure, but I already know. My home is across the country. I’m temporary here and barely moved out of my suitcase. It’s not like I have tons of literature lying around.

  My mother’s angry face shifts into something else. Softer, more vulnerable. “If you want to stay at that hotel instead of here, go ahead.”

  “It’s not really a hotel, Mom. Hotel Indigo is just its name, but really it’s a resort. You go for a few days or a week, as a vacation.”

  “Ah.” She looks away. “A resort. A vacation.”

  I know what she’s doing. If she looked at the brochure at all, she knows goddamn well that Hotel Indigo is basically a high-end spa. She’s acting surprised for effect, and of course it’s working. Guilt threatens me. But holy shit, I can’t keep taking this.

  “I was just thinking about it.”

  “Thinking about a vacation. While you’re here to help me.”

  “You’re fine here, Mom. It’s not like you’re in a nursing home, needing me every second.”

  “Not yet.”

  “If I went, I wouldn’t even be ‘away.’ It’s just outside of town. Anything you need, you could just let me know and I’d come right over.”

  “Hmm. Seems like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “Mom …”

  But she turns on a dime and clacks away in her sensible heels, presumably to have Eggs Benedict and mimosas. Alone, if necessary.

  I sigh. I haven’t actually started applying mascara, so I decide not to bother. No reason I should look like a prostitute, according to my mother. Can’t meet the right kind of men that way, and this matters a whole fuckload of not-at-all because that’s the last thing I want or need right now.

  I go into my room, biding time before I cave and go down to brunch. I know the guilt will eventually get me, but I need this few minutes first, to pretend I still have some self-respect.

  I sit on the massive bed, with all its old-lady coverings. This house my mom rented is practically a palace, but she’s already saturated its air with her suffocating personality. I can’t relax here. And God knows I need to relax, whether Mom has a problem with it or not.

  I open the Hotel Indigo brochure.

  Massages.

  Facials.

  Pedicures and manicures.

  Mud baths, seaweed wraps.

  All that stuff I’ve been able to afford for years but never, ever let myself indulge in.

  I pull out my phone and dial the number.

  Just one week. My work is already on hold, and I can take one week for myself amid my mother’s chaos, can’t I?

  One week away from this pressure cooker, and then I’ll get back to work.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LUCY

  IT TAKES ME HALF A day to get away from my mother. She doesn’t grab me like a movie damsel demanding rescue, and she doesn’t get in my way, barring the door. Instead she lassos me with guilt.

  I tell her my decision the next morning, and she grabs me with, “Well, if I’m that big of a burden that you require a vacation during your vacation, then go ahead.”

  An hour later I hear, “I’m too old to be around anyway.”

  And then by midday, with my bag carrying only the barest essentials (like a refugee fleeing a war and leaving most belongings behind to burn), I’m in my car before she attempts a hog-tie maneuver with something like, “I’m sure the doctors will call you if I collapse.”

  There’s nothing I can do except to keep saying Yeah-yeah-I’ll-be-back-soon, then drive off as if my neck were incapable of turning to look back. Even then, I’m all the way to the big boulevard with the flowering trees before I stop feeling like she’s chasing my car.

  After that, I try to make myself relax and turn on the radio. But I kill it after two songs — the first commercial is for an eldercare facility, the actors reading a script about how vital it is to care for your parents in their years of need.

  Well, my mother is in perfect health. Lonely after Dad died, sure. Psychologically fucked-up after decades of a controlling marriage? Check. But it’s ridiculous for me to carry that burden alone. My mother’s life belongs to her, and I’ve got a brother who won’t help at all — another thing that’s unfortunate, but again not my fault. I have a life, and a career I’d be losing due to my absence, if Caspian weren’t also my boss.

  And I have my own ambitions to follow. I love Caspian’s company and I'm proud of it, but GameStorming is his thing, not mine.

  What identifies Lucy? What mark has Lucy made to prove to the world that she was here? That sort of thing has been on my mind ever since my father’s death. You get used to the idea that life will continue forever, but my family recently received a big reminder that nope, it most certainly does not.

  It’s okay to take some time for myself. To think, to unwind … whatever I need.

  Just because Caspian divorced himself from our parents long ago doesn’t mean I need to do double the work any responsible daughter would do. That’s not fair, and Mom needs to realize it.

  The silent drive does its work. Forty-five minutes listening to nothing but the sound of tires on pavement puts me in a Zen state by the time I pull up to Hotel Indigo’s valet. It’s as if I’ve driven a convertible instead of a rented Lexus, and the road’s wind has mostly blown thoughts of my most pressing responsibilities from my head. I still feel like Mom is in my back seat, telling me she doesn’t know where anything is without me there to tell her, but her voice is only a whisper. That ghost’s yammering is quiet enough that I can hear a breeze sigh through the trees.

  I set my bag down, right there beside my car in front of the valet. The sky is cerulean with barely a cloud. The area is quiet, as if the resort and grounds are holding their breath.

  And right there, looking up at the architecture, the trees, and the blue sky, it dawns on me that unless I chicken out and run back to my mother’s house, I really do have a week of me time waiting.

  This never happens. Dad was sick for a long time back in San Franci
sco, and I dealt with his illness and Mom’s insanity while still at work, held down the fort at GameStorming while my brother played sex games with the girl who will soon be my sister-in-law. Caspian tied Aurora up in his office while I did all the real work. I literally couldn’t find time to read. And on the few occasions I tried, relaxing was impossible. I knew I’d be interrupted any moment.

  The thought of taking an hour to read now, knowing I won’t be interrupted, is almost astonishing to consider. But the idea of a full day? Of a week? It is, quite literally, impossible to comprehend. I can’t get my mind around that much free time. It’s like considering infinity. Strangely, I stifle a few seconds of panic.

  What will I do with all that time?

  I honestly have no idea how to occupy myself without someone bothering me for something.

  My phone buzzes. I fish it out of my purse and see a text from Mom: Where did you hide my toaster? I do actually plan to eat while you’re off enjoying yourself.

  I dismiss the text without replying. The toaster’s on the counter, right beside the ugly little clock she’s always consulting. But of course, she didn’t text me to find the toaster. She’s bugging me for other reasons, and will surely continue to do so.

  I sigh.

  At least I know I won’t be bored.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MARCO

  I’M ON THE PHONE WITH my sister Mimi when Thomas Booth sticks his head into the break room and says, “Marco. What the fuck. You’re on, aren’t you?”

  I pull the phone from my face. “Just taking a break.”

  “Take a break on your own time.” He’s probably unaware that he’s made the king of obvious statements and done nothing to advance his point. “We’ve got clients lined up.”

  “There’s nobody on my schedule until 2 o’clock.”

  Booth looks at his watch. It’s gold and way too fancy. “Well, schedules are subject to change. You know I need you.”

  I watch him, wondering whether his tiny body could be crammed into a small suitcase. Probably, but only with a few of his limbs broken first.

  “Are you adding someone to my schedule?” I try to keep my voice reasonable.

  “Maybe. Rainfall isn’t coming in.”