An unnoticed booger seemed to dangle from McGowen’s sandy mustache. “Sullivan, huh? A collection agency? What, Abbot owes money?”
“Indeed she does, Mr. McGowen, quite a bit of money,” Paul lied further. “She owes thousands and thousands of dollars on her credit cards.”
“Anything I can do to help you burn that bitch, just ask.”
Ahhhhh, Paul thought. It worked! Finally I’m getting somewhere. “She’s been ignoring our calls and notices for quite some time, and when I paid a visit to the address on her credit application, the landlord told me she no longer lived there. And she left no forwarding address. Did she by chance leave one with you?”
“Not a residential address. But she did leave her new employer’s address with me for her tax forms and W-2. Would that help you out?”
Paul had to consciously resist shouting out with glee.
“Yes, Mr. McGowen. That would help me out more than you can imagine.”
««—»»
When the night wound down, Vera retreated to her office to tabulated receipts. Forty-seven dinners tonight! she nearly rejoiced. An all-time high! At least it was something. After all, The Carriage House hadn’t been open that long, and though these numbers were nothing to rave about compared to The Emerald Room’s typical receipts, it was a clear indication that business was looking up. Vera even felt inclined to scoot over to room service and brag, but then she remembered that even the restaurant’s all-time high would be significantly less than the nightly RS receipts. Why give Kyle an excuse to rub my nose in poop? she reasoned.
“Can you believe it?” Donna remarked, suddenly sauntering in. “It’s the third night this week that the mayor came, and tonight he brought a bunch of town council members!”
“Tip City, huh?” Vera said.
“I did great.” Donna seemed calmly elated. “Didn’t I tell you things would start to get better?”
Yeah. But Vera’s mood flattened, as Donna counted out her tips. She looks fine, Vera observed. The same old Donna. Vera thought again of what she’d seen last night: Donna sleepwalking past her door, reeking of alcohol. But if Donna had relapsed, wouldn’t it be obvious, wouldn’t the telltale signs have reemerged? The dull listlessness, the facial pallor and anguish lines, the overall crushed features of the alcoholic? Vera noticed none of that, so again she had to conclude that she must have dreamed the whole thing. It made sense, given the stress of the new job combined with fitful, dream-laden sleep…
“You okay?”
Vera looked up from her ponderings. “Yeah, why do you ask?”
“Well…” Donna hesitated. “You’re acting a little weird lately, a little depressed.”
Dan B. had said the same thing. “I don’t know, I guess I—”
“You’re still letting Paul get to you,” Donna said. It wasn’t even a suggestion—it was a statement. “If you want my opinion, you need to confront him. It won’t be easy, but it’s something you need to do. You need to go and tell him off, give him a piece of your mind, tell him to his face that he’s a piece of shit for what he did to you.”
Vera supposed she knew this all along but was deliberately avoiding the issue. And she had avoided it, hadn’t she? For weeks she’d been telling herself that eventually she would return to the apartment to pick up some of her things, but she always found some excuse not to. That’s all I’m doing with
