October Fest

for her checkup, the doctor said it was going around.”

The sweetness in his voice mortified me. I reached for the toilet handle to erase the evidence, but it was immediately replaced by more. Twenty minutes of heaving later, I was spent, having only the energy to calculate how long it would take to obtain a passport so I could fly to India to officially pursue my future as an untouchable. Johnny handed me a warm, wet towel, and I cleaned off my face. He left the bathroom, closing the door to give me some privacy, and returned a few minutes later, knocking softly before handing me a toothbrush and miniature toothpaste from the front desk. I accepted both gratefully.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, after I was as cleaned up as a person could be after involuntarily expelling olives through her nose. My throat felt like a sand truck had driven through it. I couldn’t look at him. “Is this your worst date ever?”

He smiled, his eyes twinkling. “No, my worst date ever was the first night at the State Fair when you ran away before I could kiss you.”

I thrust out my hand in horror.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to try and kiss you now. Just come over to the bed and lie down. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I want to go home,” I moaned, trying to stand. A wave of dizziness pushed me back onto the closed toilet seat. “Or, maybe I’ll just lie down for a little while.”

“Good idea,” he said, hoisting me into his arms and carrying me to the soft bed. “Tiger Pop and Luna can get out if they want to?”

I nodded, sinking into the mattress.

“OK. I have to leave for work at 5:00 a.m. I’ll head out early to check on them first, okay? Just sleep.” He felt my forehead and then covered me with a spare blanket before stretching out behind me, one arm draped loosely across my waist, reminding me I wasn’t alone.

And that’s all I remembered until I heard the scream.

5

My disorientation was total. The room was black. It didn’t smell familiar, and the digital clock was in the wrong place telling me some crap about 5:34. Where was I, and why had I been dreaming of moving to West Bengal? That’s when it came back to me in smelly waves of shame. Argh. I was pretty sure Johnny had seen me hurl last night. The humiliation was smothering.

And then it pierced my ears again, a scream as chilling as morgue water, the noise that had woken me. I sprung out of bed and was shoved back by a Mack truck of a headache. I powered through and felt my way to the door, focusing on a sliver of grayish light glowing through the curtains. I found the doorknob and turned it, welcoming the fresh and chilly lake air. West Battle’s waves were choppy and dark, the sun an hour and a half from rising. The only brightness issued from a lonely light in the parking lot. People were beginning to stir about in their rooms, but as of yet only two doors were open, mine and the one immediately to my right. A cleaning cart was resting between our rooms. I skirted it and entered the adjacent room gingerly, certain the scream had emanated from there.

I was paralyzed by what I saw.

In the middle of the room lay a crumpled male figure. A cleaning woman knelt next to the man, searching for a pulse. It was then that I noticed the jellied outline of a clear plastic bag over his head and the preternatural stillness that only death can bring.

I raced to the bedside phone to dial 911.

“Already called,” the cleaning lady said. “Besides, there’s no hurry.”

Her calmness unsettled me. “Were you the one who just screamed?”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning back on her heels. “This room was supposed to be empty. I was startled, is all. But you clean hotel rooms for enough years, and nothing really scares you anymore.” She indicated the plastic bag. “Must have suffocated himself. It’s tight around his neck.”

I didn’t want to get too close, didn’t want to see whose face it was, but I found myself tiptoeing around the body at a safe distance, just the same. And that’s how I came to stare into the dead eyes of Bob Webber, the blogger who would never again care if the world spelled his name with one or two b’s.

6

“Shit. I owe Curtis ten bucks.”

The familiar voice at the door yanked me sharply from the frozen horror on Mr. Webber’s chalk-white face. One edge of his forehead appeared darker than the rest and soft, like he’d hit the ground hard. He was still dressed in his sad, shabby coat. “Mrs. Berns?” I asked. She looked tiny in the doorway, tiny and crazy-sexy in thigh-high stockings and a black teddy under a translucent, feather-lined robe. “What are you doing here?”

She took in my bedhead and bloodshot eyes courtesy of an evening of power hurling. “We’ll have the talk when you get a little bit older, honey. We have a more important situation on our hands. You just cost me ten cucumbers.”

Bernard, the stuffy reporter who yesterday had been in her room at the Senior Sunset, materialized behind her, looking ridiculously bird-legged in boxer shorts and a white v-neck T-shirt.

“Wah?” I asked.

She crossed her arms and leaned into the door frame. “We have a Mira and Corpse pool at the Senior Sunset. Curtis Poling bet you couldn’t make it through Octoberfest weekend without finding a dead body. I figured if I steered you away from your usual haunts and kept a close eye on you, I’d win the bet. Turns out you can’t trick luck as bad as yours, sweetie pie.”

“Wait, is that why you talked Johnny into bringing me here? To win a ten-dollar bet?” Nothing like indignation to arrest your attention.

“Pah.” She strode over to the corpse and knelt down to stare at his face. “It’s that Leeson boy we should feel sorry for. How’d you humiliate yourself this time? And who’s the wormfood here?”

“Bob Webber,” Bernard said from behind us.

“One b or two?” I asked, staring at the face of the deceased and wondering why he looked so frightened. My experience with corpses is that most of them left the world with a disgusted looked on their faces, a final “Really? Is that all?” Bob Webber, on the other hand, looked like his last moments had been awfully scary.

“Two.”

“Well now, how do you know him?” Mrs. Berns asked, turning toward her date and sounding peeved.

Bernard cleared his throat. “He operated The Body Politic blog. Well-known in the business of political reporting, a reputation for mendacity.”

I didn’t like the guy’s arrogance, and I didn’t trust his aim with big words. “Mendacity or tenacity?”

“My dear girl, he didn’t give up when he had a story. He was efficacious.” He talked slowly to give me the opportunity to dig out my thinking cap.

I pointed at the plastic bag sealed tightly around the corpse’s neck. “Was he going through tough times?”

“I didn’t know him personably,” Bernard answered.

I stared from Bernard to Mrs. Berns and back again. “Where did you two meet?”

“Gas station.” Mrs. Berns stood and grabbed Bernard’s hand. “Time to go, honey.” She shot her most threatening look to the cleaning lady, which was difficult to pull off in her Victoria’s Oldest Secret regalia. “We were never here.”

The maid rolled her eyes and reached into her apron for a squirt of Purel, leaving me to decide if I also should never have been here. Lots of questions get asked when you’re standing near a dead body, suicide or no. Besides,