“Sure.”
“You don’t look like him.”
“Different fathers. Our mother was a magnet for bums.” Jane wasn’t sure why she had chosen to make up this kind of story, but it fit her mood. It occurred to her that Pete could easily be telling a different story. “Jimmy might not tell you that, because it’s not nice. And I think men make up nice stories because they need a father they can admire. But we’re all grown-up women here. Are you and Pam related?”
“Just friends,” said Carol. She pulled down the top of her bathing suit and Jane looked away involuntarily to see if Pete was behind her seeing this. But the door to the next room was now closed. Carol slipped the tight suit down from her hips, and Jane looked at her objectively. She had been given to understand that men liked red hair, and hers was at least real.
Carol caught her eye and smiled. “We’re on vacation together from the car agency.” She cocked her head. “You wish we’d drop dead, don’t you?”
“No,” Jane lied. “Why would you think that?”
Carol found a small perfume bottle in the shoulder bag on the counter and dabbed a bit on her neck, then another on her belly, close to the patch of red hair. The little smile was conspiratorial. Jane’s stomach felt hollow. Carol leaned close to the mirror and began to make up her eyes. “I don’t know. That’s what I was wondering.”
“That’s not the way I feel,” said Jane. “But he’s my little brother, and maybe I’m protective.” She walked into the outer room and sat at the table.
In a few seconds Carol walked out to join her. Only then did she carelessly slip on a terrycloth robe and tie it. She sat on the bed and switched on the television with no sound. “I guess you should be protective,” she said. “He’s such a hunk. Of course, if you’re his sister, he probably doesn’t strike you that way.”
“I can see,” said Jane. She needed to add something malicious. “He seems to attract one after another.”
It didn’t seem to touch Carol. She shrugged. “Life is short. He might as well have some fun.”
Slowly, against all of Jane’s hopes, she began to hear faint noises coming from the next room. The walls were so thin that they muffled none of the sounds. There was a soft, female moan, and then the springs of the bed. She needed to talk. “You said you and Pam work together?”
Carol stared at the silent screen of the television set, but Jane could see she was listening to the sounds behind the door. “Uh-huh.”
“And this is your vacation. Have you been up in the mountains?”
Carol looked at her, the blue eyes focused on something behind Jane’s head. “A couple of hikes.” The voice in the next room was up an octave now, and louder, sounding almost distressed. “Oh,” it said. “Oh, oooh, yes. Please.”
Jane considered that this was one possible way that hell could be. It was torment, and it was designed to make her know, and to feel, that she was bad and weak. She could do nothing but talk to this idiot on the bed, and talking to her was like looking in a mirror and seeing a grotesque parody of herself. Carol was lying there and the robe barely covered her anymore, but she didn’t think to close it, and her face showed that she wasn’t just hearing, she was listening, and wishing more fervently each second that it were she instead of her friend. “Are there any good hikes that we shouldn’t miss?” asked Jane. “We’ve been sticking to the road a lot.”
“No,” said Carol absently. “I don’t really think it’s much fun.” She turned to glance at Jane, then said to the television set, “You get hot, and sweaty, and out of breath.” She lifted her glass to her lips, tasted it, and made a face.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jane. Talk, damn you.
“These taste awful without ice. We need ice.”
Jane almost sprang to her feet. “I’ll get some,” she said. “Do you know where the ice machine is?”
Carol shook her head. “I’ll get it. It’s around a couple of corners.” She stood and walked to the door. Jane noticed that she put no shoes on her feet. She paused and studied the two room keys on the table, then seemed unable to remember which one fit this room and slipped both into the pocket of her robe.
For the first few seconds, Jane was relieved to be out of Carol’s company. But as minutes passed, the sounds from the next room seemed to grow louder and more frequent. Jane tried not to hear them, then knew that there was no way not to hear them and let them induce clear, detailed visual images in the mind. She was ashamed, and she resented having to feel that way. Her mouth was dry and she detested the drink in her hand, and she needed to clear her throat, but if she did, then Pete and the blonde would hear her, and it would show them that it was impossible for her to be in this room without eavesdropping. She could not even deny to herself that she was listening now, feeling each minute that this was some low ebb in her life and that it was sinking lower, and she with it.
Then Jane heard a new sound. For a few seconds, she wondered why it had surprised her. It was the voice of Carol, coming to her through the connecting door like the other one. “Oh, Jim,” it said. “Oh, Jim.” Jane carried her drink to the bathroom sink and poured it out. Then she walked out of the room. When she reached her own room, she remembered that Pete still had the key in his pocket.
She was not going back. She picked a credit card out of her wallet without looking at it, curved it a little so it would fit between the door and the jamb to depress the plunger, then slipped inside and stood alone in the darkness.
She was amazed. She had left her husband and rushed all the way out here, maybe to walk in front of a gun muzzle, because that man had called for help. Then she had carefully piled up day after day of invisible, anonymous travel to let his trail get cold. Now he was busy burning up all of her efforts, making himself as memorable as any human being could be to two women who probably couldn’t wait to meet the next strange man in the next hotel. She hated Pete Hatcher. He had done this to punish her for rejecting him—wanted to make her imagine, know what she had thrown away, and learn to want it. No, that was too simpleminded. It had been for both of them, to prove that he was still attractive, still manly, still Pete. He had done that better than she would ever let him know. The word
23
She heard him before he put the key in the lock. She let him sneak in without acknowledging his presence, or the bright sunlight that shone in the door when he opened it. She had gone out twice during the night to walk the perimeter of the hotel grounds, studying the cars in the parking lot and the windows of rooms that were on the court, but had seen nothing that worried her, and then she had slept.
She waited until ten to get out of bed. While she was in the shower he got up too, and she found him packing his suitcase. “Good morning,” she said, carefully modulating her voice to sound as cheerful and unconcerned as she could.
“Good morning,” he answered. He stepped past her into the bathroom without meeting her eyes, and then she heard the shower for a long time.
She finished packing, latched her suitcase, and spent a few minutes selecting identities for the day. Today they would be Tony and Marie Spellagio, who had not yet made an appearance in Montana. She laid their credit cards and driver’s licenses on the bed in a row, so that Pete could examine hers too.
Then she made her preliminary inspection of the grounds through the windows. It was another perfect late- summer day in the Rockies, with the sun glaring from what seemed to be just over their heads, and no sign that anyone was near enough to be watching.
Pete came out fully dressed and with hair wet from the shower, picked up his cards and both suitcases, and followed the usual routines. He set the suitcases down beside the car, dropped something so he could look beneath it, peered under the hood, and then loaded the trunk while Jane checked out. She came back and said, “You want to eat breakfast before we move on?”
“No,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get down the road a bit before we stop.”
Jane nodded and got into the passenger seat. She was not sure whether he was feeling queasy from the syrupy drinks or wanted to be gone before his little playmates woke up. As he drove off the lot onto the highway, he
