Page 12 of One Life to Loathe

“Or if it’s some deeply rooted trauma you’re dealing with,” Daisy continued as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “It honestly doesn’t matter to me. Until you pull your head out of your ass, I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this because your little show is going to do good things for my town … and therefore my future husband. I also happen to like Sam. You’re a butthead, though.”

Now I did smile. “I thought I was a donkey.”

“You’re a lot of very bad words,” she said. “The thing is, I actually believe you can stop being the bad words. I just don’t know if you’re going to put in the effort.”

“Probably not,” I replied.

“Probably not,” she agreed on a sigh. Briefly, she shook her head, and then she returned to reality. “The goal is to get you guys photographed around Salem. That means I’m going to take you to the tourist traps. If you’re a good little boy, I’ll teach you some important things about Salem along the way. It will help you with the locals.”

“What makes you think I care about the locals?” I challenged.

“Because you’re not quite the donkey you pretend to be,” Daisy replied. “I’m not sure why you want people to believe you are, but deep down, you’re something else entirely.”

I darted a look at Sam and found her watching me with speculative eyes. “And what’s that?” I asked when I forced myself to focus on Daisy again.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she replied. “As soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”

THE BREAKFAST AND JUICE KILLED THEbulk of my hangover, so when we left for our tour, I was feeling okay aboutlife. Daisy kept giving me weird looks over her shoulder as we crossed the road, but I didn’t know what they meant. Therefore, I kept smiling in return. It was my smarmy smile, though, and she just kept rolling her eyes over and over again until I was worried she was going to sprain them.

“This is Salem Common,” she explained as she took us to the park next to the hotel. “It’s fairly empty now, but in two weeks there will be rides for kids and more food trucks. My favorite is the cider and doughnuts. I don’t actually like cider, but the warm doughnuts are a miracle.”

“I love warm doughnuts.” Sam’s face was somehow lit from inside. She was practically glowing under the bright sunlight. I had never in my entire life seen anybody as excited as her for a tour. If it was anybody else—somebody that I hadn’t already upset on multiple occasions—I would’ve been mocking her.

Instead, I forced myself not to be the jerk of all jerks. “I’m guessing this place is overflowing with people when the tourists start coming in.”

Daisy looked at me again. She had a very expressive face. I could tell she was trying to get a firm read on me—good luck with that, honey, because I can’t even get a firm read on myself—and she nodded in response. “From about the first week of September through the first week of November, this town is crawling with people. Some of them are locals—we get a lot of weekend visitors from Boston and the surrounding area—but most of them are tourists from different states. They come here for the witch experience.”

“So, as a tourist town, you guys make the bulk of your money in those two months,” Sam surmised.

“Kind of,” Daisy hedged. “That is our big moneymaker. We do okay in the summer, too, though because of our proximity to the water. We have a thriving fishing community, and the town makes a lot of money in the summer, too. Just … not as much.”

Daisy seemed to be debating what to say. “We have a rough patch here,” she said finally. “The December through April stretch can become a barren wasteland. It’s not pretty. That’s why we have to budget appropriately. A lot of places—the Hunter Hotel included—have to furlough our staff in the winter.”

Sam nodded in a way that made me wonder if she was a tourism expert in her spare time. “That makes sense. Does the hotel suffer?”

“We have found ways to offset some of the barren months,” Daisy replied. “I’m not actually the front desk worker. I was there yesterday because the woman who was on schedule had a doctor’s appointment—she’s pregnant with her first baby and nervous—but normally, I’m in the ballroom because that’s where we host our parties.”

“Halloween parties?” I assumed. I wanted to somehow prove that I wasn’t just an information vacuum to Sam. I could learn, and I wasn’t a complete and total idiot.

“We do Halloween parties for the two months before Halloween—and we do an absolutely huge Halloween bash that sells out in a single day every year—but we do other parties as well,” she replied. “We’re close enough to Boston that people like to host corporate parties here. People can drive if they want, but a lot of them get rooms for the night so they can have a good time.

“Our other big moneymaker is Sweet Sixteens,” she continued. “We’ve become sort of famous for those. Because of that, we manage to keep a more robust staff on than other places going into the winter. A lot of these places can’t afford that, though.”

“I didn’t even know people still had Sweet Sixteens,” I admitted. “I don’t think they do that in LA.”

Daisy snorted. “They do. I’m guessing that’s not your crowd, though.” She made a “come on” motion with her hand. “I’ll show you Essex Street next.”

“What is your crowd?” Sam asked out of nowhere.

I glanced at her, again noticing the way her skin appeared to glow. She’d gone with minimal makeup even though she knew Miles was arranging a photographer—one we were not supposed to stare at or acknowledge—and I liked that she wasn’t fussy when picking out a pair of comfortable shorts and a T-shirt. She might’ve been putting on an act with me, but she was still herself during the process.

“I don’t know that I have a crowd,” I replied. “I kind of stick to myself.”

“Perhaps you need a crowd.”

“Why would I need a crowd?”

“Because studies say that people who are lonely are meaner, and you’re mean.”

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