Page 6 of The Heartbreak Hotel
“Yes, you’ve reached his office. How can I help you?”
“Um.” I squint out the window, where sun cuts through the boughs of a juniper tree in the side yard. “I’m his tenant out on Cedarcliff? The stone house with the porch? I was hoping to discuss something with him in, um, in person?”
There’s a brief pause. “Dr.Rhodes had a cancellation for four o’clock today. Otherwise, we’re closed Sundays and Mondays and I’m booking appointments two weeks out. The earliest I have available is September thirteenth.”
Dr.Rhodes? I glance at the coffee table, where all my frenetic research is scribbled out on scrap paper. Mei slept over in spite of my protests—Andy’s at dinner with college friends! I don’t want to listen to them reminisce about Habitat for Humanity anyway! Shut up right now!—and we spent most of the night researching vacation rentals. What the other options are in Estes Park, what kinds of rules I’d need to follow, what I could charge for a place like this. She left a couple hours ago but it’s only noon; I can get this jumble of information presentable in four hours.
“I’m…not sure I need an appointment,” I say to Rita. “I just need to discuss a matter about the house? But I can do today at four, too.”
“Great,” Rita says. I hear her tapping at a keyboard. “What was your name?”
“Louisa Walsh,” I say. “But he might only recognize my boyfriend’s name, Nate Payne. He usually deals with the rent.”
The wordboyfriendseeps through me like vinegar, burning all the way down. Rita is unfazed.
“Thanks, Louisa. We’ll see you at four.”
The phone clicks off. I catch my reflection in the mirrorabove the fireplace: pale cheeks, rat’s nest hair, enormous *NSYNC T-shirt with a hole in one shoulder that I haven’t peeled off my miserable body in forty-eight hours.
I point one finger at my face. Meet my own, red-rimmed eyes in the glass. “Get your shit together.”
Five
When I park at theaddress from Nate’s text—a business park on the other side of the lake—there’s a Bernese mountain dog blocking the front door. It’s got to be at least a hundred and twenty pounds, with more hair than an entire sorority pledge class. There’s a felted pink lily tied to its collar—giant, floppy petals and spindly orange stamen.
The dog’s owner shuffles out after it, shouting a thank-you through the door behind her. She promptly loses her rein on the dog, who bounds toward me with all the limb control of a puppy. I shriek when it gets to me—not because I don’t like dogs, but because I’m wearing myonegood blazer—and it barks heartily in response, like we’re playing.
“Stop it!” I say, hopping backward in my heels. The sun is high and hot; I can feel myself starting to sweat as the dog hops right after me, salivating profusely.
“I’m so sorry!” The woman scrambles after the leash, finally pulling her dog away from me. There’s a glistening ribbon ofslobber on my pencil skirt. “Mabel is so friendly, butsoenthusiastic.”
“It’s okay,” I say. Mabel looks up at me balefully. “I love dogs, I just—” I gesture at my outfit. “I’m not dressed to play.”
“Of course,” she says. She’s in running shorts and sneakers, a fadedEstes Park Turkey TrotT-shirt. They did it at Lake Estes last year—a fogged-breath, early winter morning that Nate and I spent with coffee in bed while half the town pounded the cracked pavement around the lake. “I’m sorry. She gets so excited when she sees Dr.Rhodes.”
I stare at her for a second, then at the door.Henry Rhodes, DVMis right there on the glass in crisp vinyl letters. He’s avet? I’m in a matching skirt and blazer, carrying a briefcase. I broughtprintouts. Shit.
“Bye, Mabel.” I pat her wide head and hustle into the building, where a woman in braids—Rita, I presume—sits behind a desk in the small waiting room. There are heartworm prevention posters on the walls.
“Hi,” I say, approaching the desk with a confidence I don’t feel. “I’m—”
“Louisa.” Rita taps at something on her computer and gives me a perfunctory smile. “I’ll take you back.”
I swallow. I feel like she’s walking me to detention as she motions me into an exam room. There’s a vet school diploma framed on the wall, along with a pastel portrait of an incredibly disgruntled-looking cat. It smells like Clorox wipes.
“He’ll be right in,” Rita says before shutting the door. I sit in the plastic chair with my briefcase in my lap, unsure what to do with myself. Should I get the printouts? I open the clasp on my bag and pull out the stack of papers inside: local comps, recipes,even a mock listing I wrote at one in the morning. When I spread them on the exam table and step back they look absolutely ridiculous, and I’m in the middle of shoving them back into my bag when the door creaks open.
“Louisa,” Henry says. His voice is soft and husky: the exact voice you’d want soothing your dog when they’re afraid. “How can I help you?”
I feel my lips part. Henry fills the room like overhead light: nowhere, then everywhere at once. He can’t be older than thirty-five, dark hair just silvering at his temples. A white coat hangs crisply from the cut of his broad shoulders, his name stitched over the heart. There’s the ghost of a beard along his jaw and faint circles under his blue eyes.
“You—” I don’t know where my sentence is going, and it comes out as, “—know who I am?”
He blinks at me. “You live in my house—of course I know who you are.”
I think what I meant was,You recognize me?Because there’s no way this man and I have ever laid eyes on each other. I’d remember.
“Is there a problem with the house?”
