Page 55 of The Heartbreak Hotel
I wave her off. “He’s not listening.” The truth is Aunt Lou-Lou is Quinn’s one-way ticket to uninterrupted screen time, and he’s much more interested in taking advantage of it than in anything Bea has to say.
“And,” Kim says, drawing out the syllable, “I booked a spot at my climbing gym for tomorrow. By myself.” She straightens her shoulders as she says it, sitting up taller.
“Good for you!” I reach across the island and squeeze her arm. “I’m so glad you’re doing that.”
“Yeah, fuck Peter,” Bea says, lowering to a whisper on thefuck. In a lot of ways, their dynamic is the same as when they arrived: Bea the angry one, all vengeance and roiling rage; Kim the soft one, folded into her sadness. But now they understand each other, and will—I hope—be better support systems for one another when they leave the house.
Kim rolls her eyes and pushes Bea in the arm. When they dig into the oatmeal, I turn away to start their coffees.
“Before we go,” Bea says from behind me, “we wanted to ask you something.”
The grinder whirs to life, and I wait until it’s finished to look back at them—hoping to all that is holy they aren’t about to ask what those noises were in the Aspen Room last night. “Shoot.”
Bea glances at Kim, like she’s nervous. Like this is a secret. A tiny smile tugs at her lips when she looks back up at me. “Are you Nate Payne’s ex-girlfriend?”
The question falls through me like cold water. I should have known that this would happen—of course it would. There was a time when Nate’s social feeds were full of me. College, the years after. The shadowy outline of my face backstage at a show, our clasped hands in the garden, my name right there for anyone to see. I should have known this curiosity would follow me.
I clear my throat. It feels jarring, to step back there after last night—my body shuddering backward in time. But it’s the truth. “I am.”
Kim’s mouth drops open. Bea nudges her in the shoulder. “Itoldyou.”
“We recognized your name,” Kim says, spoonful of oatmeal forgotten halfway to her mouth. “But we weren’t sure—I mean. But, wow. It’s really you.”
“Purple Girl,” Bea says. It feels exactly like Nate meant it when he wrote the song: like pressing on a bruise. It’s disorienting, to think of him now. To hear the echo of his laugh overlaid with the memory of Henry’s measured breathing on my couch, the rise and fall of his ribs under my hand.
“Is that why you started this place?” Kim waves around. “The Comeback Inn?”
I swallow so hard it makes a clicking noise. “In a way, yes.” They don’t need to know that this has been my home for four years, that I can’t afford it without Nate, that I started this place so I wouldn’t be homeless. I volley up a bid to change the subject. “Did you find it helpful? Any feedback for me?”
Bea and Kim look at each other again. They want to keep talking about Nate, I can feel it. But, blessedly, they let it go.
“It was great,” Kim says finally. “Seriously. We’re going to recommend it to friends. And, like, maybe come back? Next time we need to get out of Denver for a while.”
“Anytime,” I tell them, drawing a slow breath to calm my nervous system. It’s just Bea and Kim—these girls who’ve filled my house with snuggled hugs and ragged rage and such understandable, familiar sadness. There’s no danger here. “Truly.”
Bea and Kim leave anhour before Shani shows back up, which gives me just enough time to make up her bed, give Quinn a bath, and get him dressed. He’s the one who notifies me that Shani’s arrived, calling to Nan and me from the hallway with his little face tucked behind the front-window curtains. Nan’s having a mug of tea at the dining table, garden door open to let in the autumn wind through the screen.
“That lady’s back with her dog!” Quinn shouts, and I put down the bowl I was drying at the sink.
“There’s a dog staying here?” Nan asks, peering up at me from above a print copy ofThe Denver Post.
“Yes,” I say apologetically. “Kind of by accident. Are you okay with that? I should have asked.” It occurs to me that I have more guests arriving while Shani’s here and should probably reach out to them, too.
Nan puts down the paper and claps her hands, shoulders hunching up. “Of course!” She stands, shepherding me toward the front door. “The only thing this place has been missing is a dog.”
But when I open the front door, the three of us don’t get to welcome Shani’s dog with open arms. Quinn doesn’t get to rub his scruffy little head. Nan doesn’t get to coo over his smushed-up, ugly-cute face.
Instead, Shani lets out a hair-raising scream from halfway up the driveway. “Oh mygod,” she cries, scooping the shih tzu off the gravel. “Oh my god, oh my god.”
“What?” I call, yanking Quinn up into my arms and hurrying toward her. “What happened?”
“A spider just—he just—” Shani’s lifting the dog’s face to her own, inspecting every inch of him. “He just tried to eat a spider and then he spit it out and it washuge, I mean—” She breaks off, eyes tracking over the driveway like she could find it again. “Oh no. Oh, god, look.” She thrusts the dog’s face toward my own, and Quinn and I look at him together.
I don’t know this dog. His face could look like pretty much anything. But even I can tell that something’s off: one side of hismouth is already puffing up like a marshmallow, soft and round and wrong.
“Oh my god,” Shani says again, looking around wildly—like there just might be a veterinarian lying around somewhere. “What if he stops breathing?”
“Stopsbreathing?” Quinn repeats, his voice crackling up several pitches.
