“Hughes!” she called, as she walked across the parking lot toward the pool. He was underwater, clutching his knees. Bubbles rose to the surface. Yes, there were wind chimes on the lower branch of the tree at the far side of the pool. She hadn’t noticed them before.
“What a beauty!” he said when he surfaced, shaking his head; tilting it, really, to get water out of his ears. “How do I deserve such a beautiful woman and free drink tickets besides?”
“I thought you didn’t approve of my drinking.”
“Free?” he said.
They laughed. They laughed when they watched Jon Stewart, often. When they watched old Fawlty Towers. He thought Louis C.K. was a riot. She laughed, a little meanly, when he reached into food she’d prepared in her apartment and brought out an infinitesimally thin strand not of hair but the stem of some herb, a bit of oregano, something like that. On a scale of one to one hundred, she thought she loved him more than eighty.
“It’s not going to storm. It blew over,” he said, climbing one-handed up the ladder. “This situation with Bezos and the Washington Post is an interesting one. He wasn’t so high and mighty he didn’t get in touch with Bob Woodward right away for advice. He — Bezos, I mean — has got a skunk works team in New York now, called WPNYC, which is a great idea. I think he’s going to turn it around.”
“Skunk works?” she said. The wind chimes were tinkling in the breeze. She was not so sure the storm had passed over.
“How about a little fooling around, followed by a brief nap, then drinks?” he said.
“How much do you love me, on a scale of one to one hundred?” she said.
Oh god, whatever had made her ask that? What, what, what.
He tucked in his chin. Water streamed down his body, which was a good body. He worked out. His business partner had turned out to be a genius, but an out-of-shape one, so Hughes had become the front man. One of Hughes’s first moves had been to hire his old school buddy from Maine, who was a dynamite deal finalizer, though lately he’d been complaining about all the commuting from Maine to California.
Moira, looking at Hughes, thought: Would he have said exactly the same thing to Elizabeth, would he have called her beautiful, if he’d brought her to the Nevada Sunset?
“One hundred,” he said, after too much delay. “But if we could please put relationship talk on hold? I’m not in the mood today, Moira, I’m really not.”
To change the subject, she said, “My mother called. She sends you her best. She said that of all things, she found out some movie is going to be filmed at this motel. Not today, I wouldn’t guess. Except for the Norwegians, nobody seems to be checking in regardless of the price, which is odd.”
“You don’t think this place is just a bit obscure?”
“Not really. An app directed us here.” She shrugged. If he said one hundred, she thought he, too, might love her about as much as she loved him: eighty. Eighty, max.
“How’s your brother?” he asked halfheartedly. He liked her brother more than he let on. They’d done some major hikes together in the White Mountains, and he’d treated her brother to a week in Hawaii, when he and the Genius had gone there to talk to clients. They’d flown in a helicopter over a waterfall.
“I don’t know. She didn’t really say anything about him. But Daddy has a new attendant he likes. That’s good news. He mostly hates people.”
“Getting out?”
“Yes. He went to the park today. Or maybe it was yesterday. I don’t remember.”
“We should take him somewhere in the van again.”
“Well, we’re not a couple, so we can’t very easily do that, since Elizabeth’s parents live two doors down from my parents.”
He squinted at her. Seventy, max. Whenever he was being truly selfless, she went in for the kill. That was what he’d said about her at the beginning of the last trip, and she hadn’t forgotten it. He’d made her sound like a dangerous fish.
Thunder, but no lightning.
“I’m not in the mood anymore. I think I’ll get with your program. Where are those coupons?” he said.
“On the table by the door.”
“Are you going to snap out of it, or should I look forward to an evening of sulking?” he said.
“Do you think you might be picking a fight?” she said. “A few minutes ago you loved me one hundred percent, and I was a beautiful woman.”
“But what are you doing with your life? I mean, really. You toss off that editing in your sleep, almost. You were going to start a book, weren’t you? How many people really have the talent to write a good book, but you do.”
“Oh, go drinking with Bob Woodward,” she said, standing up and walking away.
“I’ve only met him once,” Hughes said. “I’m afraid I don’t have his contact information. I don’t think he’d be interested in flying out here and meeting me at the Nevada…”
She went into the room and put the chain on the door. He’d be too embarrassed to let anyone see she’d shut him out. Well, that was what she got for telling Hughes her dream. She was glad she hadn’t shown him the first fifty pages of the manuscript, as she’d been tempted to, when Elizabeth had been given a raise at work. She’d gotten yet another raise — the second in less than a year — and she and her stupid sister were now on a trip to Provence, a girls’ road trip to Aix, Avignon, and Arles. The three As, and wasn’t that just perfect? Such A-plus girls, both of them, one a scarecrow with minor Madonna pecs and hair that fell out because of a nutritional deficiency, the other fat.
The door jerked and trembled. “Oh, this is just so childish,” he said. “What would you do if I got in the car and drove away, huh?”
She considered this and grudgingly opened the door. “Show some respect,” she said, keeping her voice even. “This is not easy for me, and may I remind you, I am not in control of the situation.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll take a quick shower and we can get out of here,” he said.
“I’ve never seen you quite so excited about a free drink,” she said.
“I always go to hotel lobbies if they have free wine, don’t I?”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not much different,” he said. “I loved that place in Philadelphia: the Hotel Monaco.”
“You sent me a selfie of yourself there,” she said. “I remember the name. It reminded me of Grace Kelly. Were she and what’s his name, Cary Grant, lovers or just friends?”
“Don’t know,” he said, going into the bathroom.
She stretched out on the bed. She noticed that today there were three daisies amid the ivy. On the notepad by the bed was written, “You are welcome.” She smiled, then instantly worried that for some reason, Hughes might not like to know their note had been answered. He always tried to seem like a nice guy by telling everyone to call him by his first name, but had his limits with people. She really liked Kunal, wished he could be her father’s attendant — Kunal, her father would be sure to like — but Hughes drew lines in the sand about people: yes, the haircutter was nice, but she was just a haircutter. That sort of thing. She crumpled the note and stuffed it in her pocket. “I do love you, I do, Hughes,” she whispered. She’d made no further progress with the thick novel on the night table. She listened to the water in the shower. She wondered if the owner’s daughter would be painting in the little storage room in the afternoon. She so appreciated her own parents staying together. It hadn’t saved her brother, but then, whatever problems he had probably had little to do with them. They’d been good parents. Pretty good. Her father hadn’t, as the expression went, been very present. Neither, together or separately, could ever have been one of the demons he’d tried to chase away with cocaine and shots. Shots. She certainly no longer did shots. That was gone, like dancing all night until sunup.