Bad, Very, Very

When I entered the hotel, I went to the lobby counter and tried to act like a business-professional who'd had meetings here a million times, but I was self-aware of my slutty outfit and of what I felt Anthony's characterization of me was.

Young.

Too young for him.

I approached the man behind the counter, who wore a bright red uniform. When he saw me, he said, "Are you lost?"

"Do I look lost?"

"You look terrified."

"I'm a tattoo artist," I said.

"That's very cute," he said, condescending.

"I'm here for a meeting. In Conference Room…"

But my mind blanked.

The man scrolled through a tablet. "There are no meetings booked right now."

"I forgot the number of the room," I said.

"In any of the rooms," he said.

It registered. "There must be a mistake," I said.

"And it must be your mistake," said the man, a little too contemptuously.

I made a face at him and turned away from the desk. I took uneasy steps over the marble floor until I was in the center of the lobby, standing between an array of plush couches. I dropped into one. I noted light from the chandelier dotting my skin.

And I opened my phone—a flip phone, razor-thin.

I double-checked the meetup location.

Sure enough, this was the wrong hotel.

"Fuck," I said to myself.

I leaned against the armrest of the chair, with no regard for anyone or anything else. I shut my eyes, leaning my hand against one side of my head.

I'd ruined my chances at a better life.

My one-shot.

If I'd gotten the money, I would have been able to open up shop. Advertise. Get clients. Do special deals. Afford cigarettes and coffee and more-than-just-take-out Chinese food, though I wouldn't give it up right away.

My stomach growled.

I held my latte in my hand.

It was cold. I sipped what was left of it.

I didn't know how I was going to pay my rent bill in three days. I was down to scraps. Had only a few tokens in my account. Not enough to get a cab ride home. I would have to call Aunt Jenny to get me home. Or old Joe. I shivered. Neither were good options.

So I sat there, resigned.

I checked my bank account.

Three tokens. I couldn't afford a latte, but I could afford a cup of cheap old-fashioned black coffee from the hotel lounge.

Rising from the couch, defeated, staring at the floor, I moved past the front counter and further into the hotel, where I could hear the din of consumers in the lounge. I found the bar, situated near the restaurant.

I saw two men tucked away behind a round table. One of the men was huge. Looked like he could pick a car off the ground. His arms bulged beneath a white button-up shirt. I didn't even know they made button-up shirts that big.

My eyes locked on the man, I rammed straight into a waitress who was carrying a tray of food. The tray, of course, turned my direction. The food splattered all against my cardigan. I could feel and hear the squishiness of the food. The woman dropped the tray and spaghetti went all over the place.

The young woman and I sighed.

She bent down to collect the food.

I didn't know what to say.

I felt like, of course this would happen to me.

So instead of saying anything, I walked away. I made eye contact with the big guy, who only shook his head. Apparently disappointed in me. And, I must say, it hurt.

*****

In the woman's bathroom, I stripped off my cardigan. And threw it in the trash. Because I didn't know what else to do with it. Now I was wearing a long-sleeved white button-up. The sleeves accentuated my slender arms. Still, I looked nice enough.

I smelled my armpits.

Could use some deodorant.

And that was when my cramps began to hurt again.

Leaning over the sink, I splashed warm water into my face, trying to take my mind off my troubles.

*****

I found a place to sit in the lounge and the waiter came. The man had medium-length dark hair, young. Looked a little like Carter from back at the coffee shop. In fact, the longer I looked at him, the more I became convinced he was Carter's twin. But I couldn't tell if he looked like Carter or if he just had the same vibe.

I ordered a cup of black coffee.

Anything in it? No. Just black. And the man, for some reason, rolled his eyes and then left. And he didn't bring my coffee for five minutes.

When the man brought me the coffee, he set it down and instantly turned on his heels. When I lifted it to my lips, it was lukewarm. I didn't swallow. Only scowled.

How come people treated me this way?

Was all I could wonder.

I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair, waiting for the waiter to return. I kept my eyes on the service door. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Business was slow this time of day.

What would I tell this stupid son-of-a-priest when he got back to the table? My mind ticked with ideas—like my old broken car. Ticking, ticking, ticking.

Tired.

I felt drained.

I hadn't eaten.

Had only drinken that latte.

My nerves were stretched.

I'd had anxiety about the meeting. I'd had anxiety talking to the hot vampire man. Reaching into the small pocket in the fold of my skirt, I pulled out the man's card.

I traced my fingers over the emblazoned: ANTHONY EDEN.

And I allowed my mind to wander.

*****

Some time passed when my mind snapped awake. The waiter who looked like Carter hadn't come back. But I saw a man enter the lounge: 지수. Or, as most called him, Jason.

I thought it was a strange coincidence given the Carter lookalike.

I'd recalled Carter's words from the coffee shop: Specifically you.

This was the first time I'd seen Jason outside of the Java shop.

I tried to turn my head away so he wouldn't see me so I could observe, but he saw me immediately and he scowled, unhappy I was here.

Which made me so mad that I balled up my hands in fists and then I lifted myself from my seat, pushing off from the table.

He turned away from me and found a seat at the bar.

I walked straight to the bar and sat on the stool beside him.

"What are you doing here?" I said.

And I needed to know.

I needed to know with every fiber of my being.

I needed to know because I needed a win because everything had gone to hell today and yesterday and the day before and I wasn't sure how much more losing I could take.

"Don't talk to me," he said, in broken English.

"You speak English?" I said.

"Please. Go. Now," he said, staring straight ahead. He wouldn't make eye contact. Usually he made eye contact.

He stood up from his seat on the stool. "I'm going to the bathroom. When I get back, I want you gone."

Bro, I thought to myself, how much rejection could my heart take?

*****

Little did I know that in the back corner round table, Sally and Rodriquez were watching me with rapt attention. And then they stood up from their seats.

*****

That's when I saw Carter come out from a service door and, with nothing to lose in my pathetic excuse for my life, I stood up and angled toward him and pointed my skinny arm towards him and said, "You! I'm not paying for that lukewarm coffee."

As he walked past me, he flopped his hair to one side and mumbled, "Fine, lady, then just go."

Lady! I was barely older than he was. In fact I might have been younger.

Throwing up my hands and tired of this day, I turned for the doors to get the hell out of this lounge. When I came into the lobby, I saw a girl seated on the red couch who looked a lot like me, older by a few years, similar build, same color hair, pale face. Could have been my twin.

My psychic connection to the universe was buzzing.

I felt all kinds of weird things in my body.

Patterns breaking, forming, collecting.

That feeling that something terrible was going to happen arose in my stomach.

I tried to forget about the girl, the lobby, the lounge, the lookalike Carter, the man Jason (who I thought was friendly), Anthony Eden, and my dreams of being a tattoo artist.

My dreams of having money.

Like, enough to get by.

Sure, my dreams were small.

But they were all I had.

And right now I didn't even want to entertain the thought of them.

I just wanted to cry and scream and drink a bottle of wine and drown my sorrows. I had half a bottle in my trailer. I just needed to get this phone call with Aunt Jenny over with.

The revolving glass doors stood before me, spinning.

As they spun, the sun glinted off of them.

Right into my eyes.

I blinked, squinted as I neared.

And I felt dizzy. My psychic signals getting turned around in my head.

Then I went through the doors, half-circle, into the hot sun.

Felt like it was blazing, now. As in, blazing, blazing.

I decided to walk a bit.

Coming out from under the covered-entrance of the hotel, into the dead-quiet street, I heard footfalls behind me. Heavy ones. Fast. As if the persons had places to be, people to see.

I didn't turn.

I didn't care.

That is, until they came just behind me. Something stabbed me in the back. Not a sharp pain. A prodding. I felt the presence of the man so much so that I knew I didn't have to turn and look, but I did anyway. Half-turned.

To see the hulk of the man I'd seen in the restaurant.

I also saw he held a gun against the small of my back.

His Mexican friend was beside him. They pressed me forward.

"Keep walking," said the big man.

That was when I let out the greatest scream of my entire life, threatening to break my vocal cords. But it was muffled by a hand the size of a large plate.

Before I knew it, the man shoved me into the backseat of a Lexus.

The doors clicked shut. I could tell the thing was reinforced, soundproofed. So I didn't bother to yell as the men climbed into the front seats.

At the moment, I could barely hear anything.

My heart was beating loud in my ears.

And I felt I would faint any moment.