As I watch her now, the moment is so filled with normal that my nerves begin to calm. “I’ve been seeing things,” I offer vaguely, and wave my hand. “I’m also losing time—not blacking out, but just . . .” I stop and sigh. “I’m just confused, really.”
“Have you eaten today?” she asks casually.
“No, not yet. Do you think that could be it?”
“Well, that and you had alcohol,” she points out. “And you took a muscle relaxer. And you stayed up all night with Eli.” She meets my eyes in the mirror and winks. “See where I’m going here?”
I’m feeling more ridiculous by the second. I haven’t exactly been making the healthiest life choices the past few days. “Or,” she adds, tapping her palm under her curls to fluff them, “it could just be the ghosts fucking with you.” She laughs before turning around, her hip against the porcelain sink.
“I’m definitely blaming the ghosts,” I say, calmed now that Lourdes has shed some light on the situation.
“By the way,” she says, “I’m not sure what happened last night, but Eli hasn’t shut up about you.”
“What did he say?” I’m slow to stand, still a little shaky, and make my way over to the mirror to check my reflection. It’s not too terrible, although I have to wipe away a bit of mascara from under my eyes.
Lourdes purses her lips as if weighing how much to tell me. The scale doesn’t tip in my favor. “Doesn’t matter,” she says. “But I told him to be careful. Elias is a really good friend of mine, and I don’t want him to get in trouble because of this little thing you have. It is a thing, right? Because he seems to think so.”
“We’re just hanging out,” I say. “It’s not a big deal.” I have a hard time holding back my smile. In reality, I’m only here until tomorrow. Our “thing” is going to be short lived no matter what.
Lourdes watches me, and a slow drip from the faucet echoes in the silence. “He’s in the garden,” she says. “I can’t remember the last time I saw him outside.” Her expression softens, and I can see how much she cares about him. “He’s worth it,” she adds quietly. “If it were me, I’d think he was worth it.”
“Worth what?”
The door opens and two older women with fur shawls stagger in as if their shoes are painful. One woman moves to the sink nearest Lourdes, knocking her compact into the sink without apologizing. Without acknowledgment. Lourdes quickly snatches up her supplies and shoves them into her apron. She’s flustered, and I expect her to confront the woman, but instead the housekeeper rushes out without another word.
The gray-haired woman glances at the powder residue spilled from Lourdes’s compact. “The help in this place is disgusting,” she murmurs to her friend. “Absolutely worthless.”
“Report it to the front desk,” her friend replies, hobbling over to the stall door. “They’ll straighten them out. This place does have a reputation, you know.”
How dare they? “You’re the one who knocked it over,” I say, grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser and tossing it at her. “Report that.”
The woman gasps, looking offended that I’d even suggest she clean up after herself. She stares at where the paper towel landed on the side of the sink. She straightens her back, skin paled, and then goes to enter the stall next to her friend. At first her voice is shaky, but then she and her friend continue talking between stalls, complaining about the food, the service. I stare at their closed doors, wondering how they could be so rude.
I’m angry, and I want to kick open their stalls to tell them they’re not allowed to treat people like this. That money doesn’t buy class. I’d tell them not to report it to the front desk because Kenneth is an asshole and the staff is afraid of him.
Instead I pull open the main door and then flick off the light, submerging the room in darkness. The women yelp and howl for help, but I pretend I don’t hear, and shut the door behind me.
Chapter 10
I’m not hungry when I return to the table. Dad and Daniel seem to be at the tail end of an argument I luckily missed, and my plate of crepes are pale and withered. I tentatively sit down, anticipating their questions. Daniel is the first to look over, and my breath catches but is soon replaced with a sigh when his head is still wound-free. I imagined the entire thing.
“You all right?” he asks, halfway between panic and annoyance. I nod and then cut a piece of crepe and shove it into my mouth. If starvation is the cause of my hallucination, I’m going to ensure I’m well fed through the rest of this trip. The food is dry and cold. I take a sip of water and force down another mouthful.
“Your sister said her arm’s been hurting,” my dad says for me, then shoots me a worried glance. “Could this . . . outburst be related?”
He’s thinking stroke. I know he is.