All of the rooms in the Hopewell Hotel were called suites, even though they were single rooms, and a suite by definition is a series of rooms. It had always been this way. When the hotel was given its very expensive makeover in 1929, this lie was physically manifested in the form of a hand-engraved brass sign on every door, edged in a Deco lightning-bolt motif.
No one ever complained about the non-suiteness of a Hopewell room. They complained about other things, like broken televisions, or squeaky old bed frames, or the damp in the walls. Or incidents like that time two years ago when a pigeon got into the Sterling Suite when it had been vacant for a while and the window was left open to air the room. The pigeon nested in one of the wall sconces, a fact that remained undiscovered until the guest turned on the light and the enraged pigeon flew out, much like the proverbial bat from hell, and started flapping around the room. Smoke started billowing out of the wall. Within seconds, the Sterling Suite was a scene from a horror film.
When those are your problems, no one gets crazy about semantics.
Everything over the next few days had a similar air of hazy definition and disaster. Whatever had happened was called a wedding, but it didn’t feel like one. Not that Scarlett had any real frame of reference for how weddings were supposed to be. She had never attended one, never developed any particular fascination for them, harbored no particular like or dislike of any kind. But she didn’t think they were supposed to be like this. They weren’t supposed to be secret, unseen events where the aftermath looks a lot like the before except everyone is gloomy and tense all the time, like they’ve just heard that there’s been an outbreak of plague in the town upstream.
Chip and Lola took up temporary residence in the swanky Peninsula Hotel. They made a brief appearance on Sunday afternoon, during which they both looked very stressed-out. Monday arrived just like it always did, creeping in during the night like the neighbor’s cat, come to illicitly drop dead mice by the bedside. Scarlett opened her eyes and saw Lola’s empty bed, instantly remembering what a few hours of sleep had blanked away. She looked at the clock. Six A.M. She had another half hour of sleep to go, but something had woken her.
It was a hand, shaking her very gently. Lola’s hand, specifically. Lola was sitting on the other side of Scarlett’s bed, facing the windows. She had pulled her hair up into a twist so severely that it was pulling at the skin around her face.
“When did you get here?” Scarlett asked groggily.
“A few minutes ago. But we’re all having breakfast together.”
“What, now?”
“Half an hour. You get ready for school. I have to go wake up Marlene.”
An unpleasant breakfast of burned bacon and undercooked pancakes was spread out over two of the small dining room tables. It looked like no one had slept well, and the sight in front of them wasn’t helping. Spencer slumped in his seat, his hair still soaking wet from his shower, a faint trace of stubble around his jaw. Scarlett’s father was wearing one of his thrift store cowboy shirts again—a subdued black one with white piping—but he had misbuttoned it. Scarlett’s mom’s curls were as frazzled as her own for once, and she was furiously passing around the wet pancakes, trying to nudge Marlene into eating.
“What brought you back?” Spencer asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon or something?”
“I’m back to work,” Lola said. “Towels don’t fold themselves. No honeymoon, at least for a while. There’s a lot going on.”
Spencer laughed mirthlessly to himself and shoved a piece of badly burned bacon into his mouth.
“How long are you staying at the Peninsula?” Scarlett asked.
“A few more days,” Lola replied. “Just while we get everything…settled. Then Chip has to go back to school. He’s already missed a lot of classes.”
“You can always come and stay here,” her dad said a bit hesitantly. “You can have the Empire Suite.”
“I think we need…some space.”
“You mean there’s no way in hell Chip is going to come and stay here,” Spencer said. “It’s not really his standard of living.”
“Chip would be very happy to stay here,” Lola replied. “But I didn’t think you would appreciate having to live with him.”
“Good call,” Spencer said. He pushed himself away from the table. “Scarlett, if you want a ride, the car will be here in five minutes.”
“It’s okay,” Scarlett said, looking out at the gray sky. “I’ll walk.”
Scarlett cut across Central Park and made her meandering, diagonal way up the forty blocks past the joggers and the dog walkers and the moms with the big strollers. She had dressed carelessly, throwing on a pink shirt and an old blue skirt of Lola’s that didn’t really fit her right. It was a horrible day, too. Cloudy, but refusing to rain. Just gray, gray, gray. The leaves were just starting to shrivel and detach apathetically from the trees. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was late.