He sits back, satisfied at having said the thing he’s clearly been meaning to say for a while. I let that one sit in the air. Not really willing to take it in. Because of course I have thought that. Of course I have considered that. I know what I’m doing. But how do I explain it? That it’s worth it? That every time I see Mena, even for those few moments, I am filled with so much sunlight it practically bursts out of me? That it heals up all the hurts and leaves me stronger for long enough that I can survive until the next time I see her?
“Me and Allyn have been talking,” he says.
“Yeah, about that,” I tell him. “When Allyn turfs me, I want a job here. Whatever you need. I’ll clean toilets. I don’t care.”
“January…”
“What, you think I can’t do it?” I ask. “I know everyone’s names and I know where everything is. That’s a pretty good start.”
Reg looks away from me, steels his voice. “January, if you cannot get with this, we are going to have your things removed. We don’t think it’s safe for you to be here anymore. They thought it was. But look at what’s happening.”
That one knocks my heart into my spine and it comes back bleeding. I push out from the table, see Marc approaching out of the corner of my eye. “Family, family. Everyone keeps calling this a family. Throwing me out on the street is how you treat your family? Fuck you, Reg.”
I get up and snap my fingers at Marc. “I’m taking mine at the bar.” Then I turn and head for the far end, where there’s an empty handful of seats, and sit there, stewing, until the plate appears in front of me. I mumble a thanks, probably not loud enough to be heard over the jazz, and then I breathe in the scent of tomatoes and fish.
I adjust myself on the stool and catch another glimpse of Drucker and MKS. Drucker is leaning in now, their faces almost touching. She’s speaking intensely. I can’t see MKS’s face from here but his body language looks tense. I tell Ruby, “Amplify their conversation.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“One of them seems to be utilizing an audio mask.”
Could be either of them, though my money would be on the prince. Devices like that are expensive. Maybe above government pay grade. Which means the prince has a toy that’s designed to screw with security measures. Good to know.
After a few moments of staring at the back wall, I catch Mbaye standing toward the middle of the bar, talking to an old white man in a seersucker suit, a straw hat perched on the bar next to him. I do make note that, yes, he is drinking a mint julep.
“Sure thing, this place is haunted,” Mbaye says. “I see them in the kitchen sometimes. Down in the hallways. In the bathroom once, too.”
“The first time I stayed here,” the man says, in a syrup-thick southern accent, “and now this is a few years ago, I saw a woman. She was walking down the hallway, away from me. Then it was like she heard me. She turned a little, and then she was gone. Long brown hair. Very”—the man glances around—“well endowed.”
Mbaye nods. “Let me guess, fourth-floor hallway? Butler?”
The man smiles and snaps his fingers. “How’d you know?”
“Rumor was that’s the designer of the hotel. She went missing after this place opened, you know? A lot of people think this place burned her out and she moved on, but I’m not so sure.” He takes a deep breath, exhales. “This is the thing, about places like this…”
At this point, Mbaye turns and notices me. It annoys me that he’s talking to someone. That he’s standing there. That he feels any kind of joy or happiness in this life.
I ask, “Why didn’t you check the gas?”
He stops. Stands there. Then smiles and apologizes to the man he’s talking to and heads toward the back of the house. I say it louder.
“Why didn’t you check the gas?”
His shoulders sag and he turns to me.
“I did.”
“Like you checked Kolten’s plate today. Like you’re always on top of things, right? All you had to do was check the gas line, and you didn’t and she died. Right in there. On that floor. Alone. Why are you even still here? How do you live with that?”
The music is still playing but I realize that I am screaming, practically standing on the stool, and people are staring, which should probably encourage me to shut up, but it does not. In fact, I dig deep. The three words that have been trying to burst out of my chest since the day of the explosion.
I didn’t so much hear it as I felt it. A little shudder in my room. Something amiss. It was late, and I was just getting out of the shower, waiting for Mena to show up, so we could lie around and watch some bad TV and she could tell me about her day while I struggled to stay awake.
But I felt the shudder and then I pulled on my clothes and by the time I got out of the room I was getting calls about it. Explosion in the kitchen of the Tick Tock. Fire and smoke. No reported injuries.
Yet.
I was halfway up the elevator when it cut through the chatter: “Shit, there was someone in here.”
And I knew. In that moment, I knew, so that when the elevator doors opened I was already on my knees, weeping, and refused to go any further, because I just could not. And since that night, since it became clear it may have been due to a problem with the gas line, I have held these three words in reserve.
“It’s your fault,” I tell him.
And I can see that the words landed as accurately and sharply as I intended.
Tears spring to his eyes. He clenches his jaw to keep it from quivering.
Reg is at my side. His hand on my arm. I brush it off. I don’t want to see how it goes. I stamp out of the now-silent restaurant, every eye on me, and make it to the railing. I stare down into the lobby. My stomach lurches a little as I gauge the distance between here and the marble floor below…
Marc comes out from the kitchen, cradling a birthday cake, the mess of candles on it making his face glow amber in the dim glow of the restaurant lighting. I take a swig of the mescal I know I shouldn’t be drinking, the smoky goodness burning my throat, and watch from my perch at the bar as he carries it toward a large table on the far end, where the staff has assembled around Tierra.
The hotel is mostly empty; construction at the timeport, so no flights in or out for the next few days. Tierra’s birthday isn’t today, but it’s close, and it’s a rare moment where there’s not much to do, so most of the staff is here, even the ones who aren’t on shift. They crowd around her and when Marc places the cake down they launch into the “Happy Birthday” song.
And I watch, my heart twisting and contorting, trying to remember the last time someone did that for me. Then I feel silly for caring.
When the song is over, I turn back to my drink, but then someone pulls out the stool next to me.
“Don’t you want some cake?” Mena asks.
“Not really a cake person. I prefer pie.”
“And yet, I love you anyway,” she says, leaning into me and kissing my neck, sending a shudder down my spine.
We sit there for a few moments in silence. I take another sip and put my glass down, staring at the back wall. This feeling inside me that I haven’t felt in a long time, that I thought I’d pretty much extinguished a long time ago.
Want.
“They’re your family too, you know,” Mena says.
“Never been much for family,” I tell her.