Duffy’s brow wrinkles. “You didn’t?”
Alessandra shakes her head. Of course Duffy wouldn’t keep track of things like wedding presents; she might not even have set up a registry, she might have just asked guests to donate to Rosalie House. Though from the looks of her diamond ring, the whopper diamond studs in her ears, and her Cartier tank watch (probably a push present—oh, how Alessandra loathes this term), she might be more materialistic now than she was then.
“How about upgrading us to a suite as well?” Jamie asks. “If you have one available?”
They have seven suites available but Alessandra is so taken aback by Jamie’s brazen request—it’s a Taser to her sensibilities—that she says, “It looks like the suites are all spoken for.”
“It’s just, with the baby…” Jamie says.
“This is Cabot!” Duffy says, pulling a cherubic little baby in a sailor suit from the stroller.
Cabot Chung, Alessandra thinks. He’s a beautiful kid, at that most photogenic age for babies—what is that, six months, seven? Alessandra waggles her fingers at him. She’s so unmaternal that this feels campy, but she goes all in with her gushing while inwardly she fumes. She offered Jamie and Duffy a free night but Jamie asked for more, so it feels like she hasn’t given them anything at all.
She makes a show of tapping on her keyboard. “I’m going to work some magic and slide you into a suite after all,” she says. “I’ll have Zeke set up a crib and babyproof the room.”
“Thank you!” Duffy says. “You’re amazing! Can we take you to dinner one night while we’re here so we can catch up?”
Alessandra peeks at her phone; there are two texts from a number she knows is Dr. Romano.
“I’m tied up all three evenings that you’re here,” she says. She activates the keys for suite 216 and slides them across the desk. “But I’m sure we’ll find time to chat.”
“I can’t wait to text my parents and tell them I saw you,” Duffy says. “They won’t believe it!”
“Please give them my best,” Alessandra says.
Alessandra can’t help but revisit the fraught months that she was sleeping with Duffy’s father. Alessandra had been eighteen, which she thought was old enough, though now, nearly the same number of years later, Alessandra realizes it wasn’t old enough at all. She had been a teenager and Drew a tenured professor in his mid-forties. However, Alessandra can’t call herself a victim, even through the lens of 2022.
She had always loved Drew, crushed on him, idolized him, seeing him as somewhere between an unattainable celebrity and a father figure. The Beechams owned an entire Victorian on Filbert Street that they’d inherited from Mary Lou’s parents. Classical music always spilled from the tantalizing, slightly ajar door to Drew’s study. NPR played on a radio in the kitchen, where Mary Lou made the girls crepes for breakfast; for a weeknight dinner, she’d whip up Dover sole and frisée salad with lardons. Both Beecham parents read copiously; they subscribed to The Economist and the New York Review of Books; they attended the symphony. Alice Waters knew the Beechams by name, and they were always taking trips to Lisbon or Granada, where Drew would lecture. They weren’t wealthy but they were rich—with intellect, with ideas, with experiences.
Duffy, however, shared none of her parents’ interests. She liked Britney Spears and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and she was as much of a troublemaker as Alessandra, if not more so. She was the one who became friends with HB, the guy who met them in the Presidio with a bottle of Don Julio that fateful night. Duffy matched HB shot for shot, but Alessandra tossed her shots over her shoulder because she didn’t like the look of HB and didn’t want to lose control.
When Duffy started vomiting, Alessandra held her hair away from her face. It was ten o’clock p.m. on a raw Friday in March and they were sitting on the damp ground of Crissy Field. Alessandra wanted to leave, but Duffy couldn’t make it three steps without doubling over and retching. Alessandra had no choice but to call Drew.
The Beechams had been in the middle of hosting a dinner party; candles glowed in the dining room, bottles of excellent Napa cabernet sat empty on the table, but the conversation and the laughing quieted when Drew ushered the girls past the dining room and down the hall to the kitchen. Mary Lou stood up from the table, making a joke about teenagers: We all remember those days, right, Barry? But when she saw the state Duffy was in, she flamed with anger, which she aimed at Alessandra (the unparented bad influence) until she realized that Alessandra was sober. For some reason, this served to make her even more livid and she snapped at Drew to get Alessandra “out of my sight.”
Drew drove Alessandra home. She was numb from Mary Lou’s words; she felt like she’d been slapped—until that moment, she had been something of a pet to Mary Lou. Drew tried to apologize; he thanked Alessandra for being a good friend. “You’re a special young woman, Ali,” he said. “You have a savageness to you—I mean that as a compliment. You’ll get what you want out of this life.” The street in front of Alessandra’s building was dark and quiet. Drew shut off the car, which Alessandra found strange.
“Don’t you want to get back to the dinner party?” she asked.
Drew leaned his head back against the seat. “God, those people are so dull!” he said. “Barry Wilson was talking about annuities.” He turned to Alessandra. “When did I become such an…adult?”
“Are you worried about Duff?” Alessandra asked.
“She’ll be fine,” Drew said. “Tequila is its own punishment.”
Alessandra was about to reach for the car door and say, Okay, thanks for the ride, but something about Drew was different. He was staring at her front door. “Your mom’s at work?” he asked.
They both knew the answer was yes. Alessandra nodded.
“Will you be okay by yourself?”
Alessandra had been staying by herself since she was seven years old. She got the crazy idea that he wanted her to invite him inside. She leaned over, rested her hand lightly on his (upper) thigh, and kissed him. The kiss lingered; it was, to this day, the most romantic kiss of Alessandra’s life.
“This is a bad idea,” Drew said, but the next second he was opening his car door and they were heading into her house.
As much as Alessandra wants to dislike Jamie for shaming her into giving them a room upgrade, she has to admit that he seems to be an excellent father, husband, and guest. Zeke let it be known that Jamie tipped him a hundred bucks for babyproofing the suite, and early on their first morning, Jamie comes down to the lobby with the baby so that Duffy can sleep in. Alessandra watches him chat with the other guests; Cabot falls asleep in his arms while Jamie plays Louie in chess. (Louie wins.)
Alessandra is on high alert every time the elevator dings, and the instant she sees Duffy step off, she beelines for the break room. She feeds a dollar to the jukebox and chooses Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, and Metallica and then takes her angst—she can’t believe Duffy Beecham is here, haunting her!—out on the pinball machine. She plays one game, then a second, then a third (high score)—and then she hears Adam’s voice sing out. “Alessannnnnnndra, are you in here?”
“Hello?” Alessandra says, tearing herself away from the machine, though she has already dropped a fourth quarter in.
“Girl, get back out there! Edie is three-deep.”
Alessandra hurries back out, and sure enough, Edie has a line at the desk, the first ever since the hotel opened.
“Sorry about that,” Alessandra says.
“It’s fine,” Edie says. “I understand.”
You don’t, though, Alessandra thinks.