“I’m taking this one,” Dixie said, throwing her bag and jacket on the bed closest to the window. She pulled back the gauzy curtains. “Check out the view.”
I went over to her. From as high as we were, we could see the whole waterfront, from the Ferris wheel turning over Elliott Bay to the green of the parkway on the other end and all the way across to the islands. I didn’t know which island was which, or the names of all the things I was seeing. I knew about as much as a tourist.
Dixie tapped my foot with hers. “Say something.”
I wanted to be happy, like her. Excited. Instead, looking at the incredible view left me hollowed out. All I could see was what wasn’t there. I touched the window. “We’ve lived here our whole lives and Mom and Dad never took us to the Ferris wheel. Or the market. Or any of this stuff.”
I felt her eyes on me. Then she said, “Dad took me on the Ferris wheel once. It’s not that great, trust me.”
Something pinged around in the hollow inside me, bouncing painfully between my stomach and heart. “When?”
“I don’t know. Whenever. I was little. Probably when you were in school but I hadn’t started yet.”
I stared at her and knew from her face that mine showed everything I felt.
Dixie flopped onto her bed. “Please, don’t go all negative and sad right now, Gem. This was your idea. You’re the one who wanted to have one great night, and now I want to enjoy it. If you spend the whole time moping, I’m going to be pissed.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and unlaced her boots. Dixie and Dad, on the Ferris wheel. He probably took her to the market, too, and who knows where else.
I turned my back on the window, on her, and went to the other bed. I slipped the backpack off my shoulders and took my jacket off, and I explored the rest of the room. There was a little nook where you could put your suitcase, I guess, if you were a normal traveler. I studied the emergency escape route information on the door. “Don’t go in the elevator if there’s a fire,” I said over my shoulder.
“Alrighty.” Dixie had turned on the TV and was flipping through channels with the volume low.
I opened the closet. There were extra blankets and pillows, an iron and ironing board, and two fluffy white robes. I put one on over my clothes. “Look.”
“What.”
“Look!”
Dixie turned her head to see me running my hands up and down the robe, smiling to prove I didn’t really care about the Ferris wheel thing. I waited for her to roll her eyes, tell me I was being dumb. But she sat up. “I want one.”
I got the other one out of the closet and came close enough to her to throw it.
“It’s so soft.” She spread it over her like a blanket.
With the sleeves of the robe hanging down to my knuckles, I went into the bathroom. It wasn’t huge the way I thought a bathroom in a hotel like this should be, but it still impressed me. Everything was this white marble, swirled with a different kind of white that seemed to glow. White floor, white sink, white toilet, white tub and shower with a white-and-gold curtain.
“I’m taking a bath,” I said.
Dixie’s eyes were closed, but she’d left the TV on. “Mmmkay,” she said drowsily.
I took off the robe, got out of my clothes, and put the robe back on. I folded my jeans and my sweater, my underwear and socks, into a neat pile that I put on the table closest to my bed.
Then I thought, Maybe I should take the backpack into the bathroom. It’s not that I thought Dixie would take it, I just . . . I don’t know, maybe I did think that. I wanted it with me. I laid it on the bathroom floor, then started running hot water in the tub. A basket on the sink held four rolled-up washcloths and little bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and shower gel. I opened the shower gel and smelled it. Lemons. I squeezed the whole bottle into the running water and adjusted the temperature. Soon the tub was all bubbles.
I locked the door, hung the robe on a hook on the back of it, and stepped into the water. I let the faucet run until my whole body disappeared under the lemon bubbles. When I closed my eyes, I saw Dixie and Dad on the Ferris wheel, the image of them burned onto my retinas as if I’d just seen it in bright sun.
With everything that had happened, the last week, the last day, our whole lives, I don’t know why that one little thing hurt so much.
I opened my eyes and let my legs float and my feet pop out of the water. My toenails were ragged and needed to be cut but my legs were still smooth from shaving with the new razor. It wasn’t fair to be mad at Dixie about the fact that Dad had spent more time with her. She was a kid. If I was going to blame anyone for that, it should be him.
But he hadn’t been around to be mad at. Dixie always was.
I scooted my hips so that I could submerge my whole head in the water, and I rubbed my scalp with my fingers, then came back up just enough to expose my nose and mouth. My blood pulsed in my ears, the rushing of some faraway tide. I stayed under, listening and trying to think.
I was mad at myself, too. In the early hours that morning, with Dixie sleeping and me forcing myself to stay awake, I’d worked out an idea that might not have been detailed but was clean. Then I’d thought I would just go to school for the first half of the day, so that Mr. Bergstrom wouldn’t worry that something had happened when I left with Dad. Then I’d wanted to thank Luca. And then I wanted to see her, only see her. To make sure she was all right and hadn’t noticed the money missing and hadn’t talked to anyone about it. I should have known better.
When my fingertips got wrinkly, I flipped the drain lever on the tub and got out. Bubbles clung to me and quietly hissed when I smothered them with one of the white towels. I wrapped another towel around my hair and then sat on the white bath mat with my back against the door and emptied the contents of the backpack onto the floor. It was all the money and then The Grapes of Wrath and a bunch of packs of Haciendas. I hadn’t bothered bringing any school stuff to school except my reading journal, which I’d turned in because I guess I wanted to leave Mrs. Cantrell with a good impression of me.
I separated the money by denomination and made stacks on the white shelf under the sink, next to the folded towels. At first it seemed like I kept finding more and more fives. I hadn’t even tried to guess at how much money was in the bag but it had seemed like a lot. Now, I wasn’t too sure. Then I found a bundle of hundreds. Another of fifties. A few bundles of twenties. Then some loose fifties and hundreds.
None of it looked too new, or fake. Dad must have used money from the bag to buy all our groceries. We’d used it to get into this hotel. No one had looked at it twice; it had to be as real as it felt and looked and smelled.