Piles of paper, that was it. Piles of paper that were as close as my dad had come to taking care of me for a long time, and he didn’t even know it.
I counted it three times. I hung up my towel and put my robe back on, combed out my hair with my fingers, put lotion on my legs. The whole time, I kept my eyes on the neat row of bills and tried to comprehend the number I’d come up with: twenty-seven thousand dollars, not counting the ones and fives. How long could a person live on that? At least a year, I thought, maybe closer to two if you were like me and you were really careful.
Dixie’s knock on the door startled me. “Hurry up, I have to pee.”
“Just a sec.” I crouched on the floor and started to load the money back into the pack.
She pounded on the door again.
I stood up, money still piled on the shelf. It was impossible to hide what I’d been doing, and that would only make her trust me less when what I wanted was for her to trust me more. I let her in.
“I’m counting it.”
Her robe was around her shoulders like a cape, her clothes still on; the back of her hair was sticking up from her nap. She stared at me, and at the money I was halfway done putting away.
“We should at least know how much it is,” I added.
“What difference does it make? We’re taking it back tomorrow. You promised.”
I didn’t technically promise. “Aren’t you even curious?”
After a pause she said, “Yeah. Okay.”
I stood up, holding two bundles of twenties. I had four thousand dollars right in my hand. “It’s about twenty thousand dollars,” I said. “Not counting the ones and fives.”
“That’s all?” she asked, disappointed.
For a second, I didn’t breathe. I hadn’t meant to lie. “What do you mean, ‘that’s all’? That’s a lot. Anyway, there’s like another couple thousand in fives, probably.” I pulled the ends of my damp hair over my shoulder and twisted the ends. “You can recount it if you want,” I said. “You probably should. Maybe I got it wrong.”
“Let me pee first.”
“Okay.” I put the twenties back on the towel shelf, got my book and cigarettes, and left the backpack as if I didn’t care. I made myself not look back.
The TV was still on; I flipped channels and turned the volume up. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I stood outside the bathroom door and asked, “Are you counting it?”
“Can you not talk to me while I’m going to the bathroom?”
The minutes dragged on. I started to worry she was taking some of the money herself, hiding it in her clothes or her robe somewhere. When the door swung open, I stepped back and saw that everything looked exactly like I’d left it. “I’m starving,” she said. “Let’s order food.”
I stared at the money. “We probably shouldn’t leave it out like that. I’ll put the rest back in the bag. Okay?”
“Go ahead.” She pushed past me, and I loaded the money back in the bag and brought it out into the room. I slipped the bag into the space between my bed and my nightstand. Dixie sat on the edge of her bed flipping through a binder full of room service menus. “What do you want?”
“What is there?”
“Everything.” She read aloud: “‘All-American Cheeseburger Served with House-Made Pickled Onions,’ ‘Wood-Fired Pizzas with Seasonal Toppings.’ ‘Bacon-Truffle Macaroni and Local Cheese.’ Everything. Fries, salads, pasta, steak, chicken. I’m getting salmon. And also the mac and cheese. And a hot fudge sundae.” She held out the binder to me. “Don’t take forever to decide.”
I took it and picked a cheeseburger and fries, and a pizza with potatoes and goat cheese on it because I’d never heard of potatoes on pizza before and never had goat cheese. Also a dessert sampler. Dixie called it in, sounding like she ordered room service every day.
“I need to get a fake ID like yours,” I said after she’d hung up.
“It comes in handy.” She flipped the channels. “Let’s watch a movie.”
I retied my robe—it was almost big enough to wrap around me twice—and laid on my bed, shifting my dozen pillows around until I got comfortable. “When did you ever stay in a hotel before?” I asked.
She scrolled through the on-screen guide. “It was just one time.”
“When? With who?”
She dropped the hand holding the remote to her side. “I hate it when you do that.”
“What?”
“Interrogate me.”
“I’m just asking questions.”
“Well, you ask them like . . . I don’t know. Like I have to answer to you. I mean, I can have secrets. Everybody does.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t,” I said. “Look what having secrets does to Mom and Dad.”
“You have them, too, Gem.” She lifted the remote and scrolled through a few more screens. “Romantic comedy or action?”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Romantic comedy, I guess.” She ordered a movie off the screen. “What was it like?” I asked. “The Ferris wheel.”
She sighed. I thought about my own secrets, and how they made me feel protected. Like not telling Mr. Bergstrom every single thing. Like having my cigarettes. And like I knew I would have kept the money secret if I’d been alone when I found it. Maybe Dixie’s secrets made her feel protected, too.
“What was it like?” I asked again. “Were you scared?”
“I told you. It was nothing. I didn’t like it.”
I pictured her and Dad, swinging at the top with a view of everything, Dixie cuddled up to him, him telling her not to be afraid.
“Has either of them texted again or anything?”
“I don’t know. I turned my phone off because my charger is at home. I want to save the battery.” She paused the movie, then said, “Will you please relax? I can tell you’re all tense over there.” Then, in a nicer tone, she added: “We’re here, we’re going to pig out on really good food, and then tomorrow we have to go back to dealing with all the usual shit. So just enjoy being here.”
She sounded happy.
“No one knows where we are, Gem,” she continued. “Doesn’t that feel amazing?”
I would not be going to back the usual shit, I wanted to tell her. “Yeah,” I said. “It does.”
When the food came, we forgot about everything else. We’d never had anything like it. Every detail of my burger was perfect, from the way the cheese melted without turning into rubber to the little pieces of toasted onion that were part of the bun. The fries were crisp and salty and came with homemade ketchup.
“Why would anyone make their own ketchup?” Dixie asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s good.” I made Dixie try it, and she made me try her mac and cheese. After tasting each other’s food, we decided to move it all onto her bed so we could both eat everything.
“Mom would be impressed,” Dixie said. “Us sharing.”