Mercifully, the doors opened to the lobby. “BYE!” the four girls yelled.
“Bye,” the four of us muttered.
They stepped outside but turned around when we didn’t. “Aren’t you guys coming out?”
Erin stabbed the DOOR CLOSE button with her finger a bunch of times and didn’t stop until the doors were completely shut. Then she pressed the button marked 16.
The four of us looked at one another briefly, dumbfounded, a little scared. Then we resumed not speaking to one another.
The elevator doors opened. We walked down the hallway. Eerily quiet. We stopped in front of Room 1620—the boys’ suite. Isabel was ready to put in the key right away, but I knocked first, just in case. We all waited for a minute, and then when nothing happened Isabel put the key in, turned the handle, and we were in.
You don’t want the details, right? You don’t want to know that untangling Rupert P. should’ve probably been easier than stuffing him in the bag but was actually just as hard, maybe even harder because now we had to lift him onto a chair. Worst of all, The Rondack was so hip beyond belief that our choice of chair was limited to either high bar stool chairs or beanbags. You’re probably thinking the beanbags are the way to go: low to the ground, dump the body on top and go. You have obviously never tried to casually position a dead body on a giant bag full of beans.
Rupert P. sank into the bag easy enough, but no matter how hard we tried to sit him up, he kept flopping over the sides or bending forward so that his forehead lay on his knees. Finally we decided to have him just sort of lie back, feet on the ground, knees bent, eyes on the ceiling.
You don’t have to tell me that this was wrong. I knew this was wrong. This was so wrong. The mounted deer head on the opposite wall stared at me with his black marble eyes like even it knew it was wrong too. The deer head was judging me.
“So are we going with autoerotic asphyxiation, or what?” Isabel asked.
“If you’re implying that we manipulate him to look like he was …” Erin made a squick face. “No fucking way.”
I had to agree with her. I wasn’t going anywhere near Rupert P. or his pants, no matter how dire the consequences.
“You guys hear that?” Isabel said. We all froze, listening. Rustling, muffled—a sound from the hallway.
“Someone’s coming,” Erin said.
“The Ruperts?” Apple asked. “The Ruperts are coming?” I swear she looked equal parts scared of getting caught and excited to get a close-up look at the boys.
Isabel swore under her breath, but I didn’t have time to swear. I looked for an exit strategy. Or at least a hiding strategy. “The closet!”
I didn’t know it was a closet until we opened the doors. Two of them, made of rows of slats. I didn’t know if that was good because it meant we could peek through them and see outside, or bad because it meant someone could peek through them and see us, but the closet was just big enough for all of us to fit inside of it if we stood side by side. We were also helped by the fact that the boys hadn’t unpacked any of their things, so it was completely empty except for a few hangers that hung over our heads.
And as I squinted through the slats, waiting for more noise and the boys, my eyes caught sight of it: the thing we’d left, bright as a neon sign. “Apple’s suitcase!”
Key cards jiggled in the door and a male voice muttered a swear word. The girls gasped, but I must’ve been crazier than I thought because I jumped out and grabbed the bag. I slammed back into the closet, hoping the newly closed slatted closet doors were enough to cover up the madness behind them. I hugged the suitcase to my chest.
None of us breathed, not even when the boys walked in.
They walked in quietly, but with purpose, and I don’t think I’d ever seen them like that before. Usually, in all the behind-the-scenes videos and specials, they were always joking around with one another, climbing on top of one another or poking one another or at least chatting. Now they seemed to be totally in their own heads. They could’ve each been walking inside separately, the way they ignored one another.
Each of them held armfuls of plush dolls, handmade books, and signs plastered with their faces and essay-long notes scrawled in careful cursive. They must’ve finally made an appearance at the front entrance of the hotel and met with fans.