Alice picked a wilted piece of cabbage out of her taco. “Of course I do.”
Now, standing in Claridge’s, she feels a wave of nausea when she thinks of him—or, more specifically, when she thinks of how she might soon, in a matter of minutes, be fucking someone else. She tries telling herself that she knows how all this plays out: Jonathan never leaves his wife, and Alice is left alone. She’s seen too many TBS Saturday afternoon rom-coms and has known too many Other Women to think that it ends any differently. Still, there’s this awful voice in her head that keeps suggesting that there might be a chance, that she’s got reason—however illogical—to hold on to hope. In the meantime, though, she figures she’s entitled to this; if Jonathan’s still working things out with Marissa, then Alice is allowed to work things out with Dennis. She’s entitled to fuck a twenty-three-year-old idiot in a hotel room that’s causing her to spiral further into debt.
She blinks, and when she opens her eyes, the chandelier is still there, staring back at her with fifty bright eyes.
The Sleeping-with-Dennis Question will be a game-time decision, she decides. She’ll let him expense their breakfast, because, well, why not, and then she’ll just see what happens.
She checks in to Claridge’s on Facebook and prepares herself for the worst.
“Miss?”
A woman a few years younger than Alice smiles at her. She wears a white silk blouse tucked into a pair of pressed black slacks. She’s pretty, in an English way: fine blond hair, red cheeks. Possibly malnourished, though certainly not on account of having too little food. A name tag pinned over her right nipple reads Anne. Alice smiles back.
“May I help you with anything?”
“Oh, uh, I’m here to check in.” She clears her throat. “I’m staying here for the next week or so.”
She wonders how long she’s been standing here, staring up into space.
Anne nods and presses her hands together at her waist. “Of course. How lovely. Right this way, then.”
Alice follows her across the hotel’s lobby and past a wide, curved staircase. On either side of the room, men in suits huddle around low glass tables and leather-backed chairs. She intentionally catches their eyes as she passes them, and she tries to imagine who they think she might be, what they might think of her. Listening to her footsteps echo in the airy space, she fantasizes what it will be like to bring Eloise here, of the look on her sister’s face when Alice walks into the place like she owns it. She’ll wait a few days. Four, maybe. Long enough for the staff to learn and remember her name. She wants the doorman to be able to call out to her when he sees her and Eloise approaching.
Anne stops in front of a low mahogany desk set beneath a pair of white columns. A young, mid-twenties man with red hair and thin, frameless glasses squints at a keyboard.
“This is James,” she says. “He’d be happy to get you settled.”
James looks up from the screen, stands, and fastens the top button of his blazer.
“Welcome to Claridge’s, miss.” He shakes her hand and motions to the chair across from him.
Alice sits. She sets her purse in her lap and glances over her shoulder to see if Dennis has found a seat in the Foyer. She wonders if he’s managed to order them a pot of coffee. She needs to clear the cobwebs from her brain.
“Right, then,” James says, repositioning his chair. “First things first. Can I have the name the reservation was made under?”
Alice gives the man her name. She fishes around her purse for her wallet and finds her Visa. “And here’s a credit card, if you need one for, uh, incidentals or something.”
James strikes a few keys, scrolls farther down the screen, and raises an eyebrow.
“Actually, I don’t think we will be needing a credit card.” He smiles. “Your stay with us, along with any subsequent charges that you might incur during your time at Claridge’s, have been arranged for in advance.”
The back of Alice’s neck grows warm. She worries that there’s been some kind of mistake.
“I’m sorry, but I—”
“Not only that, but it looks as though you’ve been upgraded to one of our Mivart suites.”
For a hopeful, devastating moment she thinks of Jonathan, calling Claridge’s from his gleaming glass office in L.A. But that fantasy fades as quickly as it materializes, and in the blank void of disappointment it leaves in its wake, the pieces come together, and things suddenly make sense.
“Would you mind telling me who covered the expenses and paid for the upgrade?” she asks—though, really, there’s no need; she already knows the terrible answer.
“Surely,” James says. He double-clicks the mouse and leans an inch closer to the screen. “Says here that the charges were made by a … a Miss Eloise Lafarge.” He looks up at Alice. “Quite the guardian angel you’ve got there.”
She white-knuckles the handle on her purse to keep her hands from shaking, and when she opens her mouth to speak, she worries that she’s only got the capacity to scream.
“She’s my half sister,” she manages.
“Well, lucky you.” For a moment, James’s voice sheds its practiced Mayfair accent and slips into a lilting Cockney. “The only thing my half sister’s good for is polishing off a box of biscuits.”
Alice turns around again, and this time she catches sight of Dennis, who has found a table near the entrance of the Foyer. Before him sit two steaming cups of coffee and a basket of assorted pastries, and Alice watches as he picks at crumbs from a blueberry muffin. She calculates her chances of making it to the elevator on the opposite end of the lobby unnoticed.
“Can you tell me how to get to my room, please?”
For a moment James looks confused by Alice’s sudden change in mood, but soon professionalism takes over; he gives her a curt nod, provides her with clear directions to her suite (seventh floor, take a left, room at the end of the hall. You’ll see the plaque) and asks how many keys she’d like.
“Two, I guess,” Alice says. “Or, one. One’s fine. Really, whatever’s fastest.”