“Wait, what?” I asked, my head swiveling toward her in surprise.
“I love you,” she said, her eyes sad, “but this is the very worst kind of bullshit. And you know I don’t push you very often because I know that’s hard for you. I know you hate it when you think someone is trying to tell you what to do, but in this case, I don’t care. Unequivocally and without question, this is a mistake. You do this, you leave this man who loves you, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”
Tears, hot and wild, burned behind my eyelids. But I wouldn’t let them fall. I couldn’t let them fall.
“Has everyone gone crazy? This isn’t about me, and it’s not even really about Archie.” A lump the size of an orange swelled up in my throat from saying his name out loud. “For God’s sake, it’s not like I have a choice. This is my job, in case anyone has forgotten, and my job means I’m in a different place all the fucking time.” I swallowed hard, the orange growing to a grapefruit. “It’s been fun, really fun, being here with you guys and meeting everyone and getting to know Leo and Oscar, and even Chad and Logan, and seeing Trudy again, and yes, of course, Archie.” The grapefruit was now a pineapple. “I have loved the time I got to spend with Archie, and it was incredible and wonderful and fucking hell he’s . . . Jesus, he’s everything . . . but that doesn’t matter because I have to go. And I can’t be here. So that’s just . . .” I sighed, so deep that every part of me down to my toes suddenly felt exhausted. “It’s just the way it goes.” I looked at them both through heavy lids. Everything felt heavy, every part of me just felt weighed down and so very sad. “Okay?”
Roxie shook her head, pursing her lips and looking for all the world like she had so many things to say but knowing innately that none of them would work. “Okay.”
“Not okay, but okay,” Natalie agreed, her normally loud and full voice no more than a whisper.
I picked up my fork, not hungry at all but needing something to do. “Okay.”
Chapter 23
Two months later . . .
“Two hundred thread count is too low.”
“It’s what we’ve always used.”
“I realize that, but it’s still too low.”
“I don’t think guests really care what the thread count is when they’re on vacation.”
“Well, that’s exactly where you’re wrong.” I sighed. “People want to feel taken care of when they’re at a hotel of this magnitude, sometimes in ways they didn’t even know they needed. They want to feel comforted, and looked after, and when they slip into their bed at the end of a long day they want to look at each other and say, ‘Wow, this is seriously the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in.’ ” I picked up the old sheet and rubbed it between my fingers. “Believe me, the last thing you want anyone saying when they slip into bed is ‘Holy shit, can you believe we’re spending eight hundred dollars a night and they can’t even spring for some nice sheets?’ ”
I was sitting in the Charleston Conference Room at the Oakmont Resort and Golf Club in Buford, South Carolina, in a meeting with their director of operations, their VP of sales, and the housekeeping supervisor. Trying to explain to them why their shitty scratchy sheets had to be replaced. As expected, they were fighting me. As expected, I was fighting back.
Not expected? I couldn’t give a shit whether I won this argument or not.
I’d been at the Oakmont for less than two weeks and had already identified their staffing issues, noticed new branding opportunities, and pitched several severe cost-cutting initiatives as well as an entirely new recreation program. Before that I’d been at The Lantern Inn in Stowe, Vermont, The Red Hill Farm Bed & Breakfast on Mackinac Island, Michigan, and a whirlwind but highly productive visit to The Sea Grass Hotel and Tennis Club in Mendocino, California. Same issues, same troubles, basically the same solutions. I’d saved the day, righted the ship, and went on my merry way. And now here I was, in South Carolina.
Forty-five minutes in and we hadn’t even addressed the new duvet I was suggesting. I’d shoot myself in the face, but I was tough on gun control.
I was suddenly exhausted. “You know what, let’s table this. I know you’re all anxious to get done and get home before the holiday weekend, so let’s just all think about what I’ve proposed, and then when we come back we’ll figure out a way through this, okay?” I waved them out with a tired smile.
Everyone, as anxious as I was to get home for the holiday weekend, agreed, thanked me for my time, and exited the grand conference room. I closed the door, and on second thought, locked it. I went back to the table where my materials were all in neat, tidy stacks. Ideas well researched and fully thought out, how-tos and to-dos and this-will-helps and these have-to-gos.
I sat in my chair, looked at everything, and laid my head down on the table. My boss, Dick Stevee, heavy on the dick, although in reality, I doubted it somewhat, had been right about one thing. When you don’t give a shit about the job you’re doing, you can bang it out pretty fast.
I’d become a machine. I breathed, slept, and ate cost analysis, staffing spreadsheets, booking projections, target sales goals. My schedule had been so busy I hadn’t even competed in a marathon or a triathlon, and the exercise I did get was all inside a gym on a treadmill, usually with my iPad open so I could get more work done.
My boss was fucking dazzled. “You keep this up, Morgan, when it comes time, that partnership is yours.”
I should be ecstatic. I should be over the moon. I should be . . . fuck me, I should be happy.
I was miserable. I’d only managed to sneak in one weekend to New York City to help Roxie shop for her wedding dress, and spent much of that weekend tripping over my own words to make sure no one mentioned the one person I was dying to ask about.
Archie.
Just thinking about his name made me want to sigh and cry and smile and frown all at the same time.
I’d never even said good-bye. What kind of a person does that? That last day had been so busy—trying to squeeze so much into so little time—and there’d always been other people around, buffering, keeping us separated, that when it came time for me to actually leave, I turned to see where he was only to find him walking back inside the hotel, head down. And I didn’t go after him.
Shame burned hot in my cheeks, and I banged my head against the table, trying to block out the light streaming through the beautiful old leaded glass windows. The smell of old, rare wood brought me back to the present. I gradually became aware of my surroundings. This hotel, like so many others, was full of true old beauty. It had seen wars, the Great Depression, the moon landing, families beginning and growing and changing and aging and dying. Throughout many lifetimes it had stood strong, sheltering those who came to find something old and beautiful and comforting. The traditions housed within these old walls were worth saving, they always would be. This was my passion. But this kind of passion couldn’t be hurried, it couldn’t be shoehorned into an already overworked and jam-packed schedule. I needed the freedom to do what I do best. But I needed to find the magic again.
I caught the last flight from Charleston back to Boston late that same night, sitting in the middle seat, last row next to the stopped-up lavatory. I sat in traffic when I stupidly grabbed a cab instead of the Silver Line, and to make matters worse, the cab’s AC was broken so I sat in my own sweat. By the time I made it back to my apartment I was a haggard mess, and I was starving. I quickly dialed up my go-to Chinese delivery and placed an order for . . . well . . . everything.
I didn’t need to come home over the weekend, but I was restless. Normally I enjoyed spending my weekends traveling throughout whatever part of the country I was working in. I could have driven down to Gulf Shores and spent a few nights on the beach. I could have driven over to Savannah and stayed in a grand old plantation house. I could have stayed at the Oakmont and holed up in my room, ordering room service and binge-watching pay-per-view.
On my TV. In my room.
But I was restle
ss. So I went home. And here I sat on the couch in my apartment, surrounded by mei fun and chow fun and wonton. And one, no, two empty bottles of wine. I could hear my neighborhood bustling with pre-Fourth activities, kids laughing and a few stray bottle rockets going off here and there. But I stayed inside, with my wonton and wine, and sat on my couch.
I was still restless. But now I was bloated and restless. And my eyeballs were somehow leaking. What??
I looked around my apartment that I was almost never in. In fact, when I counted up the days I was on the road versus the days I was home, it was no contest. This was a place to store the little bit of stuff I had. I looked around as I sat on my couch, saw the mismatched chairs that I’d liberated and had shipped home when The Graceful Palms Hotel closed up shop in Miami five years ago. I saw the end tables that used to grace the entryway at The Heights Resort and Spa in Vail, Colorado, which they got rid of when I convinced them to remodel four years ago. Even the couch I was sitting on, a fantastic green velvet Art Deco piece I picked up while consulting at Tucker Home in Rhode Island three years ago. Everything in my apartment was from someone else’s home.
My apartment. Jesus, in my head I couldn’t even call it my home. And dammit, why the hell were my eyeballs leaking again? Did I get some hot mustard in them?
Without much thought, I picked up the phone and dialed. I called Roxie, and she called Natalie. And we had a three-way.
“You guys, something’s wrong with my eyes,” I said, my voice gruff.
“How much wine?” Natalie asked.
“Two bottles.” I sniffled. “But I didn’t pour either in my eyeballs.”
“Well, that’s good,” Roxie said, chuckling lightly. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, and never in my entire life had I ever meant it more. “I literally don’t know.”
“Well, for starters, have you talked to Archie?” Natalie asked, and I immediately bristled.
“Why in the world would me talking to Archie have anything to do with anything?” I asked, my fists balling up. “Have I talked to Archie, have you talked to Archie?”
“I have, actually,” Natalie said. “And—”
“Natalie, shut up,” Roxie interjected, and for once Natalie listened. “Where are you, Clara?”
“Home.” I sniffed. “Well, my apartment.”
“Boston? How long are you in town?”
I calculated, which was tricky because wine. “I’m here for a few days, the staff at the Oakmont rotates their holidays, so when I realized they weren’t all working and that I’d get a few days off I figured I’d just bum around down there, but I just . . . dammit.” I had no words, no words to explain how I was feeling, and it was frustrating as hell. “I don’t know!” I repeated.
“Clara, sweetie, just come here. Just get on a train and come up here, we can pick you up at the station in Poughkeepsie.”
“I can’t.” I sighed. “I can’t do that.”
“Hell yes, you can,” Natalie said, having remained silent for all of thirty seconds. “Get your ass on a train and come home.”
“Home?” I asked. “I thought Manhattan was home.”
“Listen to me, you crazy person, and if you ever repeat this inside of the five boroughs I will beat you up with your own hands, but my home is here now. Goddammit, I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I will never give up my brownstone, but”—she paused, and neither Roxie nor I even breathed—“fucking hell, my home is wherever Oscar is. And he’s where his cows are. So . . . there. Bailey Falls is home. And if I can say that, Jesus, would you just get on a train and get your ass up here?”
“I can’t, I really can’t,” I said. “I left so quickly, and I didn’t . . . oh God, you guys I didn’t . . .” And then I started to full-on donkey cry. “I didn’t even say good-bye!”
They were quiet while I worked it out. While the wine and the wonton did their job and allowed tears that I didn’t even think my ducts knew how to make flowed fast and hot.
“I love him,” I finally managed to hiccup out. “I love him and I broke his heart, and now I’m trying so hard to go back to what I do best and it’s just not the same, you know? I work and I work and . . . oh, everything just sucks right now.” I sighed a big, blubbery sigh.
But then I heard Leo in the background, asking if she’d picked up milk on the way home, and it just all hit me like a ton of bricks. Roxie and Natalie had those conversations all the time. Hey, did you pick up milk on the way home, or honey, is that faucet in the kitchen still dripping, and do you know if the gas bill got paid yet, or does this mole look funny to you? All those random stupid questions that fill a day end up filling a lifetime. With memories. And traditions.
“You know what, guys,” I said, suddenly feeling stupid-tired. “I’m gonna go, I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“No no, Clara, you’re upset, let’s talk this out,” Roxie started to say, but I was already shaking my head.
“It’s okay, really, I’m sorry I flipped out tonight. I just need to get some sleep.”
“I can be in Boston in four hours,” Natalie said, and I smiled in spite of the tears that still coursed in absolute rivers down my cheeks.
“I know you can. I’m okay, though, seriously.”
“I don’t believe you for a second,” Roxie said, her voice sad. “Not for a second.”
“It’s okay, I’ve got tons of work to do this weekend. I’ll sleep tonight and tomorrow, I’ll be back to normal. I’ll go for a run, trust me, it’s all good.” And before they could try to keep me on the phone any longer, I said good night and hung up.
I lay down right there on the couch, surrounded by hot-mustard packets that had in no way caused this outburst, and looked at my ceiling. The ceiling I’d lived under for years now, and had never really bothered to look at.
And for the first time, I realized I wanted my own traditions. It wasn’t enough to simply archive and treasure and try to save someone else’s. I wanted my own stories to tell.
My traditions were small, but they were everything. I knew how to dye Easter eggs. I knew which radiator to fiddle with when the steam whistle began to blow in the Lakeside Lounge. I knew you could see the Milky Way from the roof on a clear night.
And I knew that running no longer gave me the static I craved. I craved quiet, but the kind of quiet that only comes after the love, after the sighs and cries, when his hands roamed freely across my naked body, no longer frantic but touching just for the sake of it. Just for the pure reason of skin touching skin with nothing in between, of communicating on a cellular level, you’re here and I’m here and we’re here and this is so much more than enough because it’s everything.
I fell asleep that night dreaming of mountaintops and ice skates. And when I woke up the next morning I knew what I had to do. Or at least, what I needed to try to do.
But first, I needed to buy my first car.
Green. Everything was so green. The last time I’d driven up this mountain, it had barely been spring and anything even close to green was only timidly peeking out. But now? The whole world was green.
I turned right just before the exit into town, but even from here I could see that Bailey Falls was ready for the Fourth of July. Red, white, and blue bunting hung from every balcony, crisscrossed the light posts on Main Street, and, beside every front door, the American flag proudly flew.
I drove along the riverfront on the south side of town, the Hudson River sparkling to my left in the afternoon sun. It was warm, but after the humidity and close, hot heat of South Carolina, a summer day in the Catskills brought a pleasant breeze and a welcome break. That pleasant breeze ruffled my hair as I drove with the top down, heading for the turnoff for Bryant Mountain House.
Ever since I’d made the spur-of-the-moment decision to leave Boston this morning, I’d literally been flying by the seat of my pants. There was a car dealer around the corner that specialized in classic cars, and when they were o
ffering a Fourth of July sale on a little cherry-red, wholly unnecessary convertible sports car, I took it as a sign that the universe was endorsing my Hail Fucking Mary pass to beg Mr. Archibald Bryant into being my feller.
I smothered a laugh, then decided against it, letting my laughter ring out loud and proud against the quiet country air as I raced up the mountain, determined to go get my man. No one knew I was coming, not even the girls. I didn’t want to talk, I just wanted to do. I did well when I followed my instincts, and I knew I needed to follow them right now. I laughed to myself when I thought about what my friends would say when they found out what I was up to.
I let out another laugh when I thought about the likely look on Dick Stevee’s face when he got my email that I was, essentially effective immediately, terminating my employment with The Empire Group. Something surely he never saw coming.
Dear Dick,
I am writing to tell you, this Fourth of July, that I’m announcing my own independence and tendering my resignation. While there may not be actual fireworks accompanying this actual email, please know that in my head, they’re going off like gangbusters right now. You see, I love my job. Or I should say, I did love my job, until you and The Empire Group came along and changed everything. Now, change is good, and I’ve never been one to fear change, but at this point in my life . . . yeah, no.
I’ll be staying on to finish up the Oakmont project, but consider that my final contribution. I don’t know where my life is about to take me, but I am comforted in the knowledge that I will not be, and will never be, your partner.
Regards,
Clara Morgan
Yeah, he definitely didn’t see that coming. And frankly, I didn’t see it coming either. But when everything that mattered weighed in the balance, it was time. Time to stretch my wings a bit, see what else might be out there. Time to stretch my Rolodex too—I had contacts and references going back for years, and all those hotel owners and managers wouldn’t hesitate to recommend me to others who needed help restoring their brand. I’d find work, I wasn’t worried about that. Work that I could be proud of, could do on my own time and at my own pace and actually carry through to fruition rather than finishing piecemeal because I had to race to my next gig.