The sky over the beach is bright with stars on a cloudless night. I take it in as I ascend towards the hotel’s entrance. A woman in a white suit floats by me, depositing a quarter-filled champagne flute in my hand.
“This looks like the Titanic,” Reed says, sipping her champagne as we enter the lobby. Huge orbs of light dangle above us, and ahead of us is a palatial marble staircase that leads down to a large open bar. Everything is enormous and opulent and far less crowded than I’d expected. All in all, this hotel feels like a menace to society. A beautiful mall with all-you-can-eat drinks and food. It does look like the Titanic, and it is going to be our playground.
Our room is all hard, cold edges as we enter. Marble ceilings, marble floors, marble bathroom walls, AC blasting. I feel like leftovers being put in the fridge too soon after cooking. My sunglasses fog up and I remove them. The bellman who brought our bags shows us how the AC stops when our terrace is open. Reed passes him a five-dollar bill as he leaves. He winks and closes the large door behind him.
“Get the pills.”
My senses flood warm and happy as I pick up my Away carry-on and set it down on the table. I can see Reed’s blonde hair in my peripheral vision; I turn to her, but her blue eyes don’t meet mine. No, her eyes are laser-focused on my bag. I unzip the plastic shell and immediately find my vitamins -exactly where I’d wedged them inside my violet slides- unscrew the bottle, and dump the capsules onto the desk.
“We need light,” I say urgently, like I’m one of those women in a suit on CSI or whatever those shows are.
Reed responds with her own urgency, turning on the desk lamp and directing the light on the pile of capsules. We immediately spot the Molly caps, as they are slightly more gray than oatmeal, like the other 98% of the pills. I pluck the two pills from the pile and pass one to Reed.
What do we wash this down with? I scan the in-room bar: bottled Sprites, bottled Cokes, bottled Beer, Tequila.
“Shots! Don’t let me drink anything else until I’ve had two bottles of water.”
We pour several tequila shots, the liquid drips down my fingers, stinging the microscopic cuts and tears in my fingers, then I lift and tip the tiny cup into my mouth and let the burn crawl down my throat, then coat the inside of my generally tender stomach.
Look, I know we are acting like animals. I feel like an animal. It’s funny how once you have your kids squared away and safe, you can temporarily turn off the 80% part of your brain that thinks about your children. It’s a lot of percentage. Honestly, the only way I’ve ever been able to turn it full off is with alcohol or drugs AND having her safe and dealt with somewhere away from me. Diana is with her father. He is boring, she is safe. She is far away. I am free to embrace the Molly and the tequila.
I remove my Tevas, peel off my light plane sweat suit, and dress myself in a colorful mini dress and the violet slides. I’ve been laying in the sun for the past month and browning my skin, something I haven’t done since I was a teen. Likely a terrible decision. I will have liver spots next year instead of in 2040. Despite that, my legs do look nice and “healthy,” whatever that means.
Reed is wearing a cropped white blouse tied in a small knot at the front, white hot shorts and nude sandals. Her accessories are layered gold chains of various sizes and long dangly gold earrings, which are striking against her blonde hair and sharp jawline. Her legs are always smooth and shiny, as though she grows no body hair at all.
“You ready? The Titanic isn’t going down tonight.”
"All in all, this hotel feels like a menace to society."
"I feel like leftovers being put in the fridge too soon after cooking."
I love this whole chapter (this whole story), but these two lines are extra incredible.
This could be scary, could be funny, scary funny, or funny scary and I'm here for ALL OF IT!