someone would be bringing in a cell phone, asked if she’d hold it under my name. I gave her my credit-card number against twenty bucks to pay the driver.
Then I went back on the Web. Did searches for hotels in downtown, for anything similar to “Malo.” I found a Hotel Monaco, only a few streets away. Their Web site suggested that it was exactly the kind of place Amy hung her coat on trips: funky decor; restaurant specializing in Pan-Cajun this, that, and the other; complimentary goldfish in the rooms. Whatever the fuck that meant.
I looked at her note again. It could just about be “Monaco,” if written in a hurry or while having an embolism. It might even be she’d misheard the name when being told where she’d been booked and written it down wrong for me. Mal-o/Monac-o. Maybe.
I called the Monaco front desk and got someone human and responsive. She was able to quickly and regretfully establish that my wife was not, and had never been, resident in the hotel. I thanked her and put the phone down. I did this calmly, as if what I’d done made the slightest sense. As if I could really have misread the note or Amy misheard something from an assistant and as a result happened to name a hotel that actually existed, only a couple of streets away in the same town.
I stood up. I rubbed my hands together, cracked my knuckles. The house felt large around me. There was a sudden clatter from the floor above, as the fridge dropped a new load of ice into the tray.
I am not an especially imaginative man. The flashes of intuition I’ve experienced in my life usually have a basis in something obvious, even if only in retrospect. But right then I felt untethered, unguarded, as when I’d stood out on the deck a week before. It was after midnight now. I’d last spoken to my wife around eleven the previous evening. A shorthand debrief between two people who’ve loved each other for a while. Your day, my day; errand reminders; kiss kiss, good night. I’d idly pictured her sitting Indian style on a turned-down bed, a pot of coffee by her side or on its way, her expensive and doubtless too-tight business shoes kicked halfway across the floor of her room, in this Hotel Malo.
Except she hadn’t been there.
I put my hand on the mouse to her computer. Hesitated, then found her personal-organizer software and double-clicked it. It felt like an intrusion, but I needed to check. The diary window popped up on the screen. A bar across four days said “Seattle.” The space in between was peppered with meetings, plus a clutch of client breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Except for this evening. Tonight had been clear from six-thirty.
So why no earlier call?
There had been a couple of attempts at contact via the house phone. But she always called the cell. She knew I was supposed to be at home working but also that my desk and I acted like magnets with the same charge, and it was highly possible I would be elsewhere. And she always left a message. Amy had strong views on hotels. Maybe she got to the Malo and didn’t like it, checked herself in somewhere else. Didn’t mention it because it was trivia and didn’t affect our communication. Back-to-back meetings, then had herself booked into this week’s most fashionable Seattle eatery, table for one, briefings and demographics to read while she ate—leave calling Jack until she gets back to the room. Her phone slips out in the cab on the way there. She runs into someone from work, stays for an extra glass of wine. Would be getting back to the hotel round about now, reaching into her bag…and thinking, Shit?
Yeah, maybe.
I looked around her desk again. Other people’s working spaces are like the ruins of lost civilizations. It’s impossible to understand why they’d have that thing there, put the other here. Even with Amy’s, which is blisteringly neat and looks like an office-supplies serving suggestion. The desk looked as it always did, in I’ll-be-back-later mode. Except
Then I went back on the Web. Did searches for hotels in downtown, for anything similar to “Malo.” I found a Hotel Monaco, only a few streets away. Their Web site suggested that it was exactly the kind of place Amy hung her coat on trips: funky decor; restaurant specializing in Pan-Cajun this, that, and the other; complimentary goldfish in the rooms. Whatever the fuck that meant.
I looked at her note again. It could just about be “Monaco,” if written in a hurry or while having an embolism. It might even be she’d misheard the name when being told where she’d been booked and written it down wrong for me. Mal-o/Monac-o. Maybe.
I called the Monaco front desk and got someone human and responsive. She was able to quickly and regretfully establish that my wife was not, and had never been, resident in the hotel. I thanked her and put the phone down. I did this calmly, as if what I’d done made the slightest sense. As if I could really have misread the note or Amy misheard something from an assistant and as a result happened to name a hotel that actually existed, only a couple of streets away in the same town.
I stood up. I rubbed my hands together, cracked my knuckles. The house felt large around me. There was a sudden clatter from the floor above, as the fridge dropped a new load of ice into the tray.
I am not an especially imaginative man. The flashes of intuition I’ve experienced in my life usually have a basis in something obvious, even if only in retrospect. But right then I felt untethered, unguarded, as when I’d stood out on the deck a week before. It was after midnight now. I’d last spoken to my wife around eleven the previous evening. A shorthand debrief between two people who’ve loved each other for a while. Your day, my day; errand reminders; kiss kiss, good night. I’d idly pictured her sitting Indian style on a turned-down bed, a pot of coffee by her side or on its way, her expensive and doubtless too-tight business shoes kicked halfway across the floor of her room, in this Hotel Malo.
Except she hadn’t been there.
I put my hand on the mouse to her computer. Hesitated, then found her personal-organizer software and double-clicked it. It felt like an intrusion, but I needed to check. The diary window popped up on the screen. A bar across four days said “Seattle.” The space in between was peppered with meetings, plus a clutch of client breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Except for this evening. Tonight had been clear from six-thirty.
So why no earlier call?
There had been a couple of attempts at contact via the house phone. But she always called the cell. She knew I was supposed to be at home working but also that my desk and I acted like magnets with the same charge, and it was highly possible I would be elsewhere. And she always left a message. Amy had strong views on hotels. Maybe she got to the Malo and didn’t like it, checked herself in somewhere else. Didn’t mention it because it was trivia and didn’t affect our communication. Back-to-back meetings, then had herself booked into this week’s most fashionable Seattle eatery, table for one, briefings and demographics to read while she ate—leave calling Jack until she gets back to the room. Her phone slips out in the cab on the way there. She runs into someone from work, stays for an extra glass of wine. Would be getting back to the hotel round about now, reaching into her bag…and thinking, Shit?
Yeah, maybe.
I looked around her desk again. Other people’s working spaces are like the ruins of lost civilizations. It’s impossible to understand why they’d have that thing there, put the other here. Even with Amy’s, which is blisteringly neat and looks like an office-supplies serving suggestion. The desk looked as it always did, in I’ll-be-back-later mode. Except
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