Evan Hunter: Me and Mr. Stenner

“Oh, yes, sir,” the clerk said.

“Mr. Stenner? Are they...”

“Then perhaps I could just leave the camera in my box,” he said. “Instead of going through the business of opening the vault each time.”

“As you wish, signore,” the clerk said.

“Mr. Stenner, are they connecting?”

“Yes,” he said. “They’re connecting, Abby.”

He was silent all the way up in the elevator. The rooms were really terrific. I wanted the biggest one, which had a little balcony outside the window, but Mom said the other one was mine.

“How come you get the best one?” I said.

“In this case, second best is only magnificent,” Mom said.

“Yeah, but...”

“When you take your daughter to Italy,” Mr. Stenner said, “you and your husband can have the biggest room for yourselves, okay? Meanwhile, Abby, let me tell you something about this trip, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “What?”

I didn’t know he was about to yell at me. In fact, he didn’t yell at me. That is, he didn’t raise his voice. But there was no question about the fact that I was being bawled out for something I didn’t even know I’d done. Flabbergasted, I listened to him.

“I told you before we left home,” he said, “that we’d requested connecting rooms in all the hotels. I also told you we’d take whatever was available because we’d made our plans late, and this was the height of the tourist season. Now, Abby, when I’m talking to a desk clerk, I want you to keep out of it. I don’t want you hanging around the registration desk while I’m giving the man our passports, and filling out cards, and what-have-you. And I especially don’t want you interrupting with stupid questions about whether or not the rooms are connecting.”

“I don’t think that’s a stupid question,” I said. “It happens to be very important to me. Whether or not the rooms are connecting.”

“I understand that. It’s important to us, too. I can only tell you that the first question I asked the clerk was whether or not the rooms were connecting, and he assured me they were. If he’d told me they weren’t, I would have asked whether or not it was possible to get connecting rooms, and if not, I would have asked for at least adjoining rooms. And if I couldn’t have got any of those, only then would I have settled for a room down the hall or, as a last resort, on another floor of the hotel. The point is I can handle it myself, Abby, I don’t need any assistance from an eleven-year-old girl. From now on, keep out of it. I am perfectly capable of registering my own family.”

“Nobody was trying to help you register,” I said. “And I didn’t know you’d asked the clerk about connecting rooms because, if you didn’t notice, I was buying some postcards.”

“I did notice,” Mr. Stenner said. “And I’m also noticing the look on your face right this minute, and I’m hearing the tone of your voice, and I can’t say I appreciate either. Mom and I told you this vacation was important to us. We’ve been through a lot in the past several months, and now we want to relax. Italy is a beautiful country, the people here are marvelous, the food is delicious. All I want is for us to enjoy ourselves. We’re not going to enjoy ourselves if you try to run the show.”

“I wasn’t trying to run the show.”

“You didn’t trust me,” he said.

“I trusted you,” I said.

That was a lie, of course. I hadn’t trusted him. I just didn’t think he cared whether the rooms were connecting, or adjoining, or across the hall from each other, or down the hall, or three floors apart, or separated by the Atlantic Ocean or the continent of Africa. I just didn’t think he gave a damn.

“You can trust me,” he said.

“I can trust you to yell at me for nothing,” I said.

“Let’s all take a nap now,” he said. “We’re exhausted, we’re...”

“I’m not exhausted,” I said. “I want to write some cards to Dad.”

“Fine,” he said, and went into his own room, and closed and locked the door behind him. Through the closed door, I could hear him and Mom talking.

“Was I too rough on her?” he asked.

“No,” Mom said.

“I just wanted to get it straight from the beginning, Lil.”

“You did the right thing.”

“It is a hassle coming into a hotel, and when she stands around sniping...”

“I know, darling.”

“I’m tired,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep.”

On the card to my father, I wrote:

Dear Dad,

I miss you. I wish I were home with you.

Love and kisses.

Your daughter,

P. S. A hundred million hugs and kisses.

I love you.

At about five o’clock that afternoon, Mr. Stenner popped into the room and cheerfully said, “Everybody up , time to get up! ”

I opened my eyes and blinked at him.

“Let’s go, Abby, time to see Milan!”

“I don’t want to see Milan,” I said.

“You don’t? You came all the way to Italy, and you don’t want to see Milan?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Well, Milan wants to see you,” he said, and grinned, and looked at his watch, and said, “It’s almost five past five. I’ll give you ten minutes to get up, and wash your face, and put on a pretty dress, and then off we go to the Galleria for an early evening drink and a stroll.”

“What’s the Galleria?” I asked.

“It’s an arcade enclosed entirely in glass, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen in your life, you cutie pie! So pop out of bed and let’s get going!”

“Is Mom out of bed yet?”

“Mom is out of bed and at this very moment soaking in the bathtub. Mom has in fact been in the bathtub for the past ten minutes, and I’m about to hustle her out.” He looked at his watch again. “You have exactly nine minutes and ten seconds.”

“Mr. Stenner?” I said.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry about what happened in the lobby.”

“That’s ancient history,” he said. “But do you understand why I yelled at you, Abby?”

“I guess,” I said.

“Okay, let’s move it!” he said, and grinned again, and went out of the room.

The Galleria was absolutely fantastic.

He was right.

I’d never seen anything like it in my life. What it was, they had built this structure in the shape of a cross and then covered it over with glass so that the sun shone down onto the tiled floors. A lot of things in Italy are tiled, but I didn’t know that when we first got to Milan. All I knew was that I was inside this marvelous arcade lined with restaurants and shops, and the sun was shining down on us from above, and breezes were blowing through from the various entrances at the four ends of the cross.

We sat at a table and watched the people go by. The trouble hadn’t started yet, we were so far having a pretty good time, despite what had happened in the lobby and the little bawling-out I’d got afterward. Mr. Stenner was staring at my wrist. Or, to be more exact, he was staring at the ragged piece of yarn I’d knotted around it.

“What’s that?” he said.

“It’s a forever.”

“What’s a forever?”

“It’s a thing you tie around your wrist and you keep wearing it forever.”

“For ever?”

“Well, until it falls off. It’s supposed to bring good luck.”

“Mm,” he said, and kept staring at it very thoughtfully.

“What’s the matter?” I said.

“Nothing,” he said, “nothing,” and shrugged and smiled, and asked if I felt like trying a little game he and the boys used to play when they were small and he’d taken them to Europe. I said, “Sure, what’s the game?” and he explained that all we had to do was look at the people passing by and — before we heard them talking — try to guess what nationality they were. He said it wasn’t as easy as I thought it might be because people from foreign countries often bought clothes in the country they were visiting, and looked exactly like the citizens of that country.