Kelly Link - Get in Trouble - Stories

Billie pushes her hair back. She says, “Why are you telling me all this?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. You look like you’re in a world of hurt. I don’t really care. It’s just that I get bored. And you look really terrible, and I thought that there was probably something interesting going on. Besides, Aliss can see us in here, from the desk, and this will drive her crazy.”

“I’m okay,” Billie says. “Nobody hurt me. I’m the bad guy here.”

“That’s unexpected. Also interesting. Go on,” Conrad Linthor says. “Tell me everything.”

Billie tells him. Everything except for the part where she pees the bed.

When her tale is told, Conrad Linthor stands up and says, “Come on. We’re going to go see a friend of mine. You need the cure.”

“For love?” Billie’s lame attempt at humor. She was wondering if telling someone what she’s done would make her feel better. It hasn’t.

“No cure for love,” Conrad Linthor says. “Because there’s no such thing. Your hangover we can do something about.”

As they navigate the lobby, there are new boards up announcing that free teeth-whitening sessions are available in suite 412 for qualified superheroes. Billie looks over at the front desk and sees Aliss looking back. Aliss draws her finger across her throat. If looks could kill you wouldn’t be reading this e-mail.

Conrad Linthor goes through a door that you’re clearly not meant to go through. Billie follows anyway and they’re in a corridor, in a maze of corridors. If this were an MMORPG, the zombies or the giant fruit bats or the gnoles with their intricately knotted, deadly ropes would show up any minute. Instead, every once in a while, they pass hotel cleaning staff; bellboys sneaking cigarettes. Everyone nods at Conrad Linthor, just like the superheroes in the Starbucks in the lobby.

Billie doesn’t want to ask, but eventually she does. “Who are you?”

“Call me Eloise,” Conrad Linthor says.

“Sorry?” Billie imagines that they are no longer in the hotel at all. The corridor they are currently navigating slopes gently downward. Maybe they will end up on the shores of a subterranean lake, or in a dungeon, or in Narnia, or King Nermal’s Chamber, or even Keokuk, Iowa. It’s a small world, after all. Bigger on the inside.

“You know, Eloise. The girl who lives in The Plaza? Has a pet whale named Moby Dick?”

He waits, like Billie’s supposed to know what he’s talking about. When she doesn’t say anything, he says, “Never mind. It’s just this book — a classic of modern children’s literature, actually — about a girl who lives in The Plaza. Which is a hotel. A bit nicer than this one, maybe, but never mind. I live here.”

He keeps on talking. They keep on walking.

Billie’s hangover is a special effect. Conrad Linthor is going on and on about superheroes. His father is an agent. Apparently superheroes have agents. Represents all of the big guys. Knows everyone. Agoraphobic. Never leaves the hotel. Everyone comes to him. Big banquet tomorrow night, for his biggest client. Tyrannosaurus Hex. Hex is retiring. Going to go live in the mountains and breed tarantula wasps. Conrad Linthor’s father is throwing a party for Hex. Everyone will be there.

Billie’s legs are noodles. The ends of her hair are poison needles. Her tongue is a bristly sponge, and her eyes are bags of bleach.

Two wheeled carts come round the next corner like comets, followed at arm’s length by hurtling busboys. They sail down the corridor at top speed. Conrad Linthor and Billie flatten themselves against the wall. “You have to move fast,” Conrad explains. “Or else the food gets cold. Guests complain.”

Around that corner, enormous doors, still swinging. Big enough to birth a Greyhound bus bound for Keokuk. A behemoth. A white whale. Billie passes through the doors onto the far shores of what is, of course, a hotel kitchen. Far away, miles, it seems to Billie, there are clouds of vapor and vague figures moving through them. Clanging noises, people yelling, the thick, sweet smell of caramelized onions, onions that will never make anyone cry again. Other savory reeks.

Conrad Linthor steers Billie to a marble-topped table. Copper whisks, mixing bowls, dinged pots hang down on hooks.

Billie feels she ought to say something. “You must have a lot of money,” she contributes. “To live in a hotel.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Conrad Linthor says. “Sit down. I’ll be back.”

Billie climbs, slowly and carefully, up a laddery stool and lays her poor head down on the dusty, funereal slab. (It’s actually a pastry station, the dust is flour, but Billie is mentally in a bad place.) Paul Zell, Paul Zell. She stares at the tiled wall. Billie’s heart has a crack in it. Her head is made of radiation. The Starbucks espresso she forced down has burnt a thousand pinprick holes in Billie’s wretched stomach.

Conrad Linthor comes back too soon. He says, “This is her.”

There’s a guy with him. Skinny, with serious acne scars. Big shoulders. Funny little paper hat and a stained apron. “Ernesto, Billie,” Conrad says. “Billie, Ernesto.”

“How old did you say?” Ernesto says. He folds his arms, as if Billie is a bad cut of meat Conrad Linthor is trying to pass off as prime rib.

“Sixteen, right?”

Billie confirms.

“She came to the city because of some pervert she met online?”

“In an MMORPG,” Conrad says.

“He isn’t a pervert,” Billie says. “He thought I was my sister. I was pretending to be my sister. She’s in her thirties.”

“What’s your guess?” Conrad asks Ernesto. “Superhero or dentist?”

“One more time,” Billie says. “I’m not here to audition for anything. And do I look like a dentist?”

“You look like trouble,” Ernesto says. “Drink this.” He hands her a glass full of something slimy and green.

“What’s in it?” Billie says.

“Wheatgrass,” Ernesto says. “And other stuff. Secret recipe. Hold your nose and drink it down.”

“Yuck,” Billie says. (I won’t even try to describe the taste of Ernesto’s hangover cure. Except, I will never drink again.) “Yuck, yuck, yuck.”

“Keep holding your nose,” Ernesto advises Billie. To Conrad: “They met online?”

“Yeah,” Billie says. “In FarAway.”

“Yeah, I know that game. Dentist,” Ernesto says. “For sure.”

“Except,” Conrad says, “it gets better. It wasn’t just a game. Inside this game, they were playing a game. They were playing chess. ”

“Ohhhh,” Ernesto says. Now he’s grinning.

“Superhero,” Conrad says. They high-five each other. “The only question is who.”

“What was the alias again?” Ernesto asks Billie. “The name this dude gave?”

“Paul Zell?” Billie says. “Wait, you think Paul Zell is a superhero? No way. He does tech support for a nonprofit. Something involving endangered species.”

Conrad Linthor and Ernesto exchange another look. “Superhero for sure,” Ernesto says.

Ernesto says, “Or supervillain. All those freaks are into chess. It’s like a disease.”

“No way,” Billie says again.

Conrad Linthor says, “Because there’s no chance Paul Zell would have lied to you about anything. Because the two of you were being completely and totally honest with each other.” Which shuts Billie up.

Conrad Linthor says, “I just can’t get this picture out of my head. This superhero going out and buying a ring. And there you are. This sixteen-year-old girl.” He laughs. He nudges Billie as if to say, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing near you.

“And there I was,” Billie says. “Here I am.”

Ernesto has to gasp for air he is laughing so hard.