Hannah Pittard - Listen to Me

“I told her,” said the small woman across from them, “we got cold running water and clean towels. We do not have air-conditioning. We do not have hot water.”

“Are there fans?” said Mark.

“We got fans,” said the large man. “We got plenty of fans. But we don’t got power.” He laughed as though what he’d said was quite funny. “We also got two fridges filled with spoiled food if you’re interested.”

“Isn’t there a generator?”

“That broke two days ago,” Maggie said.

Mark looked back and forth between his wife and the couple. If there weren’t fans, then what on earth were they still doing there?

“This is Tina,” said Maggie, “and this is Pete.”

Pete held out his hand. Gerome jumped up and licked it. Mark yanked on the leash.

“Sorry,” Mark said.

Pete wiped his hand on his pants. “Not a problem. We got seven at home. He can probably smell them on me.”

“Dogs?”

“Pure breeds. Boxers. We got two puppies right now. Folks say they want to come by to look, but nobody comes by just to look. Once you’ve seen ’em, you want ’em. I don’t even have to advertise. So we’re real careful about who we let see ’em.” Pete paused and looked at Tina. “Ain’t we?” He nudged her.

Maggie took the leash from Mark. “Tina and Pete are engaged,” she said to Mark. “Pete doesn’t actually work here. He’s just helping Tina while the power’s off.”

Pete held up his arms and flexed. He kissed his biceps one at a time, then smiled. “Call me the bodyguard.”

“How nice,” Mark said. He turned to Maggie. “If there’s not air-conditioning, what’s the point? We won’t sleep. We won’t even relax. Look at Gerome. He’s already panting. He can barely breathe.”

Maggie looked down at Gerome, who looked up at her and seemed to smile. She scratched under his chin. “Panting is your way of sweating,” she said to the dog. “It’s healthy.”

“You two need a minute?” Tina asked.

“We don’t need a minute,” Maggie said. “It’ll be fine.” She handed Mark the glow sticks. “I need to lie down. So do you.”

As if on cue, Gerome yawned.

“Bodyguard, eh?” Mark nodded. “There’s a lot of crime up here? People up to no good?”

Maggie glowered at him. Mark knew the effect of his question, but he was irritated that she hadn’t consulted him, pissed at the plan of paying money to sleep in a sealed-up room when they could just as easily sleep in the car with the engine running. He’d be much more comfortable in the front seat than in a room without air. Christ, he’d nearly drifted off while he was waiting for her! The car was plenty comfortable.

“No, no,” said Tina. “It’s real safe up here.”

It was not what Mark was hoping for.

“But there’s a certain type,” she added.

Better, thought Mark.

“There’s drugs on the other side of the mountain. Big trucks, loud music. Your basic ruffian, you know? But we never had a problem. No riffraff or horse thieves up here.”

Pete clucked his tongue. “Not entirely true, Miss Tina,” he said. “With the current situation as is, there have been some ‘instances.’ ” He made quotations with his fingers.

“Instances?” Maggie said.

Bingo, thought Mark. Five more minutes and they’d be back on the road. He was sure of it. They could sleep at the first truck stop. He was good for at least another hour if he had to be. In fact, he was probably good to drive straight through. He’d been wrong about the beers; they’d worn off completely. He had just needed some air; needed to stretch his legs. His eyes felt fine now. Everything felt fine. Do a couple jumping jacks, maybe a few squats, and then be back on the road. More than doable.

“Just some kids roughing up lawns at night and such,” said Tina. “Nothing to do with us or the hotel.”

Maggie nodded. Her face was shiny with sweat. “Just kids?” she said.

“You’ll be fine,” said Pete. “That’s why I’m here. Plus, I got some buddies staying in a couple of the rooms just in case.”

Maggie was nodding still. “Just in case?”

“Yep,” said Pete. He flexed his arms again and grinned.

Mark felt sure he’d won.

Maggie sighed. “Well,” she said. She looked at Mark. “If Pete says it’s safe, then I guess it’s safe.”

Pete walked in front, shining the way with a floodlight. Mark was next, followed by Tina. Maggie and Gerome took the rear.

Maggie was surprised when they were led into a stairwell. She’d assumed they’d get a room on the main level. She was further surprised when Pete walked them not up the stairs, but down. She hadn’t realized — how could she have? — that the hotel was built into a hill and that there was an entire basement level with windows looking out onto a back parking lot.

What Maggie liked about Pete and Tina was their youthfulness, their hopefulness and straightforwardness. There was something pleasantly stupid about Pete in particular that Maggie found comforting, as if he lacked the imagination necessary to commit any wrong. It was the right way for a man to be if he didn’t have imagination: sturdy and loyal as a dog. There seemed in him the quality of indefatigable goodness, something god-inspired, she suspected. And, sure, ordinarily she tended to fall on the more judgmental side of people who actually practiced religion, but right then she felt protected by its rote unwillingness to tolerate evil.

The nearness of the stairwell, the metallic ping of the steps beneath her shoes, brought on a memory, one she’d not entertained in ages. On the night they met, after Mark’s confident approach aboard that riverboat, they’d found themselves not three minutes into their acquaintance in a steep enclosed stairwell between the second and first floors of the ship. If there was a light, it wasn’t turned on. Maggie had led Mark, his hand in hers — though the way was no more familiar to her than to him — down and out and into the pink dusk of early evening. The intimacy of those few moments in that tight space nearly a decade ago — the swampy smell of the Potomac, the humidity seeping in from the water beneath them — came back to her now full force. That night — she’d never told Mark — but that night she’d been on the brink of agreeing to a proposed affair with her advisor, a married man nearing sixty. Thanks to Mark, to his singular attention, she’d never followed through on her intentions. Years later, after she and Mark were married, after they’d moved safely from DC to Chicago, she learned that her advisor had been bounced from the program. Videos had been discovered. There were dozens of young women, all students, and he’d secretly recorded his trysts with every one of them. If it hadn’t been for Mark, Maggie might easily have been among those tapes. Her entire life might be something wholly different than what it was now. What she realized at this moment: her greatest fear — well, her greatest intellectual fear — was of being left behind emotionally. Of being the one caught in that terrible limbo of still being in love when the other person has already left the room.

Gerome was skittish on the steps. His pads kept slipping. If he were a smaller dog, Maggie would have picked him up.

At the bottom of the stairwell, Pete stopped, and so did the small crowd behind him. He raised the floodlight in front of a door.

“This is the rear exit,” he said.

Mark nodded. “Got it.”

“Normally you can’t go out it, but the emergency alarm isn’t on.”

Mark nodded again. “Okay.”

“So if you need to walk the dog, this is the easiest way out.”