Holy CIty: Chapter Twelve - Part Two
The bar in the front of the Figueroa Hotel overlooked a large pool that wasn’t meant for swimming. V reclined into a plush red fake leather booth. A wooden table was in front of him and had a little tiki lamp which lit up when V touched the base.
V wondered why this wealthy nation in the middle of a dry continent always wanted to imitate tiny islands located on the wet side of the world. He ordered a drink from an insistent bartender that had spied him when he first slipped into the booth. Inspired by the lamp, he ordered a drink made of alcohol and fruit that came with a small umbrella. The drink appeared and so did a woman. She was an odd creature, she moved with the sloping gait of a very old woman but had the face of a forty-year-old. She spoke to V. V straightened up in his booth, startled by the voice of an eighty-year-old coming out of the mouth of a forty-year-old.
“May I join you,” She asked. She looked lonely. They were the only two people in the hotel bar on this afternoon.
She sat down across from V in a wooden chair on the other side of the wooden table. V touched the base of the tiki lamp to turn it back on so they could see each other better.
The woman was dressed in the finest clothes. Clothes that were probably sold in the same department store V had been in that afternoon. Her clothes looked more expensive than his suit, like they were sold from a special section of the store where only special customers are allowed. He wasn’t sure if he had ever seen anybody dressed in such fine clothes. There were two diamond rings on her left hand. Her right hand had only one diamond ring. She wore two strands of pearls around her neck, her beige jacket was made from cashmere, the shirt underneath was made of silk. V wondered if she dressed herself in the morning. He decided it would take a crew of three for a person to reach such a state of immaculate dress.
And her teeth. V was particularly impressed with the whiteness and straightness of her teeth. It made him self-conscious of his own. He kept his lips wrapped tightly as he listened and responded to the woman.
“Aren’t these quiet afternoons nice?” she opened the conversation.
“Yes.” V was enjoying the air-conditioning of the bar. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. It felt like they were having a conversation in a refrigerator.
“I haven’t seen you here before.”
“It’s my first time.”
The eighty-year-old who looked forty laughed a little too hard.
“It won’t be your last,” she said. “I live here.” I live here during the spring and summer. It’s such a wonderful hotel.”
“Yes, it is.” V had the feeling he would be agreeing with her a lot during the conversation. And he did. She did most of the talking. V did most of the agreeing. The conversation kept to its predictable pattern of polite dialogue. She didn’t say anything particularly offensive or insightful and V obliged by not saying anything offensive or insightful.
The bartender watched them as they conversed. V could see him over her left shoulder. He wondered if this was a common sight for the bartender, watching this woman as she conversed with others in the bar. Money can buy one so many things, it can provide almost all of those things that one needs to survive. Almost. Talking to a stranger must be better than talking to an employee, V thought. For most people at least.
The conversation died a natural death as conversations sometimes do. After half an hour, V had cooled down enough that he no longer felt the need to stay in the hotel bar and the eighty-year-old woman was eyeing up more interesting conversation partners that had just wandered in.
V was once again faced with the decision he had put off when he first reclined into the red booth. Was he going to use his room or not? It wasn’t that he was afraid of being caught for using another person’s name, V had been through too much and used too many different names to care about that. It was that now he had cooled down and enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere of the bar, he wasn’t sure if he felt the need for the room he had desperately wanted only an hour before. V looked down at the shiny card that was his key and deliberated.
He knew he didn’t have anywhere else to go to. He could not go back to the homeless shelter for the employed and he certainly wasn’t going to go back to the barracks at the construction site. He was a free man, but he was a free man with no place to settle. This freedom, this lack of connection or place bothered V. He felt like he was drowning even though he was sitting in a booth in an air-conditioned hotel bar.
V walked outside into the heat and looked over the pool that wasn’t meant for swimming, to the other side of the pool where there was a small patch of grass and many guests dressed in formal clothes. There was music being played by three violinists. There was a bride and a groom. It was a wedding of cultures. The reception had just begun and V watched the many guests and friends and relatives of the young couple. It felt familiar to him, this scene, the most familiar thing he had seen over these past several days and nights. He watched the celebration until the heat returned to his body and he needed the air conditioning once again. He decided to go up to his room.
It was on the 43rd floor. V stood in front of a door with the number 4392 on it. The miniature envelope that had held the plastic card in his pocket had the same number handwritten on it. The clerk who was dressed in a military uniform at the check-in desk had written that number out in pencil. V reached into his pocket and felt the smooth plastic of the card. He took the card out and waved it in front of the door handle like he was rubbing a genie’s lamp. A green light appeared and he pressed the handle and the door opened and he entered the Apricot Suite. It was its own world.
Next Chapter: Chapter Thirteen
Previous Chapter: Chapter Twelve - Part One