Maelstrom

Chapter 4: Overdue Career Change

The tingling against my backside almost launched me off the mattress. I looked over at John, who had rolled onto his side, his back to me, sometime in the last couple of hours. I licked the pads of my ring fingers and dragged them under my eyes, hoping to wipe off the worst of the inevitable mascara smudges before I scared the crap out of the poor guy next to me.

I shook him gently, but got no response. I shook harder and was rewarded with a soft, sharp intake of breath. I felt John tense under my hand as he took in the dimly lit surroundings, then rolled slowly to look at me.

"It's 5:00am," I said softly. "I figured you'd probably want to get back to the in-laws' before the boys woke up."

John checked his watch automatically to confirm, then ran a soft-fingered hand across his face to wipe the last of the cobwebs away. "Yeah, thanks," he said, recovering his glasses from the nightstand and squinting at the room's dingy window, still only lit by the buzzing motel sign outside.

We wordlessly gathered our meager belongings, and John pulled his wallet from his back pocket. "How much ..." he began, pulling out all the bills at once before flipping through them in a gesture so naïve that it almost made me smile.

"Nothing," I said. "We didn't do nothing, so you don't owe me nothing."

He stared at me a moment and then began counting through the cash again. "But I should still pay you for your time, at least, and for the room."

"Nothing," I insisted.

"But I ..."

"Please," I said. I was surprised by the slight quaver in my voice. "I really don't feel like ... feeling like a whore today. It's still kinda Christmas."

He hesitated a moment before shoving the money back in his wallet. He cleared his throat a couple of times. "Well, thank you. For, you know ... everything." It looked for a moment like John might step forward for a handshake or even a hug, but he didn't, and then the moment passed, and he headed for the door.

He paused for a second, his hand resting heavily on the knob. "You know," he said, turning his head briefly, "I didn't get your name."

I opened my mouth to tell him my cynically chosen cover moniker, but the "Candy" stuck in my throat. My real name – Lärke – was out of the question, too. "Rachel," I said; I knew that the memory of this night was going to be complicated enough for John without further sullying it with a stereotypically lady-of-the-evening name.

He smiled. "Merry Christmas, Rachel," he told me, glancing a last time at my neon-limned silhouette as he backed into the hall.

"Merry Christmas," I whispered as the door clicked shut. I checked my watch and sat slowly on the lumpy, soiled bed. I gave him ten minutes to slip out of the hotel, find his car, and get far enough away that I could be sure he wouldn't see me on my way to the bus stop.

After one last check of the time, I stripped the trashy Rolex knock-off from my wrist and the poinsettia from my hair, tossed them lightly onto the bed as a gift to whomever had the thankless job of cleaning the room, and wobbled almost imperceptibly out the door.

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The buses were running on a holiday schedule, so between waiting and riding, it had taken me more than an hour to get to the lot where I'd stashed my car. However, the streets were relatively deserted by New York standards, so after I'd reclaimed my wheels, I soon reached the parking garage near my building on the Upper West Side.

I sat numbly in the driver's seat for a moment, hands plastered to the steering wheel, eyes gently closed as I tried to focus on nothing but my breathing. I soon gave up. Perhaps I could use this upcoming stretch of indefinite unemployment to finally learn how to meditate. I shimmied out of my faux fur jacket and pulled the snow-dampened torture devices off my feet, then swapped them for the long wool coat and knee-length black leather boots in the tote in the foot well of the passenger seat. Some makeup-removing wipes from the glove box quickly erased the slutty-hooker mask I'd painted over my face, and a hornbeam-pinned brush lent some semblance of decorum to my mussed hair.