Listen to Me by Hannah Pittard

Author:Hannah Pittard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

14

“All I mean,” said Mark, “is that it makes no sense.”

He was standing in the lobby of the sixth hotel he’d walked into since Maggie had passed out in the passenger seat. Not a vacancy at a single one of them.

The man behind the counter said nothing. He was a kid really, not a man, though his hairline was already receding.

They were both sweating.

“Listen,” said Mark. The kid looked hopelessly inbred, which probably accounted for his hairline. Bad genes. Bad genes combined with more bad genes. “I get that I seem like a dick right now.”

“Can you mind your language?” the kid said. He looked back and forth like it was study hall and any second they’d get caught. “There are children here.” He gestured down the hallway, at the end of which was a large glass wall, fogged and dirty and behind which was an indoor pool. Mark could hear the splashes of water, the cackling of children and adults.

“Shouldn’t the pool be closed?” Mark said. “Aren’t there hours for things like that?” He didn’t mean it as an accusation. He was curious, that was all. But given how the last few minutes had been going, Mark could handily see how his questions might be misinterpreted as aggressive, especially by an inbred.

The clerk sighed. He was growing weary of Mark’s presence. “We don’t have the a/c back yet.” He shook his head and let his arms fall to his sides. “The generators give us light and electricity for fans and toasters, but we don’t have the a/c.”

Fans and toasters. Mark nodded. “And you also don’t have rooms even though the sign outside says you do?”

“Sir, like I said—” But the clerk was interrupted by the abrupt appearance at Mark’s side of a small wet child, naked but for an inner tube.

“Mama says to come right now,” the child said.

There was no greeting, no salutation, no apology, no Excuse me or May I step in for a moment? The inner tube squeaked against the child’s skin, which glistened under the fluorescents.

“Mama says it’s important there’s something wrong with the pool and can you come now.”

Maggie would have been able to say for certain how old the child was, but Mark was at a loss. Anything old enough to speak full sentences should probably not have been naked in public. And yet here this child was. Mark put his hands in his pockets. He felt vaguely culpable—like after a dream in which he’d perhaps cheated on Maggie with a faceless woman or, being completely honest, a woman with Elizabeth’s face. A crime. But not a crime.

“Mama says right now okay that’s what Mama says.”

The clerk sighed again. Between Mark and the naked child, there was no clear winner, but the child was a guest and Mark was not, and that seemed to settle things.

“Sir,” said the clerk, but moving toward the child, already sidling away from Mark and in the direction of the pool. “I’m sorry about the Vacancy sign. I’m sorry you were confused.

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