The Hotel Eden: Stories by Ron Carlson

Author:Ron Carlson [Carlson, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: USA
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 1997-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

NIGHTCAP

I WAS FILING deeds, or rather, I had been filing deeds all day, and now I was taking a break to rest my head on the corner of my walnut desk and moan, when there was a knock at my door. My heart kicked in. People don’t come to my office. From time to time folders are slipped under my door, but my clients don’t come here. They call me and I copy something and send it to them. I’m an attorney.

Still and all, I hadn’t been much of anything since Lily, the woman I loved, had—justifiably—asked me to move out three months ago. Simply, these were days of filing. I didn’t moan that often, but I sat still for hours—hours I couldn’t bill to anyone. I wanted Lily back, and the short of it is that I’m not going to get her back in this story. She’s not even in this story. There’s another woman in this story, and I wish I could say there’s another man. But there isn’t. It’s me.

And now the heavy golden doorknob turned, and the woman entered. She wore a red print cowboy shirt and tight Levi’s and under one arm she held a tiny maroon purse.

“Wrong room,” I said. I had about four wrong rooms a week.

“Jack,” she said, stepping forward. It was either not the wrong room or really the wrong room. “I’m Lynn LaMoine. Phyllis told me that if I came over there was a good chance I could talk you into going to the ball game tonight.”

Well. She had me sitting down, half embarrassed about having my moaning interrupted, overheard, and her sister, Phyllis, Madame Cause-Effect, the most feared wrongful death attorney in the state, somehow knew that I was in limbo. I steered the middle road; it would be the last time. “I like baseball,” I said. “But don’t you have a husband?”

She nodded for a while, her mouth set. “Yeah,” she said. “I was married, but … maybe you remember Clark Dewar?”

“Sure,” I said. “He’s at Stover-Reynolds.”

She kept nodding. “A lawyer.” Then she said the thing that sealed this small chapter of my cheap fate. “Look, I just thought it might be fun to sit outside in the night and watch the game. I’m not good at being lonely. And I don’t like the lessons.”

It was a page from my book, and I jumped right in. “We could go to the game,” I told her. “The Gulls aren’t very good, but I’ve got an old classmate who’s coach, and the park organist is worth the price of admission.”

At this she smiled so that just the tips of her front teeth showed and stood on one leg so that her shape in those Levi’s cut a hard curve against the door behind her. I heard myself saying, “And the beer is cold and it’s not going to rain.” I explained that I didn’t have a car and gave her my address. As a rule I try not to view

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