At different times in my life, I’ve been the cause of their horror and confusion—and pain. Sometimes on purpose for the way they treated me. Sometimes indirectly for the way I treated others. That last night at the Plaza in El Paso was the latter, but no less painful for them, I’m sure.
My parents weren’t perfect. They sent me to an exclusive boarding school at the age of nine, despite the fact that I begged not to go. I felt as if I was ripped away like Velcro, and I soon learned that life wasn’t about what I wanted; it was about what was best. Best manners, best appearance, best people, and best causes. Although I hated it at the time, my parents were right to send me off to Connecticut. I was a needy child who would have become a needy woman—God forbid. I know my parents are as loving as they know how to be. They don’t say it often, but they love me as much as I love them.
My parents raised me as their parents had raised them, with the expectation that an excellent education would lead to an excellent job. An excellent place in society would lead to an excellent fiancé, and it did. Two of them.
Both Roland and Blake come from the same social background, old family money and excellent breeding. They’re both handsome, and I was attracted to their drive. We suited each other, but I never sh
ould have accepted their marriage proposals. Each time I said yes, I was in love and excited about the future. Each time, I loved picking out wedding dresses and over-the-top venues. Each time, I got carried away with planning the society wedding of the year—but when it came to walking down the aisle, I had the same realization each time: I never want to be a wife. Wives are needy and, believe me, I should know. All my married lovers had one thing in common, a needy wife.
Dr. Barbara Ware told me that I have attachment issues and have self-sabotaged my relationships, whether it be an inappropriate relationship with a man I met at work or a secret affair. That was certainly the case with Troy Wickerson. He’d just moved back to Detroit and I was facing an impending wedding. He was new and exciting and I had to have him. He fell in love with me and planned to leave Janette. I fell in love with him and canceled my wedding. I was high on love—until that night at the Plaza in El Paso when my world caved in on me again. I was taken back to my first engagement to Roland Digby and the affair with Porter Reese, Sarah Worthington’s husband. Sarah was fat and Porter was a Cabanel painting come to life. A dark, broody fallen angel. The affair was wild and consuming. I wanted him forever, right up to the moment people found out and it turned dirty. The tawdry details almost ruined me and my family. I was excoriated in public and in private, and the humiliation in my parents’ eyes as they tried to hold their heads high was pure agony.
I tried to kill myself in the guest cottage at Hawthorne to escape the pain, but my parents found me. It was covered up, and I left the country until the gossip turned to something else and the scandal became old news.
This latest affair with Troy, I knew there would be no escaping the scandal this time. I broke off my engagement to one of the most eligible men in the world for another seedy affair with a married man. I couldn’t live through that again. My heart was broken and the pain ran so deep in my veins, I tried to carve it out with a razor blade. If I had to do it over again, there’s one thing I’d do different. I’d hang a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the hotel door. If I’d succeeded, I’d be in heaven, and Brittany Lynn Snider wouldn’t be wearing my clothes, ruining my hair, and dressing my dog like a cat.
I watch the baby in my impostor’s arms shove its hand in her mouth, and I almost gag. I hate baby drool and I look for Magnus. He’s on his leash and… speaking of a dark angel fallen from paradise, Oliver is with them. It’s been a while since I’ve seen his smile.
Oliver was my first crush. I was eight years old, and he’d complimented my felt antlers at his family’s Christmas party. That’s all it took, and I spent years trying to get his attention, but he never noticed me until the night I walked into the yacht club where he worked that summer I turned eighteen. I wore a short sundress and four-inch heels, and it finally worked. I laid myself on the bar like a dessert tray, offering him whatever he wanted. He sampled a bit here and there, but he wasn’t interested in more. He was interested in someone else. I was in love with him, but he was in love with his girlfriend.
I lashed out and told a lie. I never imagined the lie would get so big that there was no going back to the truth. I never thought my family would start to doubt me, but they did. I blamed Oliver and Burton and I still do. I hate them for the questions my parents had in their eyes after that.
If not for me, Oliver would have married his girlfriend. I don’t remember her name, but I saw her with a bunch of kids in Trader Joe’s recently. She was wearing a Pittsburgh sweatshirt in Red Wings territory. That’s like wearing Gaga’s meat dress to a dogfight: both are ghastly and a health hazard. She looked like a pudgy soccer mom, and Oliver should thank me.
I look closer at the little gathering in Grosse Pointe Park. Shockingly, Oliver is speaking to my impostor. He’s smiling, but she is not. I’m sure he’s being his rude self, because she doesn’t look happy. Good, maybe she isn’t as dumb as she sounds.
I think I hear footsteps and wave my hand over the aquarium before I’m caught and demoted to… what? I don’t know nor do I want to find out. The image fades as my impostor walks away and the hologram returns to Lot’s wife.
Raymundo walks into the lounge with a teenage girl and I can feel her attitude halfway across the room. He thumps his golf club on the floor like usual and says as if there’s anyone else in the room, “Can I have all y’all’s attention? This is our newest guest, Hannah.”
Her attitude isn’t the worst thing about her. Her short green hair has been shaved bald down the middle and pulled into pigtails, making her look like a demented clown. She’s wearing a Ramones T-shirt, black pants, and a nose ring. Her skinny arms are crossed over her chest, and she’s frowning about something. I don’t know why anyone would purposely make themselves look like a mental patient, but at least she doesn’t have fifty piercings in her face.
I move toward the wannabe rebel and her angry gaze meets mine. Great. I smile and remind myself that I’m an uplifting and hopeful janitor. “Welcome, Hannah.”
“My name isn’t Hannah. I self-identify as Jello. My pronouns are ze/zir,” she says, like changing her patient name is an option around here.
Raymundo shifts his weight to one hip and shakes his head. “You can identify as a baboon’s red ass, but around here, you’re Hannah.”
“Charming.”
She unfolds her arms and looks me up and down. “Nice sparkles,” she says in that special way reserved for snooty teenagers.
I laugh like I mean it and look down at my shirt. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t know they sold five-X at GapKids.”
No one has ever mentioned my weight, and I raise my gaze to Raymundo. “If I wasn’t a janitor, I’d identify her as ‘Clown Show.’?”
Raymundo smiles and says, “I’m promotin’ you to apprentice concierge again.”
“What? You can promote me? Is that in the PORC guidebook?”
“Concierge Powers: 1.1.1.12.” He grins like the devil. “This young lady is all yours. Congratulations.”
I watch him walk away and raise a fist in the air. Yes! I’m back and I don’t have to be nice and uplifting all the time anymore.
“Is a pork handbook like rules for fatties?”
Nor have I ever been called a fatty. I turn to her and say, “You don’t want to mess with me, kid. I’ll cut you to the bone with a smile.” I gesture to the room and am going to forget she said the f-word, because I’m trying to work my way to heaven one good deed at a time. “This is the Limbo Lounge. Comatose patients come here to relax and socialize with others.”