“Cassandra, darling.” She takes me by both shoulders and kisses the air on either side of my face.
“Susan, hi. You look gorgeous.”
“Oh,please.” She pulls back and gives me an up-and-down. “Look at you. Look atthiscoat. It is so brave of you to wear that color.”
I blink. “Sorry?”
“Red! In January!” She pats my arm. “Most girls wouldn’t dare. But you’ve always had your own way of doing things, haven’t you?”
Forcing the smile back to my lips, I say, “You’re so sweet.”
“I mean it,” she insists. “Brave, brave, brave.”
Bill laughs at something Raymond mutters and claps him on the back. “Drinks on the terrace at six,” Bill says. “Don’t be late, son.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Bill claps him on the shoulder one more time and steers Susan off toward the front desk. Raymond’s hand slides off my waist the second they’re out of earshot. He pulls his phone out again, glares at it, and sets off toward the check-in counter without looking to see if I’m following.
Across the lobby, a man in a long black coat is signing something at the far end of the front desk. He’s standing in profile to me, head bent over the clipboard, dark hair falling forward into his eyes.
Matvei.
He hasn’t looked up, but he knows I’ve arrived. I can feel that he knows. There’s a stillness that comes over him, the same one I saw in the corner booth at Khaza a lifetime ago, the one that lets me know exactly where I am in his peripheral vision at all times.
A bellman wheels his single suitcase past him toward the staircase. Matvei takes his key, slips it into his coat pocket, and turns to follow without sparing the lobby a second glance.
I face front again before Raymond can clock my distraction.
“Honeymoon Suite for Mr. and Mrs. Snyder,” the clerk is chirping. “Mr. Oglethorpe upgraded you himself, sir. Congratulations. You’re on the third floor at the end of the east hall.”
“Lovely,” Raymond drawls. He might as well have said,I couldn’t give any less of a fuck.
I give the clerk a sympathetic smile.
“Enjoy your stay, Mrs. Snyder,” she says.
“Thank you so much,” I reply. “I think we’re all going to have a very good time.”
The Honeymoon Suite has a four-poster bed, a fireplace, and a clawfoot tub by the window. The windows frame a view over a snow-covered rose garden. It’s beautiful, undoubtedly so.
But when the bellman shuts the door behind him, Raymond drops his bag, rips off his coat, and walks straight into the bathroom with his phone pressed to his ear.
He shuts the door. The bathroom fan kicks on. I can hear a low, urgent murmur through the wood, and the occasional sharp retort when whatever the other person says lands wrong.
I sit on the edge of the bed. I’m still in my coat, but I don’t take it off. I’m not sure why. I just sit there with my purse on my knees and listen to my husband seethe at someone through a closed bathroom door for a quarter of an hour.
When he comes out, his face is the color of raw beef. He walks to the closet, hangs his coat on a velvet hanger, lines up the shoulders, smooths the lapels, and says, without turning around, “I’m going to play squash with Bill before drinks. Don’t wait up tonight. There’s a thing after dinner, partners only. Could go late.”
“Of course. Have fun, dear.”
He grabs his phone and his wallet and is out the door in under a minute. As soon as he’s gone, I order room service and put on pajamas. I take out my contacts. I sit on the four-poster bed and watch the fireplace do its thing for a while.
Hours tick by like that. At some point, the room service comes. A little wheeled cart with a domed plate and a sprig of rosemary on the napkin. I tip the kid in cash and eat half the grilled chicken sitting cross-legged on the bedspread, watching the flames lick at a log that won’t quite catch.
My mind drifts where it always drifts now.
Tohim.
