Emptying my stomach seems to help, but all those partying years tell me I need to get food into my system now. And I’m not getting food into my system until I fix my face, so I don’t look like something that just crawled out from under a bridge.
Step one: shower, assuming the room stops spinning enough for me to stand on a wet surface without dying.
“I just need to make it to the shower.” I stop talking when I smell my breath. “Step one has now changed to brushing my teeth.”
Forty minutes later, I’m showered with semi-fresh breath, which is as fresh as it gets once you’ve yacked up an entire bar inventory. My makeup is done with my hair in a messy bun on top of my head, and I decide that’s where my level of fashion stops for the day.
Listen, I got this far, okay?
I finally emerge from the bedroom and curse the time on the digital clock resting on the nightstand. “Seven in the morning? Did I seriously puke my guts out at six o’clock?”
Shoving away the idea of sleeping more, I apply some Chapstick and go to grab my clutch bag.
My phone is still sitting on the table, far away from the plug I brought with me.
Did I not charge it last night?
Wait.
“How did I even get back to my room?”
Looking around, I don’t see any signs of men’s clothing left behind, or any empty liquor bottles, suggesting that I brought someone back here.
The nausea starts to roll back up my throat at the thought of Theo coming to my hotel room in an attempt to reconcile. But there’s no way he could have been at this hotel bar because he decided to go to the Olympic Village with the team when I told him on the plane that he’s not sleeping in my hotel room.
One of the many arguments we managed to squeeze in on the flight.
Oh, what fun.
I pick up my phone and tap all the buttons.
Dead.
“Fuck,” I hiss, racing to find a charging cable. I’m sure I have a shit ton of notifications from my mom, Cassie, Michel, and Ollie.
“Come on, come on,” I cajole my phone as the dead battery symbol comes onto the screen when it registers that it’s plugged in. “Just get enough juice that I can turn you on.”
If someone were listening outside my door, they’d think I was having an amazing time in here. When, in reality, I’m talking to a piece of technology.
I need to get laid.
The phone finally has enough battery power to turn on, and thankfully, nothing burned down while I was MIA. Cassie only texted once to see if Theo was still alive. My mom called once and texted once. I make a mental note to get back to her, but not until I’ve sobered up.
Plus, it’s midnight back home, so I have some time to find a place that is willing to feed me.
Do they do room service at seven in the morning here? I would assume they do for the cost of the room, but I can’t be sure.
There are two other missed calls on my phone, both from Ollie with a voicemail in her thick New York accent.
“Ay, Toots,” she begins in the same way all of her messages to me do. “Just wanted to letcha know we booked the Studeio Vellutio down the road from theFour Seasons. It should only be a fifteen-minute drive, and we got you into a private room under the name Yolanda. Don’t roll your eyes at the name, Doll, it’ll do the trick.”
Her knowing exactly what I’m doing right now makes me smile. It’s almost like the old her is shining through again.
“Make sure you’re… DAMMIT, JENKINS,” she yells at her dog mid-message, and I can’t help but laugh. “Sorry, Toots. Anyway, make sure you’re workin’ on a new song for that album we talked about last week. I want somethin’ hot in the works. Make ‘em squeal like pigs. Alright, gotta run. Kisses, ‘n all that.”
“Kisses ‘n all that.” It’s one of her famous lines that I haven’t heard much since she had a stroke four months ago. Ever since the stroke, she’s been acting a little differently. Our video calls are strictly phone calls now, most of them through voicemail.
“That droop I got in my lips takes away from my badass Long Island glow.”
