Page 32 of The Dream Hotel
E asy for him to say , Sara thinks. The CRO manages this facility and four others from his home, where he can work undisturbed on finding new contracts for Safe-X, negotiating terms and conditions, and ensuring that profits continue to rise. The smooth baritone of his voice may be familiar to Sara, but she has never spoken to him or seen him up close—he doesn’t interact with individual retainees.
Fifteen minutes after his announcement, the commissary sells out of pink bismuth and electrolyte drinks. The small bottle of hand sanitizer that Elias shipped to Sara before the wildfire becomes a high-value commodity: she is offered lip balm for it, then ramen noodles, beef jerky, carrot chips, a battered copy of The Metamorphosis.
The book is impossible to resist.
She is pleased with the trade, but walking back to her room she passes Linh throwing up in 203, and worries she might have made a mistake. Maybe she should’ve kept the hand sanitizer. Getting sick is the last thing she needs. But aren’t soap and water better at warding off contamination? All she has to do is be extra mindful about washing her hands. She’ll be fine.
She spends the morning reading, taking special pleasure in being able to underline a passage she likes or circle a word or a phrase that surprises her. In her life before, she had hundreds of books, so many that they were piled in leaning ziggurats along the wall of her bedroom. She walked past them every day, but it is only now that she understands what luxury it is to own a book.
If Sara feels sick, it is for home. Home is a baby’s sock under the coffee table, wildflowers on the hallway wallpaper, a window that opens to let in fresh air. Home is the sweet babbling rising from the double cribs after she turns off the light, and the barking of the neighbor’s dog late at night. There he goes again, Elias complains, he’s going to wake the kids. Home is the warmth of her husband’s body against hers whenever she stirs at night. The music of Miles Davis on a Sunday morning. A bowl of apricots, still damp after a rinse. The squawk of seagulls at the drive-through down the street. Elias saying “Want to take a walk? I’m feeling cooped up all of a sudden.” Rooms that aren’t scorching hot, rooms that aren’t freezing cold. Water in a tall, clear glass.
She reads until her attention is drawn by a conversation taking place in the corridor not far from her room. Jackson and Ortega are helping a civilian who stands on a stepladder, pointing a miniature flashlight at one of the broken Guardian cameras. It must be a technician from the video-surveillance company, sent here to assess the extent of the sabotage. He pokes at a camera with a miniature screwdriver, then whistles in admiration. Whoever did this knew what they were doing, he says. It would’ve been enough to rip the cords, but they also broke the lenses and cut off the emergency batteries. There are twenty-two cameras in the hallway of the residential floor; every one of them will have to be replaced.
“Damn,” Ortega says. “How long is that gonna take?”
The technician consults his tablet, then issues a verdict: two weeks.
“That long?”
“Sorry, man. We’re dealing with shipping delays right now.”
Sara smiles as she returns to her cot. Had she been working her usual shift in Trailer D she would never have heard this valuable piece of information. Two weeks will give her time to talk to everyone on the floor about the strike.
So far, though, her efforts haven’t gained much momentum. Toya, Emily, and Victoria are the only retainees who’ve quit their jobs. The others are afraid of getting into trouble, or they’re sick with the norovirus, or they need the paycheck, or they’re so tired from the extended shifts that Jackson has scheduled to meet the new Vox-R deadline that all they want is a moment of peace and quiet before lights out.
At the cafeteria she eats lunch with the other strikers, noticing at once that Alice has elected to sit in the opposite direction from them. Marcela is working through lunch; she’s been asked to clean up the infirmary again. But many of the tables are empty, Sara notices, which makes it easier for the cameras to record conversations, even if they’re practiced at keeping their voices hushed. For now, silence is the only protection.
She tries to eat as slowly as she can; today’s serving of turkey casserole seems even more frugal than usual. She finishes the cup of tapioca pudding on her tray, running her thumb on the rim to catch the last bit. Only after she’s licked her finger does she realize what she’s done. Who knows where that cup has been? The service counter, the tray, the seat, the table—all these are potential vectors of disease. The meal turns stressful, a protracted exercise in remembering anything else she might have touched.
While her friends head outside, she goes to the bathroom to wash up, but there is no soap and the paper towel dispenser is empty. She rinses her hands in scalding hot water, counting to thirty before she turns off the tap, and dries her hands on her shirt.
Walking through the main hall afterwards, she passes a clump of retainees talking beneath the Arnautoff mural while a janitorial cart sits beside them. One of the women suddenly detaches herself from the group, puts a hand over her mouth, but can’t stop herself from spewing a thick stream of green bile, which lands on the floor, spattering the other retainees’ uniforms. “I’m sorry,” she says helplessly. It all happened so fast that no one in the group had a chance to get out of the way. Sara quickens her pace, giving the group a wide berth as she leaves the main hall.
She is relieved when she finally reaches the exercise yard; there is enough space here to avoid unnecessary contact with others. It is a sunny afternoon in November, and the air smells faintly of the hot tar that a city crew spread on the highway yesterday.
Jackson has left the shade of her post under the breezeway. She’s walking the perimeter in the opposite direction from Sara, stopping every once in a while to chat with one retainee or another. By the time Sara finishes her third lap, Jackson is talking to Victoria, who has lingered at a table with her deck of cards after Toya and Emily left. Sara comes to stand at the light pole nearby, using it to steady herself as she does her stretches, all the while eavesdropping on their conversation.
“So why’d you quit your job?” Jackson is asking.
“Didn’t feel like doing it anymore.” Victoria picks up the deck in her right hand and peels off cards one after the other with the thumb of her left hand. Her movements are languid, yet proficient. A can of Coke sits in front of her, the metal casing sweating in the heat.
“I can always put you somewhere else. Maybe custodial?”
“No, thanks.”
“If you’re worried about the virus, I’ll find you another spot. It doesn’t have to be custodial.”
Victoria stacks the cards in front of her and makes as if to stand.
But Jackson takes a seat at the table. “Want a cigarette?”
Victoria hesitates. Then: “No, I’m all right.”
Jackson lights up, letting out a huge puff of smoke. “So who put you up to it?” she says, crossing her legs and holding her cigarette aloft. She is at pains to look relaxed, but instead she looks affected.
“I’m not up to anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t? Because you and Emily Robbins quit within minutes of each other. That girl is up to no good, you should know that by now if you know nothing else.”
Victoria splits the deck in two, and riffles the cards together. Then, her movements swift and precise, she creates a bridge and squares the cards together again. Casino style. “No one put me up to it, boss,” she says with a chuckle. “And definitely not that old cow.”
“Uh-huh.”
Victoria fans the deck on the table. “Pick a card.”
Jackson pulls one, looks at it, then puts it back. “If you don’t want to take a full shift, I can get you a half shift two or three times a week. Nice and easy.”
Victoria shuffles the deck, then fans the cards again. She pulls out an ace of spades. “This your card?”
Jackson nods. “So how about it? A half shift three times a week?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“All right, then. But just so you know, your score’s gonna go up again. Which is a shame.” She stands up, dusting off her knees. “I thought you were one of the smart ones.”
Jackson returns to the sentry post under the breezeway, from where she surveys the retainees scattered across the yard, two or three of them exercising, but the others just resting or getting some sun before having to go back to work. Then she pulls out her Tekmerion.
Sara comes to sit at the table. “Will you show me how you do that trick?”
Victoria takes a long swig from her soda. She shuffles the cards again and fans them in a wide arc in front of Sara. “Keep your eyes open,” she says with a smile.
Sara picks a card, then puts it back.
“See where my thumb is?” Victoria asks. “That’s how I mark the card you picked. Then I just shuffle the deck like this, see, fan it, and voilà. This is your card, right?”
“Yes, it is. Nicely done.”
Victoria demonstrates a few more plays, the tricks becoming more elaborate and harder to spot as time passes. When the sun reaches their table, she shields her face with one hand, but soon she heads back to the main building, leaving Sara alone.
On the other side of the exercise yard, a huge white truck beeps as it reverses toward the service entrance. Two construction workers in dusty uniforms appear at the gate, guiding the driver to where the vehicle should stop. They load their materials and equipment into the bed of the truck then drive off, trailing a cloud of exhaust.
The yard gets quiet again.
By the looks of it, construction is nearly done. Twenty new rooms will be opened, each housing two retainees, or sometimes three. All Jackson has to do is wait, Sara thinks; she’ll have a fresh batch of workers to assign in a few weeks, or maybe just days. Yet she’s determined to fill up every spot on her schedule, even in the middle of an outbreak. Jackson seems troubled by the possibility of a strike—worried, even—despite the fact that she’s a lowly worker, too, replaceable the moment she outlasts her usefulness to the company.