Page 35 of The Dream Hotel
A n hour after breakfast, her stomach starts to hurt. Maybe I’m just reacting to the ambient panic, she thinks, maybe it’s gas or indigestion. She drinks water from the fountain, careful that her lips not graze the spout, but a few minutes later her mouth fills with bile and she has to throw up, barely reaching the toilet bowl in time. The eggs and potatoes she had this morning come out, in eruptions that surprise her with their violence. A stream of orange vomit sluices down the toilet to the floor.
“Oh, boy,” Emily says from her cot, where she’s been drawing her comic book since she quit her job. She has borrowed Victoria’s pillow, using it to prop up her drawing pad, and over this new setup she watches Sara. With a socked foot, she pushes to the edge of the mattress the pack of sanitizing wipes Elias sent, and which they’ve been sharing since the start of the outbreak.
Sara wipes the toilet and floor as best as she can, washes her hands, then lies down on her cot. Soon she is shivering under the blanket. The last time she was sick was with a cold she’d caught at a friend’s wedding, the spring before her retention. She’d spent two days at home, snug under her duvet, watching movies, and when Elias brought the twins from daycare he also brought her that chicken soup she liked from the deli down the street and some flowers to cheer her up. Back then she’d felt sorry for herself, being stuck in bed when she could be playing with the kids or going out for a walk. But her retention has erased that kind of aimless self-pity. She has to withstand the pains and aches in her body.
—
She walks into the main hall, pausing as always to admire the Arnautoff mural. She has a thick book under one arm, a biography of Sayyida al-Hurra that she needs to return to the library before it closes. Hinton comes out of the sentry post just then, wearing blue dungarees, but no shirt. From shoulder to wrist his arms are bandaged, and his face is puffy—perhaps a side effect of whatever medication he has been put on for his injuries. “Huthein,” he calls out to her. His speech is distorted, the sibilants mushy for lack of teeth. What happened to him? “Thay where you are,” he says. “Wait.”
“What is it?”
Three retainees on their way back from the cafeteria stop to watch.
“What’d I do?” Sara asks. “I’m just going to the library, that’s all.”
“I thaid, wait.” Hinton steps inside the attendant post and presses a button, whereupon two police detectives instantly materialize at the entrance to the main hall. One is tall and skinny, the other short and fat, just like in the movies. This isn’t real, Sara thinks, this isn’t really happening. When one of them takes a cigarette out of his mouth, and stubs it under his foot before walking up to her, she almost laughs.
But as the detective gets closer, a sick feeling comes over her. She looks at her hands, and finds that instead of a book, she’s holding a can of fuel.
A big, red, five-gallon can, enough to set fire to the whole place.
How did it get here? Only a minute ago, she had a book. Now she has the gasoline, material evidence that she’s the criminal they’ve been alleging she is all this time.
The three retainees watch and whisper amongst themselves.
“Sara Hussein,” the short cop tells her, bringing out handcuffs, “you have the right to remain silent.”
—
She is scrolling through Nabe at the park while the twins play in the sandbox. Elias has gone to buy coffee from the cart across the street, leaving her to watch the kids. He’s taking his sweet time, she notices. It’s an early morning in winter, but the sun is already hot. “Come out of there, guys,” she tells the kids after a moment. “Let me put some more sunscreen on you.” She rummages through the tote bag that sits beside her. In it are diapers, wipes, a small bottle of lotion, an empty Altoids tin, some tissues, cheese snacks, a bottle of water, bobby pins, anything and everything except sunscreen. She forgot it at home—again.
And the award for the worst mother of the year goes to…
God, she needs coffee. At least she has the kids’ wide-brimmed hats, she didn’t forget those. “Come out of there, guys,” she tells the kids. “Let me put these on you.” Mohsin shakes his head no. With a bright yellow plastic shovel, he digs a hole in the sand, drops his shoe in it, and starts shoveling sand over it. Mona helpfully pours water over it from her watering can. There goes another pair of shoes, Sara thinks. She really, really needs coffee. Why is Elias taking so long? “Come out for a second, please,” she says. “Let me put these hats on you.”
Mona uses her rake on a different patch of sand, while Mohsin crawls to a new spot, directly under the sun.
“Come out of there, please.”
It’s as if they can’t hear her.
“I’m not gonna tell you again,” she says between her teeth. Stepping into the sandbox she picks up her son and, over his screams of protest, gets his hat on him. As she’s about to put him down, she realizes she’s wearing white from head to toe—widow’s white.
The park turns into her apartment, the sandbox into the living room rug. The imam has arrived with a piece of paper for her to sign, so he can proceed with the funeral arrangements. All around her are friends and neighbors who have come to offer condolences on the sudden death of her husband. It’s unbelievable, they say, shaking their heads. He was a good swimmer; he might’ve made it out of the river if he wasn’t carrying two backpacks.
In the corner Elias’s mother wails, points a finger at Sara—who wakes up with a start, eyes crusty with dried tears, and has to throw up again.
—
For two days she lies in bed. The world outside her room ceases to exist, and the only news she hears comes to her secondhand, from Emily. The housing expansion is complete, the construction workers are gone. Ana’s boyfriend proposed to her when he came to visit this morning. Supposedly he dropped on one knee and gave her a candy ring, bought from the vending machine. It’s kind of sweet, right? Another fire has erupted, this time in Klamath, where it’s already burned 80,000 acres. Why doesn’t Governor García activate the Western States Firefighting Alliance? That’s exactly what the treaty is for, situations like this—he’s making containment harder the longer he waits. That idiot Williams is still trying to chat up Victoria, he won’t take a hint. Another thirty-five people have caught the virus, and one threw up on her keyboard in Trailer C. She couldn’t run out to the bathrooms in the main building, and there are no trash cans in the trailer.
Sara feels more settled on the third day. After morning device check she has stamina enough to clean herself up and make her bed. It is a cool morning in November; she shivers as she stands at the window, waiting for the old woman. A lanky teenage boy appears at the bus stop instead, dragging a metal cart filled with straw goods. He has long black hair that he wears in two neat braids, and narrow shoulders that disappear under the bulk of his jacket. Maybe the old woman has been hurt in the fire, and now her grandson, or her nephew, or a neighborhood kid is in charge of selling her wares in her absence. Standing at the bus stop he stares at his phone, never looking up from it no matter how long Sara waits at the window. Then the bus arrives and carries him off.
Every day is a struggle, Sara thinks. We need friends if we are to make it through.
Across the room Emily is gathering her things for a shower. So far she’s managed to dodge the virus: she jokes that her mother’s cooking has given her a stomach of steel, she can handle anything. After she goes down to breakfast, Sara reads a few pages of The Metamorphosis , then puts it away, stacking it neatly above her letters. With any luck, she might have some mail today. She runs a finger on the framed picture of the twins, then yawns and stretches her arms above her head. She really is feeling better this morning, she might even be able to eat.
But at the cafeteria, the smell of the oatmeal makes her nauseous, and the growling from her stomach sounds like a preemptive protest. It feels good to be out of her room, though, to go through the motions of an ordinary day, even if she can’t eat. She carries her tray to one of the tables by the window, where Emily and Victoria are chatting happily. “Where’s everyone?” Sara asks as she sits down.
“Toya and Alice are both sick,” Victoria tells her. “I don’t know about Marcela.”
They resume their conversation. It sounds like they’re talking about Reno, a city Sara associates with a lyric from a country song, but that Emily knows quite well, having grown up only a few miles from the border with Nevada. “I used to work as a cashier at the ski resort in Reno, back when it still snowed there, but what I really wanted was to work at the casinos, ’cause the pay was better.”
“Doesn’t pay much, actually,” Victoria replies. “I made most of my money in tips. I got licensed so I could work in San Manuel, and on a good day I could clear eleven, twelve hundred in cash.”
“Where’s San Manuel?”
“You know, up in the Mojave?”
Emily shakes her head. “I’ve never been. When did you work there?”
While the two chatter, Sara looks out at the grounds, where one of the gardeners is showing the other how to spread fertilizer on the lawn. The ritual is one of the constants of her childhood: every November, gardens up and down the street from her parents’ were covered in a pungent, brown mixture, the stench lasting for days. It will be unpleasant to sit outside today, when all she wants is to feel the sun on her face; she’s desperate for some fresh air after three days in her room.
The squeak of rubber shoes on the vinyl floors makes her turn away from the window. In quick, determined steps, Hinton and Williams approach her table. What will they come up with this time? She’s been surprised, these last few months, at how inventive the attendants can be in interpreting the handbook. If you loiter, you’re lazy. If you rush, you must be up to no good. One day your hair is messy, another your nails are too long. Hinton is better at this game than all the others combined, and now that she’s not working she knows she’s more of a target than ever.
But the attendants don’t look at her at all. Williams is pointing his Tekmerion at Victoria.
“What’re you doing?” Victoria asks, amused.
Standing at Williams’s elbow, Hinton waits as the system pulls up Victoria’s file. “Enter it as a Class A,” Hinton orders. “And then when you get to the next screen, I’ll show you the box for vandalism. It’s not obvious on this software update.”
“Okay,” Williams replies. He starts typing, his lips moving silently, like a child working out a math problem.
“Wait, what?” Victoria says, jumping up to her feet. Sunlight strikes her face, bringing out her almond eyes, her perfect cheekbones. But it’s the fierceness of her expression that makes her stand out. “What vandalism?” she asks, ignoring Williams and addressing herself to the senior attendant. “What’re you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”
“You broke the cameras upstairs,” Hinton informs her, his eyes never leaving Williams’s Tekmerion. “That’s gonna cost you 180 days.”
“180? Are you fucking serious? I didn’t touch your cameras. I was downstairs that morning, you can ask anyone.”
“She was downstairs,” Emily volunteers. “I saw her.”
“Robbins, stay out of this,” Hinton hisses. “We’ll get to you another time.”
Victoria turns her attention back to Williams. “Come on, Cary.” Her tone suggests she’s disappointed in him, but he can still make up for his blunder if he reverses course. “You know I didn’t do this. I was downstairs the whole time. How can you write me up? You don’t have any proof.”
“I have a witness report,” Williams says, chin tilted in protest. But he averts his eyes, as if he doesn’t trust himself to face Victoria. Confidence drains from his face. His thumbs are poised uncertainly over the screen.
Hinton intervenes. “See the button that says More ? Click on that. Go ahead, click. Now scroll through and hit Next for the next page. There, you see where it says Vandalism ?”
“Got it. Thanks, boss.”
“What witness are you talking about?” Victoria asks. “Give me a name. Give me her fucking name and let’s see what she has to say.” She looks around the dining room, daring the informant to come forward. A long minute passes, the only sound the splash of the power faucet in the kitchen. “See? Somebody’s making up shit about me and you’re writing me up without any proof.”
“She was downstairs,” Sara tells Williams, recalling the day of the evacuation. “We both saw her. She was playing cards with Alice, you can just ask her if you don’t believe us.”
“Alice Carter’s out of commission,” Hinton says. “She’s been taken to the ER.”
“The ER? Is she all right?”
Victoria moves a step closer to Williams. “Someone must’ve lied about me.”
“And you know all about that, don’t you.”
“I’m not a snitch,” Victoria says between her teeth. “Fuck off with your accusations already.” She looks like she’s going to punch him, then thinks better of it. She takes her tray to the busing station, where she dumps it and stomps out of the cafeteria.
“Phew,” Williams says, his face pink. He seems pleased with how it all turned out. “She’s got a temper on her, that one.”
Hinton nods. “Let me know if you have any more trouble with the system.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Williams leaves, and Hinton returns to his station, looking disappointed that the excitement is already over. Around the cafeteria the women slowly go back to their food, their idle chatter.
Sara takes a deep breath. The revolting smell of the oatmeal reaches her again, and she has to push the tray away. 180 days! That’s probably the longest extension she’s heard of since she’s been here. She waits for the conversations around her to get loud enough for her to speak. “This is revenge. Because she keeps ignoring his advances.”
“Williams’s had his eye on her for a while,” Emily says, scraping the last of the oatmeal from its slot on her tray. The sound makes Sara’s skin crawl, it’s all she can do not to grab the spork. Emily finishes eating, licking the last of the oatmeal from her utensil. “But also, she did it.”
“What? How do you know?”
“I just do,” Emily says with a grin. “It’s gonna take a couple of weeks to replace all the cameras, that’s why they’re so pissed.”
“But I saw her with Alice. We both did.”
“That was much later, when we were all waiting for the buses. She’d already taken care of the cameras by then.”
“That’s amazing.” Victoria Aguilar is whom they have to thank for the private conversations they’ve been able to have on the residential floor since they got back from Victorville. They’ve enjoyed other small pleasures, too: sitting in their underwear when the rooms get too hot, or bartering for items they need, or staying up when the lights are out. “ She’s amazing.”
“Right? I really like her.”
Sara laughs. “Yeah? What about Clara?”
“Oh, you have it wrong,” Emily replies, though she sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. “It’s not like that at all. We’re just friends.”
“If you say so.”
—
She returns upstairs after breakfast. The floor is still damp from this morning’s cleaning, the air thick with the scent of synthetic pine, but she can still detect the sour smell of disease. Too many people have been up all night vomiting. At the door of 234 she stops. Alice’s cot has been stripped of its sheet and blanket, and her pillow taken away. Across the room Toya lies on her side with one hand shielding her eyes. The light from the window is placid, the rays of a mild sun on an ordinary day. “Hey,” Sara whispers as she steps inside, “you awake?”
Toya takes her hand from her face. Her eyes look jaundiced, her lips pale.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Like hell.”
“Your first day?”
“Second.” Toya raises herself slowly on one elbow until she makes it to a sitting position. On the shelf above her bed are a couple of library books, a few origami birds, and a picture of her with her husband, their eight-year-old bichon frisé, Monty, between them. “I guess I should be grateful I’m not in the ER.”
Two retainees walk past 234, arguing over something, followed a minute later by Marcela pushing the janitorial cart, where the mop bucket sloshes with dirty water. She looks exhausted, perhaps she’s getting sick herself.
Sara leans against the doorjamb, too tired to continue standing, but too wary of Alice’s bed. “What happened to her?”
“She was in bad shape, she couldn’t even get up when she needed to throw up. I told them, but by the time they came to check on her, she’d passed out. She told me once that she’d had hernia surgery a while back, but I don’t know if that has anything to do with it.”
“And it’s the norovirus, not something else?”
“As far as I know.”
“Well, at least she gets to be out of this place for a few days.”
“Always look on the bright side of life.”
Sara laughs and with her thumb points to the picture of the bichon frisé. “All this time I thought you’d named your dog after Monty Clift.”
Footsteps draw her attention back to the hallway. A man wearing a face mask and surgical gloves is visiting, flanked by Hinton, Jackson, and Yee. Walking down the hallway, he stops at nearly every room, sometimes asking questions that the attendants take turns answering. Is he some kind of doctor? No, he has stopped to examine the broken cameras, shaking his head slowly as Hinton explains that it will take another few days for the replacements to arrive. “The vendor had a force majeure situation,” he says, raising himself slightly on his heels.
“What situation?”
“There was a Category 5 hurricane in Malaysia, sir? The flooding has affected the factory where the cameras are made, hence the delays in shipping.”
But the man is grumpy. “For what they’re charging us, they should’ve delivered them by courier overnight.”
Maybe it’s an accountant, Sara thinks.
The group moves to 222, where both occupants have been sick with the virus, and are sleeping on soiled sheets. This time it is Jackson’s turn to explain that there is still a shortage in clean laundry, exacerbated by the fact that she can’t fill every shift. “I sent you a memo about this, sir,” she says. “I can manage in the trailers, but I can’t get extra shifts in laundry or custodial. The residents are afraid of handling contaminated material.”
This doesn’t appear to satisfy the visitor. “We’re not gonna get this place running properly again if we can’t get the virus under control.”
“It’s the chief retention officer,” Sara whispers, suddenly recognizing his baritone.
Curiosity about the man they’ve been hearing from only through his occasional audio announcements is enough to push Toya to stand next to Sara at the door of her room. The CRO is a short man in his forties, dressed in jeans and a blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His arms are covered in dark, fuzzy hair. But although she can now match a body to the voice on the loudspeaker, she still doesn’t know what he looks like, his face being shielded by a surgical mask. Still, watching him dress down the attendants gives Sara a rush of satisfaction.
“I can get you more linens,” the CRO says. “I’m placing an order anyway for the new wing. Where’s Ortega?”
“Out sick.”
“He’s out, too?” Now the CRO sounds angry. “Was he eating in the cafeteria?”
This is against the rules, everyone knows that. The attendants glance at one another before Hinton replies for them. “I don’t think so, sir. He could’ve caught it anywhere in the facility.”
“Okay,” the CRO says, in a tone that suggests he’s heard enough, he has all the information he needs to make a decision. The group reaches 231, diagonally from where Sara and Toya are standing. “This looks bigger than on the feed,” the CRO says, with surprise in his voice. He pulls out his phone to take a picture. “I think we can fit another cot in here.”
Sara steadies herself against the doorjamb. She must’ve misheard the man; he can’t possibly be thinking of adding more retainees to this wing, when he has an entire new wing to fill and they’re in the middle of an outbreak. Toya lets out a sigh; standing up by the door has tired her. She returns to her cot, but almost immediately she has to rush to the toilet bowl. The sound of her retching makes the CRO turn around, taking notice of 234 and its stripped-out cot.
“234A is the one that got sent to the ER, right?” he asks.
“Yes, sir,” Hinton replies.
“So who’s this, then?”
“My name is Sara,” she says, her heartbeat quickening. There is so much she wants to say: she’s innocent of any crime, she shouldn’t be under retention, she’s already been at Madison far longer than would be necessary to decide her case. And she’s not alone: almost everyone here has been in limbo for months, and in a few cases years. “Sara Tilila Hussein.”
“The resident from 208,” Hinton puts in.
“What’s she doing here?” the CRO asks.
“I wanted to check on my friend.”
“Shouldn’t she be at work?”
“I quit.”
The CRO isn’t looking at Sara at all. Now he’s waiting for an answer from Jackson.
“Sir, as I explained in the me—”
“I know what you put in your memo. And as I said in my memo, you need to show some initiative. Figure it out. Or do I have to do everything around here?”
Meanwhile, Toya has finished rinsing her hands. She sits on her cot, leaning forward so she can watch through the doorway.
“I mean, just look at these two,” the CRO says. “Look how weak and filthy they are. How do you expect to get this situation sorted out when you guys can’t maintain the most basic hygiene?”
“We don’t even have soap,” Toya says from the doorway.
The attendants glare at her. Shut up if you know what’s good for you.
If the CRO heard her, he gives no indication, moving on to the next room, where he asks about the broken pipes. The attendants follow at his heels, providing updates or explanations.
The encounter was brief, but it knocks the breath out of Sara. She has to sit down on Alice’s cot, with her elbows on her knees and her head tucked between her hands. What just happened? The CRO is the most powerful agent at Madison, the only one with the discretion and authority to decide how it should be run. But he didn’t seem to see her. She’s not even sure he heard her name.