Page 40 of The Dream Hotel
S he passes a bank of screens in the ground floor hallway. This afternoon it’s filled with public health messages and calls for volunteers to pick up additional work shifts. She stops to read the names of the lucky women who are receiving visitors today: Claire Lopez, Ana Guerrero, Stephanie Michaels, Toya Jones. All visits are marked as On Time , except Toya’s, which is listed as Cancelled .
Well, that’s strange. Toya’s husband is as punctilious as she is; he schedules his visits a month in advance, always taking a half day off from his job at the Veterans’ Administration to drive out here to see her. Could this be retaliation against her for joining the strike?
Emily warned them that this might happen, told them that when she was a teenage inmate in Lassen County, the guards took away visiting rights from anyone who got in trouble. “But we’re not in trouble,” Sara pointed out. “We have a right not to work.”
Now Sara stares at the screen, the letters and figures blurring before her. Is she prepared to give up the rare visits she gets from Elias and the twins? She might not last long if the choice is between working for Safe-X and seeing her family.
Maybe something happened to Toya’s husband, she tells herself. He ran into some car trouble, or something came up at work. Maybe he had to take Monty to the vet. Toya did say her dog was fourteen and was having hip trouble.
In this way, having reassured herself, she heads to the library to return her books. The autumn day is fading to an early dusk, the light from the windows is weak. She places the books on the return shelf next to Ana, who’s checking a catalogue of donated titles against the censored materials list.
At this hour, there is no wait at the computers. Sara opens the Los Angeles Times, and finds most of the front page taken up with coverage of a hurricane in Northern California. San Francisco is affected, as is Fremont, where her brother-in-law lives.
Before she can finish the article, Williams is at her elbow. “You’re done.”
“What do you mean?” By her estimation she still has another twenty-eight minutes to go.
“I mean, you’re done. You’ve lost library privileges.”
“But why?”
He holds up his Tekmerion. “You’re not cleared to be here. Come on. Get going.”
Legs weak, she stands up. The library is her only connection to the free world; losing it removes any pretense about her situation. She has no rights at Madison, despite what the handbook may say; she has privileges only, which can be revoked at signs of defiance.
Later, she commiserates with Toya over the day’s losses. They are outside the cafeteria, waiting for dinner service to start. “It’s just a fluke,” she says, in a weak attempt to cheer up Toya. PostPal is notoriously prone to mistakes and hiccups, so the cancellation of Toya’s visit could be just another example of the chronic malfunction that characterizes the entire retention system. “Remember how they marked me as unavailable, back in February?”
“But no one else’s visit was cancelled.”
“PostPal isn’t Safe-X,” Sara continues. “They have no idea who’s on strike.”
“How do you explain cutting your library access, then?”
Sara has no answer to that. The line isn’t long, the stomach flu having claimed another dozen retainees in the last twenty-four hours. As they reach the service window they are surprised to find Jackson serving mac and cheese. She ladles the orangey goop onto a tray and with a tired sigh slots a kid-size juice box into a compartment. Behind her, in the back of the kitchen, another attendant in a hairnet is opening a MealSecure container with a box cutter, unpacking the fruit cups inside onto the industrial table.
When the attendant comes out, Sara sees that it’s Hinton.