Page 34 of The Heartbreak Hotel

Twenty-Six

Willa shows up later that week—Halloween—with five friends in tow.

All of them are wearing black tiaras. She made the booking two weeks ago, with a note to confirm that all six of them could fit into my three available rooms. With the extra cot I ordered for the Lupine Room, the answer was yes.

But I didn’t expect this: music blasting from their rental car, black tutus, black wigs.

“It’s an un-bachelorette,” Willa says when she greets me at the door.

“Jamie broke off the engagement a month before we were supposed to go to Nashville.” She yanks a woman forward from the back of the pack, bracing both hands on her shoulders.

“This is Lucy, our un-bride.” Lucy manages a smile and gives me a helpless shrug. “And I’m maid of dishonor.”

“Wow,” I say. I’m trying to place the feeling at seeing these six women on my doorstep, gathered around Lucy in her heartbreak. I’m flattered they chose the Comeback Inn. I’m moved they still went on a trip together. “Welcome.”

The house has a completely different feeling with the un-bachelorette crew upstairs: louder, more laughter, a significant boost in serotonin.

Nan borrows one of their wigs and wears it proudly for the entire afternoon.

Shani, on the last night of her stay, plays cards with them in the living room while Alfie snores on her lap.

And Henry doesn’t text me back. Not in response to the I’m sorry about that timing.

Rain check? I sent right after Goldie left.

Not in response to the picture I sent this afternoon of Alfie sitting on my coffee table with a black tutu wrapped around him.

And not in response to the Please talk to me I sent an hour ago, growing desperate, aching to see his name pop up on my phone.

It’s nearly nine o’clock, the sun long lowered. I haven’t heard from him since Sunday.

“What’s going on over there, Lou?” Nan asks, catching my eyes across the living room. Willa and Lucy are snuggled on the couch, their other friends clustered on the floor around the coffee table. One of them is shuffling a deck of cards, another one refilling wineglasses.

“I’m good,” I say, pulling on a smile. I’m not good—I’m balancing on the knife’s edge of myself. Nan frowns at me, but the other women are talking so loudly she gets swept up in the tide of their conversation.

“Right,” Willa’s saying, “but the only thing worse than canceling a wedding is being married to someone who doesn’t actually deserve you.”

“Well said,” Nan agrees, glancing back at me.

I clear my throat. “You’re right, Willa. Lucy, you dodged a bullet—even if it feels, right now, like you took it straight to the heart.”

Lucy gives me a watery smile, and one of her friends thrusts a wineglass into her hand.

I think of Nate at twenty-three, fresh off his second album, asking me what kind of rings I like.

The question had come out of nowhere, out of the darkness, past midnight with his body settled over mine.

Sweaty, spent. I hadn’t even thought about marriage before then.

My mother never married; Goldie would never marry; it had never mattered to me what Nate’s title was. He was just my Nate.

But something changed, after that conversation.

A new expectation had been introduced into our relationship—that, eventually, there would be a leveling up.

And so even as we grew apart, as all the things that made us good for each other fell away, I stayed.

I stayed, Nate Payne’s purple girl , until I was blue in the face from holding my breath.

Henry has felt like an inhale. And sitting in his—my—living room, not knowing if I’ve ruined things between us, feels like choking.

I see movement in the garden, and my heart lurches into my throat. But it’s only Joss, her face hidden by a baseball cap, her hands wrapped around a hose. I leave my guests laughing around the card game and step outside for some fresh air.

“Hey, Lou,” Joss calls. “Sorry it’s so late. I had a crazy day but I need to give the new tree some water.”

“Thank you,” I say, tucking my hands into my jacket pockets. I lower onto the porch steps and hunch my shoulders against the cold. “I like it, by the way.”

It’s some kind of baby pine, very Dr.Seuss, lopsided and furry-looking.

Joss stops to look at it in the garden’s fairy lights, leaning on her rake. “Thanks,” she says. “Henry hates it.”

My chest tenses at his name, and I draw a deep breath that hurts my ribs. I wonder if that’s what they’ve been fighting about. Why Henry would give a shit about what tree Joss chose for the yard. “Why?”

She turns on the hose. “Not his style, I guess.” After a moment, still watering, she adds, “Something happen? I saw him leave in a hurry over the weekend.”

Fuck. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, wishing Mei were here. I should have called her instead of coming outside. “Oh, no,” I say. My voice sounds unconvincing, even to me. “He was just fixing something upstairs.”

Joss nods. “You okay?”

I push on my knees, standing from the step. “Yeah. Sorry, I just remembered I need to make a phone call.”

Joss shoots me an unsure smile and a wave. I’m dialing Mei before I’m even inside, passing the group in the living room and making for the stairs. She picks up just as I’m getting to my bedroom.

“Hey, Lou. You okay?”

Am I so terrible at hiding my emotions? I haven’t even spoken yet. But, I mean: “No.”

I hear a door close over the line. “What happened?”

“Henry went down on me in my bathroom and then Goldie showed up and I kind of kicked him out and now I’m pretty sure he hates me.”

Mei is silent for five full seconds. “Wait, what ?” Then she asks a string of questions in such rapid succession I have no time to answer any of them: “Hot landlord Henry? In your bathroom ? While Quinn was there? Did Goldie know? Why would you kick him out?”

“Because I panicked,” I say, flapping my hands around the bedroom even though she can’t see me. “I didn’t want Goldie to know and make it a whole other thing about how I’m distracted from my career or not taking my life seriously or whatever else.”

“Oh my god,” Mei says. “Okay, damn. Okay. Why do you think he hates you?”

“It’s been four days , Mei, and he still isn’t texting me back.”

“Does he usually…text you back?” I can hear Mei playing catch-up, and feel guilty for not telling her about this sooner.

“No,” I say, “I don’t know, we haven’t really texted before.”

“So maybe he’s busy?”

“For four whole days? Maybe I’m just stupid and I hurt his feelings and he’ll kick me out of—”

“Lou?” There’s a rapid knock at my door, followed by Willa’s voice. “Can you come back? We need you?”

“Fuck,” I whisper into the phone. “I’m neglecting my house duties, I’ve got to go. Sorry, Mei.”

“Okay, well, call me back. Jesus.” She sounds exasperated, like she can’t catch her breath. “Clearly you have a lot to fill me in on.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” I stand from the bed, my face burning. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Bye.”

I draw a sharp breath and yank the door open, plastering on a smile. “Willa, hi. What’s up?”

She grins, reaching one hand up against the doorframe and leaning into it dramatically. “We want to go out. And we want you to come with us.”

There’s one bar open past ten in Estes Park: Ophelia’s Saloon.

I’ve been exactly once, years ago with Nate when the guys from Say It Now stayed over for a weekend and needed a little more go than our quiet mountain home could provide.

It’s dark inside, all wood panels and mounted animal heads—the kind of décor only a cretin carnivore could love. It’s Halloween, and it’s packed.

Lucy’s entourage makes short work of getting her to the front of the line and ordering a round of absurdly blue shots that make me think of Henry’s irises. I’ve barely knocked mine back when I decide to text him again.

I’m at Ophelia’s with some guests. Will you please come?

“Okay, Lou, what do you want next?” Willa’s eyebrows are hiked at me over the head of one of her other friends, a short woman with box braids named Dahlia.

Willa has incredible energy—she commands every single room she enters.

Somehow, she’s managed to get the bartender’s undivided attention in this packed space.

“Oh, I’m good,” I say. I can already feel the liquor, whatever it was, burning in the pit of my stomach.

“You sure?” Willa shouts. She and her friends are all wearing their black tutus; I’m decidedly unfestive in my usual jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt. The music is earsplitting, a heinous mash of country and EDM that vibrates up through the soles of my boots. “We’re doing cosmos.”

They make cosmos here? I glance down at my phone, which remains silent. I hate myself for fucking this up so fast.

“Okay, yeah,” I tell Willa. It’s a holiday, after all. “I’ll do a cosmo.”

I’m at the bottom of it, slurping the last dregs of pink from my glass, when I decide to text Henry again.

Please , I send. I’m sory.

Lucy’s little sister, Eloise, knocks her hip into mine. We’re dancing in a circle in the middle of the sweaty room; it’s mostly old men in motorcycle jackets in here, sipping whiskey and standing perfectly still. I text Henry again, correcting myself.

Sorry.

“Who’s that?” Eloise shouts over the music. “No men!”

“He’s my landlord!” I tell her. “Not a man man.”

She shrugs, appeased, and angles the straw of her drink into her mouth, missing once before she gets it.

“ Fuck Jamie! ” Willa screams in the split-second lull between songs. All six of us other girls—Nan and Shani stayed home—shout it back to her. Somewhere between the first and second cosmos, the call-and-response has become something of a bit.

Lucy lifts her drink in the air. “And fuck the wedding industrial complex!”

Everyone repeats it back to her with varying degrees of accuracy. The next song starts and their voices drown out; my phone buzzes in my hand and I nearly scream.