“You want to hear another?”
“No, thank you. I have to get to bed. But thanks anyway.”
“Don’t get lost in the woods or the kushtaka will steal your soul.”
The woman laughed grimly and Jenna felt uneasy.
“I’ll be careful,” Jenna said, pulling her backpack over one shoulder.
“You won’t know,” the woman said.
“Won’t know what?”
“When they’re after you.”
Jenna smiled.
“Thank you for the story. I’ll be careful,” she said, and started up the dock. She suddenly had the feeling that the old woman was crazy. It was giving her the creeps. When she reached the end of the dock, the old woman called for her. Jenna thought about ignoring it, but instead she turned.
“The eyes,” the old woman called out, pointing toward her own eye. “They never change.” And then she cackled again, and an intense feeling of fear passed through Jenna. She had to get to the hotel and get a room. The whole scene was beginning to scare her.
Jenna hurried to the Stikine Inn and climbed the five steps to the front porch. It was dark inside. Jenna opened the screen and tried the door. It was unlocked. She slipped inside the dim lobby and closed the door behind her, feeling a little safer already.
The lobby was lit by a single small lamp on the front desk. Jenna approached and saw the bell, which she rang. The sound echoed through the lobby. Nothing stirred. This was bad. Jenna was getting freaked out. The old woman had scared Jenna. Not with her story but with her behavior. Jenna rang the bell again. Still no answer.
Jenna looked around the lobby for a chair she could curl up on for the night. There was a bench near the staircase. An old, wooden telephone booth. A couple of metal folding chairs. Toward the water was a dining room. But nothing looked very comfortable. Certainly not enough to sleep on. Behind the desk was a key rack with all the room keys on it. It didn’t look like the place was full. Jenna thought about helping herself and paying in the morning. But before she did, she tried the bell one more time.
This time there was a response. She heard some groans, then footsteps, and after a moment an elderly man appeared with mussed hair and blue pajamas.
“Sorry it’s so late,” Jenna apologized as he shuffled toward her.
“Ferry just get in?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The man pushed a white card toward her and handed her a pen.
“Fill this out.”
Jenna scribbled in her information. Name, address, length of stay. About a week. While she was writing, the man took a key off the key rack and slid it across the desk.
When Jenna was through with the card, the man picked it up and examined it closely.
“Leave your bags at the dock?” he asked.
“No, this is all I have.”
The man opened his eyes a bit wider than the half-mast he had been keeping them at.
“Staying a week and that’s all you have?”
“I travel light.”
The man shrugged and made a face as if Jenna were what was wrong with the world today. He continued looking at the card.
“Here on holiday?”
“Yeah. Actually, you know, my mother’s from here, so I’m just visiting to see the old town. I haven’t been here since I was a kid.”
“What’s her name?”
“Sally Ellis.”
The man nodded thoughtfully.
“How’s she doing?”
“Good. Living in New York.”
“New York? Humph. Well, tell her Earl says hello when you talk to her.”
“I will.”
“Room number nine,” Earl said, turning and shuffling off. Before he disappeared into the darkness of the back hallway, he pointed to the dining room that looked out to the water.
“This here’s the Totem Restaurant. Serves breakfast till eleven. Continental breakfast comes with the room. If you want eggs, that’ll be extra.”
And then he was gone.
Jenna climbed the stairs and found room number nine. She opened the door and found exactly what she expected, an old, comfortable, cheap hotel room. She dropped her backpack on the chair next to the door and flipped on the old color TV. A remote control was screwed to a metal base on the bedside table. The bed was flanked by two windows looking south, toward the inlet and the harbor. Two other windows looked east, toward the town.
Jenna looked out one of the windows and saw the dock. She cupped her hand over her eyes to see better. The old woman was still sitting there, creepy as ever. And then the old woman, as if she knew she was being watched, turned toward Jenna and waved up at her. Jenna drew back and quickly pulled down the shade. She went back to the door and latched the security chain. Not that the old lady was any kind of threat. Just for comfort.
She took off her jacket and threw it on the chair. She opened her jeans and pulled off her sweater. As she unhooked her bra she laughed out loud. The bed had been turned down, and on the pillow was a little chocolate mint wrapped in gold foil.
Home, at last.
Jenna and Robert met at a party. A Mexican theme party that Jenna really didn’t want to go to. Her happy-loving-couple friends, Henry and Susan, threw it. Make your own fajitas. Just grill and roll and eat. What fun. Dos Equis beer and frozen margaritas. Saturday afternoon on our deck overlooking Lake Union. Couples only, but we’ll invite Jenna so we all can remember what a single person looks like.
Okay, so Jenna was a little sensitive in those days. She was single and feeling a little alone. But for Jenna it wasn’t the being alone in the sense of having no partner. It was also, perhaps more so, the being alone in the sense of being by herself that got her. She couldn’t stand living alone, outside the physical reach of another human. Even if the other human didn’t ever say a word, it was important for Jenna to know that at all times there was another person alive in the world. Okay, it was weird, but Jenna could hardly take a shower alone. She always felt there was someone in the room, or someone about to break in, or someone waiting outside the window for the water to start so he could break the glass without her hearing and climb in and kill her. Her paranoia about being alone ruled her life, but she dealt with it, like she dealt with everything else. And she went to the party even though she was going to be the only single girl there. Because an obligation is an obligation, and if there is one thing Jenna did, it was honor an obligation. So she went and rolled fajitas.
There was a guy there. He was cute and he wasn’t a couple. How’d that happen? Friend of a friend, just moved to Seattle. Bring him along. Will there be enough food? Sure, bring some more beer, no problem. What does he do? He just graduated from the real estate program at Michigan. He looks like Tom Cruise. I’ve got the girl for him.
Okay, you spread the guacamole on the tortilla. On top of that, you arrange some strips of undercooked, salmonella-infested chicken. Top with onions and salsa, roll, and eat quickly before the juice running down your arm reaches your elbow.
“Hi, I’m Robert. Susan said you were really interesting and I should talk to you.”
“Robert. Right. The single guy.”
“The single guy?”
“There are only two single people here, Robert. One boy and one girl. I’m the girl.”
“I guess I’m the boy.”
“So you moved here from Michigan and your job starts in September?”
“You got my résumé.”
“Mrs. Levi gave me your profile.”
“Well, do you have any questions before I begin flirting with you?”
“A couple. Please keep your answers concise and relevant. What’s your stand on abortion?”
“My personal stand, or my stand on whether or not government has the right to restrict a woman’s right to choose?”
“Excellent. Prayer in schools?”
“I’m Jewish. I think that about covers it.”
“Did you vote for Reagan?”
“Never. I don?
??t care how much good he’s done for our country. It’s a principle thing.”
“How do you feel about the welfare system?”
“The concept of welfare is intrinsically good and a necessity in a progressive society. Our welfare system needs reform. But I pay all my taxes and I have the last honest accountant, so I could probably pay less if I wanted to protest the system’s inefficiencies. In other words—”
“I said concise. What about homosexuality?”
“Hey, free to be you and me.”
“Free to be you and me? Marlo Thomas?”
“Love her.”
“That wasn’t a question. Okay, you passed. Any questions for me?”
“Just one.”
“Shoot.”
“Will you marry me?”
Robert was young and smart. He liked real estate because it challenged his ability to read people. He wanted to settle down and have three kids. His mother taught him how to load the dishwasher and how to dry cast-iron frying pans by heating them on the burner so they don’t rust. He could sew buttons and wash and iron, but he couldn’t cook. He liked outdoor activities, but he didn’t like sports because he was too competitive for his ability. He hated shopping, but he loved to watch people shop. His only problem with money was that he liked to spend it. Especially on good dinners and good wines to go along with good dinners. He could dance the fox-trot and the waltz. His favorite cereal as a kid was Quisp, with Concentrate a close runner-up. He lived alone in a little apartment on Queen Anne Hill that was overpriced, but he liked it because it had a view of the Space Needle. And he thought Jenna had the most beautiful eyes ever in the history of the world and he really wanted to take her out on a date to get to know her better.
Jenna thought, He’s too clean. She thought, He’s too conventional. She thought, The last ten artists I dated were overbearing, conceited parodies of themselves. Maybe this guy’s different.
Jenna told Robert that she was leaving for Europe and maybe they’d go on a date when she got back. She was leaving next week. Going to visit a friend in Carimate, a little town south of Lake Como. Taking her camera and photographing doors. They have great doors in Italy. Little wood doors, iron doors, dog doors, doorknobs, door knockers, door handles. All doors, all the time. This was her chance to make a name for herself. A big step above wedding photography. She’d come back and publish a door book and get rich. Well, maybe not rich. But your reach must exceed your grasp, or what’s a heaven for?
“I’ll give you a call when I get back.”
“How about I meet you there?”
“Where?”
“Where are you flying to?”
“Milan. Then I’m renting a car, driving to Venice, and doubling back to Lake Como, stopping in towns and taking pictures of doors.”
“What towns?”
“I don’t know all of them. Vicenza, Padua, Verona . . .”
“When are you going to be in Verona?”
“I’d have to check my schedule.”
“Tell me when you’re going to be there and I’ll meet you. I’ve been there before. There’s a fountain in the main piazza. I’ll meet you at one o’clock on the day you tell me. We’ll go to dinner in Verona that night, and if you like it, maybe we can go on a second date as long as we’re in Italy together.”
Jenna called him once after that party to tell him she would be in Verona on June sixteenth. She didn’t talk to him again. But on June sixteenth at one o’clock, she went to the fountain in the square. He was sitting there with a big grin on his face.
“There she is,” he said.
There she is. A throwaway line, to be sure. He probably didn’t even remember he had said it. But it struck a powerful chord with Jenna. As if he had been waiting for her by that fountain for his whole life, and she had finally found him.
They went back to his hotel room. Hotel Due Torri. The Hotel with Two Doors. It was an expensive hotel, the nicest in Verona. Much better than the little place that Jenna had picked out. He ordered a fruit plate and a bottle of white wine. A huge bowl of fruit arrived full of apples, plums, grapes, and kiwi with New Zealand stickers on them. They ate the fruit and drank the wine and then they made love. Jenna left her tank top on because she was insecure about her breasts. What if he didn’t like them? The room was dark because the huge shutters were closed. Shafts of sunlight crept in between wooden slats, and a ceiling fan purred above their heads.
Jenna turned on the TV and there was a channel called the Super Station. It had a show on called Time Warp that took a year of American culture and did a fifteen-minute profile of it. It showed newsreels, commercials, music clips, and scenes from sitcoms. Jenna watched 1964 and 1969 while Robert took a shower.
Then they went to the place where Juliet lived, and Jenna handed her camera to a stranger and asked him to take a picture of her and Robert in the little archway covered with graffiti. She still had that photo. It rained and they bought a blue umbrella from a man with an umbrella cart.
They waited out the rain necking under an arch in a courtyard. There were lots of doors in the courtyard, but Jenna didn’t take a single picture. Then they stopped in a little restaurant and ordered two salads, a seafood risotto, and another bottle of wine. Robert said it was the best risotto he’d ever had. Then they went back to Robert’s hotel room and made love again.
And that was that. He had short, tousled hair. His face was thin and his cheekbones were very beautiful. People spoke Italian to him because he had a dark look. An American tourist couple approached him and asked him in very bad Italian if he could tell them how to get to the arena. He put on a bad Italian accent and answered them in broken English that it was two rights and a left. They thanked him and told him his English was very good. He told Jenna he didn’t want to make them feel stupid.
Jenna called her mother that night and told her the door photography project wasn’t going very well, but she met a guy. She met a guy, and, yes, it might just be love.
Chapter 16
JENNA WOKE UP AT ABOUT TEN THIRTY. SHE ROLLED OVER UNDERNEATH the covers and peered out the windows toward town. It was very bright outside; the sky was overcast with high clouds, making it look like a bright white sheet.
It was warm in the hotel room, and Jenna was happy lounging in her cocoon. It felt good to roll around in the cool sheets, naked. Jenna usually slept with a shirt on, but since she had slept fully clothed on a vinyl lounge chair for the past three nights, she wanted to celebrate her liberation from the bondage of Banana Republic jeans. Her soul yearned for room service. A hot pot of coffee, maybe some bananas and oatmeal.
Well, you can’t have it all. Jenna rolled out of bed and went into the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and turned the water on in the shower. Ah, it was a good shower. She liked this hotel. Good beds, good showers. The streams were soft and fat. And there were a lot of them. She hated those showers with the thin, pointy streams that are all in a circle and there’s nothing in the middle so you have to move around to get water everywhere. A good showerhead is hard to find.
She stepped into the tub and closed the curtain. She tried to stick the bottom of the curtain to the inside of the tub, but it didn’t work. It was one of those clear plastic curtains, and they always billow in when you take a hot shower. Why is that? They bulge out and stick against your leg and it’s kind of annoying. Jenna was in no mood to be annoyed, so she cursed the curtain and put it outside the tub. If they couldn’t get a decent curtain that would stay stuck to the tub, then they’d just have to mop the floor.
Jenna let the warm water run over her head until her hair was wet. She opened the little bottle of shampoo that was in the shower and poured some into her hand. It smelled like coconuts, which always reminded her of coconut suntan lotion in Hawaii with Robert back when they were new. At the hotel on the beach, Jenna joked that the water-jet in the bathtub Jacuzzi would be perfect for masturbating. He asked her to prove it, so she did it while he watched. She had never done it in front
of someone before, and she liked it. She made Robert do it for her once, even though he didn’t want to, and it was fun to watch. But not as fun as doing it. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. All women are exhibitionists and all men are voyeurs. Yeah, right. Maybe in Prague. She finished rinsing her hair and she reached for the soap.
Then she heard something. The crack of a floorboard. The sound of someone’s weight on a plank. She jerked her head toward the door. Someone was standing in the doorway, but whoever it was ducked out of sight. Every single hair on Jenna’s neck stood up and a chilling shudder ran down her spine. Holy shit. There’s someone in my room. Someone watching me in the shower. Her heart beat so hard she thought it would burst out of her chest. She stood completely frozen for a second. It seemed like minutes, but it was only a second. She had seen a man. There was a man in her room. He had watched her. For how long? Who? Was he still in the room? Was he going to kill her? How big was he? Did he have weapons?
Jenna’s blood was full of adrenaline now and all of her senses were heightened. Her smell, hearing, vision, were all working feverishly to detect the intruder. I’m a sitting duck in the shower. A regular Janet Leigh, waiting for the blade to drop. Take it to him. Take the fight to him. Her father taught her. Never show fear. Be aggressive. Someone coming at you thinks you’re going to cower and submit because you’re a woman, so run right at him and kick him in the balls as hard as you can. Then take one step to the left. Why? To get out of the way of the vomit, because if a guy gets kicked in the balls that hard, he’s going to puke. So she whipped open the shower curtain and ran out into the bedroom, yelling and baring her teeth, ready to attack.
But the room was empty. Jenna scanned quickly. The door was locked and chained from the inside. The windows were all closed. Nobody in the closet. Nobody under the bed. Her heart was still thumping away. But without visual confirmation of her intruder, her confidence was down. There was a man. She had seen a man. No doubt about it. But where did he go?