Maya could see a white elbow through the crack in the door. Teddy, conspicuously minding someone else’s business.
“You mentioned the dates.”
Claire approached the table. She had changed into a brown sweater and jeans. Without the jacket and polished tag she looked smaller and much more tired, but the face was the same face that had measured Maya against the price of a room.
“The family bills only start in January,” she said. “Two weeks before your father died. There were two versions. That was what I wanted you to see. The ones with your father’s signature went to the guests. Another batch was printed on new stationery with the company account instead. Those went to the insurance adjuster. Same stay dates. Different totals.”
“Who was collecting?”
“The hotel took the family charges. Sometimes directly. Sometimes they came off the paycheck if the person worked here. The company account is something called Winter Quay. I don’t know what happened to the money on that side.”
“Did you print these bills?”
“Some of them.”
“Did you know about the vouchers?”
“Everybody who came to the front desk with an old pink slip told us it was good for a night. The instruction was to send them to Mr. Lang.”
“And what was your instruction about Black women walking through the door?”
Claire flushed from the base of her neck upward. “We had a visit coming from a woman who wanted to buy this hotel. Her business partner got here early. Julian told us the lobby had to stay clear of residents who were going to kick up a fuss. He said there was a woman with a child coming to ask about a suite and that I was to send her away. He thought it was Marisol’s sister.”
“And you thought we all looked alike.”
“I thought you’d seen those stories online about the free rooms. People come in and ask.” She stopped. “I was angry. I was supposed to go home at noon. My dad had a hospital appointment. And I liked being the one person in the room who could tell somebody else to go away. I’ve been on the other side of that desk often enough. I knew exactly what it would do.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment. That last part was the one thing Maya had not expected her to say.
“Did Julian teach you those words?”
“No. He taught me who he thought belonged here. I came up with the words myself.”
“Why give me the key?”
“Because on Tuesday, if the sale goes ahead, the company that’s buying this place gets the work on Linden Court too. Do you know how much that contract’s worth? I don’t. But it’s enough to make people take the hotel at a loss.”
“Are you asking for your job back?”
“No. I came to get my dad’s shoes.”
Claire opened a cabinet marked MISCELLANEOUS and pulled a shoebox from behind a ledger. Inside lay a pair of black lace-ups polished so carefully that the little fluorescent tubes on the ceiling showed in their toes.
“He shined shoes in the lobby here for thirty years. You might remember him as the man who lent your father money to keep a shoeshine stand in business. Most people just remember the brush.” She tucked the box under her arm. “There’s a green grocery bag under the desk, if you haven’t found it yet. It’s got copies of what I sent to the state office that handles insurance complaints.”
“When did you send them?”
“March.”
“Did you get an answer?”
“Yes. They said under their rules I wasn’t the policyholder. Somebody at Linden had to request a review. I had three weeks to tell a single person there what I knew. Instead I helped print another set of bills.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because it turns out I’m very good at almost doing the right thing.”
The door closed. Maya crouched beside the desk and dragged out the green bag. Inside were copies of the complaint, a rejection letter, two bank receipts and a square photograph of a Black woman holding up a small brass key. Her mother again. With her stood a man whose hair and beard were as red as an Irish setter. The man had an arm around her shoulders and was looking at her instead of the camera. Underneath someone had written, in her father’s difficult hand, Evelyn and her first husband, opening day.
Maya sat on the floor a long time. Her parents had married the summer after they finished school. She was sure of that because she had organized their anniversary dinner and put forty icing roses on the cake. When she climbed to her feet, she took the photograph with her. She left the rest exactly where it was and locked the black door.
The elevator was slow. At the eighth floor she found Arthur sitting cross-legged on the carpet with Eli, building a house from a pack of playing cards. The roof had just collapsed. From inside eight fourteen came her mother’s laugh, followed by the familiar groan of the bathroom door sticking in its frame. As a child Maya had measured how happy she was by how many people she could hear in a house without needing to see where any of them stood.
Evelyn came to the door drying her hands. “Well? Did you find whatever it was you were looking for?”
“I found something I wasn’t looking for.”
She held out the picture. Her mother looked at it and began to laugh so hard she had to put one hand on the door frame.
“Oh, that ridiculous man,” she said. “Is this all you found out about me? Wait until you see what I did with the money.”
Chapter 4 — The Woman Who Bought a Night