Shriver (4 page)

“Please let me carry the bag,” Shriver said.

The front doors opened automatically and the professor dragged the bag behind her across the carpeted floor. “The room is our treat, but you'll have to spring for anything extra. Room service, pay TV, that sort of thing.”

The lobby was furnished with what appeared to be secondhand chairs and sofas, all mismatched and faded by the sunlight that streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows fronting the hotel. At the far end stood a tall reception counter behind which Shriver could make out the top of a towering, copper-tinted beehive hairdo. Only when he and Simone had reached the counter was he able to see the receptionist's lean, well-powdered face.

“May I help you?” she asked between smacks of gum-chewing. The name tag on her blouse read
CHARLEVOIX
.

“Good afternoon,” Professor Cleverly said in an authoritative tone. “I believe there's a room reserved under the name ‘Shriver.' ”

“Shriver, Shriver, Shriver.” The woman examined a ledger until she found the name. “Here we are.”

Simone turned to Shriver. “Then I'll see you in about an hour.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“Please—
Simone
. Nobody calls me ‘Professor,' not even my students.”

She walked swiftly across the lobby and out the door, and ascended into the behemoth. As he watched her drive off in a cloud of smoke, it finally sank in to Shriver that this was, in fact, not an elaborate practical joke. No, he was here pretending to be someone else, and that lovely woman believed him. So far, anyway.

Charlevoix had him sign the register, then slid a long, thin skeleton key across the counter.

“What's this?” he asked.

“That's your key.”

“This is my key?”

She stopped chewing her gum. The effect was dramatic. “You've never seen a key before?”

Shriver hefted the heavy key in his palm. It resembled something that would unlock a crypt. “Of course I have.”

Charlevoix resumed her chewing. “Room nineteen,” she said in a dull monotone.

“Room nineteen?”

Again, the chewing ceased. “Is that a problem?”

He thought of Delta Malarkey-Jones in room twenty. “Are there any other rooms available?”

“That's all we got, sir. Between the writers' conference and the cheerleading competition, the place is filled up.”

“Well . . .”

“You could try the Dew Drop Inn, but I betcha they're full up too. The whole town is full up.”

He pocketed the key and felt his trousers dip a little bit with the weight.

“Room service is six a.m. to eight p.m.,” Charlevoix explained, “and there's the Prairie Dog Saloon, open seven a.m. to midnight.” She gestured toward the saloon's entrance at the far end of the lobby. Inside, a denim-clad man in a cowboy hat sat perched on a stool at the long, dimly lit bar.

Charlevoix then directed him to the elevator around a corner. When he reached the second floor, he followed the arrows pointing to “Rooms 15–30.” Just beyond room nineteen, he saw that the dull beige carpet abruptly changed to a brighter, obviously newer beige carpet, and the wallpaper became more vibrant as well, as if they'd simply stitched the new wing onto the old.

Just as he was negotiating the key into the keyhole, Delta Malarkey-Jones emerged from room twenty.

“There you are!” she called out. Amazingly, she loomed even larger in the hallway than she had in the confines of the small airplane. She had changed into a loose-fitting dress with a paisley pattern, inside of which her breasts swung like coconuts as she rolled toward him.

“I'm headed over to the Union,” she said. “Need a ride?”

“No, thank you.”

“I rented a convertible!”

“Hm?” He could not get the key to turn.

“Need some help with that?” She grabbed the key from his hand and reinserted it into the hole. “You have to turn these old ones to the
left
.” She grunted and turned the key. “Voilà!”

“Many thanks,” Shriver said, pushing the door open. He dragged his suitcase inside while Delta leaned against the door frame and peered into the room.

“They should have given you one of the newer rooms,” she said.

“I'm sure this will do.”

“You should complain.”

“I'll be fine, thank you.” He badly wanted to be alone but felt it would be impolite to shut the door while she continued to stand there.

“A writer of your stature should have the best,” she said.

“Really, it's fine.”

“I'm going to complain for you.”

“Please, don't bother.”

“Oh, it's no bother. They know me here.”

“I'm sure they do. Now—”

“You could have my room!”

“No. I couldn't.”

“It's much nicer than this. Look at that old TV! Criminy!”

The television was, indeed, very old.

“I'll be fine here,” he said.

“It's no big deal, Mr. Shriver.”

“Really. I mean it. I'll be fine.” He put some steel into his voice this time, and it seemed to land.

“Okay,” she said, her smile gone. “Suit yourself.”

“Thank you, though.”

“Sure. Just let me know if you change your mind. I wouldn't be surprised if that old TV didn't even work.”

“Yes, I'll be sure to let you know.”

She lingered at the threshold for a few seconds, inspecting what else she could see of his room, then waddled away. Shriver shut the door.

He went to the window and opened the curtains to see the prairie unfurl itself, acre after acre of it. Two hundred yards away a single railroad track bisected the dull brown land. He stared hard at the ruler-straight line where land met sky to see if he could detect the earth's rotation. He had once seen on a public television program that the earth turns at one thousand miles per hour. At the time he'd pictured himself flat on the ground, holding on to the grass like a stuntman atop a speeding car so as not to hurtle off into space.

Feeling a bit dizzy, he removed his jacket and lay across the double bed. He shut his eyes against the vision of the meringue-like stucco ceiling slowly lowering itself toward him. He knew that, before this day was done, he would be unmasked as an imposter. Surely there would be someone at the conference—one of the other authors, or a publishing executive, or just a fan—who would have met the real Shriver at some point, who would immediately see that he was not him, who would expose him in front of everybody. It was only a
matter of time. He pictured an angry Professor Cleverly, ordering him to go back home. He had just met the woman, and she didn't much care for him, but already he did not want to disappoint her.

He opened his eyes to see Mr. Bojangles resting on the bed, then realized it was just his suitcase, and that his beloved cat was nowhere near. He pictured Mr. B. going from room to room in the apartment, searching for him, mewing pathetically.

He sat up and inspected the room. The old television sat atop a walnut chest of drawers. In the corner was a built-in table for writing. Next to the bed stood a nightstand, with lamp and telephone. On the eggshell-colored walls hung two framed prints, one of a cow in a field, the other of a windmill. The bathroom was situated near the door, opposite a small closet. He went to the desk and found a stack of blank postcards. On the front of each was a faded photograph of the original hotel, only half its current size. Maybe I'll send Tina LeGros a postcard, he thought. He sat at the desk and took up a pen with “Hotel 19” written on its side.
Dear Ms. LeGros
, he wrote,
You'll never believe what I've gone and done
.

He paused and looked around the room. He noticed the yellow papers bulging from the pocket of his jacket on the bed. He pulled them out and moved into the light near the window. With trepidation he gazed down at the title. “The Water Mark.” He giggled with relief. He read on: “The water mark appeared on my ceiling on the rainy day my wife walked out on me.” From somewhere out on the prairie a train blew its whistle. “At first it was just a spot, approximately the size of a quarter, directly above the bed where I lay weeping,” he read as the train wheels clackety-clacked in the distance. “Listening to the rain fall, I watched the water mark grow, ever so slowly, to the size of a baseball.” A freight train appeared at the edge
of the window, creeping slowly along the tracks. “After a few hours, the mark was as big as a honeydew melon.” The floor of the hotel vibrated almost imperceptibly as the train continued to roll past. Shriver's mind wandered to that long-ago train ride, the millions of sunflowers staring at the sun. But then he realized that, in fact, he'd never been in the military. Perhaps it had been a passenger train. No, it must have been a dream he'd been recalling. “By the time it got dark outside,” he read, “the water mark . . .”

The words started to dissolve. Shriver squinted, but it did no good. The page was underwater. He looked up and watched the train rolling by, an endless line of rusty freight cars. The sky appeared to be made of blue metal. All this—the train, the prairie, the sky—was crystal clear. He went to the desk and picked up the room service menu. “Chicken Fingers . . . Fried Mozzarella Sticks . . . Chili con Carne de Buffalo . . .” He looked up to see the painted cow staring at him with dull, brutish eyes from his field. He picked up the postcard:
Dear Ms. LeGros . . .
Clearly legible. Then he looked back at the pages of his story and saw nothing but a series of meaningless squiggles.

He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to breathe. Could he have had a stroke? What kind of brain malfunction would prevent him from reading only certain words he had written? He felt his skin go cold.

The telephone rang. Startled, he fell off the edge of the bed and banged his left buttock on the wooden frame before thumping onto the floor.

He clambered to his feet and reached for the phone.

“Hello?”

“I'm downstairs, whenever you're ready.”

“Who's this?” he asked, rubbing his throbbing rump.

“It's
Simone
.”

“Already?”

“It's been an hour,” she said.

He must have fallen asleep earlier, when he lay down on the bed.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I'm fine, thank you. You?”

He cringed at his own stupidity.

“Is the room all right?” Professor Cleverly asked.

“The room is very comfortable, yes. I'll be down in a moment.”

“Take your time.”

He hung up and limped into the bathroom. When he switched on the overhead light the bulb flickered a few times, then died out. In the meager daylight from the open bathroom doorway he managed to wash his face and comb his thinning hair. He felt stupid about it, but, still thinking of what lay beneath that yellow slicker, he wanted to look good for Professor Cleverly. In the bathroom mirror, he saw a stranger: graying, jowly, a paunch pushing out above his belt. How did that Malarkey-Jones woman connect him with the thick-haired, trim fellow in the brochure photograph?

He wondered if he should change his shirt. He sniffed under his arm and wrinkled his nose. But he had only brought one shirt for each day he was to spend here, so he decided to stick with this one. If only he had time to take a long, leisurely bath. Mr. Bojangles loved to sit on the edge of the tub and watch him as he lay in the luxurious bubbles. There they would carry on lengthy conversations about the miserable state of the world. He straightened his tie and went to retrieve his jacket. Now that he felt reasonably put-together, he picked up his key and left the room.

When the elevator arrived a gaggle of teenage girls debarked like clowns from a toy car, one after the other, for what seemed like minutes, amid high-pitched squeals of laughter. They all wore identical uniforms of sleeveless red tops and short pleated skirts with matching sneakers. Shriver watched their trim, athletic figures as they skipped down the hallway. One of the girls, a willowy brunette with feathered hair and muscular arms, turned and smiled at him just before she disappeared into a room. The elevator door nearly closed before he remembered to board.

Downstairs, as Shriver hobbled past the front desk, the cowboy-hatted man rushed from the saloon on severely bowed legs.

“Hey, Shriver!” the man called. “Hold up there!”

Shriver could see Simone waiting just outside the hotel doorway, a patch of bright yellow against parking-lot gray. The massive black automobile idled nearby. And he had forgotten to remove his wedding band.

“Hey there,” the cowboy said in a rumbling, smoke-charred voice. He grabbed Shriver's hand and pumped it like the handle of a farmhouse water pump. “I'm Tee What's-his-name. I teach here at the university.”

“Tee Wha?”

“It's spelled ‘W-Ä-T-Z-C-Z-E-S-N-A-M,' but it's pronounced ‘Whatsisname.' Some Ellis Island mix-up with the official papers back in the day, I guess.”

“Oh.”

“It's a terrific icebreaker at parties.”

“Well, it's very nice to meet you, Professor.”

“Call me ‘T.'—as in the letter. I'm a writer like yourself. And I teach, of course. I'm moderating the panel you're on tomorrow.” The man's breath reeked of whiskey, which made
Shriver thirsty. “At some point,” Wätzczesnam continued, “I'm gonna need to talk to you a little about that. There's a theme to the panel and I want to make sure I don't ask something stupid.”

“A theme?”

“Yeah. They always have some kind of theme. This year it's ‘reality-slash-illusion.' How's that for profound?”

Simone peered in through the glass doors and, seeing Shriver's predicament, came running inside. Shriver thrust his left hand into his pants pocket.

“There you are,” she said. She turned to the cowboy and smiled wearily. “Hello, T.”