Finding Reese (Tremont Lodge Series Book 1) Page 9

  “And how long is that?” I ask.

  “I started working when I was seventeen.”

  “So it’s true what Lawson said?” Finn tenses his face at the mention of Lawson’s name.

  “I hate that bastard,” he says, pausing to pour another glass of wine for each of us. “I did drop out of high school when my mom died. Dad was always kind of absent throughout her illness, and when she died he checked out on life, at least on mine. But I’m not a loser. I took online courses until I got my GED. Then I attended community college in Traverse City until I got my associate degree last spring. And as far as his little jab about welfare, that’s a bunch of BS. I did receive social security payments for a year until I turned eighteen, but that’s what happens for kids whose parents die.

  I roll over on my side so that I am facing Finn. “My parents are gone, too,” I say, barely an audible whisper as this is something I’ve never told a stranger. Even my friends back home don’t ask questions, though I’m sure there’s been plenty of speculation. He reaches for a strand of my hair and winds it around his fingers.

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s cool,” he says. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m usually pretty private about my mom, too.”

  “No, Finn, you don’t understand.” I feel the tears stinging the backs of my eyelids as I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I really don’t know what happened to my parents. That’s why I’m here.” But as soon as I’ve spoken the words aloud I have regrets. This isn’t how it was supposed to go this summer, but something about the vulnerability of Finn’s confession opens my heart a little, but an open heart only leads to the possibility of bad stuff getting in and ripping it apart.

  “I don’t understand,” he says.

  “I don’t, either.” I let Finn pull me closer, our bodies warming from the touch of the other. No words pass between us. They don’t have to, and it is the most beautiful conversation I have ever had.

  Chapter 10:

  I’m so happy the next morning at work that I don’t even mind having to clean a whole floor of rooms occupied by visiting little league baseball teams in the area for a big tournament in the Upper Peninsula. I’m sure I’ll meet my quota for picking up protective cups for the day. Blasting Go Cubs Go through my iPhone headphones seems fitting as I turn on the vacuum cleaner. When I’m tapped on the shoulder halfway into the song, I nearly fall to the floor in a tangle of cord and my long legs.

  “You scared the crap out of me!” I yell at a little girl who is standing behind me next to the newly made bed. She is crying. I switch off the vacuum. “What’s the matter, honey?” I ask. Her lips tremble, and she struggles to speak.

  “I can’t find my mommy.”

  “Oh.” I feel like the air’s been sucked out of the room. I sit on the bed to keep from falling over, a flashback so intense hitting my mind like a high speed truck barreling into a wall.

  “I want my mommy,” the little girl says, snapping me back to the present time.

  “We’ll find your mommy, honey. I’m sure she’s close by.” Because mommy’s are always close by. They never abandon their babies. “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Amanda,” she says.

  “Amanda, my name is Reese. I’m going to make a phone call to help you find your mommy.” She shakes her head like she understands and pulls the end of the quilt out from the freshly made bed and clutches it in her hands. Pulling out my phone to call Helen, it takes everything I have to stay calm in front of Amanda.

  Within minutes, Helen is walking into the room followed by a young woman who is crying. “Oh, thank God. Thank God. I was so worried.” Amanda runs into her mother’s open arms and the two cry together, relief passing over both of their faces with no admonishment to the little girl for wandering away from her family.

  I slip past the reunion and run down the hall to the employee’s storage room where I collapse to the floor in a pile of clean linens and towels. My breathing accelerates, and I feel like I could throw up. I scan the closet for a paper bag to breathe into but find nothing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. A knock on the door defeats my labored attempts to calm down. When the knob is turned I throw my hand over my heart to try and will it to cooperate.

  “Reese?” Oh, God no. Please, God, anyone but Lawson. I squeeze my eyes shut to blink him away, but he doesn’t budge. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “Go away,” I say.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “GO AWAY, LAWSON!”

  “I’m going to get Helen,” he says.

  “NO!” I feel like God’s playing a cruel trick on me.

  “Then go back to your room. Take the day off. We can’t have guests seeing you carry on like this.” I look up at Lawson. For a moment, a burst of human decency flashes across his face. “Go on. I’ll tell Helen you got sick. Hurry up before she sees you.” I stand up and take off my maid’s smock, wiping my face with the back of my hands. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. “I’ll call you later,” I hear him say as I walk past him and down the hall to the employee elevator.

  By the time I am outside, my heart rate has steadied. The lawn is teeming with people. There seems to be a corn hole tournament is full swing as Rachel, one half of Rachel/Raquel, is writing numbers on a dry erase board and announcing the next competitors. Shouts and squeals of joy come from the pool area, and teens drive around the manmade pond on Segways without a care in the world. I sink into an Adirondack chair by the stage. No one is performing at this time of day. I close my eyes and try to process my morning. It wasn’t just a feeling of empathy I had for Amanda. I was Amanda. I was that little girl feeling abandoned by her mommy and feeling afraid. What I know is that there were happy times at Tremont Lodge with my family. The picture at the pool proves it, but there were dark times, too, and confusing times. Who was the woman with my father? And how will I know? How will I ever know?

  “Taking a break?” asks Finn. He wipes his dirty hands on his shorts. Sweat drips down his face and washes the butterfly on his neck. He takes a red bandana out of his pocket and wipes his forehead. I even like the smell of his sweat, I realize, and I wonder if I shouldn’t have stopped him last night on the platform. Who am I? Nothing about me is recognizable anymore.

  “Are you okay?” He sits across from me and leans closer.

  “Yes…no…Finn, maybe we should talk.”

  “Sure. I’ve got a lunch break in half an hour. Meet me at Jack’s. We can get burgers.”

  When I get back to my room to change into clean shorts and a tank top, my phone dings.

  Lawson: We should talk.

  Me: I’m good now. Thanks.

  Lawson: Meet me in the library.

  Me: No. I have plans.

  Lawson: You shouldn’t have plans. You’re supposed to be working. Meet me in ten.

  Me: I can’t. The nerve of this guy.

  Lawson: Then go back to work.

  Lawson: Or I’ll fire you and send you sorry ass back home. Not joking.

  All I need is some sort of obligation to this guy looming over my head. Why couldn’t I pull myself together and just go back to work? I hate him so much, but what choice do I have?

  Me: Finn, change of plans. Can’t do lunch. Sorry.

  Finn: Seriously?

  Me: Yeah. Sorry. Maybe dinner?

  Finn: K. Meet me at Jack’s at 9:00. I have a show first.

  Me: Sounds good.

  I slip on a baseball hat, pulling my ponytail through the back, and decide to go out the dormitory and around the front of the lodge so Finn doesn’t see me cross the lawn. Today there is a Girl Scout troop checking in to the lodge. I think the Girl Scouts and the little league boys could make for a wild night in the lodge, and I’m thankful I don’t work during the evening when all the trouble is likely to be happening.

  Lawson is sprawled out on a couch in the library like he’s in his li
ving room. “You’re lucky you made it with thirty seconds to spare. I was about to make a little call to my uncle.”

  “I don’t care who you think you are,” I say. “Your intimidation tactics won’t work on me.”

  “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Instead of fraternizing with that loser guitar player?”

  “Leave Finn out of this. What do you want?” He sits up and pats the couch next to him.

  “Have a seat, sassy pants.” I lean against the fireplace mantle instead. “Suit yourself. I want you to tell me why you were crying like a fool in that supply closet.” I glare at Lawson and try to formulate in my mind how much I have to tell him to shut him the hell up.

  “There was a little girl who came into a room I was cleaning, and she’d wandered away from her mother. It made me sad.”

  “I don’t buy it,” he says, smirking.

  “It’s true. Ask Helen. She found the mother.”

  “No, I mean, I already know about the girl. It’s my business to know those things, to protect my uncle from lawsuits and such. But why did it affect you so strongly?”

  “I suppose for someone without a heart, it’s hard to understand something called empathy.”

  “Touché.” He clasps his fingers together and cracks his knuckles. “Why were you in the library again a few days ago?”

  “What?”

  “My uncle described you and said he saw you looking at books in the library.”

  “Why on earth would he do that?” I feel like a victim being stalked.

  “It’s my uncle’s business to know what’s going on at the lodge, and he didn’t figure you were a guest.”

  “That makes no sense. I totally could have passed as a guest.”

  “Ah-ha. Then it was you in the library.” I throw my hands up in the air.

  “You got it. Arrest me now. I like to read. Or take pity on me.”

  “I’m afraid, miss, that I cannot do that as it is, in fact, not your first offense.” I don’t mean to smile, but I can’t help it.

  “That’s more like it. You’re a hell of a lot prettier when you smile.”

  I sigh and sink into a chair next to the fireplace. If Lawson isn’t going to relent, maybe he can help me. “Lawson, when did your uncle become the owner of Tremont Lodge?”

  “The lodge has been in my family since it was founded in the 20s.”

  “I know that,” I say. “I mean, I read about that, but when did he become the owner?”

  “Well, Grandpa Oakley died almost twenty years ago, so my uncle took over when that happened.”

  “Why did he take over and not your father?” I ask.

  “My dad is a dentist in Boston.”

  “Hypothetically, if someone wanted to learn something about former guests or big news from a decade or so ago, are there records stored anywhere?”

  “Well, hypothetically, there may be records of the former guests that have checked in since the lodge first opened.”

  “Since the 1920s?” I am shocked and excited at the same time.

  “It’s a standing tradition at Tremont Lodge to have guests sign a registry at the front desk. Now they use an electronic guestbook, kind of like when you sign your name at the cash register after you’ve used your credit card. Of course, this switch didn’t happen until about ten years ago. Before that everyone signed in using large, ornate guest books, like signing in at a funeral.”

  “Oh. That analogy is disturbing.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “Are those log books kept in here?” I ask.

  “No way. They’re in my uncle’s penthouse suite on the top floor of the lodge. There’s a family history room where everything lodge-related is kept.”

  “Hmm…” The wheels spin in my mind as Lawson fills in the blanks.

  “Do you want to see this room?”

  “Yes, I do.” It requires any amount of self-control I have to not sound desperate. Lawson smiles devilishly, and I wish I’d tried to break into the damn suite on my own rather than admit to him that I want to go with him, that I need him to take me.

  “There will be a price,” he says. I bite my cheek and don’t answer. “I want a date first, a proper date where you do your hair and get dressed all pretty and use polite manners.”

  “Why me, Lawson? You have every bimbo at this resort falling over herself to give you anything you want. I’ve seen your room. I know you’re living the perfect bachelor life.”

  “Exactly. I have every bimbo. I’m not as shallow as you think I am, Reese, and one of these days I’m going to have to settle down with a real girl if I want to take over this lodge.”

  “So I’m practice for future marriage material? Oh, that’s hot.” I roll my eyes and pretend to gag.

  “Do you want to see that room or not?” He raises his eyebrows in a challenge. What choice do I have?

  “Fine. I’ll go on a date, but you have to be a gentleman in return. No funny business, and I get to see that room—without your uncle knowing. Got it?”

  He smiles. “Oh, don’t worry about that. He’d kill me if he knew I let anyone in that room.”

  “Text me the details,” I say. “And you’d better hold up your end of the deal. In fact, I want to go to that room first. Then dinner.”

  “I’ll agree to that only because I know you’re an honorable girl.” His devilish grin fills his face. I want to hate him so much again, but how can I when I might get some real answers this time about why my parents abandoned Blake and me?

  “Meet me at the stage tonight at 7:00. We’ll watch a little of the entertainment together before we go upstairs and then have dinner.” Finn flashes through my mind. I already ditched him once today, and no way am I watching him watching me with Lawson.

  “Tonight’s no good, Lawson. I have plans. Any night but tonight.”

  “No. It has to be tonight. My uncle’s out of town until tomorrow morning on a business trip. If you want in that room it has to be tonight.” Great, just great.

  “Fine. I’ll be there.” I walk out of the library, slam the door behind me, and wonder if I am making the biggest mistake of my life.

  Chapter 11:

  Finn is pulling weeds along the cobblestone road he carried me across the other night. He’s soaked the bandana in water and has it draped across the back of his neck. It takes every ounce of courage I have to approach him again.

  “Hey, Finn. I thought you were on lunch break,” I say. He stands up and wipes his hands on the front of his shorts.

  “My lunch date baled on me, so I downed a bag of chips and an apple. And don’t you have to get back to work soon, too?” he asks.

  “Um…I’m taking the rest of the day off, actually. I’m not feeling very well.” Gone is the look of irritation replaced with that of concern.

  “Reese, I’m sorry. What’s the matter?”

  “I’ve been having…headaches. They come and go. I need to lay down for a little bit.”

  “Sure, I think that’s a good idea. Just let me know if you’re not any better tonight, and we’ll go out another time.”

  “Actually…maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Can I get a raincheck?” I bat my eyes in the way I’ve watched Tinley do to charm a man.

  “Yeah, I’ll do you one better.” Finn reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a beer bottle label, the one I gave him the first night we had dinner at Jack’s. “I’d like to redeem this now.”

  “Here?” I ask, stepping aside for the crowds of people that are shopping over the lunchtime rush. Finn nods his head and pulls me toward him. He smells hot and sweaty…and like all things manly—all good things. He tips up my chin and kisses my lips. I taste the salt of his sweat against my lips. The whistles behind us fade against the crowded background as my mind snaps a memory of this moment, adding new memories, my memories, to a summer at Tremont Lodge.

  “What on earth happened to you today, Reese?” Tinley is throwing clothes around our room in a crazed attempt at find
ing her bathing suit. “Do you realize that I had to clean four extra rooms? Four extra rooms—and did you know there are a bunch of smelly little boys staying here—and that one of those little maggots had the balls to grab my ass when I was making his bed? It took everything I had to not pummel him flat.”

  “I guess you appeal to all ages, Tinley,” I say, laughing.

  “Not cool, Reese.”

  “I’m sorry. Really, I am.”

  “You better have a very believable excuse.”

  “I got a terrible headache,” I lie for the second time today.

  “Oh, well, is it gone now?” She eyes my clothes: an orange sundress with a halter top and white gladiator sandals.

  “Yes, I’m all better.”

  “Must have been a miracle drug,” she mutters under her breath. “What are you and Finn doing tonight?” This is when the lying gets more difficult.

  “Finn has a show at 7:00.”

  “Like most nights,” she says. “But what are you doing after the show?”

  “I guess that’s still to be determined.”

  “Well, it looks like you’re set for a flirty, sexy night.” I feel my cheeks get warm.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Reese, you seriously need a wardrobe intervention if you don’t realize that your 180 from your shorts and tank top uniform to an airy, short sundress sends off a different vibe.”

  “You’re crazy, Tinley. Not everyone judges people by their clothes choice.”

  She raises her eyebrows, which is even more pronounced on Tinley because of her waxing job. “And who was it that said my clothes read easy the first night you met me?”

  “Well, that was different. I do not read easy.”

  “No, you read, I’m ready. Don’t look so shocked. You and Finn are going to have a great night.” She laughs and pulls her bikini top out from under her pillow. “There’s the damn thing. Murphy can only be kept waiting so long.” She undresses right in front of me and stuffs her perfect breasts into the barely there bikini top. I wish I had half the confidence that Tinley has.

  When she’s gone, I pause in front of the mirror. My hair is brushed straight to my shoulders, and all the intense labor spent cleaning room after room has given my arms a nice definition that they’ve never had before. That extra five pounds has surely come off by now, too, because everything I put on fits perfectly now instead of a little tight. But I don’t care what Tinley said. I am simply dressing for a proper date, upholding my end of the bargain with Lawson, until I get what I want from him—access to the Tremont Lodge history room in his uncle’s suite. I am not going to date Lawson, and I most certainly am not going to sleep with him. Now all I have to do is get him to meet me at 8:00 instead of 7:00. I am not going to be seen with Lawson at Finn’s show. Lying was never my strong suit—deflecting, maybe, but not outright lying.