Below Zero (7 page)

 

 

 

THEY WERE IN THE LOBBY of the nicest hotel she had ever been in. Such luxury! It was warm and comfortable with crowded couches and chairs, bowls of fresh fruit on tables, dark red wallpaper, hanging chandeliers turned low, exposed ceilings with thick wooden beams, deer heads on the walls. It was late, but she couldn’t sleep since she’d dozed so much in the car all day getting here. The key card to their suite was on a table in front of her. The sleeve for the card read: HOTEL JEROME. Outside, it smelled of pine trees.

Robert sat down in a chair across from her. He had a large tumbler of amber liquid on ice. He was dressed casually, but in a studied way, as if trying to fit in with the surroundings. Open-collar shirt, sports jacket, chinos, leather shoes without socks. And of course he carried his laptop case.

“Dad’s in the bar,” he said. “He’s likely to be in there a while.”

“I’d like to go to bed,” she said. “I’m really tired. It’s one in the morning.”

“I know what time it is. What, do you have an important meeting tomorrow or something? Besides, all you did all day was sleep in the car.” And he laughed.

She really didn’t like him at all, she thought. If it weren’t for Stenko and what he’d done for her, she would have thought of a way to get away already. In fact, the thought had crossed her mind in the Cheyenne Wal-Mart when she was alone from the both of them for the first time since they’d left Chicago.

“What’s he doing in the bar?” she asked, trying to divert the subject away from what she’d been doing previously.

Robert smirked. “Toasting the groom.”

“What groom?” she asked, although she knew.

“
The
groom. There’s going to be a big wedding in the hotel in a few days. But you don’t need to know anything more about it.”

“Why don’t you trust me?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, taking a sip from his drink, “I think you’re a devious little tramp.”

“I’m not a tramp.”

“Yeah, I forgot,” Robert said. “That was a nunnery Dad found you in, not a brothel.”

“He saved me,” she said. She was so angry she nearly forgot that if she stood up to slap his face he’d see the phone.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Why are you doing this to him? Making him do these things?”

Robert sat back, steepled his fingers, and stared at her as if weighing how much to tell. “I’m actually helping him.”

“How does doing these things help him?”

“You wouldn’t understand, girlie.”

Oh, how she disliked him.

 

 

 

SHE’D OVERHEARD
some of the conversation in the car earlier that day as they drove south from Wyoming into Colorado. Stenko and his son, Robert, spoke in hushed tones, but she sensed it when Robert would shoot looks at her in the back seat. She pretended to sleep so she could listen and they’d feel like they could talk freely.

Stenko had said, “So the name of the groom is what again?”

“Alexander Stumpf,” Robert said, reading off the screen of his laptop. “Son of Cornelius and Binkie Stumpf of La Jolla, California. Heir to the Stumpf shipping fortune. Reading this, he sounds like a snooty little bastard. The bride is named Patty Johnston. You know, Johnston Cosmetics?”

“I guess I’ve heard of it.”

“Everybody’s heard of Johnston Cosmetics, Dad. Sometimes you astound me. They’re one of the biggest of the multinationals. They make billions on the backs of Third World workers they exploit so rich women can smell good.”

Stenko didn’t reply.

“There’s a picture of Patty Johnston here. She’s kind of a looker. But now she wants to be known as Patty Johnston-Stumpf. Christ Almighty.”

“You don’t even know her,” Stenko said.

Robert snorted. “It sounds like a royal wedding. Guests are flying in from Europe and both coasts for it. Two trust fund babies getting together in Aspen to tie the knot. It’s one of the biggest society shindigs of the year, or at least the only one I can find online that’s close to us.”

“
You’ve
got a trust fund,” Stenko said.

Said Robert, “Considering what you put me through and the dying planet you’re leaving me with, it was the
least
you could do. And unlike Patty Johnston or Alexander Stumpf, I’m spending mine in a responsible way, aren’t I? At least I’m giving back, Dad. And because of the way the trust fund came about, I have a hell of a lot to account for, don’t I?”

Stenko sighed. “Don’t be like that.”

“How do you expect me to be? How would you expect different, Dad?”

“Maybe you could be a little nicer.”

“It’s too late for that.”

She didn’t like the way Robert spoke to his father, the man who had saved her life and been nothing but sweet to her.

“Is she still sleeping?” Stenko whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t be so loud. You’ll wake her up.”

“Fuck her.”

“Robert, please.”

“You’re more considerate of her than you ever were of me,” Robert said. “Of course, Carmen was another matter. Carmen
loved
her daddy, and you called her Little Angel right in front of me. She was Little Angel and I was what? You never really got around to a nickname for me, did you? I mean, we hardly even saw you growing up. And when we did, you were too busy for us. Remember that time we went to the Wisconsin Dells and got that cabin? You left the first morning and didn’t show up for a week afterward.”

A long pause. “I had business. We were opening a new casino and there were labor problems. I’m sorry about leaving you kids with your mother for so long.”

“But you did,” Robert said, triumphant. “But you did. All I can remember about that place is being eaten alive by mosquitoes. It was hot and humid, and the crickets kept me awake all night. Do you remember when I told you I wanted to learn how to fish? Do you remember that?”

Stenko moaned with the memory.

“Right, you remember. So instead of you teaching me dad to son, you get that ape Charlie Sera to take me out on the lake. That goon didn’t know fishing from cathedral architecture! He told me to bait my own hook, and he spent the whole time drinking from a flask and shooting at rising trout with a thirty-eight. Boy, what a great bonding experience.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know about it until later.”

“Right, you were
gone
by then. And your Little Angel Carmen—that’s when she started hanging out with local losers. That’s when it started with her, you know. She missed her daddy so she found other males who liked her. And mom drowning herself in vodka every night. It was a living hell. But you wouldn’t know. You
left
us there.”

“It was a five-room vacation home, if I recall,” Stenko said patiently, “the best available. It wasn’t like you were in some shack with an outdoor toilet. Besides, I thought you
liked
nature. I thought that was what this was all about.”

“I despise nature,” Robert said, “thanks to you.”

“But . . .”

“I want to save the planet,” Robert said. “That’s different.”

 

 

 

“THERE SHE IS,” Robert said, taking the last gulp from his drink and gesturing at a woman checking in with his glass.

“Who?” she asked.

“Patty Johnston, the bride to be.”

Tall, very thin, thick auburn hair, and green eyes. She had a graceful way of moving and a quick smile. She sure had a lot of luggage, though: two bell-stands worth. The hotel staff hovered around her while she got her key. She was with another woman who looked like an older version of Johnston.

“She just arrived, and that must be her mother,” Robert said with a smirk. “She doesn’t know her future husband is in the bar with Stenko.”

“She’s pretty.”

“I could have her if I wanted to,” Robert said. “The easiest pickings in the world is a woman about to be married. They always want one last blast. And especially if they’re going to get married to a guy named Stumpf.”

She looked at Robert. His eyes were glassy, and she realized he must have had more to drink than she thought.

“What?” he said, noticing her staring at him.

You’re such a prick,
she thought.

“Don’t look at me that way,” he said. “You’re just a kid. You shouldn’t even be here. And you wouldn’t be here if it were up to me.”

Robert stood up a little unevenly, smoothed his chinos with both hands and raked his fingers through his streaked blond hair. “Stay put and watch this.”

She watched. He shot out his cuffs and detoured on his way to the bar via the front desk. He succeeded in catching the eye of Patty Johnston. Robert flashed his brilliant smile, said, “You must be the bride because you’ve got a wonderful glow about you.”

Patty Johnston looked at him as if he had something in his teeth. Her mother put on a stern face and glared at him.

“I’d be pleased to buy you a drink later,” Robert pushed on.

Patty Johnston dismissed him with an embarrassed smile and turned back to the front desk.

Robert’s shoulders slumped and his neck turned red. He let a beat pass, then continued his way toward the bar. From her overstuffed chair in the lobby, she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

When he came back to his chair, the bride-to-be and her mother were gone.

She said, “I guess that didn’t work out.”

He shook his head as if harboring secret knowledge. “You didn’t see how she looked at me. She looked me over, girlie, and Patty liked what she saw. I could have pursued it, and she would have let me. If she wasn’t with her mother, it would be a whole different outcome, believe me.”

He sipped his drink, trying to act nonchalant. “But I figure Stenko’s working the groom, so why bother?”

Then he did something she was getting used to: he withdrew his laptop from his computer case and opened it on his thighs.

“Stenko got all the numbers from the groom,” Robert said, as much to himself as to her. He handed her the spiral notebook opened to a page filled with scrawled words and numbers.

“Read this to me so I can input the data,” he said.

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense to you,” he said, annoyed. “It makes sense to me. Now just start at the top and read out each entry while I put it into the database.”

She sighed. “Twenty international guests from Europe.”

He said, “That’s eight thousand nine hundred fifty KM each. Seventeen hundred seventy-two KG of carbon per. Seventeen thousand nine hundred KM total, seventy tons of carbon total. Okay, next.”

“One hundred sixty guests from Chicago.

Tap-tap-tap.
“Five thousand seven hundred KM. One point two tons carbon each. One hundred ninety-two tons total. Wow. Next.”

“Eighty from NYC and LA.”

Tap-tap-tap.
“Ten thousand four hundred KM. Three hundred twenty tons of carbon total. Then the driving.”

“What?” She asked.

“See below where it says rental cars? What are the figures?”

She flipped the page back and found more entries. “Two hundred sixty guests driving three hundred twenty miles Denver-Aspen.”

Tap-tap-tap.
Mumbled, “One hundred twenty-five tons of carbon.”

He hit enter with a flourish, then whistled. “One society wedding produces seven hundred and seven tons of carbon into the atmosphere to further choke our planet to death. The offset cost is $7,815.88.”

She thought about it for a moment. She was beginning to understand.

“What about the honeymoon?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you count that, too?”

He grinned.

She got it, and she felt her scalp crawl. “There won’t be a honey-moon.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Our global honeymoon is over, girlie. All for the best,” he said.

Then: “Stop looking at me like that. Carmen used to do that, too.”

 

 

WHEN PATTY JOHNSTON HEARD A SCRATCH ON THE KEYCARD entry on the outside of her door and saw the tiny yellow dot of the peephole blink out indicating someone was outside in the hall, she propped up on her elbow in bed and shook her hair so it cascaded into place but not entirely. When a strap from her nightgown didn’t fall casually over her shoulder as intended, she squirmed so it did. She tried to imagine what she would look like to Alex when he opened the door, but she was pretty sure she’d look sleepy, soft, warm, inviting—but not too hungry for him. The bathroom lights were dimmed and the door slightly ajar, so there was a soft glow of gold reaching across the bedroom. But not too much. It annoyed her that Alex shut his eyes when the lights were on, that he’d only look at her furtively in casual asides while they made love. She hadn’t been working out and dieting until her belly was rock hard for their wedding for him not to look at her.

She was still trying to get over the realization she’d had recently when they were having sex: that Alex closed his eyes because he was a kind of performance artist auditioning for the lead role in his own private movie about himself. The thought still haunted her, but like his tendency to tell his friends and relatives, “I’m getting married,” not “
We’re
getting married,” it was just one of these quirks she’d eventually grind out of him.

She’d almost fallen asleep waiting. It had been over an hour since she’d slid her extra key under the door of his room so he’d find it when he came in. She’d gone to bed without taking out her contacts, without removing her makeup. Waiting. Her eyes burned but she knew he didn’t like her in glasses.

The key card slipped into the lock, was withdrawn, and there was a dull click indicating it was unlocked, but he was too slow grasping the handle—
wasn’t he always?
—and she rolled her eyes in the semi-dark while he fumbled with the latch. She breathed in deeply while he did it again. Fumbling, trying to fit the key into the slot.
Wasn’t he always?