I changed into an oversized T-shirt, removed my makeup, and spent ten minutes trying to pull the rhinestone pants off without contacting emergency services.
When the food arrived, a hotel employee wheeled in a table set for one.
White cloth.
Silver cover.
A tiny vase with a single yellow rose.
“Anything else, Ms. Brooks?”
“No, thank you.”
He hesitated near the door.
“My daughter is a big fan.”
I smiled.
“What’s her name?”
“Lily.”
I signed a hotel notepad for Lily while my grilled cheese cooled beneath the silver cover.
After he left, the suite became quiet again.
Not normal quiet.
Hotel quiet.
Air-conditioning humming through rooms no one needed. Traffic thirty floors below. The distant click of an elevator opening in a hallway that smelled like carpet cleaner and expensive perfume.
I sat at the table.
The grilled cheese had been cut diagonally.
At home, my mother always cut it straight down the middle and insisted diagonal sandwiches were structurally unsound.
I picked up my phone and opened her messages.
Mama:Call me when you’re done, baby.
Sent three hours ago.
It was after midnight in Tennessee.
I typed: You awake?
The reply came almost immediately.
Mama:Unfortunately. Your father is watching a documentary about bridges like we don’t have enough problems.
I laughed.
Then I called her.
She answered in a whisper.
