He'd already bought the ring. Now he just had to decide whether to give it to her.

Sarah was one of those plain-Jane women with a terrible secret. Geoffrey, he was just average-Joe, no secrets attached. Sarah had an ordinary face, an ordinary voice, an ordinary childhood; so did Geoffrey. But with Sarah, there was a mark of something that had only just passed her by, like a scar from a bullet that had nicked your left ear.

To his mind, the only thing worth knowing about Geoffrey was that he loved a good story. And the ability to wait to hear it out. With Sarah, he'd been waiting for years. But who knows? Maybe when he found out, he'd be tired of her.

He picked up the phone and called her. He'd decide tonight.

"Hello?"

"Tell me if we're going to be together tonight."

"Geoffrey!"

He chuckled and tried to sound contrite. "I don't want to pressure you. I said I wouldn't do that. I just want to know."

"I should never have gone out that night," she muttered.

Scent to a bloodhound. "What?"

"Hmm? Nothing." Pause. "I'm working tonight, Geoffrey."

"You always work." Prodding for a hint.

"Yes, well." Pause. "Yes. Tonight is important."

"You've said that before, too."

"I'm not going to do this over the phone, please."

Tease, he thought. "Fine. I'm coming out there."

"What? No! That is--" Pause. "That is a phenomenally bad idea--"

He hung up and slipped the jewelry box into his pocket. You never knew.

---

Sarah groaned when she saw him. "I don't know whether to thank you or curse your idiot name," she said. "Good. You're wearing black pants. Put these on." She tossed a white shirt, black jacket, and a bow tie, all sealed in plastic, onto the counter. "Jamal's out sick, I can't leave the desk, and the guests keep ringing. Do you remember the 200 rooms?"

Geoffrey nodded.

"They need eight bath towels, God knows why, there's only one man checked into the room, but I don't care anymore, so here you go and hurry back because I need you for a dozen other things, including which, I love you."

Geoffrey smiled, touched his lips to hers as if he were toasting her instead of kissing her, and ducked into a laundry room to change clothes.

A crazy night at the hotel. He'd heard some of the stories and got himself hired on as a bellboy for six months before deciding it wasn't his genre. But for a few hours twice a year or so, it made for a good change of pace, like a mystery lover taking a night off to read H. P. Lovecraft.

Sarach stacked the towels up to reach the tip of his nose.

"I can't see," Geoffrey complained.

"If I can see your eyes, you can see," she replied. "Now go. 217. West wing. West wing!"

Geoffrey turned around.

The phone rang, and she answered. "Hand's-Lend 'Otel?"

217. Second floor. Odd-numbered hallway. About a quarter of the way down the hall. Pretty easy to find, not like the wing whose room numbers started with the "&" symbol, little pagodas in the far garden, soundproof for all their paper screens. He'd sworn a few times that someone had been changing the room numbers around just to confound him.

Up the back stairs, past the ice machine, second hall to the right--brick wall. He would have scratched his head, but his arms were full. He backed up to the stairs, but they weren't there either.

Geoffrey rolled his eyes. "Come now. I'm only helping Sarah out. I'm not going to interfere with the guests or do anything funny. I promise." He'd found it helpful, in the past, to talk to the hotel--silly, but it worked.

Or it always had before. The room signs told him he was on the fifth floor (what fifth floor?). He found a stairway that led down to the eighteenth floor, walked past a sunny window that seemed to stretch directly over the interstate, stomped up two flights of stairs concealed behind a floor-to-ceiling fishtank, and ended up at the pool.

A gaggle of naked girls surrounded a thin, invalid-looking man wrapped in a mink coat. What the chlorine must be doing to that fur, Geoffrey didn't know.

"Room 217?" he asked.

One of the girls, maybe twelve years old, rushed up to him and tried to take all the towels at once. He gave her four and left the rest on a table. The clock above the door said he'd been gone fifteen minutes. Sarah must be frantic.

Geoffrey took a shortcut through the kitchen and waved to the red-haired sous-chef Brian, who looked like he had blood on his toque.

"Watch this!" Brian giggled and swung a cleaver back over his head. A tomato, skinless and perfect, glistened on his cutting board. Brian swung, and the tomato collapsed into a perfect medium dice.

Geoffrey stopped. "How?"

"He said it was a multi-dimensional knife. And all I had to do to get it--"

Geoffrey raised a hand to stop him. "Nevermind. I don't want to know."

Brian pulled out another tomato. "You'd never believe it."

"No," Geoffrey said. "I would."

---

Sarah wasn't at the front desk; nobody was. Geoffrey reached over the desk and picked up the phone. "Hello? Last Dent Hotel?"

"Where's Sarah?"

"I"m sorry, she's speaking to another guest at the moment. Would you like to hold?"

"She's right there?"

"Yes sir."

"Ask her if the package was delivered."

Geoffrey put his hand over the phone. "Sarah? I'm sorry to bother you." Pause. "A gentleman on line two wants to know if his package has been delivered." Pause. "I'll tell him. Yes. I told him that already." He took his hand off the receiver. "Sarah says that it has, sir. Would you like her to return your call when--"

"No. Tell her I am not pleased." Click.

Where was she? In the toilet?

A female guest walked through the front doors--hell, "female guest." She was a woman. Geoffrey could smell her from across the room. Musky. Dry. Perfumed talcum powder.

"May I help you?"

Green eyes flashed around the edges of her sunglasses. And leather. Don't forget about the smell of all that leather.

"You got a cigarette?"

Geoffrey reached for his pack automatically, even though he'd stopped the night he'd quit the hotel. Inside his jacket was a pack of Basic methols. Definitely not his old brand. He tapped one out, slid it back in, tapped out a different one, and handed it to her without knowing why he did so.

"Light?" she rasped.

Silver lighter, engraved: Wanda's F---ing Lighter. Wasn't that Sarah's sister's name?

Between her gloves (God! He'd never seen sexier hands) and her jacket, her wrists were white wax, hairless and uncreased. As he lit her cigarette, she leaned over, and he noticed she'd applied base all the way down her cleavage, down to the nipples. No hair anywhere, no creases. No pores.

She leaned back. "Got something for you." She handed him a jewelry box, the size you used for a watch or a string of pearls. "Night."

Geoffrey stood there and watched the afterimage of her long, black braid dangling between her legs, leather all the way down. Motorcycle helmet under one arm, he finally noticed.

Maybe five minutes passed before he remembered Sarah. He didn't have far to look--she had collapsed unconcious under the front counter with her head on the tiles. Geoffrey called the ambulance. While he was on the phone, he rummaged around in the drawers for his old name tag and pinned it on. He put a gauze pack on the cut over Sarah's eye and pressed it to stop the bleeding. The chair had rolled back against the wall, and a strip of blood coated a dent on the edge of the counter. She'd stood up, slipped, the chair had gone out from under her, and she'd hit her head on the desk.

The floor was damp in places and smelled bitter. Geoffrey checked the bottoms of Sarah's shoes. Nothing. But on the bottom of the chair's wheels--wax. Waxed paper. Geoffrey remembered polishing up the handles of playground equipment as a prank. Slick stuff. Not too slick, not slick enough to give way until you put pressure on an angle.

The ambulance came, and Geoffrey said little. He finished out the shift, left Greymalkin the hotel cat and the desk keys with Alicia, and went home with two jewelry boxes in his pocket.

He opened the box with the engagement ring, a gold band engraved with their names and a space for the date. The center gem was an opal, small but deep and tricky with reflections and fire, surrounded by two evergreen emeralds.

More than enough mysteries to last the rest of his life, he decided. He didn't open the other box. He was too patient for that.

• Sarah at the Desk
• Maybe Not Tonight
• The Other Box
• I Don't Want to Know

- De Knippling

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