Confidence Girl: The Letty Dobesh Chronicles

5

They told each other lies over a beautiful meal, Letty becoming a high-school English teacher and aspiring novelist. She would rise at four every morning and write for three hours before driving into work, the book already five hundred pages, single-spaced, about a man who bears a strong likeness to a movie star and uses that resemblance to storm the Broadway scene and ultimately Hollywood, to comic and tragic ends.

Arnold worked for a philanthropist based out of Tampa, Florida. Had come to Asheville to investigate and interview the CEO of a research and development think tank that had applied for funding.

“What exactly are they involved in?” Letty asked after the waiter had set down her steak and topped off her wineglass, and she’d sliced into the meat, savoring both the perfection of her medium-rare porterhouse and the impromptu train of bullshit Arnold rattled off about bioinformatics and cancer applications.

They killed two bottles of a great Bordeaux, split a chocolate lava cake, and wrapped things up with a pair of cognacs, sharing a couch by a fireplace in the lobby, Letty adding up the three martinis, her share of the wine (more than a bottle), and now this Rémy Martin which was going down way too easy. Part of her sounding the alarm—you’re letting it get away from you. The rest wondering how fast the Hispanic bellhop pulling a cart of luggage toward the elevators could score her some tweak and would Arnold be down for it if he did?

In the dull brass doors, she watched her and Arnold’s warped reflection. He kissed the back of her neck, those fascinating hands around her waist which she was too drunk to bother sucking in.

They stumbled out onto the fifth floor, and by the time she realized her mistake, there was nothing to be done, having instinctively turned down the north wing toward room 5212, as if she’d been up here before.

# # #

“I have another confession to make,” Letty said while Arnold rummaged through the minibar.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not a redhead.”

He glanced over the top of the open door as Letty tugged off her wig.

“You look upset,” she said.

He stood up, kicked the door closed with the tip of his boot, set the bottles of beer on the dresser beside the keycard Letty had left behind four hours ago.

Sauntered toward her in slow, measured steps, stopping less than an inch away, his belt buckle grazing her sternum.

“Are you upset?” she slurred.

He ran his fingers through her short, brown hair to the base of her neck. She thought she felt his hands tightening around her throat, her carotid artery pulsing against the pressure. Looked up. Green eyes. Suspicion. Lust. She swayed in her heels. He ran his hands down her waist, over the curve of her hips, moved his right hand into the small of her back and pulled her against him.

Music bled through from the next room, something mid-tempo and synthesized from the 80’s—Air Supply or worse.

They kept dancing after the music had stopped, a mutual drunken stagger, Arnold working them back toward the wall, where his hand fumbled for the light dimmer.

# # #

She woke in the middle of the night with a violent thirst, and even lying on a pillow it felt like someone had caved her skull in while she slept, the red digits of the alarm clock continually descending into place, like the endless motion of a barbershop pole. The bulk of a man snored beside her, his rank breath warming the back of her neck. She lay naked with a cover twisted between her legs. Couldn’t recall passing out. The events after returning to this room lay in shards of memory—slamming shots of Absolut out of tiny bottles. A fast, hard fuck that didn’t approach the hype. She wondered if she’d said anything to undermine the evening’s lies, and just the threat of it, considering the man whose bed she shared, broke a cold sweat across her forehead. She shut her eyes. Heard her father’s voice—all cigarette growl and whiskey-tongued—that whispered to her on nights like these, lying in the beds of strange men and the darkness spinning, or a lonely cell, cursing her back to sleep. Words that, deep in her heart, she knew were true.