Hell's Hotel (5 page)

The Upper Hand

Tara walked off down the street. The big question was where to go now. No one close to her had ever died before. How could this be happening to her?

It was a warm day, but the fog reached up from the harbour into the heart of the city. Tara usually liked the fog; it gave a soft, fuzzy edge to everything. But today was different. Walking in the fog made her feel more isolated, more alone than ever. She didn't even know where she was going.

She checked her watch and realized it was 8:45. School was about to start. If she couldn't get on a plane and make a getaway, right now, right at this moment, then she decided she would do something completely normal, completely routine, something that would show everyone, or at least herself, that she could handle anything — separation of parents, death, anything. She would simply go to school. She didn't have her homework or her books, but what did that matter now?

And wouldn't you know it? There was Josh, right in her path. She had successfully avoided a face-to-face confrontation so far this week, after his return to school. Or had Josh been the one avoiding her? He was in the middle of a crowd of students, but when he spotted her, he walked straight towards her.

She needed someone to talk to. Maybe Josh — sensitive, considerate Josh — could help her right now. Then she remembered the message, last weekend, on her voice mail.

“I really hope you're not mad at me,” he said, sounding so sincere.

Now Tara was confused. At first, she wanted to slap him in the face. Just like in the old movies.
Slap
. Keep control, she told herself.

“Mad at you, for what?”

“Well, you know, about my message.”

Tara gave Josh a puzzled look. “Did you leave a message? Oh sorry. My voice mail hasn't been working properly. I've been meaning to get it fixed.”

She started to go up the steps to the school.

Josh seemed more than a little confused. “Hey wait. Are you sure you're okay? You don't look so good.”

Tara touched her hair, realizing she probably did look terrible. “Thanks for the compliment,” she told Josh. “Now I gotta go.”

When she went into the girls' washroom, she realized just how bad she looked. She had been up all night in yesterday's clothes. Her eyeliner and mascara had left black streaks on her cheeks from the tears. Her eyes were puffy and red. As the bell rang she splashed some water on her face and tried to clear her head. She was brushing her hair with her fingers when someone else walked into the washroom. She saw the face in the mirror. Jenn.

“Oh my God. What happened to you?” Jenn asked. “I've never seen you like this.”

Tara didn't turn around. She didn't trust her feelings. The last time they had seen each other, Jenn was walking away from her, walking away with a guy who had ordered her not to even talk to her friend again.

“Where's Rob?” Tara asked with a sharp edge to her voice. “Is he standing outside on guard? What's he gonna do if he finds out you've been talking to me?”

Tara turned around. Everyone in her life had let her down. Including Jenn. Tara couldn't admit to herself that she was really glad to see her friend.

“Rob's all over,” Jenn said. “No fun, no freedom. It was as bad as living at home. I'm sorry about the other day. Back then I felt like I didn't have any choice.”

Tara smiled. “You really know how to pick a guy.”

“Maybe you should give me some pointers.”

“Not me,” Tara said. “I don't have a clue.”

“Poor kid. You're still hurting over Josh.”

“I don't know. It's the first time it ever happened to me.”

“Is that why you look like this?”

Tara turned to see herself in the mirror again. “No. There's more to it. A lot more.” And she told Jenn about her parents and then about Emma.

“Wanna cut school, go someplace?”

“No,” Tara said. “I'm glad you're here. Let's just do school and then we can hang out.”

“Okay. But first we have to get you looking human again.” Jenn put her huge purse down on the sink and started unloading makeup. When they were finished, Tara looked at herself in the mirror. She had on dark eyeshadow and Jenn had given her hair a different look. “It's interesting,” she said. It made Tara feel that she had moved one giant step away from her old self. “We look a little like sisters,” she said.

All day, people looked at Tara a little funny. At first she didn't like it, but once she got used to it, she would just stare at whoever it was until they turned away. New image, new me, Tara thought. After feeling so strung out she was starting to feel stronger, tougher.

Josh caught up to her at lunch. “Somebody said they saw you tearing down one of my posters.”

It was true, Tara was getting sick of the “Josh for President” posters and had torn a couple off the wall when she thought no one was looking. “I put it in a recycling bin. Don't worry. I didn't litter.”

“Tara, what's gotten into you? Look, we really should talk. I thought you knew.”

Tara liked seeing Josh confused like this. He really did believe that she hadn't heard the message. “Josh, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be cruel but I was thinking last week while you weren't around. I mean, I really need a little more space. I'm tired of always being part of your new project, your new cause.” She paused, waiting for the effect. “What I'm trying to say is that I think we should just be friends.” Then she turned to walk away.

“Wait a minute!” Josh shouted. “That's not fair. You did hear my message. You heard it, didn't you?”

She knew that Josh had a suspicion she had been lying before. But she also knew that Josh wasn't certain. Had he dropped her first, or had she just dropped him? He would be pretty sure that he had been tricked. But he'd never know for sure and it would drive him nuts. Tara liked that.

On Another Planet

After school, Jenn and Tara checked in at the Daily Grind. It was just like old times. It had been a rough day. Tara continued to feel a cold ache in her heart every time she thought about Emma. But the way she felt about her parents was another story.

“I want to do something that will make them really mad.”

“Hey, you're sitting with the world authority on how to get parents ticked off.”

“I knew you could help.”

“That's what friends are for.”

“Don't tell me yet. Let me bribe you for information first.” Tara ordered a couple of slices of Black Forest cake and two espressos.

The plan was simple. Don't call home. Don't go home. Hang out on the street, check into the nightlife, get a little culture, have a little fun.

It was a new feeling for Tara. Six o'clock rolled around and then seven. She'd been away from home for almost twenty-four hours. She hadn't called. She knew her parents would be worried, but they deserved it for what they had done to her. She wasn't going to cave in and retreat, not until she'd had at least one night on the street.

Just when Tara felt like they had walked everywhere around downtown and checked out everything, Jenn pulled a little bottle out of her purse. She opened it and popped three pills in her mouth, then held out three more for Tara. “Try some. They'll cheer you up.”

Tara looked at the pills. She knew that Jenn had fooled around with all kinds of drugs, and normally Tara would never touch any of it. It was sometimes hard to stop herself from giving lectures on the dangers of this stuff. But that was the old Tara, before her life had been turned upside down. “What are they?”

“Nothing that'll do you any harm.”

Tara admitted to herself that they looked pretty small, pretty harmless. Right then, she decided to trust Jenn. After all, Jenn was the only one who had remained loyal to her. If she couldn't trust her best friend, who could she trust? She popped the pills in her mouth and swallowed hard.

As it grew darker, more kids appeared on the street. Craig was there as well as a couple of girls Tara had met before. They seemed like a friendly crowd. “I thought things would be pretty dead on a Thursday night.”

“Thursday night, Friday night. It's all the same here,” Jenn said.

Tara started to feel good, really good. Her head felt light and she wanted to laugh. After a sleepless night the night before, she had been starting to feel tired, but now she felt wide awake. She had a tingling sensation in her fingers and the funny notion that her feet weren't attached to the rest of her body.

Jenn recognized that her friend was finally high. “What do you think?”

“I think I'm on another planet.”

“You are,” Jenn said. “And wait till you see this.”

They walked down King Street. To Tara, all the lights looked like jewels, the people looked almost like they were dancing. Everything looked different and amusing as the street lights lit up the downtown. The cars and buses moving down King seemed like exotic, giant animals, purring and roaring. “It's a jungle out there,” Tara said, then giggled.

They arrived at Café Chebucto, a hole-in-the-wall club for kids on King. A bunch of kids with band T-shirts and ripped jeans hung out in front of the place. A sign above the door said, “Thursday Night Jam.”

Jenn seemed to know everyone. Some guys smiled at Tara and she had a hard time not laughing. Everyone looked so funny. It was only a couple of bucks each to get in. Jenn was expecting Tara could pay, but Tara realized she was broke, having spent the only money she had on cake. She suddenly felt very disappointed. She wasn't going to get to go in and hear the music.

“No problem,” Jenn said. “Watch this.”

Jenn walked up to a couple of men in suits waiting for a bus. “Excuse me. Could you help me out with some change? A couple of quarters maybe, so I can get something to eat?” Tara watched as one of the guys dug in his pocket and gave her some change. She didn't walk away until the other man did the same.

After the bus had pulled away, she said, “Now it's your turn.”

Jenn had made it look pretty easy but Tara didn't know if she could do it. “I'd be too embarrassed.”

“Hey, c'mon. We're in this together, right? Can't expect me to do all the work. Just try it.”

Tara took a deep breath as she saw an older woman approaching, steering a path away from the kids hanging out in front of Café Chebucto. Tara suddenly flashed on the image of Emma lying lifeless in the hospital bed. She pushed the image out of her head. Tara almost didn't know that she had been walking until she found herself standing in front of the woman, right in her path.

The woman stopped, clutching her purse in front of her, and looked at Tara. There was fear in her eyes. “What do you want?” she asked.

Tara now felt very bad about scaring her. “I'm sorry. Very sorry. I just wanted to ask you. Could you, um, spare any money?” She was going to lie like Jenn and say it was for food, but she couldn't bring herself to do it so she just added, “For my friend and me.”

The startled woman looked at her, relaxed a little, opened her purse, and held out a five dollar bill. Tara took the money. “Thanks,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

As the woman walked on, Tara was swept over with a crazy mix of emotions. At first she wanted to cry. The old woman had been so generous. When Jenn saw that she had scored five dollars, she hugged Tara. “Way to go! We're in.”

Now Tara felt like a hero — fearless and defiant. “If only my father could have seen that. He'd be totally freaked.”

“That's for sure.”

They paid the money for admission and walked in just as the lights inside were dimmed to pure black. A band called Good Idea Gone Bad was just about to perform.

Suddenly the stage lights came on very bright and the music exploded at a deafening volume.

The music was hard, pounding, and it seemed to take over her mind. Tara knew it was partly the effect of the pills. Her problems were gone; she was lost in the crowd dancing to the music. She tried to focus on Jenn in the flashing strobe light. Jenn was still there beside her — well, sort of. She was there and then she was gone. There and then gone. The flashing light went from brilliant white to total darkness. During one of the white flashes she saw Jenn smiling and knew everything must be okay. Tara tried to relax and let the music take over.

Tara had never been part of this world before, always a kid on the sidelines, always an observer. Now she was here in the heart of it. She had taken some kind of drug and clearly she'd stepped over the line from respectability. That was the way she wanted it.

She watched as first one person and then another went up on stage, turned their backs to the crowd, and allowed themselves to fall backwards off the stage to be caught by the people below. Crowd surfing looked like some sort of game of total trust. You'd have to trust these people — some friends, some strangers — to catch you. Your eyes would be closed, your back to the crowd, you'd fall and, with a little luck, you'd be caught by twenty or thirty hands before you hit the floor.

When she turned to say something to Jenn, Jenn wasn't there. Tara felt a sudden wave of panic. Despite how much fun she was having, she was not used to being stoned. She didn't want to be there alone. “Jenn!” she yelled. “Where are you?”

And then she saw her up on stage, back to the crowd. “No!” she screamed out, but her frail voice was swallowed up by the drums, the wailing guitar, and the sound of the keyboard. She watched as Jenn gracefully fell backwards in the most gentle manner. Tara sucked in her breath. Time froze.

And then the crowd of kids up front let out a cheer. Jenn had been safely caught and there was another girl on the stage ready to go. Part of Tara's mind relaxed, but it was like she had to remind herself to breathe. Her brain certainly was acting strangely. She wondered if she had done the right thing by taking those pills. Maybe three was too many.

Then Jenn was back beside her, tugging at her to go up on stage. “It's great! You'll love it!” she screamed, so that she could be heard over the din of the music. Tara let herself be pulled along, her fears gone, infected by the enthusiasm in Jenn's voice.

Suddenly there she was, on stage, blinded by the colourful lights now projecting onto her, transported to some other dimension. She stumbled a little, trying to get her bearings. She realized that the crowd in front of the stage was focused on her, but she couldn't see any of their faces. She looked at the girl singing and playing keyboards, and recognized her as someone who had graduated from Citadel last year. She smiled at Tara and gave her a thumbs-up.

Tara reminded herself that she had always wanted to go bungee jumping. Maybe this was as close as she was ever going to come. She positioned herself backwards at centre stage with her heels sticking out over the edge. She remembered the first time she'd ever done a backflip off the high board at Centennial Pool. Beneath her, kids were shouting. Why should she trust these strangers? She could break her neck. The rational part of her brain was telling her this was not a smart thing to do ... but the drug made her feel like this was someone else here on stage. It wasn't Tara. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and fell into the darkness.

She was floating through clouds. Time slipped into a slow, frozen mode. Drifting, drifting. Then came the cushion of a dozen hands catching her and easing her down to the floor. She opened her eyes. The room was swirling. The music was still washing over her and there were all those faces, smiling, friendly, although some looked pretty hideous in the weird lighting.

She got to her feet and wanted to thank them all for the experience, but already someone else was on the stage and she was forgotten.

As Tara got her bearings and wandered towards the back of the room, she suddenly realized how late it was, how tired she was. She hadn't really had much sleep the night before. She needed to get to bed. She felt like some high-flying airplane about to crash.

Jenn found her wobbling towards the exit. “I need to go some place to sleep,” she said desperately. “I think I'm coming down from the pills. I'm feeling really strange. I need to lie down and sleep.”

“You want me to take you home — to your home, I mean?”

Tara realized the state she was in, remembered the last words she had had with her mom and dad. No, she didn't want to get into all that. Not tonight. She couldn't go home. Besides, it would serve her parents right. They deserved to worry.

“I think I get the picture,” Jenn said. It was pretty obvious that Tara wasn't going to go home in the condition she was in.

“Where are we going to go?” Tara asked.

“Well, it's not exactly the Sheraton, but it'll do.”

They walked for three blocks, and Tara found herself standing in front of Hell's Hotel. Graffiti was spray-painted on the outside walls. Somewhere upstairs through the fourth-floor windows she could see a faint light.

“Welcome home,” Jenn said as she led Tara in through the darkened door.

Inside, they tripped over something, recovered, then inched ahead. “The stairs are right over there somewhere,” Jenn said as they worked their way along the wall.

“I don't know if this is a good idea,” Tara said. She realized she was still high. Her mind was working against her, imagining all sorts of horrible things that were ready to jump out at her from the darkness. The place smelled bad, and she knew that everything in here was dirty. How could she possibly spend the night in a place like this?

“Relax,” Jenn said. “I've stayed here dozens of times before. It's very safe.”

Just then Tara stepped on something soft. It squealed and sped off across the dark floor. A rat. Tara stifled her owns scream. She tried to get control. “Well, at least we're not alone,” she said, trying to sound brave.

“Don't worry, they're mostly on the first floor.”

“Mostly?”

They had found the stairway. Tara followed Jenn up into the darkness. “I sure hope you know what you're doing.”

“Trust me,” Jenn said.

On the second floor Tara thought she could hear voices, somewhere above. They went up more steps to the third floor. There was an eerie flickering of light on the walls from the street lights outside. It was enough to see that the third floor was strewn with broken chairs and old mattresses. The doors were off their hinges. Tara put her hand out and touched the wall and then recoiled.

“I can see why this place got its name.”

“It's not so bad, really.”

“We're going to stay here?”

“Not here, upstairs.”

Only there was no obvious way to get upstairs. The stairway in front of them had been torn down, or maybe it had fallen down.

For no obvious reason, Jenn looked up into the empty space where the stairway had once stood and shouted out, “Knock, knock! Anybody home?”

Tara couldn't figure out what she was doing or who she was talking to.