Why Can't I Be You (3 page)

T
he shuttle to
the conference center took about thirty minutes. There were only two other passengers on board—a couple, maybe on their honeymoon. They were holding hands and whispering. I did my best not to watch them, and not to think about Deagan.

I busied myself, pretending to look for something in my carry-on bag, so I wouldn’t have to exchange pleasantries with them. Seattle was behind me before I even got a chance to look at it. The air was thick and gray and made my hair curl up in all directions, and when I finally did look back, the road behind us was a faint shadow, like a ghost.

Driving into the mountains made me dizzy. Rochester is as flat as flat can be, and this landscape seemed impossible in contrast, like a scene from a movie. The highway was carved into narrow valleys between hills taller than the fog allowed me to see. The walls of rock on either side of the road were covered in metal netting to rein in potential rockslides. In several places rocks had fallen, and the netting was battered and broken. I started getting carsick and spent the rest of the ride trying to look out the front window, focusing on the broken white line on the road ahead of us and nothing else.

The shuttle pulled up to a roundabout in front of the Salish Lodge. It looked familiar, and I thought for a second that maybe I’d been there before. Maybe on a summer vacation, back when my parents were still together, back when I was too young to really remember. But the guy from the couple started humming a familiar song slightly off-key. I shuddered involuntarily and realized we were at the same lodge they used as the Great Northern Hotel on
Twin Peaks
.

I used to stay up late watching
Twin Peaks
by myself on the little color TV my dad bought me for my eighth birthday as a ploy to win my affections after the divorce. My mother said it wasn’t good for me, that my television watching should be monitored and I was too young to watch unsupervised. But my dad said, “It’s not hooked up to the cable. Honestly, Marie! What’s the worst she can watch?”

He helped me set it up in my room, teaching me how to angle the silver arms of the antenna to get good reception, before my mother’s dirty looks and heavy sighs drove him out of the house again. I started watching
Twin Peaks
because everyone in my class was talking about it, even though it was on past my bedtime and way over my head. I would sit with my nose almost pressed to the screen, a blanket over me and the TV, so I could keep the volume low and the light from flickering under my door. Face-to-face with dead Laura Palmer and Killer BOB, I held my own hand for comfort, squeezing until my fingers went numb. I slept with the lights on until I turned eleven.

I followed the couple out of the shuttle, averting my eyes when the guy grabbed his wife’s butt like I wasn’t even there. As I walked up the stone steps to the front door, everything started to feel completely topsy-turvy and sort of surreal. Maybe Deagan wasn’t really breaking up with me. Maybe someone had plunked me in the middle of a strange David Lynch experiment. Maybe when I saw my face in the mirror, a creepy wolfish man would be staring back at me. The jet lag and the crying hangover and the thick, dried puddles of mascara on my face made me feel like it wasn’t out of the range of possibility.

I knew I had to look absolutely awful, but the woman behind the reception desk gave me a big smile and said, “Welcome to the Salish Lodge,” as if she were graciously inviting me into her own home. “Here for the reunion?” she asked. She wore a crisp white shirt and a black sweater with a ruffled front, and her hair was pulled back into a sleek, low ponytail without the slightest hint of a flyaway hair. Her name tag rested perfectly just below her shoulder, so you weren’t forced to stare at her boob to learn that her name was Ashley.

“No,” I said. “The New Media in Public Relations conference.”

“Oh, yes.” She took my name and found my file. “Will you be needing help with your luggage?”

I felt my eyes well up again. “They lost my luggage,” I said. I turned my head and watched the flames in the big stone fireplace in the lobby while I composed myself.

“Well, I can call the airline and see when they’re expecting to deliver it.”

“Oh, no,” I said, hating to be caught in a lie, even if it was a little one. “It was the car service to the airport. They drove off without leaving it.” It wasn’t a total lie. “I called, but the best they can do is take it back home for me.”

“Then you’ll probably be needing a shuttle back into Seattle to do a little shopping before the conference starts tomorrow,” she said, with a wink.

“That would be wonderful,” I said, feeling worse about the lie. She was so nice. She probably would have been sympathetic if I’d told her the truth. I just didn’t think I could get the words out without turning into an even bigger mess. My ride to the airport did swipe my luggage, and the awful truth of it was that Deagan was nothing more than a car service to me now. I didn’t even know what I was going to do after the conference was over. My flight back was a week away, but the idea of taking a romantic wine country vacation by myself seemed slightly more pathetic than booking an early flight home and sitting in my apartment, pretending I was on vacation so I wouldn’t have to admit to my entire office that I got dumped at the airport.

Ashley arranged for a shuttle to take me back to the city in an hour, giving me time to “freshen up,” which was probably a polite way of saying, “Please go wash your face and pull it together.” But she did it in a way that made me feel taken care of, not ashamed.

I took my room key and headed for the elevator. Just as the doors opened and I stepped in, I heard a woman yell out, “Jenny!” Or at least what sounded like “Jenny” from across the lobby, over the sound of a man in a business suit rolling his fancy leather suitcase over the slate floor. I turned around and saw a streak of black hair and a bright blue dress barreling toward me. “Wait, wait! Hold the door,” she shouted. I pushed the button to keep the door open, and she charged into the elevator, wrapping her arms around me, knocking my hand off the button. The doors closed.

I’ve never been a huge fan of elevators, or enclosed spaces in general, or strangers or excessive touching, for that matter, so being in an elevator getting hugged by a stranger with arms that were freakishly strong for her relatively diminutive figure wasn’t exactly my favorite thing in the entire world.

“I can’t believe it’s really you! You’re not on the reunion list!” she said, pulling away but keeping a firm hold on both my arms. She slipped her hands down so we were holding hands, shook hers so mine shook too, and looked me over. “It’s me! Myra!” She jumped up and down, taking my hands with her. “You look . . . You look amazing—OHMYGOD! You really did it, didn’t you?”

I was about to tell her that I didn’t know what was going on. That she probably had me mistaken for someone else, but then she gently ran three fingers down the slope of my nose, and I didn’t know what to do. What are you supposed to say to a stranger touching your nose in an elevator? I stared at her with my mouth gaping, like an idiot.

“I liked your old nose,” she said, shaking her head at me. “You’re the only one who didn’t.” Her eyes got wide, and I thought she’d realized her mistake. Instead she gushed: “But this one is great too! I thought you looked different when I saw you across the room. It’s a flawless job, really.”

“Thanks,” I said. I knew it was absurd, but I hated the idea of disappointing her. I’ll be who she wants me to be until I get off the elevator, I thought. I figured we’d go our separate ways, and I’d just try to avoid her for the rest of my time at the lodge. There would probably be a slew of her old friends at the reunion, and she’d forget about me, or whoever she thought I was, in the shuffle.

She had thick bangs and long straight hair that framed a small, sharp face. She was thin and wiry, maybe a little mousy, but she wore bright red lipstick and looked very pulled together. Her gorgeous, big, dark brown eyes were filling up with tears. Her tears, and the confusion and the hugging and the closeness of the elevator got me crying again.

“Oh, I know!” she said, letting go of one of my hands so she could wipe her eyes. “I’ve been fighting the mascara battle all day too. I’m such a freaking sap! I mean, thinking about seeing everyone—it just gets me going. But none of us—we didn’t know you were coming.” She hugged me again, sobbing into my shoulder. “It’s amazing!”

For a small lodge, it was turning into the longest elevator ride I’d ever been on, but then I realized that neither of us had pushed a floor button. “What floor are you on?” I asked, breaking away to look at the numbers on the panel.

“Oh no, I’m not staying here,” Myra said. “I still live in town. I’m just here setting up for the reunion weekend. And then I saw you. We had no idea!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, pushing the button for the fourth floor. “I—”

“No no! Don’t worry! It’s no trouble! We inflated the numbers a little, just in case. I think, secretly, we were all hoping you’d show up. Did you bring a date?”

“My boyfriend broke up with me at the airport,” I blurted out.

The enormity of it hit me. Everything I knew about my life—all my plans, all my goals, everything—revolved around Deagan. Without him, I didn’t have anything. I didn’t know anything about myself anymore. I felt my knees wobble.

“Oh, Jessie,” Myra said, wrapping her arms around me again. And even though this time I was sure she wasn’t saying “Jenny,” and I was absolutely positive beyond a doubt that I wasn’t who she thought I was, I hugged her back, because I needed a hug.

She grabbed the room key out of my hand when the elevator doors opened. “I have so many questions! I mean, what are you doing now? Where do you live? Who’s this idiot who broke up with you? And at the airport? Who
does
that?” she said, talking a mile a minute as she shuffled me down the hall. She pushed me into the right room and started the shower for me immediately. “But I’ll wait until we get you all cleaned up and feeling better.” She made a beeline for the minibar, grabbed a little bottle of rum, opened it, and handed it to me. “You look like you need this!”

“I don’t even have luggage,” I wailed, drinking from the bottle like I was taking medicine, even though I almost never drink.

“Then we’ll have to go shopping! What a pity!” she said, in fake horror. “How awful that we have an excuse to go shopping together! I have the perfect place to take you. And when we’re done, you’ll look so fantastic you won’t even care that he’s gone. Promise.” She flopped down on the bed, pulled her phone out of her purse, and flipped it open. I grabbed the hotel robe out of the closet and headed into the bathroom.

Just before I closed the bathroom door, I heard her say, “Oh my God, Heather! You’ll never guess who’s here!” and then, “No! Better! Jessie Morgan! No, I’m not. She’s really, really here.”

Before I jumped in the shower, I studied my face in the mirror. I’d never thought much about my nose one way or another, but it really did fit my face perfectly.

“I
can just take
the shuttle to Seattle to go shopping,” I called from the bathroom, as I toweled off. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to create some semblance of an even part, since like an idiot I’d packed my brush in my suitcase. “You must have so much to do for the reunion.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Myra that I wasn’t this Jessie person. If I could go into the city to shop by myself and change rooms when I got back, I’d avoid the whole “You know how I hugged you and pretended to be your long-lost friend . . . yeah, I’m not” awkwardness. Maybe I could leave a nice little note from Jessie at the front desk, telling Myra it was great to see her but I had to go. I’d stay away from the banquet room while the reunion was taking place, and everything would be fine.

“Don’t be silly,” Myra called. “When were you even last in Seattle?”

I froze. I’d never been to Seattle.

Luckily, it was a rhetorical question. “You wouldn’t know where to go now!” Myra said gleefully. “I know the perfect place. And I want to spend as much time with you as I can while you’re here!” Her phone chimed. “Oh, crap! I have to go check with the chef about something for the reunion menu, but meet me in the lobby when you’re dressed and we’ll go. Okay?”

I heard the door close before I could even answer. I pulled my salad-dressing-splattered, travel-rumpled clothes on again, and emerged from the bathroom. The room was undoubtedly the nicest hotel room I’d ever been in. A big fluffy bed with a Myra-shaped imprint on the comforter. A wood-burning fireplace stacked with logs and ready to go.

Deagan would have been in heaven. There were few things he loved more than lighting fires. His parents had one of those old-fashioned houses with a fireplace in every bedroom, and he told me once that when he was a kid he used to write his secrets on paper and burn them in his fireplace.

I thought I knew all his secrets. When we lay in bed at night, Deagan would tell me stories about his childhood. His mother always baked oatmeal raisin cookies for after-school snacks. When his father took him fly-fishing in hip waders, he was amazed by the way the cold water rushed past without getting him wet and the feel of the stones at the bottom of the river through the rubber soles. His grandmother taught him how to waltz in the kitchen to Irving Berlin songs when she came to visit for Christmas. The scar on his chin was from falling off his bike, and his mother washed the blood off his face with a wet washcloth. He and his little brother built forts in the living room and bombed each other with throw pillows. When he graduated from college, his dad had his initials engraved into his grandfather’s watch and cried as he fastened it around Deagan’s wrist. He’d tell me these stories, the things he remembered, and just the fact that they were real made me feel better. Deagan’s stories made me believe I could have the things I’d always wanted, that we were going to be a “happily ever after” couple, that when we had kids, one of us would know what a childhood was supposed to be. I needed that to be true.

I threw myself down on the bed, in the Myra-shaped imprint, burying my head into the comforter. It smelled like Chanel Chance—the perfume Luanne wore. She practically walked around in a cloud of it. It was comforting. Familiar. Like getting a hug when I needed one.

The idea of taking the shuttle and shopping by myself in a city I’d never been to was completely overwhelming. I felt like quitting everything. I could lie in that spot on the bed and do nothing until the cleaning crew came in and had to move me. They could bundle me up with the sheets and whisk me away.

I rolled over on my side. Something stuck me in the face. It was an earring. A tiny filigree teardrop, hanging from a thin gold post. It looked old. The nooks and crannies of the gold were darkened with years of tarnish, even though the rest of it was polished clean. I searched around until I found the earring back, on the floor by the nightstand. I couldn’t just leave it there or pretend I hadn’t found it. I had to return it to Myra. It reminded me of a pair of earrings Deagan’s grandmother had. It was probably an heirloom.

I thought about just leaving it at the front desk with a note for Myra. They probably don’t have stationery in here, I thought. Hotels don’t really do that anymore, right? But when I searched around, I found a folder with a few pieces of paper and some envelopes in the desk drawer. The discovery disappointed me. I wanted to see Myra again. I wanted to go shopping with a friend and be someone new and forget about Deagan for a while. “I wouldn’t want to risk them losing this,” I said to myself, out loud, like my lame excuse would somehow make the idea of pretending to be someone I wasn’t less crazy or ridiculous.