Page 25 of Love's a Script
Once he was more level with her, they asked after the safety of each other’s loved ones and for a few minutes watched the storm beyond the windows. The noise in the lobby had significantly reduced by this time, but occasional protests at the front desk would bring the volume up again.
“I feel sorry for the people stuck sleeping out here,” Ruben said.
Mary laughed and gestured to a series of bags at her feet. “I’m one of them. I checked out of my room just before the alert went out.”
The thought of Mary curled up in front of the fireplace like a barn mouse, disturbed Ruben. It was completely unnecessary. “You can stay in my room if you want,” he said.
Mary stammered for seconds before Ruben’s face heated in realization. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should’ve clarified. There’re two beds.”
“Oh! Duh! I don’t know why I thought…” She shook her head and smiled. “Thank you. I accept.”
“Make yourself comfortable,” Ruben said as Mary looked around his hotel room. The room was standard in size—certainly enough to share—but currently felt like a coffin.
She was rooming with a client, an awkward predicament even without the attraction. She walked past his roughly made bed to place her bags beside the bed closest to the window. While she unpacked her few belongings for what she hoped was a short stay, Ruben turned on the television to the news, lessening the pressure to speak.
When she took her toiletries to set out in the bathroom, she closed the door behind her. To her reflection in the three-way mirror, Mary whispered hollow things like “You got this” and “Don’t make it weird.”
She returned to the bedroom and found Mayor Laurie on the TV. Mary stood beside her bed and watched the mayor speak from a podium in a city-branded tracksuit and cap, repeating facts and advisories she’d heard all morning. However, things turned strange when he ended his address crooning a verse of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
“There goes your guy,” Ruben said from where he sat at the foot of his bed.
Mary turned, aghast. “My guy? My guy? Why is Mayor Laurie my guy?”
“You passionately defended him during the radio interview. I assumed you were a fan.”
“I was defending my industry, not him specifically,” she said. “I don’t like him and definitely didn’t vote for him. He literally doesn’t believe dinosaurs ever existed.”
“Damn, I forgot about that rumor.”
“I can never forget,” she said. “He is forever linked in my brain with dinosaurs. Like peanut butter and jelly. Or Bonnie and Clyde.”
With the record settled, hunger led Ruben and Mary out of their room in search of breakfast. They arrived at the hotel restaurant to find it past capacity with people having loud, unmodulated conversations around reconfigured tables. It looked and sounded like a mall food court.
“We’ll have to get here earlier next time,” Ruben said. They waited their turn at the buffet and made do with the small desert plates that remained. Once food was procured, they searched the dining room for a place to sit.
“Over there at the far end near the window,” she said, and they approached the two occupants of the table—a middle-aged couple from Arizona named Jillian and Allen—and asked if they could sit with them.
“Of course!” said the husband and wife who sported matching tie-dye T-shirts and sunburnt noses. They talked over each other, completing or correcting the other’s sentences. Quickly, Mary learned how long they’d been married, the names of their adult children, and the places they’d traveled to. “Did Kilimanjaro in 2018, Sydney in 2015, and we absolutely adored our ’09 visit to the Galápagos Islands,” said Allen.
“We try to do these outdoorsy trips every couple of years together,” Jillian explained.
“An enviable hobby,” Ruben said. “Hopefully there’s still a natural world to see by the time I retire.”
“Matamata,” Mary said before thinking.
Ruben looked at her, surprised. “Yeah, how did you—” He smiled. “Right, I forgot.”
“And how long have you two been together?” Jillian asked after studying them.
“Oh, it’s not like that,” Mary said.
“I’m too much of a skeptical smartass for her,” Ruben said, garnering amused snorts from the actual couple, and Mary found herself smiling as well.
“And have you two started preparing?” Allen asked.
“Preparing?” Ruben said.
“Yeah, for when things get worse.” Allen conspiratorially dropped his voice. “There’s no one coming in or going out for who knows how long. That means the food we’ve got is all we have. Supply will decrease, and people will begin to fight for resources. It’s day one, and you can already feel the tightening of the belt. We’ve been here all week, and the breadbaskets have never been that sparse.”
