A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan [3]
“Have you called the police?” Alex asked.
“The concierge said he would call. But I’m also wondering—could it have fallen out somewhere?” She looked helplessly at the marble floor around their feet. Sasha relaxed slightly. This woman was the type who annoyed people without meaning to; apology shadowed her movements even now, as she followed Alex to the concierge desk. Sasha trailed behind.
“Is someone helping this person?” she heard Alex ask.
The concierge was young and spiky haired. “We’ve called the police,” he said defensively.
Alex turned to the woman. “Where did this happen?”
“In the ladies’ room. I think.”
“Who else was there?”
“No one.”
“It was empty?”
“There might have been someone, but I didn’t see her.”
Alex swung around to Sasha. “You were just in the bathroom,” he said. “Did you see anyone?”
“No,” she managed to say. She had Xanax in her purse, but she couldn’t open her purse. Even with it zipped, she feared that the wallet would blurt into view in some way that she couldn’t control, unleashing a cascade of horrors: arrest, shame, poverty, death.
Alex turned to the concierge. “How come I’m asking these questions instead of you?” he said. “Someone just got robbed in your hotel. Don’t you have, like, security?”
The words “robbed” and “security” managed to pierce the soothing backbeat that pumped through not just the Lassimo but every hotel like it in New York City. There was a mild ripple of interest from the lobby.
“I’ve called security,” the concierge said, adjusting his neck. “I’ll call them again.”
Sasha glanced at Alex. He was angry, and the anger made him recognizable in a way that an hour of aimless chatter (mostly hers, it was true) had not: he was new to New York. He came from someplace smaller. He had a thing or two to prove about how people should treat one another.
Two security guys showed up, the same on TV and in life: beefy guys whose scrupulous politeness was somehow linked to their willingness to crack skulls. They dispersed to search the bar. Sasha wished feverishly that she’d left the wallet there, as if this were an impulse she’d barely resisted.
“I’ll check the bathroom,” she told Alex, and forced herself to walk slowly around the elevator bank. The bathroom was empty. Sasha opened her purse, took out the wallet, unearthed her vial of Xanax, and popped one between her teeth. They worked faster if you chewed them. As the caustic taste flooded her mouth, she scanned the room, trying to decide where to ditch the wallet: In the stall? Under the sink? The decision paralyzed her. She had to do this right, to emerge unscathed, and if she could, if she did—she had a frenzied sense of making a promise to Coz.
The bathroom door opened, and the woman walked in. Her frantic eyes met Sasha’s in the bathroom mirror: narrow, green, equally frantic. There was a pause, during which Sasha felt that she was being confronted; the woman knew, had known all along. Sasha handed her the wallet. She saw, from the woman’s stunned expression, that she was wrong.
“I’m sorry,” Sasha said quickly. “It’s a problem I have.”
The woman opened the wallet. Her physical relief at having it back coursed through Sasha in a warm rush, as if their bodies had fused. “Everything’s there, I swear,” she said. “I didn’t even open it. It’s this problem I have, but I’m getting help. I just—please don’t tell. I’m hanging on by a thread.”
The woman glanced up, her soft brown eyes moving over Sasha’s face. What did she see? Sasha wished that she could turn and peer in the mirror again, as if something about herself might at last be revealed—some lost thing. But she didn’t turn. She held still and let the woman look. It struck her that the woman was close to her own age—her real age. She probably had children at home.
“Okay,” the woman said, looking down. “It’s between us.”
“Thank you,” Sasha said. “Thank you, thank you.” Relief and the first gentle waves of Xanax made her feel faint, and she leaned against the wall. She sensed the woman