Ch two hostel/town

 

  It wasn’t difficult work. Cassie had a list of all the rooms who’d checked out, and the ones that requested clean sheets or towels or extra bars of dark herbal soaps. She talked the entire time which put me at ease. Like Patrick, Nonna, and Jill, it hadn’t seemed at all strange to her that I’d ended up here or that I was suddenly considering spending the whole summer here. 

  “I was actually supposed to be working at this resort up the road,” she said, meaning the highway. “It’s one of those cheesy ‘everyone wears western gear and pretends it’s a working ranch’ places. Like, but for thousands of dollars a night. They wanted me to run hospo - “ she paused to knock on a door and then let herself in with a keycard - “but they gave me like, fifteen teenagers as my ‘staff’. It was a nightmare. All they wanted to do was sneak off and steal beer from the kitchen.” 

  She assessed the room. It’d been done in second-hand furniture. The bed frame was scratched golden aluminum and the walls were painted turquoise. The bedding was a dusky pink. The walls were covered in black and white photographs and there was a deer skull with horns hanging over the bed. 

  “I kind of love it,” I tell her. 

Cassie snapped her gum. “Right? They’re all different. Nonna loves thrifting. We do runs every weekend. You should come next time.” 

 

  She showed me the checklist of what each room needed. Most of the stuff was obvious, like checking what needed to be restocked and making sure the surfaces were all clean. As we worked, Cassie kept talking. “Anyway, they had me working from like, six in the morning to midnight each night to get everything done. They wouldn’t let me reprimand anyone and I didn’t have time for that anyway. I remember this guest just furious at me for not having clean sheets for his turn down, but I couldn’t get the laundry done any quicker. I was changing his bedding and he was yelling at me - the whole time I was just crying - “ she gave an enormous sigh. “My boss called me into her office and you know what she told me?” 

I gave her a look to suggest I hadn’t the slightest idea. 

“She said she didn’t think ‘hospitality was the right fit for me’. Which it isn’t - *god* - but like, I worked so hard.” 

I believed her, too. She flitted around the room with serious focus. The way she worked was all muscle memory, but she paid intense attention to what she was doing. I don’t know how she could keep chatting the entire time she did it. She had an extraordinary ability to compartmentalize what she was doing physically verse what she was doing mentally. All the while, she was giving me direction based on things I picked up or even just the look on my face. I stopped to examine the gold framed bathroom mirror and without missing a beat, she passed me glass cleaner and a cloth. 

  “So I quit, I left, I said ‘fuck this, if you guys think you can do it without me, go for it.’ They had me in this stupid paisley dress and this little black apron and I changed right there in her office. Down to my skivvies, I didn’t care. I got in my car and I cried all the way to Victory - you probably drove through it - and I went to a coffee shop and ate three chocolate croissants. I don’t know why I cared so much, “ Cassie paused again just to wipe her eyes. “I’m so emotional today, ugh,” she shook out her hands. “I just really wanted it to work out. But, in a way it did. There were flyers in the coffee shop for this place, you know, work-to-live, and I’m not stressed out here. There aren’t any horses. I really wanted to learn to ride, but I’m not stressed out.” 

   We finish the room by burning some sage (Cassie’s thing) and folding a towel into an alligator and leaving it on the bed (Nonna’s thing). “She saw it on a cruise once,” Cassie told me. 

  “How weird. I love it,” I say. 

  We enter the next room, which has an antique black walnut bedroom set and a mural of clouds on its navy blue walls. I was already getting into the groove of things. I listened to Cassie patter on about her life before this. She grew up in Texas and her family had been very competitive. “I was in everything: cheer, dance, gymnastics. But I didn’t get the scholarship I wanted so I took a gap year to travel. That turned into a few. I’ll probably go into sports medicine or something next year…” She didn’t sound excited. 

  “What about you? How’d you end up here?” 

  Before I could answer, a thin, bookish looking man peered his head past our housekeeping cart and looked in. 

 “Need a hand?” He asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, he just began pulling gloves on. 

 “This is Ben,” Cassie beamed, “He’s the best.” 

  “Hello, fellow traveler,” he said. He too, managed to chat effortlessly while cleaning. 

  “Ben’s here working on his *dissertation*, right? On indigenous tribes?”  

  Cassie gave him a look of pride and her eyes followed him. I held a smile. He wasn’t unattractive. He had interesting mannerisms and he spoke like someone working on their PhD might. But it was strange seeing someone who looked like she stepped away from her Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders audition to look so positively hard done by this slight, unassuming little man. Ben seemed oblivious. 

 

   “Last year, we discovered there were tribes living in this valley from before the immersion of the land bridge. We know almost nothing about them. Someone found fragments of homo erectus inside the stomach of a saber toothed cat. How did he get here? What did he do? - y’know, besides get eaten…” 

   Ben spoke in a theatrical manner as those he were already preparing lectures for his students in his head. I assumed he planned to teach, because what else would you do with a phd in paleontology? As it turns out I was right. 

 “Technicallyyyy I’m a guest here,” he went on. “I booked this room through mid-July. But I’ll probably stay on for a little longer. There is much to explore.” 

“Indeed,” Cassie giggled. 

  It felt like no time had passed when Cassie was finished folding the final alligator. Ben took the laundry to the machines next to the kitchenette. We followed, but made a pit stop by the office so Cassie could show me the calendar and explain scheduling. 

  

   “Basically, we just need to make sure someone’s here to clean rooms after check out or do turn down. The other shifts are morning check in or night. It’s really not much. Jill came up with this convoluted system where we all rotated mornings and alternated laundry duty.” Cassie shook her head.

  “But now we just pick the shifts that work for us. Minimum is five cleaning shifts but you can pick up more for extra cash. We kind of police each other, so if you’re not pulling your weight you'll hear about it. Front desk shifts are super easy. We can literally forward guest calls and texts to our phones, so I literally just hang out by the pool until someone’s here and then let them in. Jill will want to show you the computer so you can take credit cards and schedule but, trust me, anyone can do it. Since we all live here, someone’s always here. Truly. If it’s a super big emergency Boris or Patrick will come over from the bar. Just do your shit and don’t be a dick and you’ll have fun.” 

  “Thank you,” I said. “Truly. This is better than anything I expected.” 

  We met up with Ben and they gave me the rest of the tour. There was a small, bean shaped pool behind the hostel that was covered in animal-shaped inflatables. 

  “It’s almost like being back on the ranch,” Cassie said in a sad voice, offering the back of her hand to a bright pink unicorn. The pool toys were another one of her contributions, along with some cabanas and fairy lights. “I help Nonna with social media. We’re trying to get this place as photo-worthy as possible.” 

  She explained to me that because of the proximity of multiple national parks, this valley drew in a lot of travelers during summer. 

  “We want to offer them an alternative to the La Quinta in Victory. This place has character. There’s hiking trails that literally start a hundred feet from our door. The stars are amazing. It’s really special.” 

  She took me to the front of the hostel. She showed me the fire-pit which was surrounded by a hodge-podge of furniture, including an enormous loveseat covered in magenta brocade.

  “Jill hates it when we hang out out here. She says it should be ‘guests only’. So naturally this is where everyone meets every night.” 

  I caught the same flicker of spirit that inspired Cassie to strip down to her underwear in protest of her previous employer. 

  “Why is she such a hater?” I ask. Cassie shrugs. 

  “Nonna and Boris *want* people to enjoy themselves and feel at home. Jill just has all these hang ups about how things are ‘supposed to be’. She’s very type-a. I could never figure out why she ended up working here, but turns out she’s their *actual* grand daughter. And Noah is their grandperson, and they’re amazing - it makes no sense to me.” 

  “Who’s Noah?” I ask. 

Cassie links her arm with mine and says, “That’s a very good question!” 

She steers me towards the bar. 

  In the little crossroads that comprised the center of town, stood the bar, a little grocery store with a single gas pump out front, a gift store, a post office, and a museum that told you that this town had been founded by silver miners in the eighteenth century hundreds and in the past hundred and fifty years, the population never grew above five hundred.  

   “There’s not even police,” Ben jogs along behind us to catch up. “They come from Victory if there’s anything going on but there’s nothing.” 

  He stood in the center of the dusty road with his arms out stretched. There was a deer eating  the flowers in front of somebody’s house behind him. The town was nearly silent save for the ambient noises of the birds, bugs and breeze.  We walk past the bar. I notice the same missing persons flyers in front of the hostel are papered along the light posts. I turn a full circumference and realize they are everywhere; put up hastily. 

“Missing mother and daughter” in bold lettering above the same ill-colored photo printed off a printer running out of ink. 

  The mother is holding her daughter close, and they have the same half smile that doesn’t quite reach their eyes. 

  “Do you guys - ,” I begin, but Cassie pulls my arm and steers me into a little grey shop with burgundy accents. A pane of glass announces in enormous matte-black calligraphy, Astrid’s Tea House. Below it was a small cardboard sign. In the same calligraphy, it reads, “I’ve been expecting you!” 

Below that, someone has scrawled in fascinating pointy script: 

“Yeah! What took you so long?” 

Cassie opened the door. 

  Astrid had shielded the windows of her tea room with burgundy curtains and put up Victorian style paper on the walls. It had the exact feeling of being inside the back of a gypsies caravan, if a caravan could fit puffy black sofas and racks of vintage clothing. The person sitting at the counter was painting an intricate eyeball on the back of a leather jacket. They gave us a wave, and continued without speaking. There was incense burning, synth-wave over the speaker system, and little sections of jewelry and art made by some of the locals. Each section had a little card with the artists photo and instagram handle. I realized the card for @itsmenoaaaahhh had a photo of the person sitting at the counter and put two and two together. I recognized a section selling the same soap and lotion from the hostel, just with more variety, and said, “That’s neat.” 

  Cassie leaned over and pointed to a sign that said, “SHH! Reading in session!” 

 There was a curtain behind Noah’s counter and from it there was the sound of muffled voices. 

   Ben took a seat on one of the couches, pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and began to write. Noah took a moment to saunter over with a pot of jasmine tea that momentarily overpowered the smell of incense. They grinned at me with clean sharp teeth and beckoned. I sat next to Ben and absorbed my surroundings with Cassie continued poking around. 

  Finally, a couple of tourists emerged from behind the curtain giggling. “Thank you!” One of them turned. “Yes, very illuminating,” the other laughed. They didn’t stick around for tea. A single bell jingled as the front door closed behind them. 

  A moment later, a woman with long dark hair and heavy goth make up stepped out as well. She had a sour look on her face as she greeted us. 

  “Oh, what’s wrong Astrid?” Ben asked pleasantly. “What’s the patriarchy done this time?” 

  He hadn’t mean it to be mocking, but I couldn’t help but snort loudly and then cough as tea flew up my nose.

 

“I - sorry - ,” I choked. “This is really good.” I gestured towards the tea. 

   Astrid gave me a haughty glare and then addressed Ben. 

 

  “I don’t know why people come here just to catch me out. It’s fine if you don’t believe, but to make the entire visit about trying to prove it’s nonsense is so-o cliche.” She leaned over to Noah, who put their arm around her, as if on cue. 

  “I can’t help it if their future is boring. You’ve got nothing going on, what do you expect me to tell you? Your co-workers are sick of you talking about your baby?” 

   Noah’s paint stained hands rubbed her lace covered biceps. She closed her eyes. “They crave drama. They want me to look at them and tell them that they’re cursed, or that they’ll have good fortune befall them, or that they’ll find a perfect lover. They don’t want to hear that they’ll work the same 9-5 until they die. So I invite a little drama for their sake, so what? What’s my crime? Are they not,” she paused to put especial emphasis on the word “entertained?” 

  “I wouldn’t want you to tell me I’m going to work the same job forever,” Cassie wrinkled her nose. “That’s honestly the worst fate I could imagine.” 

  Astrid gave a deep nod, as though resting her case. 

   “Oh, um, I’m - ,” I mean to introduce myself, but Astrid cuts me off with a curt “I know.”

  The tea room falls silent, minus the speaker which is playing an ethereal electronic rendition of “dust in the wind” by Kansas. 

  I don’t know what to say. I hold an uncomfortable smile until Astrid says, “I do hope you unburden yourself here,” in a snotty tone. 

  Noah smacks her arm and changes the subject. 

  “What are you guys doing tonight?” 

“Maybe a sunset hike,” Cassie says. She looks around the room to see if anyone is interested. “Or a swim?” 

  

  “We should hike to the cemetery,” Astrid says with an air of authority. She gives me a hard look and I wonder if she sees misfortune befalling me on this specific path. Everyone nods assent - fine, alright, meet ya later - and we leave the teahouse not a moment too soon. 

  

  “So, she definitely does not like me,” I say. Ben just shrugs. 

  “That’s Astrid. She’s an interesting specimen if there was one. Anomalous.” 

Cassie was more helpful. “She didn’t like me at first either,” she said. After that we dropped it. 

  For the last bit of the tour, she took me to “employee housing”, which just meant the apartments above the bar. 

  

  “They took all these apartments and partitioned them off so everyone can have a separate bed and a room, but we all share a bathroom and a kitchen.” 

  As she walked down the line, she pointed to each apartment. “Noah, Jill, me, and then you’ll be last.” 

  I had the corner piece of balcony. The railing by my door had shoe prints on it. Cassie gave me a little smile and pointed up towards the roof. Then she handed me a key and left me alone for the first time since the morning.