Three Days in the Amaranth Hotel

Chapter 6: The Beauty Blush Business Card

As Agatha buttered her toast, she peered out the window to the parking lot left damp by last night's rain. The view from the dining room wasn't great, but it would serve for the next few minutes while she put something in her stomach. The last thing she needed was to pass out from hunger during her watch today. She yawned and rubbed her neck. Her muscles were stiff from remaining upright on the window seat all night. She'd barely moved until the sun rose, when she'd splashed water on her face and finally changed her clothes—a sweater with holes in the sleeves and jeans that didn't quite fit.

When Laura emerged from the kitchen juggling a fresh pot of coffee and a fruit plate, she looked haggard, her apron stained and braids frizzy. But she perked up when she realized her first diner was the Amaranth's mysterious new guest. She introduced herself and was about to ask where the girl was from when suddenly Agatha stood up, staring out the window. Laura followed her gaze and saw the truck winding up the road.

"Ah, the planters are right on time," she said.

"Who?" Agatha relaxed as the truck got closer, revealing small white trees swaying in its bed.

"Oh, they're just here to plant some birch saplings in the garden. They know what they're doing. They come every year."

It started the year Laura was brought on as housekeeper. Briggs suddenly ordered a dozen white birch sprouts to be planted in a row where the garden met the woods. He was urged against it—white birches were finicky creatures ill-suited to the deciduous foothills. Even if their wispy trunks somehow avoided breaking in the wind, they would still die quicker than a blink from disease or insects eating their milky bark. So when that first batch perished, Laura assumed Briggs would pick something more resilient. Instead, every year since, she watched the birches die off only to be replaced with the exact same trees in the exact same spots. She used to shrug it off as a strange obsession that did little harm. But for the past few years, as she watched the hotel hemorrhage money, biting her tongue on the issue was starting to draw blood.

Laura turned from the window just as the dining room door opened to admit two more guests: a tan, stocky man in a sharp suit and a pale woman wearing an even paler pink dress. The man held the door open for his companion.

"I mean, I don't usually go for musicals, either, darling, but I was just rolling during that bit with the police dog, weren't you?"

"Mhmm." The pale woman looked bored. "Delightful."

"Good morning, Mr. Dumont, Ms. Roan." Laura poured coffee for the newcomers as they sat down. "So you made it out to the playhouse last night after all? I haven't gotten away to see it yet, but I hear it's pretty good."

Paul Dumont started filling his plate. "Well, it's not the opera, but for regional dinner theater, I thought it was a real hoot. Though Theo here thinks I should get my head checked."

"I didn't say that." The woman pulled a paperback novel from her pocket and opened it on the table. "It just didn't seem worth the trouble to go into town for something so...silly."

"I'd have thought you'd be eager to get out no matter the reason, darling. I worry about you staying up here all day while I'm working. You can only sit around reading for so many hours. Ah, I'm sorry, how rude of me." He seemed to notice Agatha for the first time. "Good morning. I'm Paul Dumont. This here is my girlfriend, Theodora."

Agatha nodded to the pair. "Agatha Barrow." She turned back to the window, hoping that would end the expected pleasantries.

"You know, I don't say this to just anybody, Ms. Barrow," Paul said. "But you have really excellent bone structure." Agatha stared at him. "Oh, I don't mean to seem intrusive or anything. I'm an executive at Beauty Blush Cosmetics, you see, it's actually why Theo and I are here. I'm trying to convince the locals to let us build a new plant just outside town. So, you see, I'm trained to see the potential for beauty in even the most unlikely places. And I have to say, I think with a little bronzer and some highlighter, you could be a real bombshell. I have some samples upstairs I'd be happy to share with you—or here, please take my card."

He pulled out a bright pink card embossed with gold letters and held it out to her. Agatha looked at it for a moment then turned back to face the window. She kept her gaze fixed on a particularly uninteresting tree branch, chewing her toast as though she was alone in the room.

Paul muttered a flustered "Well, you just think about it then" and went to sit down, holding the rejected card awkwardly before tucking it back in his pocket.

The next guest through the dining room door was a woman whose lips were pressed into a permanent oval of displeasure. Her hair was sprayed into a stiff mound that jiggled with every step.

"Oh, fine, Johnny, just keep dancing then!" she called out to the lobby. "But you'd better be ready to go to your grandmother's when I say so, you hear me? And don't blame me if I have an allergic reaction to a nut-based granola bar and you're left without a mother!"

Laura came out of the kitchen with a batch of pastries and tried not to scowl. "Feeling better, I see, Mrs. Kilter?"

"No, not at all, I'm afraid." Mrs. Kilter sat down and pulled out a bottle of green pills, a few of which she swallowed with her orange juice. "I'm sure those extra pillows you brought up last night did make a marginal difference—though they could have arrived a little more promptly after I called you, but I suppose we got there in the end, didn't we? I'm just powering through the pain this morning so Johnny and I can make it to town later. I'm sure the effort will wipe me out, though. Of course, with all my conditions, every day is just one step closer to the crushing embrace of Abraham's bosom."

"God be praised," Laura muttered.

Laura had grown to dread Mrs. Kilter's yearly visit to her mother-in-law, who lived just down the mountain. She used to wonder why the constantly complaining woman kept coming to the Amaranth when there were other lodgings in town, but she suspected the distance was the appeal. That and Mrs. Kilter knew Laura would wait on her. Grumbling all the while, certainly, but still responding to every call, always the hospitable hostess. It never failed that Mrs. Kilter was well enough for her daily visit and then laid up in bed again by the evening awaiting pampering. Like clockwork.

"Well, this is a rare thing, isn't it?" Paul said. "All us guests gathered in the same room? All but the boy, of course, and Tarpley—but I don't think Tarpley ever takes advantage of the complimentary breakfasts, does he? Have you had a chance to meet the last of us, Ms. Barrow?"

"What?" Agatha pulled her eyes from the window again.

"Have you met Mr. Tarpley?"

"Yes, I've spoken to him."

"Where?" Theodora asked, not looking up from her book. "The kitchen cupboards or under a rug in the hallway?"

Mrs. Kilter snorted into her juice.

"Come on now," Paul said with a smile. "He seems like basically a nice guy. A little weird, I'll admit, showing up all over the place with that notebook or whatever it is. But overall pretty harmless..."

"Oh please," Mrs. Kilter said. "The other day I saw him lying on top of the bookcase in the billiard room, writing away like there was nothing odd about it. If there was ever a candidate for the loony bin, that's one right there."

Just then the door swung open yet again. Mrs. Kilter jumped, and Paul dribbled some coffee onto the table. Walter stood smiling in the doorway.

"Please don't stop the sparkling conversation on my account."

Paul muttered a greeting. Mrs. Kilter sniffed in disapproval. Walter strode over to the seat beside Agatha. He leaned back on two chair legs and drummed his fingers against the table.

"I was told you didn't partake in the complimentary breakfasts," Agatha said.

"Well, when I couldn't find you upstairs, I figured you might be down here and thought I'd pop in. See anything interesting out the windows after I left last night?"

"When I do, you'll be the first to know," Agatha said.

"Very enjoyable night in your room, by the way."

Theodora glanced up from her book. Mrs. Kilter's chewing slowed.

"Your bed springs make a very interesting sound, did you notice?"

Paul almost choked on his coffee.

"No, can't say I did," Agatha said. "Glad the night was satisfactory."

The other diners stared with mouths hanging slightly open.

Walter's face remained serious but his eyes were grinning. Agatha kept watching the window, a small smile on her lips.