“He’s good to me. He’s kind. He makes me laugh. He has a job.” Lizette stepped beside Luz in the shadows and reached for her left hand. “That’s all you need, really.”
“But what about true love?” asked Luz.
Lizette scanned the crowded summer streets. “True love isn’t real, not for girls like us at least. You know who the world treats worse than girls like us? Girls who are alone.”
* * *
—
After getting off alone at her streetcar stop, Luz strolled the city, taking note of the red geraniums hanging in clay pots from balcony windows. There were the chorus sounds of patio parties, a dog’s distant bark. Luz eyed those on evening walks, young couples holding hands, a little boy with a yo-yo, an old woman pushing a cart filled with rusted cans. Luz crossed Eighteenth and headed for Hornet Moon, but she took a long way home, running her fingers through yellow wheat growing in a neighborhood lot. A moment of rest, time with the quiet of the world.
As she continued walking, Luz remembered one morning when her father had woken her up before his shift in the mines. Normally, she had to share his affection with her mother and Diego, but on this morning no one else was awake. Good morning, beautiful girl, her father had said in English and then changed into a song in French. Luz didn’t know his language. He didn’t share it enough for his children to learn. He took her hands and held them to his chest. Luz could feel the way his body trembled with each note, the long tenor in his lungs, the sonorous tremor of his ribs. What does it mean, Papa? she had asked. It means, you are my light, my world, he said. And in that moment of early morning, their household asleep, Luz felt like the most important girl in the world, and she wondered if someday when she found her one true love, would he make her feel that way, too. But the feeling was fleeting, and soon her father was gone.
Luz blinked into the fading sunlight of Denver’s evening. She glimpsed David’s Chevy slowly parking in front of Hornet Moon. He did not see her and ran from the car after slamming his door. She approached him from behind, studied the way he sprinted toward the front entrance.
“David,” she said, as he was searching the ground, presumably for pebbles to toss at her window.
He turned around at once, and stood there, silent and looming, their eyes locked in some kind of embrace. He snapped into motion, held the newspaper high. Luz didn’t need to search the page very long because there, as the evening headline in bold, was the news: DENVER TO OPEN GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION INTO ESTEVAN RUIZ’S DEATH.
“Put on something nice,” David said. “I’m taking you to dinner.”
* * *
—
The Brown Palace’s grandeur was a shock. The triangular stone building was nine stories high, ending in a ceiling that dazzled in shards of glass. Black onyx filigree railings lined center balconies. Lilies rested in waterfall vases. A white man played a grand piano before a massive fireplace. Wealthy Anglo guests carried on in expensive suits and elegant summer dresses. In red velvet uniforms, bellhops bowed and thanked and bowed some more.
“Where the World Registers,” David said, pointing to the lobby’s sign. He then motioned for Luz to follow him as a young Filipino waiter showed them to their seats in the dining room—a far corner, as requested.
After they were seated and had ordered their meal, Luz was embarrassed that she was sweating with nervousness. She sniffed the air, making sure she couldn’t detect her own odor. Roses, she thought, and found flowers behind her on a mantel. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.
“I figured you hadn’t been inside before,” David said. “It’s the most magnificent hotel in the West. Every president since Teddy has stayed here. Actresses. Politicians.” David leaned across the table, lowering his voice. “They say there are tunnels beneath it.”
“For what?”
“What else? Women and booze.” He laughed and reached for a cigarette from his breast pocket. He struck the match on the inside of his watchband. “You know, I’ve never stayed here before. I’d love to see what the rooms are like inside. Wouldn’t you?”
Luz was still trying decipher what David meant when the waiter returned with a three-tiered tray of cheeses and meats and a steaming porcelain kettle. “What will happen now?” Luz asked. “Now that they’re investigating the murder?”
David blinked, a long while. “I wish I could tell you. It could be the officer is indicted for murder. Or nothing could come of it at all, but I’d rather not think about that. Today is a triumph—let’s focus on that.”
Luz had requested her tea leaves and the strainer on the side. She pointed to the teacup and saucer before David. “I could read for you,” she suggested.
“My tea leaves?” he said, dismissively.
Luz nodded. “You could be prepared.” She paused a moment, searched the expansive dining room. “For what will come.”
David gazed into his cup. He spun it by its handle. “Sure, what the hell?”
“Really?” Luz asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “If anything, could be fun.” David winked.
Luz motioned for him to scoop the leaves into his cup. She instructed him to focus on his question, the case, what was at stake for him and everyone involved. “Move away,” she said, “from all other thoughts.”
“Like a prayer?” he said.
Luz told him that was true, though he didn’t seem like the praying type.
David laughed. “You,” he said, “have no idea what I’ve asked for.” He then blinked several times. “All clear, boss.”
Luz poured hot water over David’s leaves and whispered for him to keep holding his question while his tea steeped. For a moment, they sat together in silence, Luz leaning into the velvet cushion of her chair as she watched David’s eyes move over her face until he grinned.
“Ready?” Luz asked, and David nodded.
“Now,” she said, “drink and keep holding your question.”
David brought the teacup to his shiny lips and blew across the steam. He gazed downward as he drank, eyes hidden, mouth wet. After several minutes, he looked up and passed the cup to Luz.
“Let’s see,” she said, turning the teacup counterclockwise on the table. Luz normally would feel something at first glance, but the cup felt cold and empty.
“What do you see?” David asked optimistically.
“Still looking,” she said and brought the cup closer to her face, where an image came into focus. What at first appeared to be a black bird shifted into a bear.
“It’s easy,” said Luz with relief. “That’s an easy one. A bear. It means something from your past is hanging over you. Does that sound like something you might know?”
But when Luz gazed at David, he was speaking to the waiter, asking about something she couldn’t hear over the piano music, which had risen above their conversation, louder than anything else in the room.
“David,” Luz called out, unable to hear her own voice. He continued speaking to the waiter, oblivious to Luz shouting his name. The piercing piano music grew louder until Luz worried the sounds would damage her ears. Frightened, she stood from the table. She yelled David once more, but was forced into her seat by an invisible weight. The music stopped. The hotel went black. Luz waved her hands in the air, frantically fumbling for the table, but it was gone. The hotel was no longer there. Everything had vanished.