Fear The Worst

I’d been selling cars since I was twenty, and I was good at it, but Susa

My dad had passed away when I was nineteen, and left my mother pretty well fixed. A few years later, when she died of a heart attack, I used the inheritance to show Susa

And fucked the whole thing up.

I was never a big-picture guy. Sales, working one-to-one, that was my thing. But when I had to run the whole show, I kept sneaking back onto the floor to deal with customers. I wasn’t cut out for management, so I let others make decisions for me. Bad ones, as it turned out. Let them steal from me, too.

Eventually, I lost it all.

And not just the business, not just our big house that overlooked the Sound. I lost my family.

Susa

Syd, somehow, blamed herself. She figured that, if we loved her enough, we’d stay together no matter what. The fact that we didn’t had nothing to do with how much we loved Syd, but she wasn’t buying it.

In Bob, Susa

I never bought Susa

On this particular day, I went home, somewhat reluctantly, at six. When you’re on commission, you don’t want to walk out of an open showroom. You know, the moment you leave, someone’ll come in, checkbook in hand, asking for you. But you can’t live there. You have to go home sometime.

I’d been pla

By seven, she had not shown up, or called to let me know she’d be late.

Maybe someone had gone home sick, and she’d had to stay on the front desk for an extra shift. Ordinarily, if she wasn’t going to make it home in time for di

Still, by eight, when I hadn’t heard from her, I started to worry.

I was standing in the kitchen, watching CNN, getting updated on some earthquake in Asia but not really paying attention, wondering where the hell she was.

Sometimes she got together with Patty or one of her other friends after work, went over to the Post Mall to eat in the food court.

I called her cell. It rang several times before going to message. “Give me a call, sweetheart,” I said. “I figured we’d have pizza after all. Let me know what you want on it.”

I gave it another ten minutes before deciding to find a number for the hotel where she worked. I was about to make the call when the phone rang. I grabbed the receiver before I’d checked the ID. “Hey,” I said. “You in for pizza or what?”

“Just hold the anchovies.” It wasn’t Syd. It was Susa

“Oh,” I said. “Hey.”

“You’ve got your shorts in a knot.”

I took a breath. “What I don’t get is why you don’t. Bob and Evan giving Syd the eyeball? Thinking she should model?”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Tim,” Susa

“Did you know when you moved in there with Sydney that Bob was taking his son in? That okay with you?”

“They’re like brother and sister,” she said.

“Give me a break. I remember being nineteen and-” The line beeped. “Look, I gotta go. Later, okay?”

Susa

“Mr. Blake?” said a woman who was not my daughter.

“Yes?”

“Timothy Blake?”

“Yes?”

“I’m with Fairfield Windows and Doors and we’re going to be in your area later this-”

I hung up. I found a number for the Just I

I grabbed my jacket and keys and drove across town to the hotel, pulled right up under the canopy by the front door, and went inside for the first time since Syd had started here a couple of weeks ago. Before heading in, I sca

The glass doors parted before me as I strode into the lobby. As I approached the desk, I hoped I would see Syd, but there was a man there instead. A young guy, late twenties maybe, dirty blond hair, his face cratered by the ravages of acne a decade earlier. “May I help you?” he asked. His name tag read “Owen.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was just looking for Syd.”

“I’m sorry. What’s his last name?”

“It’s a she. Sydney. She’s my daughter.”

“Do you know what room she’s staying in?”

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “She works here. Right here on the desk, actually. I was expecting her home for di

“I see,” said Owen.

“Her name’s Sydney Blake,” I said. “You must know her.”

Owen shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Are you new here?” I asked.

“No. Well, yeah.” He gri

“Sydney Blake,” I repeated. “She’s been working here two weeks. Seventeen, blonde hair.”

Owen shook his head.

“Maybe they’ve got her working someplace else this week,” I suggested. “Do you have an employee roster or a schedule or something that would tell you where I could find her? Or maybe I could just leave a message?”

“Could you wait just a moment?” Owen asked. “I’ll get the duty manager.”

Owen slipped through a door behind the front desk, returning a moment later with a lean, good-looking, dark-haired man in his early forties. His name tag read “Carter,” and when he spoke I pegged him as from the South, although what state I couldn’t guess.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m looking for my daughter,” I said. “She works here.”

“What’s her name?”

“Sydney Blake,” I said. “Syd.”

“Sydney Blake?” he said. “Don’t recognize that name at all.”

I shook my head. “She’s only been here a couple of weeks. She’s just working here for the summer.”

Carter was shaking his head, too. “I’m sorry.”

I felt my heart beating more quickly. “Check your employee list,” I urged him.

“I don’t need to be checking any list,” he said. “I know who works here and who doesn’t, and there’s nobody here by that name.”

“Hang on,” I said. I dug out my wallet, fished around in a crevice behind my credit cards, and found a three-year-old high school photo of Sydney. I handed it across the desk.

“It’s not real recent,” I said. “But that’s her.”

They took turns studying the picture. Owen’s eyebrows popped up briefly, impressed, I guessed, by Sydney ’s good looks. Carter handed it back to me.

“I’m real sorry, Mr.-”

“Blake. Tim Blake.”

“She might be working at the Howard Johnson’s up the road a bit.” He tipped his head to the right.

“No,” I said. “This is where she said she works.” My mind was racing. “Is there a day manager?”

“That’d be Veronica.”

“Call her. Call Veronica.”

With great reluctance, Carter placed the call, apologized to the woman on the other end of the line, and handed me the receiver.

I explained my situation to Veronica.

“Maybe she told you the wrong hotel,” Veronica said, echoing Carter.