Free The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida Page B

and close the curtains. You look behind the television, in the closets, in your suitcase. It’s not in the room.
    You sit in the desk chair defeated. You eye the champagne. You want a glass to calm your nerves. You struggle with the cork. There’s something wrong. You turn the cork toward you and study it. You pull at it and it hits you in the chest and the champagne follows, dampening your blouse and skirt.
    â€œJesus!” you say aloud. You hold your hand to your chest. You feel like you’ve been shot. Your hands are sticky and your clothes are wet. You can smell the dried rose scent of the champagne on your scarf, and you untangle it from your neck. Your blouse clings to your skin as you take it off, and you unzip your skirt and let it drop to the floor. You rummage through your suitcase for whatever is available and easy. You pull on a dull, wrinkled T-shirt, some black spandex exercise pants.
    You try to think. A phone rings in the room next to yours. You remember the man and his annoying cell phone ring at the business center. That’s where you left the original. It must still be there. You slide on your sneakers and pick up your key card.
    The elevator ride is interminable. It seems to stop at every floor to let in another hotel guest. The guests are inevitably well dressed, and carry suitcases or purses of fine leather. The purses are bright-colored citron or red; gold Chanel or Hermès logos dangle from their zippers.
    You should never have bought a simple black backpack.You should have picked a fluorescent knockoff Hermès bag with metallic charms hanging from its multiple zippers. Then the thief would never have been able to walk out of the hotel so casually, the black unisex backpack flung over his shoulder.
    You exit the elevator and go straight to the business center. You lift up the top of the copier. No paper is inside. You check the mouth of the machine for the copy.
    Nothing. You never pressed copy. Or did you? You made one copy but it was blank. You turned over the police report. The man with the phone distracted you. And you left. Now the police report is gone.
    You flee the business center; the door slams behind you.
    You approach reception, and the long-haired woman standing behind the desk says, “Are you looking for the fitness center?”
    â€œNo,” you say, confused, until you understand that the only possible explanation for your attire is that you’re going to work out.
    â€œActually,” you say, because saying that word calms you down, makes you not—you hope—come across as frantic as you feel. “By mistake I left a very important document in the copy machine earlier today, and now it’s not there.”
    â€œYou are sure you left it there?”
    â€œYes,” you say. “Has anyone turned anything in?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” the long-haired woman says. She rummages below the reception desk. “Nothing here.”
    She calls over to a short-haired woman working one computerdown from her. The short-haired woman looks at the desk area around her and shrugs.
    â€œNo,” says the long-haired woman. “Nothing’s been turned in.”
    â€œIs there a lost and found?” you ask.
    â€œA what?”
    â€œA place that people put things that are lost? So other guests can find them?”
    â€œThis is that place,” says the woman.
    â€œWhat about housekeeping?” you say. “Do they clean the business center?”
    â€œYes, but they shouldn’t take anything.” Before you have to ask her to do so, she calls housekeeping. You feel she’s on your side.
    She speaks in Arabic and waits. She moves the phone away from her mouth. “They’re checking,” she tells you.
    You wait for two minutes while they check.
    She speaks into the phone and hangs up.
    â€œNo, nothing,” she says.
    You go back into the business center and look at each computer station. You peer