Free Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford Page B

Sure, she'd been gone seven years and six months, but Marty probably wouldn't understand. It was too soon to tell him. And besides, what was there to tell now? Henry didn't know exactly.

    Thinking of that painted bamboo parasol, Henry did his best to reconcile his feelings--the loss of Ethel, and the possibility of something to be found in the basement of that broken-down hotel. He'd lamented what else might be down there, right under his nose all these years, and wondered how much he could allow himself to hope for, how much his heart could take. But he couldn't wait any longer. A few days had passed, the news had come and gone. It was time to find out.

    So Henry found himself stepping off the bus three stops early and wandering over to the Panama Hotel, a place between worlds when he was a child, a place between times now that he was a grown man. A place he had avoided for years, but now he couldn't keep himself away.

    Inside, there were dusty workers in hard hats everywhere Henry looked. The water-stained ceiling tiles were being replaced. The floor was being sanded down to its original finish. The walls in the upstairs hallway were being sandblasted. The noise from the compressor alone made Henry cover his ears as he watched dust and grit settle at the top of the staircase.

    Aside from the occasional transient who broke in a back window, or the flocks of pigeons that made their roost in the rooms of the upper floor, no one had occupied the hotel since 1949. Even when Henry was a boy, it had been sparse and half-empty Especially during and after the war, from around 1942 all the way to V-J Day. Since then it had been abandoned.

    "Is Mr. Pettison here?" Henry yelled the question over the screaming sounds of power saws and sandblasters to the construction worker closest to him. The man looked up and pried back his ear protection.
    "Who?"

    "I'm looking for Palmer Pettison."

    The worker pointed to an old coatroom that appeared to have been transformed into a temporary office while the building was undergoing its rehab. From the various blueprints and construction documents pinned to a corkboard just outside the room, it looked like the hotel was on its way back to its former glory.

    Henry took his hat off and stuck his head in. "Hello, I'm looking for Mr. Pettison."
    "I'm
    Ms. Pettison--Palmyra Pettison. I'm the owner, if that's who you're looking for. Who am I talking to?"

    Henry nervously introduced himself, talking faster than he normally would. His heart was racing just being in the old hotel--the place frightened and excited him. It was a forbidden place, according to his father's rules, a place deeply mysterious and beautiful.
    Even with all the neglect and water damage, the hotel was still stunning inside.

    "I'm interested in the personal belongings that were found in the basement--the stored belongings."

    "Really? It was an amazing discovery. I bought the building five years ago, but it took me five whole years to get the financing and approvals for the renovation. Before we started doing some of the interior demolition, I wandered down to the basement to inspect the furnace--and there it all was. Steamer trunks and suitcases, row after row, piled to the ceiling in some places. Are you looking to buy something?"

    "No, I'm ..."

    "Are you from some museum?"
    "No
    ..."

    "Then what can I do for you, Mr. Lee?"

    Henry rubbed his forehead, a little flustered. He wasn't used to dealing with fast-talking business folk. "I don't know how to say this--I'm just looking for something , I don't really know what it is, but I'll know it when I see it."

    Ms. Pettison closed the ledger at her desk. The look on her face somehow told Henry that she understood. "Then you must be a relative?"

    Henry was surprised that after forty-some-odd years, people still on occasion thought he was Japanese. He thought about the button his father had made him wear each and every day--all those months at school, even during the summer. How