19. Sofia Starts A New Life.

Oct 19, 2020

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Room 207

Three sharps raps sounded the door. Sofia took a breath to calm herself. She stood from the desk, walked to the mirror and brushed her dress smooth, and opened the door just a tiny crack.

Past the narrow slit was a man she’d never seen before. He wore glasses, just like her, and held a large white envelope that he slipped through the crack. Sofia snatched it, closed the door, and listened to his footsteps depart down the hall. She cradled the envelope protectively against her chest as she walked back to the desk.

She closed her eyes and placed a hand against the wall, her coping mechanism since she was a young kid in Oaxaca. It was the way that she grounded herself.

There was something about the acoustic vibrations within walls, how cryptic rhythms pass through—secret codes from strangers. In the silence of this old building she felt a couple having a conversation, then from somewhere else the metallic creaks of bed springs, then in the distance the low droning hum of a television set. It all made her feel less alone.

Sofia pulled her hand from the wall, tore open the envelope, and poured out its contents.

Onto the desk spilled a passport and a driver’s license, both with photos and personal stats matching her own. Her new birthday was now the day of Mexican independence—easy enough to remember. And her name, as far as any authorities were concerned, was now Amber Thompson.

“Thompson, Thompson,” she tried out, stressing the ‘th-’ sound as if she was pronouncing ‘throb.’ And then Sofia smiled through her tears of relief.

Amber Thompson would have a chance.

Unlike Sofia, Amber wouldn’t have a murder rap for her husband—who the Mexican courts didn’t believe deserved the penalty of death for the rapes he’d committed against his wife, then against their daughter—hanging over her head. Amber wouldn’t have to worry about being tracked down by police, or hunted by her former husband’s violent and sprawling family, all of whom would not shy away from taking violent revenge on her.

Amber could just live her life.

Sofia ran to the mirror to mimic the smile that appeared in the official documents. She’d taken it back in Juarez; the harsh white lighting had made her pimples look like welts, an unfortunate side effect of trying to make her skin look lighter for the photo.

“You can always just say you got back from Cabo,” her mule, Oswaldo, had said with a laugh.

She’d heard the horror stories of mules taking advantage of their cargo during the border crossing. Holding them up for more money, or threatening to turn them over if they didn’t do whatever they’d asked, which could be worse than you could imagine. But Sofia had lucked out. Oswaldo was an honorable man.

The only real fear came during that singular moment at the border crossing. From her spot stuffed inside the rear seat cushions she’d heard the customs officer ask the standard questions of where Oswaldo was coming from and where he was going, but after a quick rifling through the paperwork, that was it. The car started rolling again and didn’t stop until they reached the city late last night.

Another knock on the door.

Sofia wasn’t expecting anyone, so she froze like she was back inside of those car cushions, wishing whoever was on the other side would just go away.

But then came a second knock, louder and stronger. The door shook on it hinges.

“Miss,” she heard someone croak from the other side. “I’m with Palmer Hospitality. Here to welcome you to the hotel.”

Sofia sat motionless at the desk and paced her breath, careful not to put her weight on the creaking floorboards. She closed her eyes and said a little prayer.

“Miss,” the voice called. “Gift basket.”

This was followed by another set of sharp knocks, then a voice that rasped close against the door.

“I know you’re in there, and I know who you are.”

Sofia turned to the window and saw the fire escape that led to freedom. She rushed to it, but when she pulled to open the window, it didn’t budge. It had been painted shut.

“No need bothering with that,” she heard through the door. “Open up and we can get this over with.”

Sofia opened the bedside table and stuffed her IDs into the pages of the Gideon Bible. She walked to the door and looked through the peephole. On the other side was a tall man with a pockmarked face and a shiny head, tufts of hair slicked back along the sides. He presented a toothy smile with no emotion behind his eyes.

“I have a key to your room, you know,” he said.

She swallowed and opened the door a crack, then felt the door push inward as the man walked in uninvited.

He strode past Sofia and sat in the desk chair like he owned the place.

“You can close the door, hun,” he said with a pained rasp like he’d gargled broken glass. “My name’s Stroud. This is my joint, in any of the ways that matter, so here’s how it’s going to work for you.”

He rapped his long fingernails on the top of the desk. It sounded like thick raindrops against the top of an umbrella.

“You need a job, we have a job,” he said. “You need a place to stay, we have rooms. So, the question is straightforward—do you want to test your luck?”

“What do you mean?” Sofia asked.

Stroud took a quarter from his pocket and held it between his thumb and forefinger. It caught the flickering red from the hotel’s rooftop sign through the window.

“One flip,” he said. “Heads, you get a job here as a maid and can stay in one of the rooms.”

“And tails?”

“Then you don’t,” he said as he stood up. “We get dozens like you every year, and we don’t always have jobs for them. But when we do, this is the best we can offer.”

He placed the quarter on his thumbnail. Sofia felt a thick anticipation in the room, as if the walls and ceiling were closing in. He raised an eyebrow with the lingering question, and she nodded her consent.

He flipped the quarter, caught it in the air, and set it against the back of his balled fist.

“Heads,” he said and slammed the quarter down on the desk, seemingly disappointed. “Congratulations. Be downstairs at 7 tomorrow morning.”

He quickly walked out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him.

Step one of Amber’s American Dream was realized, however odd the job interview was. She grabbed Stroud’s quarter, gave it a kiss, and set it on the bedside table. She set her glasses next to them, slumped on the bed, and closed her eyes.

She thought about what her mom and dad would be doing right then. He’d be riding the rickety dust-blown bus home from work, she’d be at the stove cooking dinner. He’d greet her like always with a kiss on the cheek and a quick sample of the food, before heading to bed for his 15-minute nap. Sofia’s daughter, Elena, would already be out with her friends at the park, walking beneath the sodium street lights and passing around elotes.

She stretched across the bed to set her hand on the wall, trying again to find comfort in the building’s vibrations. But this time, the acoustics weren’t as tranquil. She heard an argument, a loud thud, the shattering of broken glass, a scream.

Then she heard the sound of heavy breathing. But this didn’t feel like the others. This was louder, closer.

In the room with her.

She opened her eyes. White moonlight shone through the open curtains and onto a woman’s face.

She looked like Sofia. She stood silently in front of a pure blankness that seemed to stretch far beyond where the room’s wall should have been. The woman’s mouth was closed, her lips obscured by something Sofia couldn’t make out.

Sofia reached to the bedside table, blindly searched, then found her glasses. She put them on and realized that the woman’s mouth had been stitched shut. Thick yarn woven through her dry, swollen lips. Leaning up for a closer look, Sofia saw something small and silvery on the woman’s forehead.

In the room was a resonant hum, then all at once a loud shifting sound. Like an army marching.

The woman advanced one step closer toward the bed. The moonlight shone directly on her forehead. Sofia saw that it was a quarter, showing tails.

Another seismic sound and the woman took another step. Sofia made out movement behind her. A row of four—two men, two women—appeared from out of the chasmic darkness. They looked similar, their mouths were also sewn shut. They all wore the same quarters on their foreheads, showing tails.

Another shuffle, and they advanced. Behind them another row of silhouettes, eight bodies in all. Sofia sat higher and looked beyond, and saw these forms continuing off in the distance, their numbers multiplying with each new row, like a pyramid set on its side.

The eyes of the lead woman shifted from a vacant stare to an awareness of her condition. She saw Sofia lying there.

The woman mumbled through her stitched lips before seeming to recall that it would do no good. She made a swift motion with her forearms, crossing them into an X in front of her.

Her eyes pled to Sofia. They wept.

The many hundreds behind mimicked the gesture, ejecting a funnel of air towards Sofia with an eruptive sound. The wind forced her eyes shut, and she frantically twisted on her side to reach the bedside table and turn on the lamp. The orange light sprayed through the room, and the bodies dissipated then disappeared.

Sofia lay there silently with the lamp on, watching Stroud’s quarter on the nightstand, still showing heads, until it was time for her first shift at the Palmer to begin.

Artwork by Tiffany Silver Braun.