Lost and Found In a Hotel Hot Tub
By: Mindi Boston
Tags: Lost, Relationships, Divorce, Love, Personal

Lost and Found In a Hotel Hot Tub

I found the strength to take that first step up.

Photo by Camila Cordeiro on Unsplash

I’m sitting in a hotel hot tub. My head is back and my eyes are closed. The jets are bubbling a strange sensation up the base of my spine and my head is spinning like a pinwheel in a hurricane. On the opposite side of my closed lids, I can hear a baby giggling and it echoes against the glass walls of the natatorium. It sounds supernatural and dissociated. Kids squeal and water splashes somewhere in the distance. The smell of salt drying on the pavement and the freshly laundered towels are offset by the damp and mildewing laundry and fake potted palms.

The noise begins to fade away to a muted whisper. Maybe the man with the baby got out of the hot tub. Maybe my mind is giving in to the consumed spirits muddying my thoughts like a deadly mushroom cloud. I smile, though no one is looking. But just in case, I hold my plasticine smile in place as if saying, “No worries, I’m okay” before letting the sides of my mouth droop again and my tongue lolling to the side.

“What the hell are you doing?” asks a man near my right shoulder. Good question, I think, but I don’t respond.

I don’t want to think about this mess I’ve made. I want to soak up the delicious heat and pretend this isn’t the last of these trips we will take. I desperately want a cigarette and another drink, anything to prolong the nice emptiness inside my mind. And, I reason, even if my muscles could take me up and out of the hot tub and outside into the cold night air to the smoking area and connected bar, I am empty of smokes and cash. My cash is jingling in the pockets of my two children, somewhere in the resort. My cigarettes are gone, the last two smoked down to the butts an hour ago, sitting outside on a padded deck chair, staring up 12 stories at a couple of teenage girls waving out their window.

“You, lady, in the bathing suit… hiiiiii!” they yell. I pump my arm up and down waving back frantically and grinning like the village idiot.

“Why are you waving?” he asks me. “Where are their parents anyway? Are you drunk?!”

I look over at him shivering, wondering why he doesn’t have on his invisible alcohol blanket like I do. I take a drag and try to french inhale, no more proficient than I was when I first started smoking some twenty years ago. God, I love smoking. I am going to miss it.

“I’m not drunk. I’m in love,” I tell him.

“I don’t believe that. You divorced me after all.”

“But now,” I slur, “I want to marry you… again.” While possibly true in that exact moment, I know it is a lie the moment it leaves my lips. I’m going to miss him, too.

“I won’t hold you to that, you know, since you’re drunk, and the divorce was fairly painful.”

I ignore the anguish in his eyes. “What ‘bout Vegas? Tonight?”

“What about our kids?”

“What about living forever on a tropical island with no jobs and internet?” I practically yell. “What about you take that tattoo gun you bought on eBay and tattoo your name real big on my butt?”

I try to kiss him but tumble forward off the lounge chair. The pavement is actually cold, and I might actually be drunk. This is no good. What am I doing? I rise unsteadily and leave him to his doubts to seek out the warmth of the hot tub and see if my children have returned from the hotel’s extensive arcade.

The kids check in and I settle into the hot tub, trying to ignore the desire for another drink and smoke. I swear to myself that this time I will quit for good. All of it. I will get my shit together after this trip and stop pretending that any of this is leading to anything other than heartbreak. The thought briefly sobers me up enough to admit that I smoke too much, I drink too much, I cuss too much, I stay up too late, I wander too far from home, far too often. I have a lot of bad habits, the least of which is my dysfunctional former marriage. Current marriage? What do you call a man who you married, then divorced, then moved to a small town with and dumped all your savings into a house only he knows how to fix? Your boyfriend? Stupidity? Co-dependency? No, I’m fixing all that now. Well, starting tomorrow, or next week after our dinner party guests leave.

The water is getting hotter again. Someone must have turned the switch up because the bubbles are louder and I can smell the salt getting stronger as it creeps up closer to my nose. I should sit up, I think, but I try to move and nothing happens. I struggle to open my eyes but they don’t seem to be cooperating either. I am beginning to think that maybe I did (I mean, definitely I did) drink too much.

The pool is clearing out. The strangers have left the hot tub while our kids have joined us. The jets are strong but I feel something else against my back now, a small arm like that of a 10-year-old girl (hopefully my 10-year-old not just a random child). I feel a hairy leg stumble over mine, much like that of a clumsy 14-year-old boy I know very well. I hear a whisper in my ear, sounding much like heartache, telling me it’s time to get me out of there and go grab something to eat. I manage to finally open my eyes. I have been sitting here entirely too long just letting my mind wander, and now it hurts. But nothing hurts as bad as the truth. It is time to get out. Not just of this hot tub and hotel, but out of the rut I’ve been living in for far too long.