Liminal Spaces

I awaken with a start. Where am I? Where is this? Why does the bed feel so nice?

It takes me a second to remember that this hotel room with its silken sheets is where I’m meant to be. I breathe out slowly. The curtains are still drawn; I made sure to take care of that the moment I stepped into the room. A rectangle of light streams in from around the thick drapery. I groggily reach for a light switch. I’m still tired, despite the fact that it’s ten in the morning—fuck, I really needed that rest, and FUCK…

It’s ten in the morning!

The message sent yesterday night echoes in my head. I was supposed to be downstairs by nine. I rush for the door, but then I stop myself, bare feet digging into the carpet. I still don’t know who sent the message. I want to believe that it was Erin—why else would her score suddenly change? I pause for a second, mulling it over.

What convinces me to head out the door is the fact that I’m in a highly public hotel. If it’s Father behind the messages, he can’t do shit to me in here.

But still, I find myself adjusting my sunglasses as I take the lift down, second-guessing myself all the way until the elevator doors open.

There’s a lady waiting at the end of the marble corridor. She’s got long brown hair, brushed into sweeping parallel lines, and a slim figure hugged by her ribbed grey sweater-dress, a thin brown belt tied around her waist bringing her outfit together. She’s keeping an eye on the lobby, but at the sound of the elevator door opening, she turns and sees me.

“Hello,” she says, waiting a second for an old man waiting for the elevator to get into the box. “You’re a little late.”

“You’re Genevieve?” I ask, impatient. “Who texted me?”

“Erin told me you’d be paranoid, but I didn’t think that would preclude you from your manners,” she says, the corners of her lips stretching up into a small smile. Her teeth is very white, and her eyes a lovely green. “But yes, I am Genevieve.”

“Who are you? Why are you here? If you know Erin, where is Erin?”

I’m not about to get sloppy just because a pretty lady smiles at me and chastises me for my manners of all things.

“You didn’t think Erin would come here herself, did you? That would be a risky thing for her to do,” she says. “Erin’s at work, she’s teaching right now.”

“But how did she know who I was? How did she know I was here? How do I know I can trust you?”

“Erin told me this might happen,” Genevieve says, seeming tickled by all my questions. She pulls out her phone, and taps into her photos. “You can take a scroll and see for yourself. If you don’t trust me, you can walk away. Otherwise, we’ll head down to the garage together.”

I grudgingly accept the phone. Half of the photos look like generic pretty cityscape shots with two filters on top slapped on them, but the other half is all photographs of blackboards, mathematical notation scribbled dense across it. I see Erin’s exquisite face in a few of these, staring intently at the chalkboard in a look of fierce contemplation. The most recent photo looks like a selfie that was taken last night in one of their office’s, with Erin and Genevieve smiling into the camera. In one corner, I spot yesterday’s newspaper. In the other is the poster that I had that kid put up yesterday.

“You arranged the last photo deliberately,” I say, accusatory.

That smile on Genevieve’s face grows a crack wider.

“Shall we head to the garage? You might want to pick up your stuff first. Erin and I both think that it’s pretty risky to be staying at a hotel.”

I show up at the garage five minutes later, having just had enough time to brush my teeth, piss, and pick up my backpack. I would have changed into a fresh set of clothes, had I had one that hadn’t been worn already.

“Luckily for you, I drive a big car,” Genevieve says. She’s standing next to a full-sized sedan parked at the side of the underground garage.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well you don’t want your handsome face being caught by a stray camera, do you?” she asks.

“Obviously,” I say, but the implication of her words dawns on as I say the word.

Dutifully, I head for the trunk of the car as she opens the driver’s seat door.

“That’s the idea,” she says, checking to see that nobody’s around before she pops the trunk. “Camera’s will catch you heading to the garage, but we’re parked in such a way that they won’t catch you sitting here. We can wait in the car for a few hours, let a number of others head out ahead of us, and then we’ll be on our way.”

“A couple hours? I wish I could sit in actual seat,” I say, feeling a little suffocated in the narrow space between the last row of seats and the closed trunk door in front of me.

“It’ll be a good way for us to get to know each other,” Genevieve says innocently. “I mean, Erin’s told me an awful lot about you, and you know, as a fellow academic, I’m a very curious person.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, not liking where this is going.

“Well…" she begins