The morning fog parted with her firm thighs over cool sheets. One eyelid peeking open discovered that the clock on the nightstand read 8:30. Burying her face in the pillow, she damned routine. After a useless moment of trying to force herself back to sleep, she groaned and rolled over - It was Sunday. Mother’s going to kill me for not being in church... and boy, did she have a lot to confess.
To whom? She wondered, smiling at herself. At least a decade had passed since the last time she had gone to church to please a god she now doubted the existence of, but it was good for her mother’s heart. Along with the realization that she was falling out of character with her family came the fact that she had nothing other than the clothing on the floor and the things in her pockets. Sure, the cards in her wallet gave her access to over seven million dollars at the touch of a button, but her primary concern involved the difficulty of leaving the building to gather some fresh clothing and phone her employer.
She knew that the proprietor of the hotel didn’t consider it her prison, but she had learned last night that his staff obviously did. Rising to dress in what she did have, she mulled over the possibility of simply coming out with the fact of her wealth by ordering new clothing. There was a phone on the bureau, she noticed. Mother’s clothier would deliver within the hour. No. That would involve too much explanation, maybe. After discovering her true financial status, few people honestly understood why she had chosen to become, by all outward appearances, a public librarian surviving on a wage so modest that it required her to room in a shabby studio apartment and use public transit in a part of the city that most people wouldn’t house their livestock in.
After hanging her coat, she sifted through the pockets, collecting everything in the crook of her arm. Once the items were spread out on the bed, she took inventory: Comb, wallet, some change, a package of spearmint gum, a winning bottle cap from some forgotten and expired promotion, a covered elastic, card key, her green highlighter, a pen - A card key? Turning it over in her hand, she got a sensory image of it being pressed into her palm.
Curiously, she went and opened her door. Finding that the key fit the lock, she slid it into her pants pocket and went back to the assessment of her situation. $30 cash and her ID would at least buy her a drink. Grabbing her wallet, she slid out into the hallway and began her day by finding the bar.
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