DBTBW: Sun Spiders

I was traveling back in time to when I was more naive and had more friends. When working in the office didn’t seem daunting, but normal. Back to when I trusted people and believed in what they said.

It was our yearly retreat, and I was organizing it, like always. I had been in the hotel planning for so long that it felt like I lived there. We had held our yearly retreats there for so long that the staff all knew me.

My co-workers began arriving on Friday. Most knew the drill and had to do nothing more than show up. I made myself scarce, feeling my impending loneliness without knowing what it was or what to call it. Most accused me of being depressed, but I wasn’t sad. I just felt alone in my soul.

The only person I was concerned about was she who shared my name. No, not me, but we have the same name and she was going through a breakup. It was her first year with the company and for both of those reasons, I wanted to make her feel more comfortable. I had wanted to be in the lobby when she arrived, but she got ahead of me and by the time I came back from an errand, she already had her key. She looked like a lost puppy with her belongings and key card, looking around to see if she’d spot me, but trying not to make it too obvious. I saw her through the glass window panes and jumped to a little jog to catch up with her.

The hotel staff smiled at me sadly, knowingly. She was a lot like me when she felt something: she couldn’t keep it to herself or it would eat her alive.

She told me they had upgraded her room to one with a view. With over a thousand rooms in the place, she didn’t know which staircase to take. Some were electric, some were so old that they were falling apart and taking them could be lethal, but it was a beautiful and busy hotel. Most of the patrons had been going for years.

I knew the place well, but I wasn’t familiar with the room number. It was a lower number. I knew that the lower the number, the simpler the room, but I wasn’t going to tell her that after she was promised a free upgrade with a view.

I had only ever stayed in the 400s to the top and her room was a single digit: 9. We walked through the lobby, which was more like an airport lobby than a hotel. I knew most of the stairways on the east end, so we kept heading to the west end. I could see her expression changing as she realized the quality of the stairways was declining, so I decided we should jump on one and just navigate through the complex system of hallways once we were at the top. That proved to be a mistake. The staircase was hanging on by a thread, it seemed, and we got stuck half way. We had to wait for maintenance to help us down because any movement would have had us falling to our deaths. The stairs were gone in places and we were stuck between two gaps on a piece of concrete that threatened to disappear from beneath us. Nervously, I tried finding a way to go forward or back. I was the problem solver. I had to fix it, but the more I even thought about it, the faster the concrete crumbled. Luckily, the hotel knew the state of their own building and had people ready for the occasion. They promptly got us off and we kept walking westward.

I had never been to the west end of the hotel, but I could see what they meant when they told my friend they gave her a view. There was a gorgeous indoor waterfall and I could see the rooms built in a crescent shape around it. I knew they had given her a view of this beauty to cheer her up, even if her room was small.

We found the last staircase and climbed. We spent about 30 minutes making rights, lefts, and u-turns in the hall ways trying to find her room. By that point, my boyfriend had joined us and he’d whispered that he had a surprise for me once we dropped her off at her room. I didn’t know how to feel about leaving her in her heartbreak to enjoy my love story, so I tried not to think about it.

The halls and rooms were built in a medieval style. It felt like we were in an old castle. There were ushers everywhere but none were friendly or helpful. I asked a few where my friend’s room was and some had the audacity to tell my that I had been there so many times already that I should know. I was offended, but I also felt that they were right.

After maneuvering around the labyrinth of halls and room numbers, my boyfriend left us to go prepare his surprise for me. He caught up with us again after I realized that the room numbers started and ended around the same area. By this point, my friend encouraged us to go to our room first because she wanted to see it. Knowing there was a romantic surprise for me, I avoided that and told her I’d rather she be able to put her bags down and relax. She knew. She didn’t say anything but she knew I would be having a wonderful night while she wallowed in misery.

We found her room and when we opened it, it looked like housekeeping hadn’t cleaned up after the last guests. She didn’t seem bothered. She walked into the tiny room that held three tiny beds and the smallest walk way I ever saw. Her bed was next to a big, glass window. It was so old and opaque, we could hardly see through it, but the waterfall was there. She put her things down and got into bed. I realized it at that point, “You have roommates?”

She couldn’t afford the room on her own so she was sharing with two other people. One of the beds was a rollaway. It was bleak. I wanted to comfort her but I couldn’t stand it anymore and she wasn’t very responsive after that. I was so checked out that it didn’t phase me when my boyfriend walked in and gave her a quick kiss as we left.

When we got to our room, it was also small. It was one of the higher numbers and I realized that the hotel was ripping rich people off because the 400s rooms were all normal sized but these 900s were almost as tiny, dark, and musty as the single-digit rooms.

My boyfriend had made a half-hearted effort to make the place romantic, but all the darkness in the room was depressing. I made an excuse about having to work since I was the event planner and left him in the room alone. I knew in my heart he would have my friend there in no time and I was happy for them.

I had my own room in the 400s. I hadn’t told him about it because I wanted to have an escape if I needed it and I was right to do it. When I got there, I realized all my coworkers were roomed in the same area and the atmosphere was lighter. The halls were brighter, my room was bigger, and my kid was waiting inside.

We went through the weekend as planned. I didn’t see my boyfriend or friend except a few times in passing and at meals. They seemed ashamed, but I was at peace and I would’ve congratulated them if they’d given me the opportunity, but I guess their consciences were eating away at them.

On Sunday, we were getting ready to check out. I was packing up all our things when I saw a giant sun spider in the bathroom. At first, I figured it would be housekeeping’s issue. Then, I started to worry about my kid getting hurt. I threw a shoe at it and closed the door hoping I had fixed the problem. I went over by the bed to keep packing and realized there was another giant sun spider by the bed. I felt like it was looking at me knowingly. While the first spider seemed to mind its business, this one was very much interested in what I was doing.

I freaked out and tried to hit it with a shoe only for it to charge at me. My kid didn’t seem scared. I yelled at her to get on the bed while I called room service to take care of it.

My coworkers heard the commotion and came into the room to help. Room service laughed and so did my coworkers. My kid was laughing too. Only I was nervous about the two giant spiders, probably because I had tried to kill them. My coworker grabbed one and took it with him, carrying it like a baby out of the room. Everyone left ignoring my cries about the second spider in the bathroom.

We still had things in the bathroom, so I went in hoping the spider would be dead, but it wasn’t. I didn’t get a chance to grab my things when it charged at me. The thing was half my height if it stood on its hind legs and that’s what it did after I jumped on the bed and called room service again.

It started singing a song, “The itsy bitsy spider

was minding its business.

Then, here you came and tried to take it out.

Spider survived and now you are afraid

when all the little spider had wanted was a friend.”

I was horrified. It snapped at us and laughed. My coworkers ran in again after hearing my horrified screams and laughed when they saw the spider. They held it like they did the first one, like a baby. It was then that I took a closer look. It wasn’t scary at all. It seemed almost human. It had scratches on the side of its face and I asked how it got them. It laughed and accused me. I denied it and then promptly remembered my attempt to kill it with my shoe earlier. I apologized and my friend went into a rant about how we misunderstand nature and are always trying to destroy it when all it wants to do is coexist with us. Somehow, I found it doubtful . There was something in the spider’s eyes, now cuddled up in my bed, that told me otherwise.