Micah--chapter 5

For the first paragraph of chapter five, LKH forgets how to make compound sentences.

The hotel was nice. Very nice. Too nice. There were people in uniforms all over the place. Not police— hotel employees. They sprang forward to get doors. To try to help with luggage. Micah actually let a bellman take our bags. I protested that we could carry them. He’d smiled and said to just enjoy it. I hadn’t enjoyed it. I had leaned against the mirrored wall of the elevator and tried not to get angry.

I'm torn. On the one hand this is almost a good representation of social anxiety. On the other hand holy bleeding fuck is that annoying. After the first paragraph we get about one comma per sentence but it doesn't get much better.

And the whole point of it is that Anita gets nervy around high social people and refined places.

Here's the thing, guys: A girl who really does not give a fuck the way LKH wants Anita to? She would not care about the five star hotel with silver service and white gloved turn-downs. She's still gonna put her boots on the table, polish her guns on the sideboard, and go to the aforementioned silver service restaurant with more than one gun because she cannot be bothered to give a fuck. I have met these women. They would not fall all to pieces because their boyfriends booked them into a five star instead of a motel six. Though they might get kind of pissed if they aren't allowed to smoke.

He hadn’t done anything wrong, except make me even more nervous about what he expected from me on this trip.

Micah probably expects what he was getting in St. Louis. Lots and lots and lots of sex. Given that he RAPED YOU the first night you met, he's probably not looking for emotional intimacy.

  And if he is, damn he's a sick fuck.

Micah was putting his wallet back in that little pocket that good suit jackets have for wallets, if your wallet is long enough and slender enough not to break the line of the suit.

Thank you for trying to make up for the machine-gun sentences at the start of the chapter. This is not an improvement.

Anita asks him how much the room costs. He tells her its rude to ask, which means it costs too fucking much.

 ...and seriously? You expect me to believe that Anita is having an emotional breakdown over a hotel room when she's been dating Jean fucking "I raid Jareth the Goblin King's Wardrobe every evening" Claude for multiple years? The guy who taught her which fork to use because he regularly dines with vampires who are old enough to be that kind of bastard over a meal they can't possibly participate in? The man whose bedroom, as of the last two books, is a fucking gold-and-silver lame' sex pen? Fuck me, if I've got the timeline right JC was French contemporary to at least one King Louis, if not more than one, and the French court made cultural obtuse into a freaking art form AND JC insists on throwing his refinement all over every surface like it's lacy projectile vomit. WHY IS ANITA FREAKING OUT OVER A FUCKING FOUR SEASONS SUITE?

And then we have a big long conversation about flowers, and how Micah won't give her flowers because Jean Claude gives her flowers--a dozen white roses and three red ones, one for him, one for Asher and one for--fucking hell--Richard--and Micah feels like he'd be redundant, and can't Anita just accept a nice gift for once (at this point he's being the douche-canoe now) and IT'S A HOTEL ROOM. A HOTEL ROOM. THERE IS NO MURDER CASE THERE IS NO MYSTERY WE'RE JUST HAVING A MOTHERFUCKING MELTDOWN OVER A HOTEL ROOM FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

(For the record I, too, have a hotel room scene in a later Casey Winter book (aka THE BOOK) in which she ping-pongs off every surface because hotel rooms are awesome. Just so you know)

Then they have a conversation that shows how little these two people actually know each other. Anita didn't ask how Micah met Fox. Micah never asked Anita about her scars.

I am actually really bad at that, so I'm not commenting further than that.

I stood there for a moment, leaning against the door. We were doing the exact thing I’d feared we’d do alone together. We were raking emotional shit.

This is what you are supposed to do in a relationship. That's why you have relationships.

 Anita starts reading about the zombie she has to raise. Fucking finally. And apparently what happened was dude was in federal custody, but died of a heart attack before he could testify. Anita starts investigating his religion because that could get in the way. Voodoo would complicate things, Wicca would complicate things, but...

Straight Christian of whatever flavor wasn’t a problem.

Yeah. Because it's not like necromancy could irritate the big man or anything...

Anita calls Fox for more information, which she doesn't get, and then she does something really out of character: she calls Larry and makes sure that Tammy and the baby are both okay. She displays caring for another human being.

Who are you and what have you done with Anita.


The chapter ends with Micah running a bath.