The Membership Card

My parents opened a resort up on the lake last spring, and they gave the first membership card to me.

I never got around to using it. When it went missing, I didn't think much about it.

Then my mother called.

"Sweetheart, you do remember our card only gets you a discount? It doesn't work like a gift card?"

"There's a girl up here saying she's your roommate. It's her birthday, and she's treating her whole class to the spa on your card."

I laughed. Actually laughed.

"No, I didn't forget. That's a lot of business walking through your door, Mom. Take it."

1

I hung up and stared at my phone for a while.

Two of my roommates were in the dorm. The third one, Chloe Marsh, had gotten herself ready and left early — Chloe, who couldn't stand us and didn't bother hiding it.

You tell me who took the card.

Last week, when I noticed it was gone, I'd asked them offhand if they'd seen it. The other two just shrugged and said no.

Chloe turned it into a fight.

"What exactly are you asking me?"

"You think one of us stole from you?"

"It's a membership card. To one hotel. Who can't afford their own?"

"You're so suspicious. It's honestly kind of gross."

I hadn't said anything close to that.

"I didn't mean — it was just a question."

"If it's yours, keep track of it. Don't come at us like we're your personal lost-and-found."

She wasn't finished.

"Some people just have to perform, don't they. Walking around here acting like a hotel card makes you somebody. Then you lose it and you fall apart. You probably skipped meals for a year to afford that thing just so you could wave it around."

I kept my mouth shut. You can't win an argument with someone who's already decided what you are.

She'd come to school bragging about her family's money. First week, she showed up with the same bag as mine — hers a knockoff, mine real. I never said a word about it. She never forgave me for it.

That was why it stung, later, to realize she'd actually taken it.

Behind me, my roommates had been listening.

"What was that about?" Maya dropped onto my bed. "Your mom said something about a roommate."

Priya didn't even look up from her laptop. "It's Chloe. It's always Chloe."

Maya: "Okay but what did she do."

Priya, still typing: "Something terminal, probably."

Chloe had spent the whole semester telling everyone she came from money, that we were beneath her. She hadn't invited the three of us to whatever this was. Which meant she'd invited everyone else.

I felt the bad mood lift and turn into something else.

"Want to go watch?" I said.

"Watch what?" Maya's head came up.

"Chloe. Fall on her face."

Priya finally closed the laptop. "Say less."

We took a rideshare out to the lake, forty minutes from campus, which is part of why almost nobody from school bothers with the drive.

We were barely through the lobby doors when a crowd of people in swimsuits came spilling out of the locker rooms, laughing, heading for the pools.

Chloe was in the middle, holding court. She looked thrilled.

Then she glanced over and saw me.

She went stiff. Something flickered across her face and disappeared. She looked down.

2

Her friend got to us first.

Erin — Chloe's shadow, the one who laughed at everything she said.

"What are you three doing here? Chloe didn't invite you."

She planted herself in front of us, arms folded.

"Honestly, you spend all semester ganging up on her because you're jealous, and now you show up to crash her birthday? Make it make sense."

Chloe dropped her eyes and brought her shoulders in. Everyone ate it up. They'd been drinking her wine all night.

"Seriously, read the room and leave."

"She booked the place. You're not welcome."

"Don't ruin her night."

Maya and Priya both bristled. Maya actually opened her mouth.

I put a hand on her arm.

Then I turned to the front desk.

"Are they booked for the whole property?"

The clerk glanced up. She knew me, and she held my eyes for a second before she answered.

"No," she said. "The young lady said she'd cover the bill for her guests. She hasn't booked the property."

Chloe's group was maybe thirty people. The resort takes two hundred.

"Great. Then we're guests too." I said it pleasantly. "Three rooms, please. I don't have my card on me — I'll give you the member number."

I didn't get to the number.

"I'll book it," Chloe cut in. "The whole property. Tonight. No one else gets in."

She said it fast. She wasn't looking at me when she said it either.

The clerk didn't answer her right away. She looked at me again.

I gave her the smallest nod I've ever given anyone.

"Ma'am, booking the full property runs an additional ten thousand dollars," the clerk said. "Do you want to proceed?"

"Yes."

She barely even thought about it. Half a second, tops.

The clerk turned to her computer. Nobody else noticed the pause. Nobody else knew to.

And Chloe's friends found their courage again.

"You heard her. You're not on the list."

"So go. Seriously."

Erin was practically glowing. "Some people just don't know how to be nice. They have to bully the sweetest person in the room and then act surprised when it backfires."

Around us, the group had gone back to talking about themselves.

"I can't wait for the pools."

"I heard the mineral water here does, like, everything."

"Unlimited seafood too. And the spa. This is going to be so good."

Chloe let it wash over her. She looked up and gave me a look — chin level, eyes flat.

Almost.

"Hey," I said. "You sure you want to do this?"

She blinked.

"Thirty people. Bar, spa, food. You're probably looking at twenty grand before anyone leaves. If you can't cover it, the resort can pursue charges. It gets treated as fraud."

Her face twitched.

3

"You're just trying to scare her," one of the guys said. "Chloe's family is loaded. You've literally never even heard of them."

"Yeah, this is pathetic."

"You're just jealous."

It was exactly what she needed. Her expression reset, smoothed over.

"Sophie. I know you've always had a problem with me because of my family. That's fine. But this is nothing to me, so you can stop worrying."

She was really good. I'll give her that.

I let it go. Maya, Priya, and I walked out.

Once the doors shut behind us, Maya grabbed my arm.

"Okay. Can she actually pay that?"

Priya answered before I did. "No. Her bags are fake. Her allowance is like eleven hundred a month, tops — I heard her screaming at her mom about five hundred bucks last month."

"Twenty grand, Soph." Maya looked at me. "How is she going to pay twenty grand?"

I smiled.

"We'll know in the morning."

It was already dark. The resort sits back off the highway, and getting a rideshare out there at night is a nightmare.

I took them back to the family wing.

My parents keep a suite for us at every property — it's not a big deal, it's just where we sleep when we're there. The card they gave me was more of a token than anything. A "welcome to adulthood, here's ten percent off."

We swam. We ate. Maya made fun of the robe selection for ten minutes.

I slept like a log.

It was almost noon when I woke up and checked my phone. The front desk had texted. They were ready to settle the bill.

I got Maya and Priya and we walked over.

We were barely through the door when Erin spotted us.

"Well, well. Look who's still here. Did you sleep in the parking lot?"

"Oh no," someone else said. "They really couldn't get a ride."

"Tragic."

Erin again, practically singing it: "Honestly, that's what they get. We had the penthouse suites. Caviar, the good wine, all of it. Do you know what that would've cost without Chloe? We'd never have gotten to live like that."

Everyone nodded along.

Chloe let it land, then played humble.

"Guys, come on." She tilted her head at us. "They're still my roommates. They spent the whole night outside in the cold. Have some pity."

She turned to me, generous.

"If you're hungry, you can come in for breakfast. It's on me."

Erin clutched her chest. "She's literally the best person. After everything you did to her."

"Seriously. We're so lucky."

"We should do this again — Chloe, you have to invite us for the holidays."

"Hard pass," I said. "Just settle your bill."

I wanted to watch her face when it happened.

"Alright." Chloe reached into her bag and pulled out a card and set it on the counter.

I knew that card. I'd known it for a week.

4

The clerk took it and checked it.

"Thirty guests last night. Everyone took the premium package, so that's seventeen thousand six hundred. Plus the full-property booking fee, ten thousand. Plus the outside liquor charge." She ran a finger down the column. "Two hundred and thirty a bottle, retail. Forty-three bottles left the property, so that's nine thousand eight hundred and ninety. We rounded it up to ten."

"Wait."

Chloe held up her hand. "I thought the package included unlimited drinks."

"It does, in the building." The clerk took the card back, set it near the terminal, kept her voice level. "Anything taken off the premises is billed at retail."

The room got very quiet.

People touched their backpacks without meaning to. Every single one of them had something in there. Housekeeping counts the empties and compares them to the inventory. They also check the cameras.

"Um." One of the guys laughed, nervous. "We didn't know we couldn't take it. The wine was good, we just wanted to bring some home."

Chloe recovered in about a second and a half.

"It's fine." She waved it off. "Take whatever you want. Ten grand is nothing."

They lit up.

"Wait, really?"

"Can I grab one more for my boyfriend?"

"Me too!"

She was practically glowing. "Of course. Go."

They mobbed the bar. Each of them came back with two or three bottles, and the clerk did the math again.

"Eighty-seven more bottles," she said. "That brings the outside liquor to thirty thousand. Your total is fifty-seven thousand six hundred. With the member discount, fifty-one thousand eight hundred."

Chloe nodded, took her card back, put it in her bag, and turned to leave.

"Ma'am." The clerk stepped out from behind the desk. "The bill."

"I gave you the card."

"Your membership doesn't carry a balance. It's discount only. The payment will need to be on a different card or another method."

Chloe's face went completely white.

5

"You never told me that."

She got it out eventually. Her voice came up an octave.

"Membership cards hold money. Everyone knows that."

"You'd know whether yours did."

Priya, from behind me, said it flat and loud. Maya snorted.

Chloe spun toward the clerk. "You didn't disclose this. That's consumer fraud."

"We explain it to every member at sign-up." The clerk gestured to the framed card by the terminal. "And it's posted right here."

The sign was black on cream, in letters I could read from where I was standing.

**This membership card offers discounts only. Stored-value balances are not available.**

Nobody had bothered to look at anything but the pools since they got here.

The last of the color left Chloe's face.

"Whenever you're ready," the clerk said.

"Settle it," Maya said. "You were so generous ten minutes ago."

"She doesn't even know how her own card works," Priya added. "Or she knows exactly how she got it."

Erin jumped in. "Shut up. Chloe's family is rich — a few thousand is nothing. She just has a lot of memberships, she mixed them up."

"Right," someone agreed. "And the hotel should've reminded them. That's on the hotel. Chloe, just pay and leave them a one-star review."

Chloe opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

When she finally spoke: "I don't have it on me. My card's over the limit and my bank flagged it."

"Easy." Erin, again with the solutions. "Call your parents."

"They're working. They won't pick up."

She was scanning the room. She wasn't looking at the phone in her hand.

"Can someone cover it? Just for a few hours. I'll pay you back the second the bank clears it."

And just like that, the room turned on her. Not loud. Worse than loud — the toasts were over, people were checking the door, and nobody was meeting her eyes.

Every one of them had been toasting her an hour ago.

"We're students. Where would we get fifty grand?"

"Um." Chloe redirected to the clerk. "Can I leave the card as collateral? I'll come back tomorrow. This is your fault anyway — you didn't say anything."

"No." The clerk said it kindly and without a single crack in it. "We can't do that." A beat. "If you can't pay, we'll call the police."

6

Chloe looked around the room one more time.

Then she found me.

"Sophie. Cover it."

It wasn't a request. She said it like I owed her.

Maya was instantly in front of me. "Why would she do that?"

"You didn't invite us. You told us to get lost last night."

"You couldn't stop talking about how you didn't need anyone. Now you want Sophie's money?"

Priya, deadpan: "What is she, your emergency contact?"

I laughed out loud. I couldn't help it.

Chloe's face went red and her eyes went glassy.

"We're roommates," she said, softer now. "We have four years together. I thought this wouldn't even be a thing between us. And I'd pay it back with interest — this is just a timing problem."

Sure. Money leaves her hands, that's the last I see of it.

I was about to tell her to ask someone else when one of her friends beat me to it.

"It's not a big deal, you're literally her roommate."

"She said she'd pay you back."

"Chloe's parents have more money than you can imagine. She's good for it."

"Sorry," I said. "I'm a normal student. I don't have fifty-one thousand dollars sitting around."