“Unfortunately, there is no mistake,” she said, closing the
file.
“You can’t do anything? Anything?”
“I can call around, see if there is space at one of the
courtesy hotels, but we’re booked.”
I looked at my friend. She shrugged. “Fine. We’ll stay. Two beds,
right?”
“Your reservation is for a king.”
Celeste whispered, “It’ll be fine. A king bed is huge. Let’s
stay.”
But I didn’t want the bed to be huge. I was going to be in
the same room, the same bed as Celeste, for three days. Agony.
“It’ll be fine. Chill. We’re going to have a good time here,
I promise. You’ll pick up all sorts of new skills, meet lots of people. For me?
Please?” Celeste smiled, the dimple in her right cheek peeking at me.
“Okay, fine. Let’s just do what we came here to do.” The desk clerk handed us the keycards and
vouchers for complimentary cocktails to compensate us for the inconvenience.
Great. A conference I
didn’t even want to be at because I’m not a writer or a poet or an agent or
anything. One room, one bed, and
alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Celeste had picked up a few boxes of cardbordeaux,
some white zinfandel, sangria and a case of some limited edition IPA for me. Our plans were to get plastered together, but
not to be plastered together. Man plans and gods laugh. Ha ha.
She put two six-packs and the white zinfandel in the mini
fridge. “I’m going to donate the sangria and the cardbordeaux to the greater
good, take them down to the office later,” Celeste said as she lined up her
toiletries in the bathroom and hung her clothes in the closet. “Two big towels, two hand towels, two washcloths. That’ll be fine. I’m going to shower. Be a
doll and get some ice, I don’t think five minutes in the fridge will do
anything for it.”
I filled the ice bucket and returned to the sound of running
water and singing. Celeste liked to sing in the shower. She claimed it muffled her atonality, but
that wasn’t true. The atonality, not the
muffling. I loved listening to Celeste
sing, in the car, on her porch, and now, in the shower. It was a nice change from listening to her
cry.
Celeste cries a lot. With me, anyway. Guess I’m the shoulder of choice for this
girlfriend did that, that boyfriend did this, her parents sucked, her job was
meaningless, her friends were thoughtless, yadda yadda. Singing was sweet.
I filled a large glass with ice and zinfandel, opened an IPA
and drank. The water stopped, but
Celeste continued singing, something about a hippopotamus for Christmas, then
segued into Rascal Flatts’ “Broken Road.”
And then she opened the door.
Celeste was naked except for the towel wrapped around her
hair. A pair of Dias de Los Muertos skulls
surrounded by roses were tattooed over her mastectomy scars. She smiled.
“I told you there were just enough towels. Oh good, I’m so
thirsty. How ‘bout them Mets?” She
picked up the glass sipped, and winked at me.
It was going to be an interesting three days.
