I step forward with a smile, “I heard about 3pm,” I say, “I’m happy to wait if you could please check my bag, too?” She takes my bag from me and hands me a small slip, tacky from where it was removed from the larger tag now hanging from my duffle bag patterned with animals wearing winter gear, a bag I never would have bought myself but that I actually love because my husband bought it for me thinking I wanted it.
“Is there anywhere I could walk and have a meal, hang out for awhile, read a book?” I ask, still smiling.
“No. We’re kind of in an industrial area,” she says, gesturing vaguely towards the parking lot.
I thank her again, grab my backpack full of computer, journal, books, and water and head outside where there are tables and chairs, squirrels running up and down the tree trunks, chittering and flicking their tails in that threatening and saucy, robotically jerky way they have.
I’ve skipped lunch on accident and I’m hungry. Thirsty, too. I debate calling a ride but since I have no idea where to go and my people gauge is on full, I decide instead to re-download that food delivery app I used to have when I lived in a city years ago. And it still works.
A mediocre carne asada burrito is still better than anything I can within an hour of where I live in Montana, and I’m satisfied, sipping on Jamaica to wash it all down.
I read Augusten Burroughs’ A Wolf at the Table and cringe, unable to stop turning the pages. And before I know it, it’s check-in time.
When I approach the desk this time, Woeful Woman has left and been replaced by Miserable Man. There are no smiles as my happy winter bag is returned, no banter as a hotel room key card is handed to me and grunted “to the left, to the right” directions are dispensed at me. Still I smile. Still I say, “thank you.”
I lug my things to the indicated room. I double check the number against the card in my hand, because that’s the kind of person I am. When I wave the card across the key pad, it lights up green, and my belief that I’ve come to the right door is reinforced.
I walk in, using my shoulder to hold the door as my left and weaker arm drags my bag in behind me. I notice a travel razor by the sink and have a fleeting thought about never having been in a hotel with disposable razors on offer before. The momentum of my bag has carried me further into the room and I look away from the razor to realize there is luggage on the floor, there are tussled sheets on the bed, there may be much, much more that I don’t need or want to see because I’ve finally realized that while I might be in the right room, I am very much not in the right room.
I scurry back out, visions of what I could have walked in on making me chuckle-laugh all the way back to the front desk where I say, “that room is definitely occupied.”
There’s a beat in which I wait for something from the Miserable Man, a laugh, an apology, something…but nothing comes except another key card, this one with a different room number. Still, I say, “thank you,” still, I smile. Although on this walk down the hall I’m also beginning to wonder if I’m awake, if this is all really happening.
I double check the door number against the card. I take a deep breath and say a prayer in my head before swiping the card across the pad and pushing the door open…slowly, this time.
I peek in and there are no lights on, which I take as a good sign. I walk in, hesitating at the bathroom, there’s no razor next to the sink, but the toilet lid is up and I remain cautious. I enter a bit further and see the sheets pulled down, the pillows askew, and turn around and scurry out.
“If I’m on that little asshole Kutcher’s show I’m gonna punch someone,” I say under my breath as I go back down the hallway and back to the front desk.
Miserable Man has seen me approaching. He has not jumped up to preemptively attempt to alleviate whatever frustration I’m obviously experiencing. Instead he waits til I’m at the counter telling him that room “may or may not be occupied, but either way isn’t for me” before he says, “some days are just like this.”
To which I genuinely have no response, other than the one that flies out of my mouth before I can stop it, which is this, “maybe, but I don’t know how much more of this I can take. If I have to come back here again, you’re gonna see me crying.”
And this is when Miserable Man finally sees me.
I see recognition for a fellow person flit across his eyes, I see him take a moment at the computer, then a moment more. I see him reach for a key card, and this time, he looks me in the eye and says, “this one should be good.” And I can tell he’s saying a silent prayer too.
This time I walk to my room, my room, and open the door. No disposable razors. No tussled sheets. Everything is perfect. I take a hot shower, as hot as I can stand it. I think to myself, this is probably pretty tame as far as hotel mishaps go, I’ve seen Four Rooms. Still. It’s been all I can take.
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