Page 105 of Again, In Autumn

I round the corner and we pass an apple orchard on the left.

“Look, cows!” Caroline calls out from the backset.

I add, “I don’t want to show up without Adam. We can’t walk in alone and say ‘Hi, you don’t know us but we’re friends with your friend, and we’re here for a free night at your boujee hotel’.”

Caroline asks, “What’s the difference between an inn and a hotel?”

“An inn is smaller,” Francesca answers. “It’s like a place for weary travelers in a Jane Austen novel or an expensive weekend away for a retired couple in Charleston. Think Lorelei in Gilmore Girls.”

“I didn’t watch that show.”

Francesca’s seat squeaks, she pulls on her seatbelt, turning around. “What?” she snarls.

“I. Didn’t. Watch. It.”

“You have access to reruns that I did not as a child. Did you not watch the list of movies and tv shows I gave you before you went to college?”

“No,” Caroline grumbles. “I tried watching Dawson’s Creek, but no one talks like that in real life.”

Francesca smacks my arm.

“Ow!” I yell.

“Vee, hold me back. I have to fight a young adult.”

“I’m driving,” I argue, keeping my eyes on the peach at the center of David’s license plate.

Caroline sighs. “What are we even going to do tonight?”

“Hopefully drink free booze.” Francesca turns around. “These kinds of places always have award-winning chefs and pastry people and sommeliers.”

We reach a crest in the street where the mountains shine in the sun. The sparce trees outlining the pavement wiggle their red and orange leaves over my windshield. The van hits brake lights. My phone says, “Turn here.”

“Oh my God,” Francesca awes.

“That’s a castle,” Caroline says.

Our jaws collectively drop as we pull into the long driveway of a sprawling Tudor-style mansion with a vast green yard and ivy crawling up the walls. Manicured hedges line the path up the drive. Planters filled with mums and other seasonal flowers I don’t recognize flank the entrance doors.

“I think Jay Gatsby lives here,” Francesca mutters. To me she adds, “You don’t understand that reference.”

“It was required reading,” I say.

I follow David under the stone covered portico. Two suited valets meet us at our driver’s side doors.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” says a young, suited man, holding his hands out for my keys. “We will bring your belongings up to your room shortly. What’s the name?”

“Rose?” I offer slowly, handing him my keys.

He scribbles it down and smiles, waiting for me to get my purse and coat. At the front doors, which are held open for us, I sidle up next to Adam.

“Hey,” I growl. I hold my arms up like a scarecrow. I’m wearing a cropped black sweater and distressed jeans. My hair falls loose and stringy. “I am not dressed for something this fancy.”

From the side of his mouth, he replies, “Well, me neither.” He hurriedly pulls his baseball cap from his head. “I figured we’d be in a quaint five-bedroom house with his mom serving us pot pie for dinner.”

We walk inside to a huge wood-burning fireplace and two distinct seating arrangements of red velvet couches, floor to ceiling windows, marble flooring and a wide, sweeping staircase. They’ve already set up for Christmas. Fresh greens hang from the fireplace mantel and twist up the stair railing. Wreaths charm the windows. Twinkle lights sparkle from little vignettes around the room. It smells like Santa’s workshop if Santa was a cigar-smoking, robe-wearing, bourbon-sipping English aristocrat.

“Jesus. How tall do you think those trees are?” I ask Adam.

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