Page 9 of Harper's Holiday Romance
The mechanical buzzing kicked in, and the blind rolled up to reveal a set of sliding glass doors.
“The balcony has a jacuzzi bath and a daybed.” He stepped to one side to allow us onto the balcony first. “Please, come and look at the view.”
The night sky made it difficult to see much of the resort, but the lighting from the reception area and the various restaurants and bars around the hotel painted apicture of the sheer size of the place. The pictures online simply didn’t capture the magnitude.
Sarah walked to the glass edge of the balcony where there was a gap between adjoining rooms. It was big enough for a small child to squeeze through. “Hey, look, there’s even a little passageway for me to climb through on a morning.”
“Or you could use the door.” Billie pointed out.
“Boring.” Sarah waved her off.
The bellboy excused himself after receiving a generous tip.
“If you give everyone ten dollars, we’re going to have no money left.” Billie snatched the travel envelope containing several hundred dollars from my grasp. We’d all agreed on a tip fund, equally split three ways. After reading hundreds of online reviews, my heart sank every time someone said the staff didn’t get paid a lot, and they relied solely on tips. I was a sucker for a sob story.
“He just brought our luggage up seven floors,” I pointed out.
“Using a trolley and an elevator. He didn’t chuck it on his back and scale seven flights of stairs,” Billie joshed.
“Now that would’ve deserved a tip,” Sarah added.
“I will tip, and tip, and tip some more because I want to, and it’s only fair.”
“You’re getting an allowance.” Billie looked at Sarah who nodded in response.
“A tipping allowance, I like it,” Sarah said.
“Thirty dollars a day?” Billie suggested.
“Agreed.”
“I hate you both.” Note to self, don’t go on holiday with two people who are one step away from having theirown reality TV show on how to “save money in the current climate”.
I retreated to the bathroom and made a start on unpacking my three bags of toiletries. I was delighted to find my moisturiser still intact, and the bottles of sun cream had held firm. The secret I found was to put the sun cream in a bag, inside another bag, inside the toiletry bag, and then wrap the toiletry bag in precisely three items of clothing and bury it midway down the suitcase, ideally flanked by a pair of shoes.
It was specific, but the proof was in the pudding, or in this case my unexploded cosmetics.
I removed my perfume, followed by my nail polish, deodorant, hairspray, and lined up all the essentials neatly in a row beside the left sink.
“Are you okay?” Billie popped her head around the open doorway.
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re slamming things,” she stated.
“Oh.” I hadn’t realised. “Sorry.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, looking in the mirror, it was barely passable but, nothing a little brush wouldn’t fix. My eyes looked drawn; the adrenaline of a long flight was slowly catching up with me. What bothered me was the face of a woman I didn’t know: a brief elevator encounter, a stern face, caused an unexpected surge of anger mixed with, dare I say, intrigue.
“Can you believe that woman?” I scoffed.
“There it is,” Billie stepped back into focus. “You’ve been thinking about that this whole time, haven’t you?”
“No...” My wobbly response wouldn’t evenconvince a three-year-old.
“Oh, my bad. I guess we don’t need to talk about it.” Billie leaned against the frame of the doorway, eyebrow raised, waiting to be proven right.
“I just don’t understand why she had to be so rude.”
