Lost in Hotels

by Martin, M.

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” I say.

  “Accept the chivalry, Catherine, it’s a bloody mess from the rains, and you’ll be knee-deep,” she insists.

  Without further discussion, David turns away from the stables and gravel road and into the hills at a full gallop. I hold onto the thick leather reigns, and he firmly holds onto me as we cross the landscape. It’s more familiar on the second time around the lake with the scowling goose and along the yellow-flower-dotted hillside to the gate where we crossed paths.

  “This would be your stop, my lady,” he says, squeezing me with his inner thighs.

  “That was much better than a run on foot.”

  “I forgot how much I miss the country,” he says. “But there’s more of that later. You better hurry back; we are due at the house at one o’clock, prompt.”

  He hoists me off the horse and on to the ground with a pat on the head before galloping up the hill and away without even a wave good-bye, leaving me to my run that reverses back to the hotel.

  David doesn’t return to our hotel room for almost an hour, leaving me plenty of time to stare in every reflective surface, looking at myself sideways while changing my hair no less than three times in a dressing ritual best kept private in a new relationship. I chose a Sarah Burton creamy-pink chiffon dress for the wedding; a simple A-cut with a small bow detail at the neck that connects to a more dramatic lace cape of equal length. It’s dressy without being formal.

  “That was a wicked ride. Look at you … you look … ravishing.”

  The door opens and David walks in completely muddy and dropping little bits of grassy dried dirt in his wake. I immediately think of what the hotel management will say, but David is oblivious as he scatters his mud-covered clothes in a corner of the bathroom and in moments, stands there completely naked with the exception of his black equestrian helmet.

  “Are you going to shower in that?” I say in jest, reminding myself that this is his world, and I should allow him to do as he wishes in the hotel room for which he is paying.

  “Oh, right,” he says as he pulls off the helmet and drops it with a thump, his hair falling in his eyes and his hands covered in dried mud.

  “We got stuck, and I had to pull Sophie’s horse out of a ditch. It was a bloody nightmare.”

  In a matter of no more than ten minutes, David is able to shower off the mud and simply throw on a three-piece Prince of Wales plaid suit with a bold blue shirt and tie that looks flawless even without a double take in the mirror. He proceeds to take his razor and freshen up his sideburns and facial hair before dabbing his index and middle finger into a tub of grayish clay that he slicks into his hair while leaning closer to the mirror and doing a roll of his neck. He spritzes more than a little fragrance in a similar motion from the back of his neck to his chest and arms before turning and looking at me with a wide smile.

  “What is it?” he asks, stopping in the doorway.

  “That was just so fast, and yet you look flawless.”

  “We need to hurry; the car is waiting for us. Oh, and grab some towels.”

  David leads the way curiously with a pile of white, fluffy towels that he carries through the main hall of the hotel. I follow alongside, struggling in my higher-than-normal heel as we round the front door. Outside, we find a steel-gray vintage car of some type and a fully outfitted driver waiting next to the passenger seat. A crowd of hotel guests has gathered to look at the car that I can’t really recognize more than just being old and quite exquisite.

  “So let me lay these down in the front seat; I’m afraid I made a mess of old Danny’s car,” David says to the driver as he lays the towels on the passenger floor.

  “Mr. Summers, it will clean without trouble. No need to worry,” the driver says.

  I look in the front seat and notice it’s covered in mud as well as the window that’s rolled all the way down and crusted on top. David navigates the mud without much fuss, pushing the seat forward of what I see is a Ferrari of some type, and we both struggle to position ourselves in the snug seat.

  “I love this car. What is it?” I allow myself to ask. The interior roof details and the burly driver’s panel are nothing less than superb.

  “It’s a Ferrari 330 GT; their father has a fairly significant private car collection. This isn’t really even one of the good ones.”

  We make the familiar drive out the long driveway of Babington House that now feels familiar and unintimidating to me. We retrace my morning path and make around a five-minute drive before approaching a gravel road barely noticeable from the main road. My eyes cannot wait to see more, and I’m hoping not to be so impressed that I feel intimidated or self-conscious of my dress, my job, or my social stature.

  David’s hand reaches over and holds my knee in the palm of his hand while he steadily watches the horizon. A home straight out of some Jane Austen novel appears different from what I saw earlier in the morning. Its stone is the color of pewter and its Jacobean architecture raises only two stories with a pointed roofline like a king’s crown captured in a cloak of emerald lawn with few trees or shrubbery to impede its grandeur. I can’t imagine anyone human in this day and age was born, lives, or exists in such a house.

  “This is their main residence?” I whisper, not wanting to appear rapt or easily impressed.

  “Yes, this is Dale Hall. I believe it’s been part of their family since the fifteenth century,” he says without batting an eye or noticing my eyes so engrossed in the spectacle.

  A line of men stands alongside the main drive as our cars round to the front of the house. A cluster of men in morning coats hover within the interior foyer as our car comes to a halt. A man with a beard and Santa-like spectacles emerges.

  “David, I hope Danny didn’t drive like a bandit.”

  I struggle to step over the folded passenger seat that’s front and center to the old man who watches as I attempt not to get dirty or misstep on the gravel in a five-inch heel.

  “Not at all, but I’m afraid I made quite a mess of your car.”

  “No worries, chap, it won’t be the first time. And this must be Miss Klein?”

  “Yes, I am Catherine,” I say as I extend my hand.

  “Lovely for you to make it all the way here for my daughter’s wedding; it means a great deal to Tess and myself.”

  “And myself as well,” David says as he rejoins my side and holds my hand. Another car approaches to our rear.

  “Well, I will let you head out to the north garden while I tend to the cars with the rest of the staff.”

  “So nice to meet you, Mr. Dale,” I say.

  “Griffin, call me Griffin. Or Dad, like the rest of the girl’s friends calls me. Your choice.”

  David and I make our way into the house that feels less intimidating after having met the owner, who could just as easily be anyone’s father if not for the eloquent speech pattern. Inside, a narrower-than-expected foyer is wrapped by a staircase tracing all four sides of the room with a black baluster and an ornate iron railing that rises above to a look down landing. A small crystal chandelier hangs above the middle of a room surrounded in bookcases on one side with a row of three marble busts of various Anglican figures. The room leads to a large parlor with doors that open to a stone terrace and 180-degree views of the sprawling gardens where guests holding champagne glasses are dressed in bursts of floral, opinionated hats, and smart day coats.

  “David Summers; look at you,” an older woman says approaching us before we’ve even stepped onto the lawn with its four rows of chairs and center aisle that leads to the main residence.

  “Catherine, this is Victoria Evans,” David chimes in.

  The salutations and greetings linger no more than my explaining I am from New York and a writer, while David usually gets as far as explaining that he’s mostly in London and traveling pretty much nonstop. The faces all look vague
ly related; the younger women all slight with porcelain skin and exemplary fashion while the older women are much more matronly and struggle to go deeper in conversation.

  Suddenly a bell rings and we are summoned to our seats. I realize that I am a married woman at a wedding with another man. My heart drops and my palm begins to sweat in David’s hand before I pull it away and to my side. We sit in the second row directly behind the groom’s family. Photographers are snapping photos in the distance, and I churn with anxiety remembering my own wedding in the Hamptons. I felt happy and fulfilled. Now, here I am, or at least a version of me.

  David looks over at me with a deep-seated contentment that emanates from his steel-blue eyes. The orchestra begins a pastoral arrangement, the crowd hushes as the doors to the manor open behind us, and no less than twenty children emerge with flower pedals they throw along the glassy aisle. I had but only one flower girl at my own wedding, terrified at the expense that I helped my own parents cover. And then the bridesmaids, most likely an unwanted cousin or in this case five that the mother forced on the daughter, followed by her far more fashionable friends and best friend. They’re tall and young and slender and the type of women David should really be with, and I’m likely not the only one thinking it.

  Then the bridal processional plays pizzicato on the strings as a gust of wind blows across the crowd and sends a chill up my body. The bride in her simple strapless gown of pure white chiffon emerges under a simple veil and a bouquet of summer orange roses in an almost too-slow walk as she takes in the horizon and her awaiting groom standing at the end of her path as if no one else is present. In her, I see where I once walked and how somehow I ended up on this unlikely journey.

  David reaches over and grabs my hand from my lap, holding it almost too tight and squeezing it each time the bride or groom says something he responds to. I want to excuse myself to the bathroom. I don’t want to sit here. I don’t want to be here right now. Yet, I continue to sit; I continue to hold his hand and continue to be unwilling to walk away or begin to tell him the truth. As the nuptials are almost complete, the landscape behind the couple becomes dotted with a herd of black and white horses that gather immediately at the fence behind them, and no less than twenty large hounds are let into the yards howling as the new couple embraces in a single kiss. We leap to our feet at the jubilant orchestral anthem; I try to endure and not collapse in emotion as David seals it with a perfect, slow, sympathetic kiss.

  The mood transitions as soon as the bridal pair make their way back up the aisle; the music changing from aristocratic hymns to more upbeat guitar music by a band that we could hear inside the grand white tent. David leads the way as my eyes and spirit trail behind, taking in the larger-than-life setting and trying to imagine if I could ever truly fit into this world. A long corridor made from branches of white-painted birch and more amnesia roses than I’ve ever seen, lead into the pitched white tent with a large stage filled by a dapper rock group serenading raspy indie anthems that were likely lost on the older guests. Large round tables are dotted with exploding floral arrangements of French tulips and the largest white peonies I’ve ever seen. Twelve gold-rimmed plates with antique wine glasses and silver service made of actual sterling completed the table setting.

  “It’s absolutely stunning,” I whisper to David.

  “When they do things they really go all out.”

  David passes familiar faces with a courteous grab of the back of the arm for men who look similarly dressed as he does who give a nod of the head in return. Some faces appear perplexed in my direction followed by a whisper to their neighbor, mostly women, who seem shocked to see a new face among this very Old World crowd. David circles the tables immediately around the dance floor, and I eye up the few guests already seated and look for our names.

  “You must be Catherine, we’ve heard much about you.” An attractive woman around my age rises from across the table, her sparkling earrings the size of ice cubes with white gold encasing.

  “And your name?” I ask. I extend my hand that she demurely takes with a limp wrist the way I imagine women are taught to do in these loftier circles.

  “Ann Baxter, I’m a cousin of the bride. My parents are Lady and Count Baxter. I’m not sure if David has mentioned us to you.”

  She nods to David as if looking for reassurance or perhaps just stealing one more glance at his addictive face.

  “Actually, even better Ann, we passed over your land this morning on our ride,” David says with a cheeky charm.

  “Oh, how lovely. Catherine, are you an avid equestrian?”

  “Only when riding on David’s horse, I mean, that came out wrong. I’m not, but David gave me a ride on his horse, which was fantastic.”

  “Yes, David has always been one to share his horse,” she says with a condescending giggle that has me surveying the rest of the table for potential conversation partners.

  “Catherine, that’s Oli who I’ve known since we used to play blitzkrieg near the quarry on my parent’s property, or their former property, I should say.”

  As David attempts to include me in the pleasantries of his inner circle that would most likely prefer to have him alone, my eyes gaze at the wedding program elaborately etched in gold leaf and lay with a sprig of lavender on each plate. Next to me, a tall, slender woman takes a seat, and my eyes take in her brightly colored dress that’s a flamboyant juxtaposition to everyone around her.

  “I’m Sam,” she says with a direct stare and a handshake that’s a welcome dose of real compared to everyone else at the table who seems to hover ever so slightly off the ground in their aristocratic air.

  “This is obviously the wedding breakfast, I assume?” I ask in a somewhat embarrassed whisper looking at the day’s program.

  “Oh yes, this is the wedding breakfast.”

  “Why do they call it that when it’s closer to lunchtime and dinner?”

  “That’s funny,” she replies. “In the good old days of the eighteenth century, when women couldn’t vote or hold land, people were not allowed to marry before noon. So ever since, especially in these posh circles, it’s been called the wedding breakfast. I think you Americans call it a reception if I’m correct.”

  “Yes, exactly,” I say. I notice the breakfast is just the first of an entire day of events that end in something called a Midnight Pig Roast, despite half the crowd already being drunk from the cocktails outside.

  My eyes take in all the opulence around me; it’s almost too much; the crystal chandeliers and the brocade silk detailing on the drapes made just for this day surrounding the elevated stage that must have cost a fortune. How could I ever expect David to go from this world to my everyday life that’s so predictable and normal? He’d be bored so easily and lost in the mundane. How would I ever be good enough to compete with all this?

  Men too old to be called waiters circle the room. Their worn faces look like the family has employed them for generations. They are passing champagne in squatty antique coupes. I take one and sip it as quickly as I can to get to a more relaxed place. Then on cue, a clink of another glass sends David up out of his chair and the few steps to the main stage.

  “Is this thing working?” David lifts the microphone higher and to the level of his mouth as his manner is relaxed and natural in front of this large and intimidating crowd. His shoulders tower above his tall frame and his face silences the room without even having to ask.

  “I am David Summers, or as the Dale-Evans family knows me, I’m ‘that kid who moved into the game room and stayed for weeks at a time.’”

  The crowd laughs, although the joke must be part of a larger story that I am unaware.

  “I’ve never not known this family, these incredible people who have allowed me to become part of their lives and made me feel like their own son. This day looks as I always thought it would; Alexandra telling me repeatedly as a child how her wedding would be the
most beautiful anyone had ever seen. She knew what color roses she wanted, where the marquee would be built on the property, and that the good man who would lead her down the aisle would be the kindest and most decent soul she’d ever encountered. When my father died, this family stepped in to tend to me like one of their own, and I hope that I’ve been able to take enough of them with me to one day be half the husband and father Griffin Dale-Evans is to his family.”

  David speaks without a script or notes, but simply and fluidly from his heart. My own heart drops just a bit; I am so taken by his innocent sincerity. What I thought was a terminal bachelor is a man who wants so much more. Suddenly, he seems a man ready for more than just a relationship of days or months. His words jolt my heart. David, being so much more than just the flirty bachelor I met on that Rio rooftop, confounds me. His words are flawless as I free fall in love all over again in this vulnerable moment where what I see and feel is nothing short of the perfect man. If only I had two lives, one to give to him right here and now.

  “You’ve taught me that it’s not about how many people you love, but how many people love you, and you are true to in return that really counts. They are the kind of people who not only know how to find love, but also hold onto it and make it deeper, richer, and better with time. I wish the new couple not only all the happiness in the world, but the resolve to face each day with passion and wonder and excitement. I can’t thank you enough for being in my life, and I look forward to all the years and memories to come.”

  CHAPTER 8

  PANAREA

  IT’S BEEN SIX full weeks since I’ve seen Catherine. Missing a day of talking to her feels like weeks, one day becomes two and then four, as the progress and potential of our relationship laggards to the demands of everyday life at home. Whether it was some event at the wedding or a change of heart once at home, the irregularity of our communication makes me wonder if she’s as into this relationship as I am. The lack of conversations or an attempt to keep a steady plan to see each other again isn’t as it was before. She’s evasive about solidifying plans, and more than being unavailable, sometimes she’s almost entirely unreachable and inflexible.