Best Staged Plans (12 page)

I grabbed my suitcase from the luggage carousel. “Do what you need to do, honey. Just drop me off at the car rental place and I can meet you at the house later.”

Shannon tucked her phone back into her tiny purse. “Okay, you can take my GPS.”

SHANNON HAD BEEN ADAMANT
about picking me up. She’d also insisted that I rent a car not at the airport, but at the rental car company closest to the house she and Chance had recently bought. I went along with this because she was my daughter and Atlanta was her territory, but as was so often the case in my life, it would have been a lot easier to do it my way.

Their new house was OTP, or Outside the Perimeter, which in Atlanta-speak means outside the circle of Interstate 285. For Shannon and Chance, trading their Virginia Highland apartment for the suburbs north of the city meant happy home ownership, a great school system for their penciled-in children, and room to spread out.

For me today, it meant climbing into my rental car and driving back into the city again.

I unearthed my recently recovered reading glasses from the bottom of my bag. I held them up and watched the silver metal on the sidepieces twinkle in the hot Atlanta sun. I gave them a quick kiss, then put them on so I could read the address Denise’s boyfriend had e-mailed me.

I punched the hotel’s address into Shannon’s GPS, then stuck it on the windshield of my rental car. I rolled slowly through the lot while it searched for its coordinates.

I should have loved the drivers in Atlanta, but the truth was, they made me nervous. Boston drivers are aggressive and nuts. Atlanta drivers are just plain nuts. Given that Atlanta is one of the traffic capitals of the world, it’s ridiculous the way they take their sweet time getting where they’re going. I mean, do they actually
want
to stay on the highway in their fancy SUVs all day?

A woman stopped her car and waved me on to the road in front of her.

“What are you, crazy?” I said out loud.

She smiled and waved again.

I followed the sign for Route 400 South and merged onto the highway.

“Drive point eight miles, then turn right onto Route 400 South,” Shannon’s GPS said in a fake woman’s voice.

“
Hello
,” I said. “I’m already here.” Apparently, even GPS machines were slower in the South. I put on my blinker and moved into the middle lane. I’d just take a quick look around when I got to the hotel, maybe make a few notes. Then I’d call Shannon and see if I could pick up something for dinner on the way home.

“In five hundred feet, turn right onto Route 400 South,” the GPS said.

“LOL,” I said.

“Please turn right,” the GPS said.

“Please shut up,” I said.

I’d seen Shannon’s new house only once, when Greg and I flew down to check it out after their offer had been accepted but while they still had time to pull out, contingent on the home inspection. The neighborhood was lovely, with ivy-edged sidewalks, mature landscaping, and green manicured lawns. It encompassed a mixed bag of houses that spanned the decades, refreshing in an area where so much was new and cookie-cutter. The house they’d chosen was a 1970s contemporary in desperate need of TLC. I was proud of Shannon for seeing its potential. When you’re house hunting, especially the first time around, always buy the worst house in the best neighborhood you can afford.

“Please make a legal U-turn as soon as possible,” the GPS said.

“Please calm down,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I need you.”

A strange man passed by in the lane to my right and smiled over at me. Possibly because I appeared to be talking to myself. Possibly because he was a lunatic. I resisted the urge to out myself as a northerner by giving him the finger.

Shannon liked to do things her way, but I couldn’t wait to get in there, see what they’d done so far, and help out with a project or two while I was here. In some crazy 1970s Swiss chalet–inspired fantasy, possibly fueled by too many drugs in the ’60s, the master bedroom actually had shutters that opened onto a tiny balcony overlooking the living room. I mean, what was that architect thinking? All I could picture were kids hurling each other over the edge one not-too-distant day. I was pretty sure removing the balcony and covering the opening with drywall would be something the three of us, plus maybe one or two of Chance’s burly groomsmen, could handle. Then we’d have to figure out what to do with that big expanse of blank wall.

I passed a woman putting on mascara in her rearview mirror. While I certainly agreed that none of us should be texting or talking on our cell phones while we drive, where was the public outcry about women putting on their makeup while cruising along the highway at breakneck speed?

“Reverse direction at the earliest opportunity,” the GPS said.

“Keep it up and I’ll make my daughter return you,” I said.

“Recalculating,” the GPS said.

“You and me both, honey. Wait till you get to be my age. And I thought it would be all smooth sailing by now. Ha.”

“Rerouting. Please stand by.”

The traffic slowed to a crawl. Maybe the GPS actually knew something I didn’t. It was an interesting thought. Because if it were true, then I wouldn’t have to be in charge. That would be such a nice change. I mean, I was good at being in charge, but sometimes I just wanted somebody else to take a turn. And to know that if I turned over the reins, someone, or I guess in this case, some
thing
, else would pick up the slack. Sometimes you just didn’t want to be everybody’s mother.

I leaned over and turned up the volume. “Okay, girlfriend, give it to me.”

“Drive three point three miles, then take ramp on right.”

“Affirmative,” I said. “GPS is my new BFF.”

I put my blinker on to start gradually merging over to the right. Greg would have waited until the last possible moment, but this was the GPS’s and my show now.

The traffic inched along and then came to a complete stop.

“Drive three point three miles, then take ramp on right,” the GPS said.

“You’re repeating yourself,” I said.

The GPS was silent.

Four lanes of traffic sat on the highway like beached whales, not moving an inch. I put the car into park and polished my much-loved reading glasses.

“Make a legal U-turn as soon as possible,” the GPS said.

“Make up your mind,” I said.

We sat forever and then some more. I put on my cheaters and called Denise just to make sure a warrant for my arrest hadn’t been issued, but she didn’t pick up. I thought about calling home, but what was the point of an ultimatum if you didn’t stick to it? I sorted the receipts I was collecting for Josh, arranging them neatly in the clear plastic folder with the Velcro seal I’d brought along.

“Drive three point three miles, then take ramp on right,” the GPS said.

I ignored it. We sat some more. And some more. My stomach growled and reminded me of the lunch Shannon and I hadn’t managed to go out for. I drank some bottled water and rooted unsuccessfully in my shoulder bag for a snack. I always traveled with emergency provisions—mini packages of raw nuts, baby carrots, Kashi bars. My post office heist must have thrown me off my game. They were probably still sitting on my kitchen counter. I hoped Greg and Luke had the sense to eat the carrots before they got moldy.

“Drive three point three miles, then take ramp on right,” the GPS said.

I reached over and yanked the cord out of the cigarette lighter. “That’s it,” I said. “That’s all you get. I’m sick and tired of giving everybody second chances.”

A minute later I saw a zebra galloping down the middle of the highway against the piled-up traffic.

I took off my reading glasses and looked again.

A formation of police motorcycles followed the zebra.

“I guess we’re not in Boston anymore,” I said to the GPS. When the GPS didn’t answer, I almost plugged it back in again. I kind of missed having someone to talk to.

All around me car doors were opening.

“WTF,” I said. I climbed out, too.

“Are you believin’ in that?” the guy next to me said.

“Did y’all see what I just saw?” a woman in heels and a sundress said.

“I got it on video with my cell phone,” another woman said. “I already sent it off to CNN.”

“Must have escaped on the way to Philips Arena,” a guy said. “The wife and kids and I have tickets to the Ringling Brothers circus there tonight.”

“Talk about taking your act on the road,” the woman in the sundress said. Everybody laughed like they’d known one another for years.

Two women a few vehicles down opened up the tailgate of their SUV. “Tired old soggy sandwiches aren’t going to do the folks at work any good by the time we get ’em there,” one of them yelled. “Help yourselves, y’all!”

CHAPTER 18

E
VEN THE GPS
was tired by the time I plugged it back in and we finally found the hotel. We would have simply turned around and gone back toward Shannon’s house, but we were more than halfway there when the traffic stopped. Two hours later when it finally started moving again, one of us really had to go to the bathroom.

I lucked out and found a parking place right on the street. I double-checked the address on my BlackBerry. The place looked great, exactly what you would imagine if you did a picture search for
BOUTIQUE HOTEL.
It looked almost like a large brick town house, with a cute arched front entryway and a brick patio surrounded by a waist-high black wrought iron fence.

Already I could imagine a striped rounded awning over the door, the perfect hip come-hither statement. Awnings have been around since ancient Egypt and Syria, but they hit their stride in the United States when the advent of the steamship forced canvas mills and sailmakers to look for new options. I loved the way they’d been reinventing themselves ever since, calling out shelter and tradition from doorways, windows, and decks. I’d order a classic bubble dome awning in a nice Sunbrella stripe, maybe Hartwell Lagoon or even Gaston Seaglass.

Then I’d hit some flea markets for mismatched bistro tables and chairs. We’d have a nightly wine reception with a local musician playing loudly enough to create some buzz.

I’d done my research, so I knew that boutique hotels had made their splashy entrance in the late 1980s, complete with ultramodern decor, dance music playing in the lobby, and hip people greeting guests as they arrived. Almost by definition, they’d been small and unique and funky.

More recently, boutique hotels had begun to flounder as major chains jumped into the act, spending lots of money to give their hotels a faux boutique vibe. Apparently, if it looked like a boutique hotel and quacked like a boutique hotel, most people were happy to pretend that a five-hundred-room generic hotel with leopard skin chairs in the lobby
was
a boutique hotel.

I hid the GPS in the glove compartment and fished for the key Josh had FedExed me. I checked the number again, since the hotel didn’t appear to have a sign. Maybe the bank had let the old owners take it with them.

Dead flowers crumbled in huge terra-cotta pots on either side of a horizontally striped glass-and-teak door. I slid the key into the lock and turned. I pushed the door. It didn’t budge. I wiggled the key around and gave the door a little kick.

It opened suddenly, and I hopped forward with one leg up.

“Hey,” Josh said. “Watch the merchandise.”

I stood there for a moment like an aging chorus dancer before I remembered to put my leg down.

“Did I know you were going to be here?” I asked.

Josh grinned a boyish grin and opened the door wide. “If you did, that would have been one of us.”

I walked past him and into the hotel, because it seemed like the only available option.

The place was a mess. Three barrels of trash were lined up on the bamboo floor just inside the door, and wires dangled from a hole in the ceiling where a chandelier should have been. The reception counter was covered with more trash, and an ancient fax machine teetered dangerously close to the edge. To the left was a bar area with a stool-less cement bar, a few bottles, and not much else.

Josh followed my gaze. “At least they left us some booze.”

A bottle of Kahlúa sat on the bar next to a glass with a chocolate puddle’s worth of liquor in it. A stack of papers was piled beside the glass.

“Kahlúa?” I said.

He ran his fingers through his carefully gelled hair. “It was that or peach schnapps.”

“They took the barstools with them?” I said.

He nodded. “The stools, some of the tables and chairs, the sheets, the towels, even some of the sinks.”

“The sinks,” I said. “Are they allowed to do that?”

Josh shook his head. “I’ve got a guy looking into it, but I’m pretty sure I bought this place as is.” He picked up his Kahlúa glass. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“No thanks,” I said.

His face fell, like someone had just told him there wasn’t a Santa Claus.

“Okay, just a tiny one,” I said. “But what I really need is a restroom.”

Josh shook his head. “Good luck.”

I found one just beyond the little lobby. I had to open the door to be sure, since the previous owners had taken the
MEN
and
WOMEN
signs with them, leaving ugly screw holes in the dark wood doors. Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find it had toilet paper. And soap in the dispenser. There were even two rippled glass sinks sitting up on the counter, making them vessel sinks in design lingo. One was a little bit lopsided, so maybe they’d tried to hijack the sinks, too, but had run out of time. I couldn’t even imagine how awful it would be to have put your heart and soul into a business, only to lose it to the bank. I’d probably have taken the toilet paper, too.

Josh was holding his phone when I walked back into the bar. When he saw me, he pushed a button and put the phone away. He was young, but he did have manners. Maybe Denise had picked a winner this time.

He drizzled some Kahlúa into an oversize brandy snifter and handed it to me. He poured himself a refill.