“That does sound amazing,” Sarah says. It’s settled.
There’s more chatter and kisses before Lauren folds up the big cloth napkin, deposits it on the table, and says her final good night. She jabs the plastic key card into the slot above the doorknob. The light flickers red. She tries again, and then again. Finally, it turns green. She’s inside. The door falls heavily behind her. The room is quiet. She opens the door to the terrace. The muted sound of the sea. It’s almost hard to believe it’s out there. This is what people talk about when they talk about a tropical paradise. She slips out of her shoes. The hotel staff has been in for the turndown service. Turndown service has never made much sense to her. The housekeepers have been in to make the room look like no one’s ever been there, then they return and leave all this evidence that someone’s been there: a bucket of ice and a sweating plastic bottle of very cold water, a little square of chocolate Lauren unwraps immediately; she cannot not eat chocolate, even though this particular specimen is subpar. She lies on the bed, fully dressed, something she’d never do at home: Fully dressed you’re covered with the filth of the city, and her bed, her real bed, is a space she considers almost sacred. This is a stranger’s bed. It’s belonged to a thousand people before her. In a few hours, someone will come in and fix the sheets, so it doesn’t seem to matter if she gets sand on them.
A long time ago, about a year into their relationship, Gabe had taken Lauren to a hotel. There was no particular special occasion to mark; any occasion becomes special when a romance is that new. They were past the point of brushing their teeth before kissing in the morning but had not reached the point where they’d leave the door open while urinating. The hotel was nice, though the room was surprisingly small.
“Oh,” Gabe said, tossing the overnight bag onto the bed. They’d packed an overnight bag, even. “This is nice.” The oh implied that he had expected otherwise.