Page 25 of Road Trip with a Vampire

Thirteen

Ms.Zelda Watson, California’s Flagpole-Sitting Champion!

Mr.Joseph Crown, staff reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle

As many of our readers are no doubt aware, flagpole sitting is the latest craze to sweep the nation—and the world!

Not to be outdone, on Tuesday of last week, fifty-seven young people from across California convened at Fisherman’s Wharf to compete in California’s inaugural flagpole-sitting competition.

Ms.Zelda Watson, 32, of San Francisco easily captured the crown, having sat atop a flagpole longer than any other competitor for a whopping seventeen hours, fourteen minutes, and thirty-seven seconds.

Ms.Watson could not be reached for comment after the awards ceremony.

Mr.John Flanigan, 27, of Oakland, California—who came in second place at seventeen hours, seven minutes, and fifteen seconds—said, with obvious reverence, that Ms.Watson’s balance seemed so effortless, it was like she was held aloft by magic.

Becky: Here are more YouTube goat yoga links (since you never gave us your thoughts on the others we sent)

Becky: These should give you a good idea of what L and I are planning

Becky: Let us know what you think (you really do have to watch some of these eventually)!

Becky: Still hope you’re not dead!

Zelda: Thanks

Zelda: Not dead, just in Wyoming

Zelda: Will take a look at the videos tonight, I promise

I tossed my phone back into my bag with a groan.

With the event looming, I probably needed to watch at least one of those videos. No matter how much I wanted to blow the whole thing off.

Peter opened the driver’s-side car door, letting in a frigid blast of air as he slid into the seat beside me. He’d insisted on pumping the gas at this stop, mumbling something about how it was his turn to pay.

I suspected he’d just wanted to get out of the car to feed, but I let it go. It had been a long day already, and we still had hours to go before we reached East Junction.

Peter sighed as he closed the door behind him. The sound of it echoed loudly through the silence. “We got too late of a start to make it to the bowling alley before it closes.”

I wasn’t surprised. By the time Peter had stopped panicking about my noninjury and the auto repair shop had finished replacing my tires, it had been nearly eleven in the morning.

Since then, we’d gotten stuck in a traffic jam near Salt Lake City that had materialized out of nowhere and had stopped two more times to stretch our legs.

At the rate we were going, we’d be lucky to get to East Junction by midnight. The sun hadn’t set yet, but it was low in the sky, casting the desolate landscape in long shadows.

“Let’s stop for the night,” I suggested. “We’ll get to East Junction by midday tomorrow.”

Peter frowned, probably because he’d hoped to have made better time. I understood his frustration and his impatience to get to our final destination, but there was nothing we could do about it.

“Fine,” he agreed. “Let’s find a hotel.”

I got out my phone again and began searching for places to stay. There wasn’t much nearby, but if we were willing to drive a little farther…

“This is weird,” I murmured.

“What’s weird?”

I held up my phone. “There’s a five-star hotel ninety minutes from here. Just a few miles off the interstate.”

He stared at me. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” I said. “It’s hard to imagine there’s a fancy hotel within a million miles of here, isn’t it?”

It was the truth. I’d remembered the scenery along this stretch of highway as uninspiring, but if anything, I’d remembered it through rose-tinted glasses.

Desolate didn’t feel like an adequate word to describe the windswept, barren landscape that seemed to stretch on forever in all directions.

We’d seen very few cars since crossing the border from Utah; the few we had seen appeared to be in as big a hurry to get to where they were going as we were.

This gas station was so run-down it wouldn’t have looked out of place in an episode of Fallout . Most of the other shops and restaurants we’d seen since Utah had been dollar stores and fast-food places.

“Maybe things are fancier ninety minutes down the road,” Peter said dubiously as he turned the key in the ignition.

After our last motel, the idea of staying someplace fancy for a night was appealing. Between the cash he’d brought with him and my credit cards, we could afford to splurge.

“I’ll call and see if they have two available rooms,” I said.

“ Two rooms?”

Peter’s tone gave me pause. Was he disappointed we’d be getting two rooms? Had he thought we’d share again?

Did he want to share again?

For that matter—did I?

His face gave nothing away. All his focus was on the road in front of him, his hands gripping the steering wheel a little tighter than necessary.

“Two rooms,” I confirmed. I wouldn’t be the first to admit that the idea of sharing a room again sounded nice. I might have once been fearless, but I wasn’t brave enough for that. “That all right?”

A muscle feathered in Peter’s jaw. “Of course,” he said. “Two rooms is…sensible.”

We drove on for a little over an hour, seeing almost no other cars the entire time, before Peter turned off the interstate onto a narrow road. Within minutes we were on a long, winding drive lined with more trees than we’d seen since entering Wyoming.

When the hotel finally appeared in front of us, I gasped.

This wasn’t just a hotel.

This was a resort .

Or at least the closest thing to a resort we were likely to see for hundreds of miles in any direction.

The hotel was over two dozen stories tall, all chrome and steel, with a tennis court complex and a nine-hole golf course that looked closed for the season.

As we got closer to the hotel proper, we drove by an outdoor swimming pool that had to be heated, given that there were people swimming in it when it was below freezing outside.

“What’s a place like this doing in the middle of nowhere?” Peter wondered.

“I have no idea,” I said. “But at the moment, I can’t say that I care.” As I spoke, Peter pulled into the valet line and put the car in park. “I bet this place has a spa. If you think I’m not going to avail myself of that while we’re here, you are sorely mistaken.”

Peter gave me a shy smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and made me feel warm inside. “Far be it from me to get between you and some well-earned pampering.”

After tipping the valet an outrageously thick wad of bills, Peter walked a little ahead of me as if he, too, couldn’t wait to see what awaited us inside.

“This is unbelievable,” he murmured when I caught up with him.

He was right. The interior of the hotel lived up to the promise of its exterior, with vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and—was that a harpist playing in the bar?

“This place so has a luxury spa,” I breathed.

“I’d be stunned if it didn’t,” Peter agreed.

The young man at the check-in counter couldn’t have been more than twenty and was at least as enthusiastic about working there as Peter and I were awed by the place.

After finding our reservation on the computer, he gave us two plastic key cards shaped like swans, explained the complimentary breakfast options, and pointed us towards the elevator, all without dropping his smile.

“You’re in room 1431,” he said, his smile growing. “Have a nice stay.”

“Wait,” I said. “You only gave us the number of one room. What’s the other room?”

The young man peered at me, confused. “What other room?”

Peter cleared his throat. “We booked two rooms,” Peter insisted.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” the kid said. “But no, you didn’t.”

“But we did,” I insisted.

The kid shook his head. “You booked a suite ,” he said very slowly, as if explaining the situation to a small child.

“Technically, you did book two rooms, because the suite has two rooms. It was our last vacancy because there’s a big wedding here tonight.

And I do apologize, but the only reason you even got one room is someone just canceled. ”

Peter’s eyes widened. “You sure it has two rooms? Or at least two beds?”

The kid gave an embarrassed one-shouldered shrug that was the opposite of reassuring.

Well , I thought as a group of giggling young women wearing bright pink bridesmaid dresses wandered by, there’s nothing to be done for it now.

I looked at Peter. His expression was unreadable as he fidgeted with his swan-shaped key card.

“Shall we?” I asked.

He swallowed. “Sure.”

Peter hefted both of our bags over one shoulder, and we walked to the elevator bank in a silence you could have cut with a knife.

The elevator car that took us up to the fourteenth floor was lined with mirrors, and I focused on my reflection—on the way my anxiety was reflected back at me in the bright spots of color high on my cheeks—to distract myself from my roiling nerves.

When Peter cracked open the door to our room and saw what was waiting for us inside, he let out a relieved chuckle.

“No mysterious stains on the carpet this time?” I quipped.

Another laugh. “Definitely not. This place is beautiful,” he said. He opened the door fully and strode inside. “Come see.”

He was right. The sitting room we stood in was gorgeous, with a large flat-screen television mounted on the wall and a plush, cream-colored sofa that must have cost more than my car. I turned in a slow circle to take it all in, marveling at the original artwork hanging above the minibar.

“Two bedrooms,” Peter confirmed, ducking his head into one of the rooms connected to the one we were in. He let out a low whistle. “Fancy.”

The bathroom was gorgeous as well. Like the rest of the suite, it was huge and beautifully appointed, with little scalloped soaps wrapped in paper at the sink and lavender-scented shampoos in the shower.

I took in the separate clawfoot bathtub, noting that it could be a good place for me to conduct water-based magical experiments later that night.