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The premium shared-ride car she’d been forced to take from the airport had been more or less adequate, but she had expected a driver and a car to be waiting for her at baggage claim. When one hadn’t arrived there after more than twenty minutes of waiting, she had had to get her own bags off the carousel, find one of those cart things because she’d packed for two months, and then wheel all of her stuff out while she tried to reach Kyla, her assistant, who hadn’t traveled with her because she was seven months pregnant and no longer able to. Samara hadn’t been able to reach her, though, so she had had to order herself a shared ride. At least, the driver had been nice enough to load her bags into the trunk for her, which sheappreciated, but she was still upset with her assistant for not ordering her a car.
“Please rate me five stars in the app,” he said as soon as she climbed into the way-too-hot vehicle. “Would you like a bottle of water?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “Do you have the address?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied.
Samara almost scolded him for calling her ‘ma’am,’ but she remembered that she was in the South, so she would be getting a lot more of that. She would also never drink anything from a shared-ride car. She had heard horror stories of women being roofied and worse because they had taken one drink from a tainted bottle. She sent her ride information to her assistant via text to be safe, and thirty minutes later, the driver unloaded her stuff for her outside the hotel and left.
She stood there, waiting for someone to come help her with her bags, but five minutes had gone by, and no one had arrived. Between the two sets of sliding glass doors, Samara noticed two rather old-looking luggage carts and grunted as she walked inside to grab one. Of course, one of the wheels on the one she grabbed wasn’t working properly, so she nearly ran into her own bags, but eventually, she was able to heft all of her baggage onto the cart and push it inside.
“Hello,” the front desk clerk said with a smile when she approached the desk. “Checking in?”
“God, I hope not,” she muttered to herself. “Is this the Franklin Hotel?”
“Franklin Suites, yes.”
“Suites? Oh, good. Yes, one of those, please. My flight landed over an hour late because we couldn’t get clearance to land, so getting here was not pleasant. I’d like to check in and, if possible, see a room service menu down here and place my order directly with you. I’m starving.”
“Miss Barber, correct?”
“Yes. How did you–” She stopped herself because that was a dumb question.
Most people knew who she was these days. She’d hadan action movie come out over the summer, and billboards and trailers were everywhere. Still, after all these years in the business, it still surprised Samara that people recognized her. That might have been because she’d been a child star for so long, so people tended to still think of her that way, but she should’ve been used to it by now, regardless.
“We have your room ready for you. You requested the top floor, according to my records.”
“Yes, please. I’d love a room with a view. Do you have any of the river or maybe of the Quarter or something, if it’s not too loud?”
The clerk just looked at her like she was confusing him, which only confused Samara, who stared back at him, waiting for the man to reply to her pretty simple question.
“We only have three floors here, and none of them have views of the water or the Quarter, Ma’am. We have the parking garage behind us on one side and a Denny’s and a parkingloton the other. If you want, I can see if we have a room on the first or second floor that faces the pool. We only have the third floor on part of the building, so–”
“No pool,” she interjected. “Loud, noisy children and probably their pets and theirsmells.”
Samara shook her head.
“All right. Well, I have you in room 321, then,” he said.
“And is that facing the garage or the Denny’s?”
“The garage,” he replied.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “And a room service menu?”
“We don’t have room service here, Ma’am. We have the shop in the lobby right next to me, and there’s the Denny’s.”
“No restaurant at all?”
“No, Ma’am. But there are menus in your room for the local places that deliver. All of the apps know they can deliver to the desk, too, so if you order from one of them, they can leave your food here, and I can call you when it arrives so that you don’t have to give away your room number, for safety.”
“Issafetysomething I need to be worried about here?” she asked.
“Oh, no. I just meant because you’re… you.”
“Right,” she said. “Do you know if there are any vegan places around here? Or, at least, vegetarian?”
