Girdwood Springs,he thought, as he gazed upon the bounty within,it’s good to be back.
Chapter 3
“There’s been a mistake,” Poppy muttered under her breath, rubbing at her forehead. “Ofcoursethere’s been a mistake.”
This wholetripwas one big mistake. She’d tried to make the best of a bad situation, but obviously the universe had just decided that she would’ve been better off at home, tucked up in her warm, comfortable bed.
The clearly contrite clerk behind the counter shook her head in confusion. “I honestly don’t know what happened – we’ve never had a booking mix-up like this before. There must’ve been a glitch in the system.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Poppy sighed. She’d come here with low expectations, so she wasn’t feeling surprised at all.
Her main problem now was working out how to get out of the, ah,charmingone-motel town of Gunter’s Gulch, with its sludgy half-melted snow, nearby paper mill, and distinct lack of actual gulches – there hadn’t been any rental cars at Arnott Airport, and so she’d caught the bus here. There probably wouldn’t be another one for hours.
Days, maybe.
And even if there was, where would she go? At this rate, she was going to have to sleep in the airport for a few days until her flight back.
“I’m so sorry,” the clerk said, picking up the phone. “I’ll start calling around nearby and see if there’s anywhere available.”
Heading outside for some fresh air, Poppy sighed again. She’d pretty much moved beyond anger at this point, and was now hovering somewhere around darkly amused resignation.
This would be a great story to tell my coworkers after I got back to work… if I had any coworkers anymore.
Wandering into the gas station next door, she perused the drinks fridge disinterestedly. Maybe if she bought a pineapple soda, it wouldalmosttaste like the pina colada she’d been dreaming of.
“Rough day?”
Poppy spun around, to see an outdoorsy-looking, brown-haired woman smiling at her sympathetically. Just behind her, an extremely –extremely!– tall man was talking quietly on his cellphone, but it was clear they were together.
Poppy laughed, trying not to sound too bitter. “Is it that obvious?”
“That bottle’s going to crack if you squeeze it any tighter,” the woman said.
Poppy looked down at her fingers, which were practically white where they were holding the soda in a death grip.
“Haha… I guess I am a little tense,” she said, trying to sound as breezy as possible whilst prying her fingers off the bottle. She wasn’t sure where to go from there with their impromptu conversation – she couldn’t say she was in the mood right now for small talk, no matter now well-intentioned it might be.
Right now, she just wanted to crawl somewhere warm and dry and wait for her plane home.
“Are you staying here in Gunter’s Gulch?” the woman asked, cocking her head.
Okay, well, it looks like small talk it is,Poppy thought grimly.
But she had always considered herself a people person. She could do this.
“Haha,” she said again, with her false, bright laugh. “Funny story –”
But she cut herself off before she could get to the funny story of her so-far completely disastrous vacation, mainly because she was worried that once she got started, she’d never stop with her litany of woes, which was probably more than this nice lady had bargained on hearing when she’d just been trying to make polite conversation.
In the awkward pause that followed, the man’s voice on the phone got a little louder. Poppy didn’t like to eavesdrop – well, nottoomuch – but she couldn’t help but hear his next words.
“You just had a reservation cancel?”
Poppy’s head shot up.
A cancelation? What kind of cancelation?!
Well, it was probably someone’s dinner at a restaurant, given her luck so far. But some tiny spark of hope sprung to life inside her.
