My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto (15 page)

So far
Carmen
’s my favorite, probably because I know the music best. Seems like every fifteen-year-old figure skater ever has performed to “Habanera,” all painted up with smoky eyes, wearing latticed Gypsy outfits and big flowers in their baby-fine hair. Considering that “Habanera”
is
about Carmen choosing who she wants to take as her next l-o-v-e-r, the inappropriateness of a child doing a triple axel to it boggles the mind.

I love how opera music is as rich and complex as a good bowl of carbonara. When I listen, it booms throughout the media room, and I practically swoon every time the tenors sing. I think with opera I feel the music as much as I listen to it.

The problem is, as much as I’m enjoying the DVDs, I’m only watching them on DVD. I haven’t been to a real opera yet, but not for lack of will. Chicago’s opera run is limited and currently out of season, which is a shame because if I want to truly experience opera—and I do, desperately—I must be there live.

I need to put on a ball gown
¹⁵⁰
and sit with everyone in the audience while they stir in anticipation. I want to use my funky little binoculars
¹⁵¹
to watch the orchestra as they prepare. (By the way, is there any sound that quickens the pulse more than an orchestra warming up? Whenever I hear the random strings and woodwind instruments all discordant, I just know something great’s about to happen.) I want to see if a wineglass
¹⁵²
actually cracks when the soprano hits her highest note.

In short, I want the whole meal.

My opera and World Cuisine educations are on temporary hold since I’m on my way to New York! I guess I shouldn’t have mocked Stacey last year when she entered all those crazy recipe contests, because that’s why we’re on a plane right now. Stacey’s one of three finalists in a cocktail competition, which is hilarious, considering she’s never been a bartender.
¹⁵³
But I’m not laughing because she got an all-expenses-paid trip to the city, and I’m her plus-one.

When we land, we’re going first to her hotel and then to mine. We’ve learned over the years that the very best vacations include some alone time, so we’re not sharing her free room. When I tried to reserve a room at her hotel, it turned out they were fully booked. I checked out all the hotels in one square mile of hers and had the requisite sticker shock upon seeing New York hotel prices. I guess I’ve never been to New York
not
on business, so I’ve never paid for myself.

I end up choosing the Four Seasons, partly because I was able to find a sweet deal on the Internet, and partly because I’m extremely loyal to any organization that turns my book into chocolate. The price is still higher than what I’d pay at a Westin or a Hyatt, but I can justify it because the rest of the trip is free, and I’ve earned a little luxury after hauling ass all over the country for a month.

Of course, Fletch was less easy to sway. I finally changed his mind by convincing him (a) it’s only two nights, (b) I’m sure to get a funny experience out of it since my staying there smacks vaguely of a
Beverly Hillbillies
episode, and (c) if I do get a good story, we can write it off.

Our flight’s without incident and traffic from LaGuardia’s surprisingly light, so we get to Stacey’s hotel before we know it. When I checked it out online, I saw a twee little European boutique hotel. But when we enter, I learn something very important about photos on the Internet: things are not always as they appear.
¹⁵⁴

The lobby manages to feel both empty and crowded, which I assume has something to do with the cracked, barely-more-than-six-foot-high ceilings. The carpet runners are threadbare, and the furniture’s old and shoddy. Turns out the ambient glow from the photos was not mood lighting—rather, it was most likely an imperfection-masking dollop of Vaseline on the cameras lens.

The walls are empty of any kind of adornment, but the good news is there are plenty of random nails still sticking out, should one suddenly muster up a painting or framed photograph.

While I hang behind with our bags, Stacey heads to the check-in desk, where most of the staff is busy either spraying one another with juicy sneezes or hacking into Starbucks napkins. I make a mental note not to touch anything in the lobby, because I’m fairly sure this is Ground Zero for the swine flu.

Key in hand, we take an elevator so small that we’re the only ones who can fit in it. “Stace,” I say, so close to her, my breath moves her hair around, “I got a baaaaad feeling about this place.”

“Eh.” She shrugs. “I’ve seen worse. It’s free and I’m pretty much just going to be sleeping here.”

The elevator lurches to a stop and we exit on her floor. We weave down narrow, confusing catacombs of hallways and finally get to her door. Stacey places the electronic key in the lock, the green light flashes, and she turns the handle . . . yet the door doesn’t open. She tries again, with the same result. She tries fifteen more times and the door remains closed. I cannot currently assist her, as I’m (a) sticking my clenched fists in my armpits in order to avoid any germs and (b) attempting not to laugh out a lung.

Finally, in a move worthy of Agent Jack Bauer himself right before he finds/stabs an insurgent in the thigh, she inserts the key and hurls her entire self against the door. She flies in the air, feet leaving the floor, and body-checks the door, resulting in a thump heard round Midtown. The wall surrounding the door gives a bit, yet there we stand in the hallway.

“Hey, what if you pull the handle up?” I gasp, between guffaws.

“That’s ludicrous. When have you ever seen a door handle open up instead of down?”

I counter, “When’s the last time you stayed in a hotel where the entire staff was infected with the bubonic plague?”

“You make an excellent point.” Stacey yanks the handle up and, like magic, the door opens, revealing the majesty of the accommodations and thus prompting me to double over once and for all.

The carpeting’s an unnatural shade of green and sprigged with big bouquets of peach roses, which was probably the height of style when it was installed in 1982. Coincidentally, that’s exactly when the television was manufactured, so it’s nice to see they found a theme and stuck with it. I wonder if when we turn it on, we’ll see nothing but
Dukes of Hazzard
and
Cheers
reruns?

There are two beds in here, which is one bed too many for the available square footage. As I make my way over to sit on the tiny horseshoeshaped chair across the room, I soundly slam my hip into the sharp edge of the writing table, as there’s only about a six-inch passage between it and the first bed.
¹⁵⁵

Once I finally stop hyperventilating, I suggest, “Maybe you have a nice view?” pulling a sheer curtain back only to come face-to-face with the building’s industrial air conditioner. Then I realize her room is dark not because of cloud cover, but because the HVAC unit is blocking out all available light. “By the way, I would check those sheets for stray p-u-b-i-c hairs right now.”

“Think you’ll ever be able to say any vaguely sexual words without spelling them?” Stacey asks as she turns back the paisley bedspread.

“Probably not.” What can I say? I’m m-o-d-e-s-t.

To be fair, the crucial parts of the room are clean—sheets, toilet, floors, et cetera. The bathtub is spotless, but I imagine it’s not hard to sanitize something that’s only three feet long. “You could wash an Oompa-Loompa in that tub!” I exclaim.

“Well, not a full-sized Oompa-Loompa,” Stacey disagrees, before pointing out the sponge painting on the bathroom walls, composed of both the yellow color found exclusively on roads dividing traffic and the safety cone orange.

Stacey throws her bag on the spare bed, and the window catches her attention. She points to the oddly shaped pleated valance hanging over the sheers. “It would appear that Paris Hilton has lost her skirt.”

I break out into fresh peals of laughter. I’ll be damned if that thing doesn’t look exactly like a skirt’s been cut in half and then stapled into the wall.
¹⁵⁶
“Well, I really like the art in here.”

Stacey swivels her head to inspect the naked walls. “But there is no art.”

“Aha! That’s where you’re wrong,” I disagree. “You’re not taking into account the chair rail of dirty footprints over there.” Stacey pales for a moment as she sees the ghosts of the feet of hundreds of travelers past all over the far wall. “Seriously, I can get a bigger room if you want to stay with me.”

Stacey shrugs philosophically. “Listen, if I can live in a mud hut in Kenya for three months, I can handle a less than ideal hotel room.
¹⁵⁷
This’ll be fine. No misunderstanding, I’m ready to get the fuck out and hit the Four Seasons, but it’s fine. If I stay elsewhere, it’ll just screw up all the pickups and drop-offs for the cocktail competition tomorrow, and I don’t want to come off as ungrateful.”

“All right, but if you change your mind, you tell me.”

Stacey gathers the few things she’ll need before returning tonight to sleep, and we make our way to my hotel. We could probably walk there from here, but why would we walk when there are so many cabs? I mean, sure it’s a little bit lazy but I’m trying to stimulate an economy here, people—if you think about it, I’m kind of a hero. (At least that’s what I’ll tell Fletch.)

When we arrive, a doorman’s at the cab and grabbing my bag out of the trunk before I’m even finished paying the driver. With a courteous bob of the head, he says to me, “Good afternoon, Miss Lancaster. Welcome to the Four Seasons.”

“Holy shit, Stacey! They know my name!”

They know me here?

They know me here!

How cool is it they know me? I mean, I just made my reservation online like everyone else. Maybe for a minute I thought about calling the concierge and pretending to be my nonexistent assistant to see if it would get me preferential treatment, but that felt wrong and undeserved. Plus, if I need to explain to someone who I am, then that pretty much confirms I’m only important in my own head. I never, ever want to turn into “Do-you-know-who-I-am?” girl because . . .
ick
.

Yet the doorman knows me. How can that be? What if a reader works here and she saw my name on the reservation and was all
, “She’s an author!”
which I guess would mean I actually am kind of a celebrity and . . .

Wait. That can’t even be a little bit true. And this is the exact type of arrogance and delusion that got me in trouble so many years ago. There’s got to be a better explanation.

“How do you know my name?” I ask.

“I’m afraid I can’t reveal my secrets,” he says with a sly grin.

Then I glance down.

Oh. He read my goddamned luggage tag.

Argh
, I really am Jethro Bodine.

The doorman whisks my bag away, and Stacey and I pass through the stunning three-story lobby. We admire all the Asian art and inlaid tiles and massive stone columns, topped with a modern yet elegant skylight before we get to the reception desk. I rarely bust out this adjective, but it’s totally appropriate here. Swanky. This joint’s swanky. (Wonder if they have a ce-ment pond out back?)

A competent professional who appears to have no communicable diseases whatsoever greets us at the two-story reception area. “Welcome, Miss Lancaster.” I made note of the fact that the doorman had a headset, so I spare myself the whole embarrassingly self-involved thought process.

While I check in, we tell the desk clerk about the nightmare of Stacey’s room and soon all three of us are cracking up. “I don’t care if I’m on a higher floor, but I am interested in a room with a dirty footprint chair rail,” I say with a straight face. “Might you have any available?”

“Possibly with a two-thirds to scale bathtub? We have a small, dirty Oompa-Loompa in need of a good scrubbing,” Stacey adds.

“I’m sorry. I don’t; we just ran out of the last of those,” the clerk apologizes, trying to keep the corners of her mouth from turning up. “However, I’m able to offer you a complimentary upgrade to the next class of room, and it’s a corner so your views will be much better. It’s quite spacious. But if you prefer, I can have housekeeping rearrange the furniture to make sure you bump into it.”

“That shan’t be necessary,” I reply in a fake-haughty voice.

I complete the check-in service and thank the clerk again. When she says it was her pleasure, I believe her. I bet none of the dignitaries or the
real
famous people who check in here every day try to make the desk clerk smile. And I ended up with a better room not by pulling the (faux) important card, but just by being myself.

And speaking of the room . . . wow. This is larger than the apartment I lived in after college, and a thousand times nicer. A bellman shows us all the amenities as I stand there openmouthed. Not only is the room equipped with stuff like a five-function printer and a PlayStation, but there’s a section with a private bar, already stocked with ice.
¹⁵⁸
There’s a luxurious sitting area buffeted by fourteen-foot-high windows, and on the opposite side, there’s a huge walk-in dressing room leading to a massive marble bathroom.