Chương 3
Thomas clasped his hands loosely in front of him.
“Ms. Sutton and Miss Lily Sutton were not included on the group rooming list.”
Nobody spoke.
Lily looked up at me.
“But we have a room.”
“Yes,” I said.
Thomas answered at the same time.
“You do.”
Patricia stared between us.
“I assumed Mara would book separately.”
“You told me the rooms were already reserved,” I said.
“You always make your own arrangements.”
That was true often enough to sound plausible.
It was also not what she had said.
Her invitation included a handwritten note saying, Your room is covered, but please don’t request anything extravagant.
I had left the card in my desk at home.
I wished, suddenly and childishly, that I had brought it.
Not because I needed proof.
Because being around Patricia had a way of making proof feel necessary.
Thomas continued.
“The larger issue is that six additional guests arrived this afternoon who were not on the final list.”
Aunt Linda slowly lowered her glass.
“Six?”
The manager glanced at the tablet.
“Mr. and Mrs. Carter, Mr. Joel Carter, Ms. Davina Ellis, and the two Ellis children.”
Davina’s head snapped around.
“My kids are on the reservation.”
“They were not on the final rooming list.”
Patricia reached for her handbag.
“I have the emails.”
“Mom,” Kevin said.
“I have them.”
She pulled out her phone with the determination of someone about to defeat an entire corporation using an inbox.
Thomas waited.
Patricia opened one message.
Then another.
Her thumb moved faster.
The color in her face changed slightly.
“What date did you say?”
“Thirty days before arrival.”
“I sent the revision.”
The manager said gently, “We received a revision nine days ago.”
“Yes.”
“After the cutoff.”
“I spoke with someone.”
“You spoke with our central booking office.”
“So?”
“They explained that additional rooms would be subject to availability.”
Patricia looked up sharply.
“There are rooms.”
Thomas’s pause was small.
“We are at full occupancy tonight.”
That landed differently.
The family tables shifted all at once.
Joel sat up.
Linda whispered, “Oh, no.”
Davina opened her own phone as if rooms might appear if she searched hard enough.
Kevin rubbed both hands down his face.
Patricia stared at Thomas.
“You cannot be full.”
Thomas said nothing.
“I checked your website yesterday.”
“Our website does not display private inventory.”
“Well, somebody here made a mistake.”
The manager’s shoulders tightened.
Thomas noticed.
So did I.
My mother had crossed from confusion into the stage where she needed a stranger to become guilty.
Thomas’s tone stayed even.
“The late-added guests were accommodated this afternoon in rooms held temporarily for operational flexibility.”
Patricia pointed at him.
“Exactly.”
“Those rooms were released because your credit card declined the additional authorization.”
Aunt Linda made a tiny sound.
It might have been sympathy.
It might have been delight.
With Linda, those emotions occasionally shared a wall.
Patricia went perfectly still.
Kevin looked at her.
“Mom?”
“That card is fine.”
“The authorization was attempted twice.”
“I used it at lunch.”
“For a significantly smaller amount,” Thomas said.
Patricia’s lips parted.
Then closed.
The terrace suddenly felt too public.
At the neighboring table, a couple had stopped talking.
Mateo had moved discreetly toward the service station, though I could tell from his posture that he was listening.
Lily tugged on the side seam of my dress.
I bent down.
“Can I go look at the fountain?”
“Stay where I can see you.”
She wandered six feet away and crouched beside the stone basin, immediately more interested in a beetle than in the financial collapse of the Sutton family reunion.
I envied her.
Patricia held her phone against her chest.
“Run it again.”
Thomas did not move.
“We can certainly attempt another authorization.”
“Do it.”
“The rooms are no longer being held.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they were returned to inventory.”
“You just said you were full.”
“We are.”
Understanding reached Kevin first.
“Somebody booked them.”
The manager nodded.
“Within eleven minutes of release.”
Davina stared at her.
“All six?”
“Three rooms.”
“We need four.”
“You currently require four, yes.”
Linda looked around.
“Who’s sharing with who?”
“Nobody is sharing with me,” Davina said immediately.
Joel leaned back.
“Good family spirit.”
“Shut up, Joel.”
“I’m just identifying our values.”
Patricia turned to Thomas.
“This is absurd.”
“I understand it’s frustrating.”
“I want those rooms.”
“They are no longer available.”
“I want to speak to whoever is in charge.”
A silence passed through me before Thomas answered.
Normally that sentence made me tired.
At that moment it nearly made me laugh.
Thomas’s eyes moved toward mine for half a second.
“I am the resort director.”
“Then speak to the owner.”
Kevin looked at me.
Not because he knew.
Not yet.
He was simply checking my reaction.
I kept my face still.
Thomas said, “The owner is aware of the situation.”
Patricia drew herself up.
“Good.”
Thomas waited.
“Then call them.”
“No call is necessary.”
“Why not?”
I closed my eyes briefly.
Thomas had warned me three months earlier that my family reunion was a bad idea.
Not because he disliked my family.
Thomas disliked very few people.
He distrusted situations where ownership and family obligation occupied the same room.
“If you attend as Mara,” he had told me over coffee in my office, “someone will eventually ask me to lie.”
I had told him that was dramatic.
He had replied, “Families make otherwise practical people dramatic.”
Now he looked almost annoyed to have been correct.
Patricia’s voice sharpened.
“Why is no call necessary?”
Thomas turned fully toward me.
“Because Ms. Sutton is the owner.”
Nothing visible happened for perhaps two seconds.
That was the strangest part.
No glass dropped.
No one gasped theatrically.
The fountain kept running.
A server carried three bowls of soup through the terrace doors.
Somewhere near the lower lawn, a dog barked.
My mother stared at Thomas as though he had switched languages halfway through the sentence.
Linda’s eyebrows rose.
May you like
Davina laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
