Page 28 of The Cruiser
Wearing nothing but a thong.
Oh, God.
I rattle the door handle up and down. Shoulder-bump it, a sick sense of completion settling on my skin.
It’s locked.
“Shit!” I hiss under my breath. “Shitty shit shit shit!”
Fighting the urge to cry, I snatch my phone off the floor. Damn thing. Fifteen minutes until Morgan arrives. How do I get a new room key up here?
Think, Vandana. Think.
The maids! Maybe they’re at work already. Eyes peeled, I creep down the hall to the service door. Locked. Not a peep. Damn the French and their normal work hours.
Now what?
I gnaw on my lip, mind flipping through increasingly dreadful solutions. I cannot go downstairs. In no world will Vandana Hillman strut through a Monaco hotel lobby in her underwear. Then it dawns on me. Mirielle. The manager. I put her number in my phone. It’s early, but if anything qualifies as an emergency…
I count the rings.
Please answer.
“Bonjour.”
“Bonjour, Mirielle,” I say, gushing with relief. “I’m sorry to bother you so early. It’s Vandana Hillman. We met yesterday.”
“Ah, oui. I’m at the hotel. Everything okay?”
I explain the situation, minus me in my underwear. She tells me a bellman will be up shortly.
“Actually,” I say, “Can you bring it? I—”
I hear a loud crash, and someone swears. “Pardonne-moi, Mademoiselle Hillman,” Mirielle says. “We have a situation here. Five minutes please, for the card.”
“No, wait—”
But she’s gone.
And I’m right back where I started—in need of cover. But where? My brain hurts with all this desperate thinking before it finally latches onto a solution. Near the elevators is a picture window overlooking the hotel entrance. Sheer curtains hang on either side. I sprint over, praying none of the people I ran into on this floor yesterday are early risers.
The sheers are just that, skimpy and translucent, but better than nothing. Draping fabric around me, I think this is not how Karl Lagerfeld got his start. One day, maybe, I’ll look back at this and laugh. Right now, the longest ten minutes of my life comes and goes and still nothing. I text Morgan, telling him I might be a few minutes late. He doesn’t reply. Hopefully, he’s stuck in traffic. Or…
One of the elevators begins to hum and comes to a stop on my floor.
The doors slide open.
Great. Just my luck.
Morgan jerks to a halt, eyes ballooning at the sight of me. Between him and a full view of my womanhood is three square inches of fabric and one sheer curtain. Whatever shade of red my face is, I’m sure there’s a tomato out there that will claim me as family.
Of all things, he starts laughing. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t look,” I plead, pulling one arm tighter over my boobs.
“It’s kind of hard not to look.”
“Can you turn around, please? I locked myself out by accident,” I explain. “I’m waiting for a key.”
