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You
walk back out to the driveway and retrieve your baggage, return and hoist your
trunk up the steps. Slip the ornate key into the lock, but there’s no need to
turn it. The massive doors simply open by themselves. They
close solidly as you set your bags down on a gleaming white-gold speckled
marble floor. Your gaze becomes a movie camera. It shifts from mahogany walls
with protruding gold candelabra to enormous white sofas near a roaring
fireplace on the right. Then pans slowly up to a massive chandelier suspended
from an etched, pearl-colored ceiling.
Then down, to the diamond-shaped bench
upholstered with burnt-orange crushed velvet. You
call, “Hello, hello, anybody here?”
No answer.
In
back of the bench stands a massive ceramic vase minutely decorated with
Chaucerian scenes of everyday life in the Middle Ages. You notice the
accents—smaller vases, placed on end tables or set upon mantles, filled with
blue and pink and white flowers.
From
where you’re standing now, you can look left and right down identical hallways
of mahogany paneling interspersed with numerous carved doors and laid with
forest green and auburn carpet. Several large paintings give the hallways the
effect of a narrow gallery. Peering directly across the lobby, you can see a
staircase and the bottom of a huge stained-glass window that graces the
rearmost wall and rises toward the second floor.
“Good
evening … hello … anybody here?”
Over
to the left there’s an official-looking area, an arrangement of rosewood desks
and chairs, with an organized clutter of forms, storage boxes and other
paraphernalia.
It’s
a hotel lobby—an intimate ultra-exclusive five-star establishment. Except:
you’ve been wandering around for some time and haven’t seen a soul. All you’ve
heard is the light classical music that’s been playing uninterrupted since you
entered. Returning to the entrance, you now hear strong wind and driving rain
outside. You decide to crack the door for a quick peek. Grip one of the large
gold handles, and pull, then push—but all you hear is the thud of whatever it
is that’s now barring both doors. What is this—Hotel California?
