The Lobby

"Ashley Bloom, Carina Markfield"

I gather my things and move toward the attendant.

"Room nine." He hands me a room key card and moves on to the next hand which hesitates.

I look up at Ashley Bloom. The person beside me has a smattering of facial hair. I thought I would have a female room mate? I shrug. Is it rude to ask about something like gender? What if they were trans? I don't want to start off the retreat by insulting my room mate.

"I'm Ashley Bloom, am I supposed to be rooming with a woman?" He asks the question, looking around at the assigned roommates that were gathering their belongings and heading to the elevator. All the same gender.

The attendant shrugs.

"Oh. There must have been a mistake. Can you two wait here while I give out the rest of the keys, then I am sure we can sort you out at reception?"

Ashley scowls, fist clenching around the card.

"Bet they thought I was a lady."

I shrug. "I'm going to sit. They don't seem very organized."

I pick a spot near a fan. This tropical “Resort” does not have air conditioning. I scowl at my thoughts. This was certainly why it was the cheapest writing retreat around. Perhaps too much of a bargain.

Ashley slides down the wall beside me.

“What are you upset about?”

"They are going to forget about us.” I sigh. “That lady with the glasses is asking so many questions they are having to write them all down because they don’t have the answers she needs, it's going to be dinner before we have a room." I swipe my sweaty hair off my head and back behind my ears.

"Bet she writes historical romance."

A laugh jolts out of me and I look at him in shock.

He winks, "the explicit kind."

I cringe at that mental picture. I focus on his smiling brown eyes instead. "What do you write Ashley?"

His eyebrows raise, "let's leave it at Ash. Want to have a guess?"

I look him up and down and look over his things for any clues. We look about the same age, he has no visible tattoos or stickers or patches on his bags. He’s here at a writer’s retreat, a stupidly cheap writer’s retreat? Maybe he is a librarian? What would a cute librarian write? His eyes challenge mine.

“Dinosaur fiction for adults.” I nod. It’s a respectable guess.

He nods, “unfortunately no. I’m much more cliché than that. International Crime Fiction.”

“Ever been out of the country?”

“Unfortunately no again. Ultimate fantasy writer here.”

The flick flick of the fans was making me sleepy.

“You?”

“What did you say?” I yawn.

“What do you write?”

“What kind of writer do I look like?” I've got time.

“A Harry Potter fan kind of writer?” He squints at the snitch tattoo on my ankle. “Adventure fantasy?” He bites his lip, “With vampires…” His smile widens, “or Fae!”

I smirk. “Close. Fantasy yes, but I’m more cliché than you are. I write Fantasy Romance.”

His eyebrows shoot up at that. “Romance huh? Are you any good?"

I shrug, "Obviously I think I'm okay."

He mirrors me. "I need some help deciding if my main character needs a love interest or not. But does love really bloom when danger is lurking? Surely there’s no time or energy. It’s simple brain processing science.”

I smile into those deep brown eyes, “It’s fantasy, you can make anything probable. As far as I am concerned everyone needs romance.”

I laugh a bit at myself and he’s polite and joins in.

“I was hoping a tropical escape would help me with my writing.” I look around at the old hotel lobby whose peeling paint is accentuated with badly stained carpet. “But this is a disaster.”

He nudges me with his elbow, “I’m sure it’s not that bad. There’s a lot of people around here, surely you could use two of them to focus on as character studies?”

I shrug, “it does look like that group might be here for a wedding.” My lips purse. “No one looks young enough, I write for young adults.”

Ash scans the reception hall. “Maybe you could imagine what they were like when they were younger?”

I hide my face in my hands. “So creepy. We are the youngest here by at least ten years.”

“The price was trying to tell us something.”

I let out a breath at least I wasn’t stuck sharing a room with a 50 year old man.

“Do you live close? I know someone with your last name.” I fidget with my bag zipper.

“I live in Logan, so not too far.”

Uh oh he lives in my city. “Me too. Are you studying?”

He nods, “TAFE.”

“Writing?”

“Yeah. Not sure I’m going anywhere though, but thought it was worth a try for a few years. If not, I’ve got a secure position I can fall back on.” His mouth quirks.

“What’s your work then?”

“School cleaner.” 

My surprise erupts in laughter and he joins me.

“Gets great holidays and good hours.” He laughs.

“I’m surprised,” I manage to pant. 

“It’s actually not too bad.” He smirks. “Haven’t quit yet.”

I nod. “I’m at Griffith. Creative Writing. Work at Maccas, and no I can’t get you a free burger.” Of course he looks disappointed. That fat bottom lip is pretty cute though. I clear my throat in an effort to clear my mind.

“I'm the same as you though. Got a solid job, but it’s not going anywhere.”

He sighs. “Like the line. How can a place this dingy looking be so popular?”

“COVID, the price, retreats, existing agreements, or everywhere else has gone out of business?”

“Point. I got sucked in by the photos, so why shouldn’t others?”

"Those photos were probably ten years old!" I look over at the writing retreat registration table. It is still humming. “They are so going to forget about us.”

“Probably.” 

We are silent for a while. Ash brushes his hair from his face and turns to me. “You could use this!”

“Use what?”

“This moment!”

“This moment?”

He nods, “you know, the mixed up name thing. Room assignments. It could thrust your characters together?”

I think it over, “but will they hate each other or be happy? And how do they know the other person isn’t a psycho or someone else? Like she could be a spy from New Zealand who is trying to get him to reveal something about his businessman father who disappeared five years ago?”

He laughs and stretches his head back against the wall. “You can decide how they feel about it. I suppose maybe they know someone in common, or maybe they have seen each other before? So they trust each other?"

“Even if they both know the same person, or he was in her choir or they live on the same street, they could still be creeps!”

“True, but you are writing Romance right? Save the creeps for me.”

I roll my eyes. “Why are they here? Did they get sucked in by the pictures on Trip Advisor?”

His eyes light up. “They are both here for a wedding. That solves it. But the mother of the bride allocated rooms and there is Sam Brown and uh um... Sam Bronwell and she’s got one of them in the wrong place.”

I give a small shake of my head, “But how do they get together?”

“Are they going to hate each other or like each other?” He seemed to be enjoying this. Ash smiles as he plots, his hands jolting whenever he thinks of a good idea. 

“Hate each other. The thought of them sharing a space is unbearable.”

“But then there’s a snap COVID lock down and they have to spend the whole weekend together?”

I grimace. “I’m not sure I have the mental strength to write something like that just yet. It’s too fresh.”

He frowns. “Fair enough. Gastro break out? The door jams? Police incident? And why do they hate each other?”

“Gastro. And because he didn’t smile at her.”

“So he doesn’t hate her then?”

“No they just both think each other hates them, and they are angry at that. Angry that someone so cute hates them.”

“Cute people aren’t allowed to hate people?”

“Ha, no. I mean they think the universe is against them. Like why amongst all these old people with gastro at the wedding, does the only cute guy my age, who doesn’t have gastro, have to hate me? I hate him for hating me and wrecking this perfect fantasy weekend we could have had that I have already planned in my head?”

“Ah I see.”

“Yeah. Romance can be a bit messed up in the light of day."

He snorts. “Are they going to get gastro at the end?”

“Yes I think so, that’s when they know it’s true love.” I'm giggling now.

“True love?”

“Yup,” I nod. “Right at the end they both miss the wedding because they are taking turns puking in the toilet. But they don’t mind because they are together, and are helping each other.”

“Who gave it to who?” The giggles are catching.

I stretch, “Ah let’s see. Let’s make it, she gives it to him. She gets it from the cleaner who gets her new towels each morning.”

Ash closes his eyes. “I could see this being made into a comedy movie.”

I chuckle. “Thank you. Although I can’t see myself writing it. What about you? What can you use from here?”

He shrugs, “I’ll take a couple of pictures, but that’s all. I’ll add it to my folio of possible settings. I’m starting to get the feeling this retreat will be a waste of time.”

I try not to deflate mentally. I look at my watch. We had just spent nearly an hour talking, and it had been fun. Really fun. It had been writing related, and although I wouldn’t write the gastro wedding, it hadn’t been a waste of time. Well, it hadn’t been a waste of time, for me.

“Mmm?” I try not to give anything away and look over to the table. “Where did they go?”

He shrugs and moves to stand. “I think I’m going to bounce.”

“Okay? It was nice to meet you.” I’m trying to remain polite, all I feel is confused.

He looks down at me with a frown and then rolls his eyes. “Come with me Carina. We’ve got our room keys. Let’s dump our stuff, get our laptops and go to a café, or the beach? We can sit and make stuff up about the people who walk by, or brainstorm or give each other writing challenges. Sitting on the floor here was more fun than any writing class I’ve been to. I need to have fun with my writing again.”

“So you want to do a writing retreat, without the retreat?”

His grin is cheeky. “Yes!”

I shrug and hold out my hand for him to pull me up.

“I’m game if you are, Stranger.”