The Reunion

I hadn't spent way too much on a plane ticket, entirely too much for a suite at the only decent hotel in this town, and actually bought some new clothes, to get back on the first flight to Los Angeles. If nothing else, my assistant would roast me for days, and that was the last thing I needed.

So, I inputted the route into the GPS, and followed the directions through familiar streets and neighborhoods, passing the grocery store I'd first worked at, through the middle-class neighborhoods my mother had managed to buy a house in, quickly around the mobile home park where she'd ended up after I'd left for college, then up the highway, past the glittering new casino, a series of restaurants, before pulling into the hotel/convention center where the hotel was happening. It was across the street from my hotel, so if worse came to worse, I could head over to the hotel bar there, and drown my sorrows in overpriced ****.

After handing my rental off to a young African American valet, who I slipped a fifty too, while I said, "I'm your priority for tonight," I walked into the lobby of the hotel, taking a look around. I could double-check exactly where the reunion was taking place, or I could just take a look around and see where things took me.