He was enjoying this too much. I cast one more look down the long hallway, at the darkened room across the hall, then hurried past him into my room.
Flipping on the light, not at all in a panicky way, I looked around. The same Victorian theme was running strong throughout this entire hotel. The room was large, though, a nice surprise for a building as old as this one was. But even given the size, there wasn’t the expected king bed, the size I’d requested when I booked my reservation, but instead twin beds, each made up with bedspreads—actual bedspreads!—the fabric of which consisted of pink cabbage roses set against deeper pink stripes. At the top of each bed was a single pillow, the bedspread pulled tightly up and over and tucked underneath in a manner and style I had never actually seen in real life but had glimpsed in many pictures from the 1950s. An antique dresser with an actual ironstone pitcher and bowl—wow!—sat against the far wall, and though the edges of a beautiful wide-planked wooden floor were visible, the rest was concealed beneath a mauve-and-turquoise nightmare of a rug.
It was The Golden Girls meets Titanic by way of 1970s motor lodge. But hello, what’s this?
“A fireplace?” I said, staring down at a small but beautifully ornate hearth. “That’s impressive. Where’s the switch?”
“Switch?” he asked, stacking my bags in the closet.
“To turn it on?” I asked, looking around. “Wait, it can’t be—”
“Wood burning? It is,” he replied, pointing at the card on the mantel. “Just call guest services and someone will be right up to start a fire for you.”
“No way,” I breathed, momentarily stunned. A fireplace in a hotel room was already a luxury, but wood burning? “That’s pretty unusual.”
“Bryant Mountain House is an unusual place, Ms. Bixby. You’ll find we’re full of surprises.”
“I’m getting that,” I murmured, running my hand along the intricately carved wood along the mantelpiece.
“Now, just through there is the bathroom, and your private balcony is through there. With this rain there won’t be too much of a view this evening, but if it’s clear in the morning you should be able to see all the way to Hyde Park. Will you be dining in your room tonight, or in the main dining hall?”
“Hmm? Oh, dining hall,” I said, still looking around the room. Something was missing.
“Very good, will there be anything else, Ms. Bixby?”
“Yeah, actually,” I said, confused. “Where’s the TV?”
“No TV.”
“Wait, what?”
He smiled. “The Bryant family has always felt very strongly that nature should come first and foremost up here on the mountain.”
I crossed my arms across my chest. “What the hell does that have to do with my TV?”
“The Bryant family feels that television can be a distraction, and detract from the natural world that is literally right outside your door.”
“I don’t necessarily disagree with that concept in the abstract, but in the practical shouldn’t guests be allowed to decide whether or not they want their nature with a side of prime time?”
“The Bryant family would argue that guests do make that very decision when they decide to vacation here. That by choosing a hotel such as this they are making a clear and distinct choice to leave the outside world behind and commune with nature without distraction.”
“Your website says this hotel is the proud host of the annual Hudson Valley Polka Festival and Accordion Race. How the hell is that not a distraction?”
His eyes widened, his expression heating. “The Bryant family feels that—”
I held up my hand. “You know what, enough with the Bryant family feels. Which frankly sounds like it could be a soap opera, playing out on the exact contraband I’m talking about. So come on, out with it. There’s got to be a television here somewhere, right?”
“Of course.” He nodded, adjusting his glasses. “You’re welcome to visit the Sunset Lounge on the first floor anytime you like, there’s a communal television there.”
“The Sunset Lounge? You can’t be serious.”
He blinked. “Of course I’m serious.”
“That’s absurd.”
“What’s absurd is a person’s inability to be fully inside nature.”
I shook my head, eyes widening. Was this guy for real? “?‘Fully inside nature’? How in the world can you make the leap between ‘hey I’d like to watch the Today show in the morning while I get ready’ to my inability to be fully inside nature?”
“Bryant Mountain House has always maintained the strictest of ties to the natural world.”
“Bullshit, Trish had a package of Twinkies behind the checkin desk. I’d hardly think your version of nature includes cream filling, particularly not when said cream filling is fully inside a fluorescent-yellow fake sponge cake.”
He frowned. “That’s not within protocol, I assure you.”
“Protocol schmotocol, how do I get a TV brought up to my room?”
“Impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” I quipped, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“Extra pillows? Possible. Plush comfortable robe?” He walked over to open the closet with a flourish. “So possible it’s already here. Ice cream sundae at three in the morning?” He walked toward the phone and picked it up. “Nothing would make us happier than to accommodate this request.”
“So no one in the history of this place, since the invention of the talking picture box, has been allowed a television in their room?”
He paused for the smallest of seconds before answering smoothly, “Not to my knowledge.”
“Not an elderly sick woman who was unable to visit the Sunset Lounge but still wanted to watch her afternoon stories?” I pressed. “Or perhaps this horror writer from Maine who might’ve requested a television to watch one of his many novels that made it to the small screen? You’re telling me that not a single one of your many VIP guests who have visited, including, as your website proclaims, every sitting president, ever once was allowed a television in his room?”
He frowned. “There may have been a small exception made, in a very extreme circumstance, but—”
“Aha!” I cried. “And that’s what we have here, an extreme circumstance. So you just scurry on down to your extreme circumstance closet and bring me up a nice flat screen.” I plopped down in the stuffed chair in the corner, disrupting several layers of lace doily with one giant poof.
The doilies may have softened not only the effect of the chair plop but the effect of my statements as well, as the bellman’s expression turned from barely contained frustration to one of aaand we’re done here. “Ms. Bixby, I’ll be more than happy to communicate your unusual request to the management team, now is that it?” He smiled, showing his even teeth.
A television is an unusual request. Unbelievable.