Road Trip

When we pulled up to the curb at Sixth and North Tryon, Lila clapped her hands and bounced in her seat. She forgot that she was constrained and tried to hop onto the sidewalk with the lap belt on. She was out of the car with her arms around the valet’s neck before I stopped laughing.

When I joined them on the sidewalk, Lila was admiring the valet’s wedding band.

“Masie, this is Turner. He got married!” She turned back to him on the last word, beaming. “Turner, this is my best friend in the whole world, Masie Adams!”

I was treated to a warm hug and returned it. “Masie Adams!” Turner exclaimed. “You’re the one who stole those golf carts with her.” He gave me a respectful nod.

“We didn’t steal them! We never left the golf course with them!” Lila gave him a light punch in the ribs.

“You know what I mean.” He elbowed Lila back. “And something about a fountain?”

“Guilty as charged.” I winked back. This was going to be a fun segue.

As I gave Turner my valet key, Lila told him our bags were in the back and she left something for him in the console. He opened one of the heavy wooden double doors under the red awning, and Lila practically skipped inside.

I noted the dark wood and leather, bar to the right, restaurant to the left, and the registration desk up a half flight of stairs in the spacious yet intimate lobby with conversational arrangements of chairs, couches, and cocktail tables, one holding a chessboard. It had such a British aesthetic that I immediately understood why Lila was drawn to it.

A beautiful brunette emerged from an office behind the desk. I knew she was Soleil, and chic was the first word that popped into my head. The sight of Lila evoked a muted shriek of delight and a European greeting. Soleil's accent was Spanish, Barcelona was my best guess.

Lila asked if Doyle was in town, and when Soleil said he was in Wilmington, Lila gave her a beguiling look and asked if we could have 1007.

Soleil hesitated for a moment, then went behind the desk and tapped some characters on a keyboard, then smiled and said why not.

We took the elevator up after Lila assured Soleil she’d be back down in short order. Soleil said to hurry because she had a surprise for her.

“You know I can’t stand suspense. Tell me!”

Soleil laughed and said she had to wait.

On the elevator up, I asked Lila how she knew Turner would be working. With an eye roll, she told me she didn’t, but she always left a joint in the console for the valet.

The carpeted hallway reminded me so much of the Overlook that I half expected to see twins asking if we wanted to play red rum.

Lila opened the door and we entered a sumptuous living room with French doors on either end. Turner came in with our bags and held up the joint, asking if we wanted to share his tip. There was a step to the northern balcony. Geraniums in planters framed the space, and the view of the city was so stunning that I wanted my sketchbook.

After taking a couple of hits when Turner passed it to her, she handed it off to me and said she was going to see what Soleil’s surprise was.

“She’s gonna be a minute,” Turner said. “She ever tell you about the ghost tours? All of them start downstairs. I can show you the haunted room if you want to see it.”

“Let me guess—906?”

Turner nodded and held up his key card.

What the hell, might as well see the haunted room. On the way down to it, Turner told me the story behind it, how the hotel was the tallest building in Charlotte when it was built to offer lodging to performers at The Carolina Theater across the street. He said that when it opened in 1929, there were fifty apartments and fifty hotel rooms. According to legend, there was a Black Tuesday suicide from 906.

It didn’t feel haunted, but when we were in the room, he told me another story, and every hair on my body stood up when I learned that the property had been a jail for runaway slaves in the 19th century.

“Lila talked to the ghosts. Sometimes she’d even take a round of drinks to them down in dry goods, under the kitchen. The ghost tours stayed booked when she was here.”

This revelation didn’t surprise me. Lila was all about the supernatural—tarot, crystals, and all. I could totally see her taking a round of drinks down to a bunch of ghosts.

“She says she doesn’t see ghosts—“

“She smells them.” I finished his sentence with him. “Our hometown is full of haunted houses. She’s lived in three of them. Goes on and on about the two different ghosts in one of them.”

Just then, Turner’s pager beeped, and he said he needed to get back downstairs. I didn’t feel like hanging out in the room without my sketchpad, so I asked if there was a store nearby and ended up walking half a block to CVS, where I got a sketchbook, some pencils and colored pencils, and a small pencil sharpener. The building across the street had really caught my attention.

On my way back into the hotel, I spotted Lila at the bar, holding court as it were. I got introduced all around and invited to be the fourth at someone’s tee time in the morning at Quail Hollow. Lila probably bribed the guy into asking me. She knows that I want to play all of the courses on the tour.

I turned to Lila and said, “That’s why I always keep a set of clubs in the trunk.”

We raised our glasses. “Always be prepared for a good time!” And drained them.

I asked her about her surprise, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t blush like a schoolgirl as she whispered, “Tim’s back.”

“Wait, who’s Tim? Don’t tell me, just give me a minute.” I sipped my drink, an extremely well-made mint julep, and scrolled backwards through my brain for Tim until it popped up. “Sexy chef?”

She blushed again and nodded. “We don’t work together anymore. I’m having a drink with him when he’s done working.”

My new golfing buddy bellied up between us to tell me that he’d meet me here in the morning for a Bloody Mary and that I could ride with him.

“She won’t ride with you,” Lila told him. “Masie doesn’t like going anywhere without her car, makes her feel trapped.”

I nodded. “Once burned, twice shy. I got stuck in a dreadfully boring evening in Edgefield about ten years ago. That’s never happening to me again.”

I hung out downstairs at the bar for a while, even though I hadn’t even taken my CVS bag upstairs, but I headed for the elevator when Lila challenged Tom, my ticket to a Quail Hollow tee time, to a game of chess. Lila’s a notorious trash talker in everything competitive she does, and chess isn’t exempt. It’s funny the first few times, but it’s lost its charm for me, and she didn’t need me rolling my eyes when she said things like, “You sure you want to bring that bitch up in here all by herself? She’s in a dangerous neighborhood without even a horse to get away on.” And I wanted to get back on that balcony with my sketchbook and pencils.

“Oh, shit! Don’t let me forget to tell you about Philip Moose!” Lila exclaimed when I said I was going up to the room to sketch.

“Who’s Philip Moose?” I asked.

Lila gestured around the room at the paintings on the walls. “He was an artist who lived here when the hotel opened. When the Great Depression hit, he couldn’t pay his rent, so he paid it in paintings. There’s an original Philip Moose in every room, and all of these, plus the two in the lower mezzanine are also his.”

“For real?”

Lila nodded emphatically, grinning to beat the band, then turned to the bartender. “Eric, will you make Masie a double julep to take upstairs? She’ll probably be on the balcony all night. “

“How about an Irish coffee instead? She’s not wrong.” I smiled at Eric and slid my empty glass across the bar to him.

“Check out the blueprints by the elevator. They’re original, and each floor’s prints are beside the elevators on that floor.” Lila hugged my neck and handed me the double Irish coffee Eric had just made for me in a beer mug.