Chapter 4 –
When good reservations go bad
06.06.04 – 06.06.04

“Right.”

“So then, um, are you alright… um…”

“Right.”

“Um, you said that already.”

“Right.”

This was getting old. Bastian tilted his head and examined the girl before him with the utmost courtesy as he waited for her to produce a coherent sentence. She looked intelligent enough; and she had been speaking just fine a moment ago, after all. The young woman, which she was most definitely; she could have been over twenty-five… he doubted that she even came close to that. Her hair was long, reaching almost to the small of her back, and was pulled up into a – what did girls call those? – a scrunchie. Her hair, which was dark for the most part, looked as if it had been a shade or to lighter at one point in her life and darkened with age. Her glasses now sat a bit low on her nose, leaning towards the appearance of a librarian as they hid striking hazel eyes – green for the most part. Although. He squinted at them; under close scrutiny, it could be discovered that her eyes were actually pretty well portioned out into four sections of color: brown up top, barely noticeable, a large chunk of green along the bottom and little wedges of blue and grey on the inside and outside respectively. Granted, each was slightly intermingled nicely but clothes she was wearing seemed to pull at the blue and grey which now struggled for dominance. A slight motion, revealed to be corner of her mouth twitching, drew his attention back to reality before it slipped down to the small, wry smile which now slid across her features. It was an interesting grin, most certainly.

“Right…”

His gaze flicked up briefly before dropping to the counter where he spotted clenched hands; her knuckles where white. Of course…

“Um, I’d like a room, please? I, um, believe my agent already … he should have already called to, um, reserve it for me.”

“Right…”

Well at least she moved now, turning to pull out a large book as she flipped through it, searching for the reservation. God. She must have sounded like an idiot, saying right all the time like that.

“It might, um, be under Montgomery.”

“Right.” Dammit. There she went again. “I mean, of course it is.”

Montgomery… Montgomery. How the bloody hard could it be to find a reservation made for the Bastian Montgomery. Oh no… Stephanie winced.

“Wha’?” Bastian blinked at her for a moment in brief concern before realizing she was look at the book still. One had briefly scratched at the back of his neck roughly before leaning forwards. What a moron he was. The girl was obviously tough and didn’t need anyone like him catching her. “Is something wrong with the reservation, Miss?”

“Uh… yeah.” She looked up, tilting the book towards him. “See?” she indicated his reservation. It had is name alright, but it was still marked down for two weeks later when the rest of the cast and crew would begin arriving.

“Um, I don’t understand. My agent–”

“Yeah, I remember him. Gruff voice, right? He mentioned that his client, that’d obviously be you, right?” She mentally kicked herself for not putting two and two together when she’d marked down all of these reservations for people using the names of movie stars. How could she have been so dense? Steph had thought it odd, but felt it impossible for somebody to actually be shooting a movie around Northend.

Bastian nodded, “Um, right.” So she was relaxing now.

“He’d said that you might move the reservation up, but never called to confirm. We assumed that meant you were due to come on the originally scheduled date.”

“And that’s a problem?” he asked softly.

“That’s a problem,” she confirmed. “Here…” she grabbed another book and placed it in front of him. It was the roster of those who were staying in the hotel at the moment and which rooms were free. They were all marked as occupied.

“I see.” So the place was smaller than it looked; some how he doubted that.

“Unfortunately, most of our rooms won’t reopen for another week because of the renovations.”

Well that explained it. “So what do we, um, do now?”

“We can try to find you another hotel, but we’re really the only one around here. I’ll ask the manager; he may have some ideas.”

About that time, a gangly man, at least a head taller that his, shall we say voluptuous, co-worker meandered in and stopped. “Woah! So we’ve finally been put on the map, eh?” He offered his hand and Bastian accepted, albeit hesitantly. “George Woodard. Nice to meet you. Loved your portrayal of Edwardo. Tell the others you were all exceptional, would you?” Bastian nodded, he did come off as a bit of a … geek? … now that one looked closely at him. “I prefer science fiction and fantasy buff, if you don’t mind,” George winked as he practically read the twenty-seven-year-old’s mind.

“So then, um, you’d be the infamous George?”

“Infamous? So Walker’s been rambling again has she?”

“Simply case of mistaken identity, I suppose. She’d fallen and hit her head.”

“She does that a lot.”

“Walker? I assume that’s her last name?”

This guy sure knew how to put someone at ease. Bastian liked that in him.

“Yeah, that’s–”

“Cut it out already!” Steph almost exploded, literally. She hated when people talked about her as if she wasn’t there and George knew that, probably better than anyone.

“Woah, down Bessie.”

“Bessie? Is that her name? Sounds, um, like a cow…”

“It’s an expression, Mister M–”

“Bastian, if you don’t mind.”

“Bastian. It’s an expression we use around here when people blow up like that,” George winked.

“Enough with you, Geo-gnome–”

Bastian raised an eyebrow at George and the young man winked and whispered that he’d explain later. Bastian nodded.

“–I need you to got get Mister Daniels. We seem to have a slight problem with Mister Montgomery’s reservation.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” George saluted and sauntered off.

“Ugh,” Steph groaned. “Sometimes I just wanna smack him.”

“Seems like a nice enough fellow to me–”

“Well who asked you?”

“Um, nobody, actually. But I don’t need an invitation to give my opinion.”

“Neither does he. And he makes excessive use of liberty to open his mouth sometimes.” She sighed and relaxed into her stool. “Would you like to have a seat? With George, things could take a while.”

Bastian shook his head and, thankfully, George’s return was rather prompt. He arrived with a shorter, grand-father-like man at his heels and an elderly lady followed shortly after them.

“Andrew Daniels,” he offered his hand, addressing Bastian. “How can I be of assistance, sir?”

“Well it seems I have a reservation–”

“Sort of,” Steph interjected.

“But you don’t have a room ready for me yet?”

“I see. Wait, no I don’t see,” he turned to the girl behind the counter. “If he has a reservation, why doesn’t he have a room?”

“Because his agent–”

“Agent? What agent?”

“This is Bastian Montgomery, sir. He’s an actor; most of them have agents. It’s sort of a requirement.”

“Oh, how do you do, Mister Montgomery?”

“Um, fine, sir.” That was odd.

“Now then, continue, Miss Walker.”

Stephanie struggled to hold in her groan, not sure if her boss was upset with her or simply holding up professional appearances.

“As I was saying, his agent called and scheduled the reservations for two weeks from now and never called back to make an adjustment after his client decided to move up his arrival.”

“Ah. Mister Montgomery, if I may make a suggestion.”

“Be my guest…”

“If I were you, I’d fire my agent.”

Bastian couldn’t help but laugh and Stephanie did all that was in her power to keep from melting. Oh God, what an exceptional laugh. Dammit, she felt like a teenage school girl falling for her first guy-of-the-moment crush. It sucked and she was sure she was going to shatter with that first hard hit on the pavement.

“Yes, sir. I’ll take that under advisement, but that doesn’t actually help my present situation.”

“Right…” he turned on Steph who braced herself for a lecture that never came. “Why doesn’t he just stay with you for a night or two until a room clears out?”

“What!”

“What?”

“Wait a second there!”

Everyone turned to stare at George, wondering why he’d spoken. With everyone’s gaze on him, the man seemed to forget why he’d spoken himself and glared intensely at the ground as if waiting for it to speak or at least swallow him whole. Annie Daniels saw the color creeping up into his cheeks and took her cue to speak.

“George is right, Andy. Don’t you think you should inquire of Mister Montgomery if he’d mind staying with one of our employees?”

“Oh, right. Do you?”

“Do I what?

“Mind staying with an employee. We can work out some form of repayment as well, of course.”

“Um… I, um, that is I guess not.”

“Perfect! That’s just bloody perfect! Like I have the room!”

“Well don’t you have the room?”

“I have a couch.”

“What about the empty bedroom?”

“It’s called storage space.”

“Miss Walker…”

“Sir…”

And so it was that Annie took her cue again, “Well, look here dear. What if we provided you a little overtime? Do you think you might be able to make a little room for the time being? We are kind of in a spot of trouble at the moment and it wouldn’t do well for the place to have to put out a big star like Mister Montgomery.”

Steph sighed heavily in sigh of submission, but her arms were crossed tightly and she glared off into left field. “I guess.” That overtime would do well to pay for her classes.

“Oh good… I’m glad that that is resolved. Andy, dear could I see you in the kitchens? Dear,” she patted Stephanie on the arm, “You’re a love. Why don’t you and George take a long lunch? It’s already almost eleven twenty and we won’t need you back until one. Oh, by, dear,” she continued after George left. “Why don’t you take a little extra time so that you can show Mister Montgomery here to your place and help him get settled in? That’s a sweetheart.”

“Of course, love,” Steph pouted at Annie for a moment before shoving herself up from her seat and heading towards the door to grab one of Bastian’s bags. “Got a car? Mine was blocked in this morning…”

Author's Notes: And here's Chapter 4, featuring a nice little upset for our female lead, Stephanie. Thanks again to those people who have reviewed, as usual.