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Central International Airport This choice: An interesting turn of events • Go Back... Four hours later Jessica cursed her frugal Scottish ancestry for the umpteenth time. Why hadn't she just spent the additional 200 dollars for a direct flight? She'd be in a Parisian taxi by now, getting a glimpse of the Eiffel tower.
Instead she was beyond exhausted, smelled like an old carpet, and was stuck in what had to be the slowest moving queue in Heathrow airport.
"I'm sorry madam, your flight has been cancelled. French Air traffic control are on strike.”
Jessica stared at the woman behind the counter. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I have this voucher for you,” replied the woman briskly. “Now if you go to the counter over there,” she pointed with her ballpoint, “they will find you a room in a hotel.”
“I get to see London?” Jessica perked up.
The woman grinned mirthlessly. “Not quite, madam. We need you to stay in the vicinity. You’re on stand-by which means we need you to be at the airport as soon as possible. So it will be a local hotel. We will call you when we have a seat available. Next please!”
---
She’d been wrong about the first queue, Jessica mused. This one was definitely longer. And she hoped the pungent body odour wasn’t coming from her. She hoped it was the shaggy llama-hair coat being worn by the guy behind her. To take her mind of it she focused on the woman behind the counter. Heathrow seemed to be staffed entirely by brisk blondes. This one also seemed perky. It was depressing.
“I'm sorry madam, but we don’t have many rooms left. Let me see what I can do for you.”
“I don’t care,” Jessica mumbled. “As long as it has a shower.”
The woman wrinkled her nose. “Yes. I quite agree.” She tapped away on her keyboard. “Ah!”
Jessica perked up.
“No. No vacancies I’m afraid,” the woman frowned.
Jessica sagged against the counter.
“Oh. No. Wait,” the woman chirped. “I hadn’t thought about that, you travelling on your own. There’s the honeymoon suite at the Ashford. They won’t like single occupancy, but I suppose you’re a bit of an emergency. It has a Jacuzzi.”
“I don’t care,” Jessica mumbled. “Shower. Bed.”
---
She didn’t recall the taxi ride to the hotel, only switching her brain on again when she reached reception. Jessica asked about getting something to eat.
“I’m sorry madam.”
She was starting to despise that sentence.
“Lunch is served until two. There are some complimentary biscuits with the coffee-making facilities in your room. Now let me tell you how to get to your room…”
Jessica wondered whether the architect for the Ashford Hotel had been chiefly inspired by rabbits. The place was a warren: through a corridor, take an elevator to the third floor, another corridor, down a flight of stairs. She was positive she’d walked through this corridor already, but room 39 remained elusive.
She turned another corner. Finally!
She tried the doorknob and found the door unlocked. Drained, Jessica headed straight to the bathroom where she dropped her clothes on the floor and stepped under a scalding hot shower. God that felt good…
She switched off the shower and towelled herself dry. Yawning, she realised she’d forgotten to ask for an Overnight Kit. No toothbrush. Nothing to sleep in. Normally fastidious, she didn’t care right now. She could sleep naked in a haystack.
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