Hotel Verite on East 19th Street
as it was in April of 2011
It was approaching the lunch hour when Otis Pretorious and his tidy tweed overnight bag arrived at Hotel Verite, his adopted home for the next two nights. He smiled as he looked up at the sheer curtains blushing behind their creamy white frames, and surreptitiously pulled his reservation documentation out of his pocket. Even though he had been generously employed for the better part of a year, his new job was still new to him, and he approached the assumed perk of business travel with all the enthusiasm and gusto of a child being set free on the upper level of FAO Schwarz. He always felt as though he were getting away with something - as if he stealthily figured out a way to go to work from an immaculately decorated and maintained room that required no effort on his part.
Whenever he travelled, Otis always elected to spend the night enjoying the intimacy of a local gem in a charismatic district far removed from the predictable, intoxicating drama and attention seeking screens of Times Square. Don't get him wrong, he has never shied away from 42nd Street indulgence or exploration, but he revelled in stealing away to something unexpected each time he visited the city.
He always strove to engage in a visit or two while in town, with his twin sister or his college buddies. He was endlessly perplexed by the grumblings of his friends who resented having to board yet another jet to perform the latest financial rescue efforts or marketing wizardries that, they argue, could be just as effectively orchestrated from their comfortable office chair where they could multitask in peace. Otis was the type who thrived on travel of any kind, even to a city in which he had lived for many years, and even if it was for reasons of a corporate nature. He figured he had to get up and go to work on any given day regardless... why not embrace the opportunity to do it in a novel, vibrant environment. Perhaps it was because he was still lusciously green in the capricious world of employment at the executive level, but he just loved being asked to board a jet as part of his job.
As he inhaled deeply looking up at the carnation-hued curtains, another employee caught his eye. And so on this day he also resolved to never again complain about a less than attractive assignment he might be given, considering the tasks that some people have to undertake in a day. He shivered at the precarious position of the man in the blue shirt and pants, and proceeded towards the hotel lobby.
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