Chapter Three
9:30 a.m.
Cynweilleil woke up to smell...bacon. Ah, Storm was making breakfast...one of many oddities. She pulled herself out of bed and looked around, at the clothes scattered around the room. Storm's Rose Dewitt Bukater dress was hung on a metal hanger over the back of the door, her Doc Martens beneath it, and Cynweilleil's dress was lounging on a chair, with her shoes tossed in the corner nearby. And Taylor's jacket was hung over the back. Damnit, she still had his jacket. That would be a problem. Had she been obsessed with him, she'd have kept it in the back of her closet for all eternity, but she knew better than that. She took Storm's black velvet housecoat off the back of the door, under her dress, and pulled it on as she carefully made her way downstairs, a bit disoriented and sleepy. Storm looked up as she set a plate of her breakfast on the table with a glass of...Mountain Dew.
"How can you drink that with your breakfast?"
Storm shrugged.
"Keeps me anti-depressed, I dunno."
Cynweilleil couldn't argue with that, she hated to see Storm upset.
"Can I have some of that?"
Storm handed Cynweilleil her own plate, filled to capacity.
"And don't even ask for vegemite," she declared, sitting down. Cynweilleil just burst out laughing.
"I do NOT want to think about vegemite," she scolded, stuffing her face. Storm just shrugged, then casually commented,
"We're going to drop off Taylor's jacket today, if you don't mind giving it up."
Cynweilleil looked up with a piece of bacon hanging off her lip. Storm just pointed discreetly and allowed her friend to swallow before she went any further.
"They're staying at that humongous fortress of a hotel down by the river...you know, I showed it to you when I took you on that tour of the city, Langdon Hall."
Cynweilleil thought that very odd.
"Why didn't they put up somewhere like the Four Seasons in Toronto? That's where the wedding is."
Storm stuffed another mouthful of eggs and bacon into her face and answered rather muffled,
"Publifity. Toronto's full uff teeny-bopperff. Befides, Langdon Hall'f much nifer."
Cynweilleil couldn't answer that. She'd never been to the Four Seasons, it looked like the Plaza Hotel to her. If she were them, she'd probably pick Langdon Hall too.
"Okay, then. Langdon Hall it is."
11:58 a.m.
"And we walked here because - ?" Cynweilleil asked, panting, as they walked up to the front door of the humongous country inn. It didn't look like a country in...more of an Edwardian castle. But it was, just a house. They regrouped, fixed their hair, and tried to look a bit decent. Storm approached the check-in desk.
"Excuse me, sir?"
The man looked positively diabolical. His hair was slicked back with enough tonic to look like shoe polish, his uniform was perfectly pressed and free of lint, and he had the up-turned nose of a high-classman from long ago.
"How may I help you?" Cynweilleil and Storm stared at him. He'd transformed. It was almost frightening. They'd expected a tight, clipped British accent and a snooty attitude, but instead got...a warm smile and the thickest Irish accent they'd ever heard, next to Storm's rather good interpretation of one. Storm cleared her throat and blushed.
"We're um...looking for the rooms the Hansons might be staying in...we have to return a dinner jacket that belongs to one of the sons."
Cynweilleil smiled at him hopefully, noting his brass nameplate read Scott. Scott smiled again, looking at the black jacket with tails Cynweilleil carried carefully.
"Well, normally I'd ask why you were taking what looks to be an antique jacket to a fifteen-year-old boy, but I saw them come in last night, decked out looking like they'd stepped off the Carpathia from 1912. I won't ask, I'm not sure I'd like to know."
Storm smiled at him gratefully.
"Thank you, sir, we really appreciate it."
He nodded a bit, noting Cynweilleil's hair was still piled up on top of her head with a thin silver chain around it.
"Take the stairs, go up to the right, the boy's room is the second on the left. And please...don't get me fired by turning into screaming fans..." He laughed softly to himself, and Storm grinned.
"We promise, sir, we won't."
And they left him alone to do his business, filing papers and still looking like he was circa 1914.
"Up your ziggy with a wa wa brush!"
- Gaby Hoffman, as Odette Sinclair Str!ke
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