Tourists off the Tour by Gillette Edmunds

Author:Gillette Edmunds [Edmunds, Gillette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2023-08-28T18:43:41+00:00

Italian Tiles

Hotel Alfredo, Roma, Italia, in 1984, consists of three floors. At street level is a small lobby with a bright, newly installed tile floor. The white tiles have tiny red and green flowers along their borders and were chosen to give the lobby a cheery, vibrant Italian feeling. A thick, glass wall with an arched glass door in the center, installed at considerable expense the previous year, is all that separates this lobby from the busy sidewalk. Four new, bright white couches with stylishly thin cushions form a loose square in front of the check-in and cashier desk at the back of the lobby. The guest sitting on a couch feels as if he is in the window of an Italian shop rather than a lobby. Traffic is heard day and night and eye contact with pedestrians on the sidewalk is hard to avoid. The hall to the left of the cashier leads to several shops selling expensive Italian goods and British and American newspapers and magazines. Despite the endless complaints of the Italian employees, these shops remain open from nine to nine with no break for lunch, though the hotel management routinely leaves the premises from one until four and sometimes till five or five thirty. For many years, these shops were closed off from the hotel and rented to tailors and cobblers. Then the current management, a conglomerate of Roman lawyers, took over and remade the hotel on the international model, leading to the successful booking of British and American tour groups. All employees of the Alfredo, formerly Hotel St. Stephen III, are now required to know some English, though many refuse to use it in the presence of the hotel guests. The few Italians who have stayed at the Alfredo since the remodeling did not like all the foreigners about and moved down the street to the Hotel Tivoli.

On the side of the lobby near the stairs and elevator is an alcove with a stand-up bar where the guests take Cinzano, Compare, or Amaretto before the big noon meal in what they are told is the Italian custom. The first floor above the lobby consists of a large dining room, the kitchen, and eleven small, inexpensive rooms, to be remodeled soon, which share the two bathrooms at the end of the hall. The second floor, completely remodeled under the new management, consists of 34 large rooms, each with its own bathroom. A male attendant stationed at the end of this hall behind a desk and telephone is available to meet any of the guest’s urgent needs, though he is rarely found anywhere except standing at the espresso bar across the street.

Mrs. Carla Fisher sat on a white couch in the Hotel Alfredo lobby reading a guidebook. It was just before noon. A short, stout, curly gray-haired lady who always wore gray plaid or patterned suits, Mrs. Fisher was actually waiting under cover of her guidebook for someone to join her for an aperitif. She looked up just as Barbara Ashe and Michael Clarke swung through the arched glass door.

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