I pulled up to the entrance of the hotel and handed my keys to the valet, watching him climb inside and pull away, my car sputtering and nearly stalling as he drove toward the parking garage. Walking over to the curb, I joined my wife who said, "I don't know why we had to come in that car."
"Look hon, we're completely surrounded by luxury and exotic cars and our sparkling new Honda Accord, loaded or not, simply wasn't cool. This way we act like we left our expensive car at home and just drove my wreck as part of our costume."
"Whatever you say, but don't you think it's about time you fixed the air conditioning?" she asked, putting on her mask.
"Ah, there you go," I said, "who would have figured you'd make such a ravishing Condi Rice?"
"Well, seeing how I'm stuck with Donald Rumsfeld," she said, straightening my mask for me, "anyone would look ravishing."
Clasping her hand, I led her past the doorman and into the hotel lobby. We stepped into a huge room with marble floors, an open atrium with a skylight about twenty floors above, jungle like growth surrounding and polished glass and stainless steel elevators. After pausing a moment just taking in our surroundings, I glanced at my invitation and headed toward the elevator. My wife followed closely behind me.
Once inside the elevator I pressed penthouse and then held the invitation in front of a card reader. We immediately began moving upward. Tucking the invitation back into my jacket, I looked back at my wife who seemed as dumbfounded as I was surrounded by such luxury.
This type of decadence was normally way out of our price range, but a client of mine found out he would not be able to make the Masquerade Party Dom Ritz and gave me a pair of tickets. When I thanked him he warned me to be careful. I nodded wondering how bad it could get.
Well, I was just beginning to understand what he was talking about, when the elevator opened and we stepped out into the penthouse. We faced a carved, double wooden door with security guards on each side. There was a tiny bald man sitting at a small table who smiled and reached out his hand.
I handed him our invitation and he turned and nodded to one of the guards, who opened the door for us. Once inside, we were ushered to another table where we both were given a key card to a room in the hotel.