The Accidental Tourists

Chapter One

The hotel room was nice and quiet until my mom busted in.

“Wake up, sunshine!” she ordered.

I moaned as loudly as possible before burying my face under a soft, white linen pillow. I already had my day planned. I wasn’t going to get out of bed until absolutely necessary. There was a telephone on the bedside table, and I had room service on speed dial. So unless I needed to use the bathroom really bad, I wasn’t going to get out of bed. It was summer, for crying out loud, and I was seventeen years old. I didn’t care if my stupid sister was getting married in four days and everyone else in the family had been awake and busy since six in the morning. I wanted my sleep.

“Charlotte!” my mom barked, tearing the pillow off of me.

I just reached under my bed and pulled out four more to replace it.

“Where in the heck did you get all those pillows?” she asked.

“Room service,” I mumbled into the pillows.

“Do you know how much room service costs?” she demanded.

She sounded a little angry. It probably wasn’t a good time to mention how awesome the hotel’s breakfast in bed service was. Or to show her how many more pillows I had shoved under the bed.

“Why do I have to get up?” I whined.

“Because we have a ten o’clock meeting with the florist.”

My mom was awfully dressed up to meet with a florist. Who wears pearl and a pencil skirt to pick out flowers?

“So?” I scoffed, “I hate flowers.”

“But Olivia wants your opinion on the white roses. You’re the maid of honor.”

I groaned.

Olivia Kennedy, my older sister, was twenty-six and perfect in every way. She was student body president at her old high school, had perfect grades all through college, was the most valuable player on her volleyball team for three years in a row, and started her own non-profit organization by the time she was fifteen. In comparison to her, I was and will always be as good as dirt. Olivia’s marrying Scott Dixon, the heir to the Dixon Oil fortune. I’ll probably end up marrying some guy who lives in his mom’s basement.

“I didn’t ask to be maid of honor,” I growled.

“No one ever does. But Olivia loves you,” my mom said.

“Sure,” I rolled my eyes.

Olivia’s friends were all just as perfect as her. I knew she was just trying to be a good sister by picking me as her maid of honor, even though she had plenty of beautiful friends to choose from that would look a heck of a lot better in all the wedding photos.

“Just get dressed and meet me downstairs in a half hour.”

And with that, my mom left.

I debated crawling back under my pillows and never coming out. But then I decided I really couldn’t handle my mom having yet another reason to freak out. It was bad enough when Olivia decided she hated the flower arrangements and wanted them all changed with four days left before the wedding.

So, bracing myself for a day of absolutely boredom, I rolled out of bed and walked over to the window curtains. I threw them open, letting the sunlight flood into the room and warm my body. The sky over Los Angeles was cloudless. From my window, I could spot the hotel pool fifteen stories below. I had the sudden urge to belly flop from the balcony of my room, but decided that it would be more painful than spending the morning picking flower arrangements. But only slightly.

I put on the messiest shirt and oldest pair of jeans I had before taking the elevator down to the lobby. The guests of The Hilton all looked slightly appalled at my appearance, but I couldn’t have cared less. In fact, I dragged my sneakers as much as possible so they squealed against the white marble floors.

I spotted my mom sitting at a small round table in the dining nook beside the lobby and walked over. The woman sitting across from my mom, whom I assumed was the florist, was small and had platinum blond hair. When I sat down, she gave me a disapproving once-over with her eyes before she turned to my mom and smiled.

“Charlotte, this is Judy Perkins. The florist,” my mom said, introducing me with a smile but obviously screaming on the inside when she noticed my outfit. Olivia never wore sneakers or baggy jeans. It was so obvious my mom, and all my other relatives, adored her a million times more than me.