Annular

08: Happy Birthday (Part I)

Elizabeth turned her body and scrutinized her outfit in the mirror for the third time. She smoothed her dress against her body and stood up straight, regarding the black two-inch high-heeled shoe on her left foot. Turning herself around, she repeated the motion and considered the zebra-striped flat shoe on her right foot.

"Which do you think looks better?" she said.

Kyle raised his head from the pillow to look between his outstretched arms at Elizabeth. She turned to face him and pointed down at her feet, slightly rotating her body to give him a better look at each shoe. He dropped his head back down and returned his attention to the tablet he held in the air.

"Which one feels more comfortable?" he said.

She exhaled in response, blowing her hair off of the side of her face momentarily.

"Are you ready already?" she asked.

"Just need to put my shoes on."

She shook her head and removed her foot from the high-heeled shoe. Slipping on the other flat, she said, "So where do you want to go?"

"You tell me," said Kyle. "It's your birthday."

"Ugh, just," Elizabeth sighed, "pick one of the places I showed you. What have you been doing this whole time?"

"I'm looking," he assured her.

Swiping his thumb against the side of his tablet, the display changed from an entertainment article to a travel review page. He tapped on one of the photos that Elizabeth had marked for him to consider. It enlarged to a fullscreen view, giving him access to move around freely within the controlled virtual tour.

"This place looks pretty good," he said.

"Which one?" She sat on the edge of the bed to take a look.

Kyle turned the tablet for her to see. The view navigated through an extravagant lounge area into a spacious rooftop restaurant with panoramic views of the city.

Elizabeth smiled, knowing full well that he would choose that location. "I was thinking," she said, taking the tablet from his hands, "something more like this." She swiped her fingers on the display to escape the virtual tour, but it just changed the perspective. She tried again with similar results.

"Here." Kyle put his fingers on the screen. "Let me." With one deft swipe, he returned to the page with the bookmarked photos.

Elizabeth tapped on one of them, which entered into the virtual tour of a casual, yet sophisticated, lounge area with comfortable-looking sofa seating and hundreds of liquor bottles displayed behind glass along every wall.

"What do you think?" she said.

"The whiskey bar?" He raised his eyebrows. "Well yeah, of course I'd want to go there, but we should do what you want to do today."

"Even though a lot of the whiskey and scotch seems really expensive, it's actually much cheaper than the rooftop resto." She glanced sideways at him. "If you don't drink too much."

"One or two, at the most," he said. He pinched his fingers and spread them on the screen. A menu expanded into view. "They have cheese fondue there, too. You said you wanted to try it, right?"

"Yep," she said and stood up from the bed. "Let's go. I don't want to spend any more time in the hotel."

Kyle swiped the side of the tablet to turn off the screen. He folded it along invisible seams and slid it into his pocket. Moving his body to sit on the corner of the bed, he slipped on his shoes and noticed Elizabeth placing her high heels in her purse.