Lost in Hotels Read Online Free

a cushy leather chair I’m sure the Fasanos had to plead for Starck to accept.
    Traveling for work has its benefits when you’re working for the likes of my firm. A chilled bottle of Moët and a whole coconut with a straw poked through its top awaits me in the room, but so does an in-box full of messages that suddenly make my iPhone vibrate like a popcorn machine as I contemplate how many hours I can goof-off without replying and before it becomes obvious that I’m goofing-off.
    At different times of my life, I would arrive in Rio only to rush out again to the beach or to the bar or to the gym, but at the Fasano, there is that incredible pool on the rooftop that’s like an attraction all its own and like nowhere else in the world.
    Etro swim trunks, same shirt—fully unbuttoned of course—and retro sunglasses that make me look like a modern version of Rudolph Valentino or Errol Flynn. Fasano also gives you free flip-flops, which I never want to own until I’m in Rio, and then they never seem to come off unless I’m headed to a meeting, and maybe not even then. It’s always an awkward moment standing at a hotel elevator half-naked when someone like a housekeeper scurries by or a man in a business suit on the elevator stares, likely wondering what this grown man is doing at 4:00 p.m. on a Tuesday in beach attire.
    Then the elevators open to the Fasano rooftop and its showstopper bar laced in pinewood sectionals with creamy white-striped cushions under a shaded trellis. Endless lounge chairs are strewn with fashionable couples sipping rosé and snacking on tartares, and who scrutinize every person who passes from the elevator to the main pool. One of the prettiest pools I’ve ever seen, it never ceases to inspire me. Its chunky white marble and infinity design spills over its edges every time someone closes his or her eyes and jumps in.
    Paisley-shaped mirrors line the perimeter brick walls and reflect the high-rise horizon and jagged skyline, which I think is actually prettier than Sugarloaf. The mirrors also generate a little-known death ray that I discovered the first time I came here when I got the most excruciating sunburn across a slice of my torso.
    Cabana guys, a good decade past being able to call themselves boys, fetch towels and umbrellas as I circle the edge of the pool to glimpse the fish that will be filling my pond for the next week or so. The hotel is incredibly incestuous, as most guests opt for the pool in lieu of the beach and spend most of the day spilling their guts to new friends over endless passion fruit caipirinhas and platters of fries.
    I take a spot at the edge of the pool where only a few loungers remain, next to a circle of Russian rich guys in stubby shorts smoking cigars with an entourage of hot Russian models, one of these women tries hard not to look my way. There’s an American or Canadian couple with their Four Seasons hats and plastic bottles of water from the room because they’re too cheap to buy them at the pool. Then there’s the lone gay guy in between visits to the local boy’s club baking to the perfect shade of eggplant before he exploits his next victim for as little as he’ll accept.
    “ É esta espreguiçadeira tomadas ?” I hear a crisp voice encircled by a corona of sun as I pull away my sunglasses and sit up to look.
    As I squint, that familiar voice repeats, “ É esta , I mean, is this sunbed taken?”
    Before I have a chance to reply or even mentally connect the translated sentence, a flurry of three cabana guys move her lounge chair a good five feet away below that fateful mirror. Her bag overflows with magazines and a clunky object I assume is a laptop.
    “ Não, ele está disponível ,” I reply in my gruffest and most manly of Portuguese accents.
    “ Muito obrigado ,” she replies in a soft voice as she struggles for cash from her purse and slips it to the attendant.
    She’s more glamorous than I remember. Even at this upward angle, where I see more