The Resort Read online

  And there it was.

  If anything, The Reata exceeded the expectations raised by the brochures and Web site. Nestled at the foot of the Santa Clara Mountains, a low-slung range of rocky desert peaks, the collection of two-story adobe and ranch-style buildings was terraced over several acres of land and looked like a small city. Palm trees and cottonwoods lined the lanes and the parking lots that connected the various sections of the resort, and deep green lawns gave the landscaped grounds the appearance of an oasis in this rough and rugged country.

  The bumpy sun-faded road segued into smooth fresh pavement, and a few yards beyond that, a western-style guardhouse with an attached iron gate marked the entrance of The Reata. Lowell slowed the car as they approached. “Exclusive,” he said.

  Rachel nodded. “To keep out the riffraff.”

  “The hoi polloi,” he countered.

  “The rabble.”

  “The masses.”

  Curtis groaned. “Knock it off, you guys. You think you’re cute, but you’re not. You’re just annoying.”

  Lowell laughed and stopped before the gate. A uniformed young man stepped out of the guardhouse, clipboard in hand. “May I help you?”

  “We have reservations,” Lowell explained. “Under ‘Thurman.’ ”

  The guard glanced down at the sheet of paper on his clipboard. “Lowell Thurman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Welcome to The Reata.” The guard handed him a green parking pass the size of a postcard. On it was printed a number and the logo of the resort: a sun setting behind a stylized saguaro cactus. “Hang this from your rearview mirror or keep it on your dashboard at all times. Vehicles that do not display a parking pass will be towed at the owner’s expense. Enjoy your stay.” He stepped back inside, and a second later the gate swung open.

  Lowell drove through and headed up the road toward the cluster of buildings on the hillside. “Cheery greeting. Threatening your customers.”

  “Don’t start,” Rachel groaned.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “We’re having fun now!” Owen piped up from the back.

  “We are having fun,” Rachel told him. “We’re all going to get along and have a good time on this trip. Okay?”

  Lowell grinned. “Jawohl!”

  The road wound through a veritable cactus forest landscaped with the prettiest plants Arizona had to offer, an idealized version of the desert southwest, before passing between two sentrylike boulders that stood at the entrance to the lower parking lot.

  “Cool,” Curtis said admiringly. It was cool, Lowell thought as he pulled the car into a parking space close to the lobby entrance. He unfolded a cardboard sunscreen, and placed it inside the windshield as the rest of the family got out and stretched.

  The lobby was housed in what looked like an adobe mansion, the main building on a Mexican millionaire’s cattle spread perhaps. The Reata had started out as a dude ranch in the early 1920s, and Lowell assumed that this had been the structure originally used to house guests. A stone walkway covered by a spreading bougainvillea with bright magenta flowers led to a pair of double doors that looked like they had come from an old Spanish mission. On either side, planters made from native rock boasted the desert’s flashiest flowers, a rainbow array of succulents and cacti that seemed even more arresting against the dull brown adobe.

  The lobby doors were opened from the inside by two clean-cut young men wearing vaguely western uniforms consisting of black pants, white shirt and turquoise bolo tie. The one on the right smiled at them as they passed by. “Welcome to The Reata.”

  “Thanks, dude,” Curtis said, and Rachel pinched his shoulder. “Knock it off.”

  The air conditioning in the lobby felt wonderful after the dry heat outside. Though he hadn’t noticed it until now, Lowell was sweating, and he used a finger to wipe away the drops of suddenly cold perspiration that were dripping down the sides of his face from under his hairline. The lobby was huge, much larger than the outside of the building would indicate, larger even than it appeared on the Web site photos and in the brochure. A tinted skylight in the center of the thirty-foot ceiling provided discreet illumination to an expansive sitting area consisting of several leather chairs and two long couches that looked as though they had been lifted from Ethan Edwards’s ranch. To the left was a long mahogany front desk that, down to the ornate mirror on the wall behind it, resembled nothing so much as the saloon bar in an old western movie. To the right, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and glass double doors overlooked a broad flagstone patio. Below the patio, afternoon sun glinted off the water in the enormous pool, where quite a few people appeared to be swimming. Straight ahead was a rough-hewn fireplace, obviously not in use at the moment, and, next to that, an open doorway that led into a gift shop.

  “I’ll check in,” Lowell said. “You guys can look around.”

  Rachel and the kids headed straight for the gift shop, and he walked up to the front desk. The pretty, happy-faced clerk behind the counter was named Tammy, and according to her name tag she was originally from New Haven, Connecticut, and had been working at The Reata for six years. Lowell found it odd that the resort’s name tags contained such detailed information about employees, but it was strangely comforting as well, knowing that people from all over the United States worked here. It made the place seem less provincial and less inbred than would be expected from its remote location.

  “Reservations for Thurman,” he told her.

  “Are you with a group or convention?” she asked.

  “No.”

  The young woman typed something on a keyboard below the counter in front of her and then looked at the connected computer screen. “Lowell Thurman?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll be staying with us for five nights, departing on Wednesday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Two connecting rooms, one with a king-sized bed, one with two full-sized and a foldout?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Excellent. May I see your driver’s license and a major credit card, Mr. Thurman?”

  He handed both to her.

  She smiled as she ran the Visa card through a scanner. “So, is this your first time at The Reata?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re really going to enjoy your stay. Southern Arizona has so many wonderful places to visit. In fact, here’s something you might find helpful.” She reached under the counter and handed him a folded, slickly printed map. “It has everything from Tombstone to Tubac, and lists mileage from The Reata. You’ll also find several magazines in your room that detail day-trip destinations. Should you desire reservations for any of Tucson’s many cultural events or fine restaurants, our concierge desk is open twenty-four hours a day. It’s number two on your room phone.”

  “How far is Tucson from here?” Lowell asked.

  She laughed. “It’s only forty miles to civilization. Although if you’re planning to drive there, give yourself at least an hour and a half to get to I-10. Those desert roads are tricky if you’re not used to them.”

  “We found that out.”

  Rachel and the kids emerged from the gift shop. “It’s a rip-off!” Owen announced. “Thirty bucks for a T-shirt!”

  “And two-fifty for a can of Coke.” Curtis shook his head.

  Lowell smiled. Sensible shoppers already. He and Rachel were doing something right.

  He finished checking in, and Tammy gave him two keys for each room—or rather magnetized cards that could be used to open the electronic locks on the doors of the rooms, the hotel industry’s modern equivalent of keys.

  “Would you like a tour of the facilities?” the clerk asked.

  “We’d love it,” Rachel said instantly, obviously knowing after all these years that he would have declined and instead asked for a map of the resort so that they could explore on their own.

  “I’ll be happy to show you around.”

  Another young woman emerged from a room behind the front desk, a section
of wall next to the mirror opening to reveal the hidden doorway through which she passed. Samantha. Juniper, Arizona. Four years, her name tag read. The two uniformed sentries once again opened the lobby’s front doors, and an elderly couple entered the cool lobby from the heat-blasted world outside. Samantha smiled at them as they approached the front desk. “Hello. May I help you?”

  Tammy disappeared into the same hidden room from which her coworker had come and a moment later walked out from an unseen hallway to the left of the gift shop. “Let’s start out here,” she said, and led them onto the patio. It was like stepping into an oven, and the pool below them suddenly seemed even more inviting than it had before.

  “I want to check out the pool,” Curtis announced.

  “Yeah,” Ryan seconded.

  Tammy laughed. “All right. Let’s go.” There were several round tables with umbrellas protruding from center holes and four or five chairs around each, but the patio was empty save for themselves. Tammy explained that while quite a few people came up at dusk to take drinks and watch the sunset, it was a little too hot in the midafternoon for anyone to sit out here. They followed her down a wide flagstone staircase that led past terraces alternating between kinetic metal sculptures and exotic cacti to the enclosed pool area, a space easily the size of two suburban home-sites.

  The pool was crowded. Nearly all of the chairs and lounges were taken, and several kids were lying on beach towels spread out on the cement. More children and adults were in the pool itself, yelling, splashing, playing. Top forty music blared from loudspeakers hidden in the palm trees, and waiters wearing western uniforms that looked none too cool could be seen hurrying between relaxing guests and the bar, trays of iced drinks in hand.

  “We have two pools,” Tammy explained as she unlocked the gate to let them in. “The big pool, here, and our indoor lap pool, which is adjacent to the weight room and spa facilities for the convenience of our more health-conscious guests. There are whirlpools in both areas—two here by the big pool—and, as you can see, there’s a waterfall and slide. Inside the rock, behind the waterfall, are restrooms and a shower area. Towels are on that cart next to the cabana, and rubber rafts and floaties are available free of charge on a first come first served basis.”

  “They sell snacks there?” Curtis asked, pointing to the open serving window in the cabana.

  “Snacks, soft drinks, cocktails and sandwiches. You can order at the window or from one of our waiters, who are usually pretty conscientious about canvassing the poolside area for hungry and thirsty guests.”

  There seemed something comical to Lowell about the overdressed waiters sweating in their tightly buttoned uniforms while catering to bathing-suited tourists, and he chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” Tammy asked.

  “Nothing. Those waiters. They just look like something out of a Monty Python routine.”

  The young woman smiled politely. “Who’s Monty Python?”

  Lowell shook his head, not wanting to explain. More than his growing children or the appearance of gray strands in his hair or the hardening of laugh lines into wrinkles, what made him realize he was growing old was the passing of his cultural touchstones into irrelevance, the knowledge that his frames of reference were no longer recognized by the younger generation. The other day, he’d been at Tower Records and absently picked up a Ravi Shankar CD, remembering how his older brother used to listen endlessly to The Concert for Bangla Desh, and how he’d always hated that droning sitar music. A heavily pierced salesclerk stocking CDs next to him said, “Wow. Ravi Shankar. I didn’t know we had that.”

  “You like him?” Lowell asked, surprised.

  “I read about him. He’s the father of this female singer.”

  “Norah Jones,” Lowell said to show that he wasn’t completely unhip.

  “Yeah.” The clerk motioned toward the CD. “So what does he play? Jazz?”

  Lowell realized that the boy knew nothing about Ravi Shankar other than the fact that he was Norah Jones’s father. Any joke he might have made about interminable sitar solos or Indian music would have gone right over the kid’s head.

  Mick was right. What a drag it is getting old.

  Tammy led them around the side of the pool, past one of the spas, past the waterfall, to a long low Santa Fe-style building that faced the upsloping mountain rather than the resort buildings situated down the hillside and winding toward the flat desert below. They walked inside. There was a maitre d’s station next to the entrance, and round tables with white linen tablecloths took up the center of the large room. Plush comfortable-looking booths lined both the windowed wall facing the pool area and the series of glass alcoves that backed against the brown rocky mountainside.

  “This is the Saguaro Room, our five-star restaurant. It was recently featured on the Food Network’s Best of the West and specializes in gourmet Southwest cuisine. Our chef, Roland Acuna, has won numerous awards and apprenticed with Bobby Flay in New York. He’s really amazing, and we’re very lucky to have him. On Saturday mornings, he gives tours of his Gourmet Garden, which is located just behind Building Five—your building, actually—and they’re really a lot of fun. If you’d like to sign up, just let me know or call the front desk before Friday night.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Rachel said.

  “It is, it is.”

  They walked through a side door next to the maitre d’s station and into a darker adjacent restaurant dominated by a large bar. “The Grille offers a more informal dining experience,” Tammy explained. “It can get a little loud late on weekend nights, but before ten and during the weekdays, it’s a great place to take the family. Oh, and room service can be ordered from either of our restaurants.”

  After exiting through another door, Tammy led them outside. “We’ll drive the rest of the way,” she told them. An electric golf cart, its white sides emblazoned with the resort’s logo, was waiting under the shade of a cottonwood tree in a small parking lot on the side of the restaurants. Tammy got into the driver’s seat, Lowell and Rachel climbed into the seat behind her, and the kids crammed into a backward-facing bench that hung over the rear of the vehicle.

  Tammy pulled out of the parking lot and drove at a steady speed down a single-lane road that wound past the metal fence that enclosed the pool area before passing through an empty stretch between buildings. She pointed toward a narrow dirt pathway that led past a copse of desert brush. “That’s one of our numerous nature trails. We have a birding trail, a cactus trail, a rock trail and assorted other jogging and hiking trails that traverse the desert within The Reata’s boundaries. There’s even the Antelope Canyon trail, which goes over two miles into the Santa Claras to a beautiful picnic spot and natural hot spring. Maps are in the welcome pack in your rooms and additional copies can be obtained at the front desk. A word of caution, though: the desert is dangerous. There are snakes, poisonous plants and insects, and slippery unstable slopes. So if you do decide to go hiking, always stay on the marked trails. And always carry water with you wherever you go. It’s hot out here.”

  Rachel laughed. “We noticed.”

  “There’s a helicopter?” Ryan exclaimed from the back.

  Lowell looked to the right, saw a small section of concrete square and part of a chopper blade behind what looked like a service building.

  “Very observant!” Tammy said appreciatively. “Yes, indeed, we do have our own heliport in case of emergencies.”

  “What kind of emergencies do you get out here?” Lowell asked.

  “You’d be surprised,” she said cheerfully but did not answer the question. “Behind Building One up ahead is our driving range. By next summer, we expect to have our new eighteen-hole golf course in place. By the way, let me know if you want to stop anywhere.”

  “I think we’d just like to see our rooms,” Lowell said, and was glad when Rachel didn’t disagree.

  “Okay then. We’ll take the short tour. Tennis courts to the left. Spa, weight room, lap pool
in the building to your right. More information? All in the welcome pack.” She maneuvered past a parked pickup truck filled with grounds-keeping tools and stopped to allow a heavyset housekeeper pushing a cleaning cart cross the lane. Finally, Tammy turned left at one of the two-story structures housing the hotel rooms. “Here we are. Building Five.” The cart slowed to a stop, pulled into a parking space. “This will be yours. After I take you back to the lobby, just drive your own car down the same way we came and park right here.” She clapped her hands enthusiastically. “All right! Everybody out!”

  The kids leaped off the back of the cart onto the hot asphalt and Lowell awkwardly climbed down from his seat before helping Rachel out. The heat was scorching, and all of their faces were red. Despite the breeze generated by the movement of the open-air vehicle, Lowell was sweating, and he wiped his forehead on his shirtsleeve and followed Tammy down an outside corridor past several room doors, past an ice machine, to room 522, their room. Room 523, the kids’ room, was right next door.

  Tammy stepped aside. “After you,” she said.

  Lowell used the magnetic card to open the door. There was a split-second of hesitation, an almost unconscious flinching at the unoccupied space in front of him. He was not sure what instinct caused him to freeze, but it snapped when Rachel walked past him into the cool air-conditioned room. He followed, and any trace of trepidation was forgotten as he looked up at the frosted skylight in the center of the high vaulted ceiling, saw the large picture window overlooking a gorgeous desert landscape. There was a couch, chair and coffee table with tastefully arranged magazines in the sitting area, a wide-screen television within a customized armoire, and a bathroom that was nearly as big as their bedroom at home. In the open closet he could see complimentary bathrobes and slippers. The coffeemaker on the vanity next to the small built-in refrigerator, was an espresso machine.

  Nice, Lowell thought. He could get used to this.

  Curtis and Owen opened the door to the adjoining room and rushed in. He heard shouts of “Cool!” and “Killer!” and “Our own TV!!”