Ficlets

“We can’t stay here, this is not the place,” she said as he turned onto the cobblestone driveway.

“Of course this is it,” he said, ducking his head between the windshield and the steering wheel to stare skyward at the castle’s turrets.

“It’s creepy, Joe,” she said. “It reminds me of Young Frankenstein.”

“Young Frankenstein wasn’t creepy, it was hilarious. Come on, that’s classic Mel Brooks,” he said, bringing the rental car to slow crawl.

She flipped through the guidebook, trying to match the sanitized photos with the timeworn stone facade in front of her.

“This place is gorgeous,” he insisted. “I thought this was what you wanted.”

She examined the dog-eared pages of their rejected choices, images of expansive lobbies with polished antiques. Tanned, sunny couples shook hands with concierges and bellhops. They didn’t appear to be posed.

“Yes, this is what I wanted,” she said, forcing the words from her mouth like the “I do” she had spoken only hours before.