“So, she’s a pretty high-up civil servant?” Peter asked.
“Pretty high up.”
“This is going to be interesting,” Peter said. “The three of us have made some L.A. arrangements of our own.”
“Oh?” Stone asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Leo Goldman is going to give us all a tour of Centurion Studios.”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
“And I’m going to get to play with the studio orchestra, when they record a film score,” Hattie said. Hattie was a brilliant young pianist, who was studying musical composition at Yale, while Peter and Ben were at the School of Drama.
“Good, then you can watch the movie on television for years to come.”
“And we’re going to get to meet some movie stars,” Ben said.
“You’ll meet lots of them at the hotel’s opening festivities. Centurion has taken twenty-five suites for their people.”
“Then there’s the Immi Gotham concert,” Peter said. Immi Gotham was Centurion’s greatest star and a wonderful singer; critics had called her a combination of Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand.
“Along with the Beverly Hills Philharmonic,” Hattie said. “It’s really going to be something!”
“The whole event is going to be something,” Stone said. “Every suite and room is booked.”
“If there are two hundred suites and rooms,” Peter asked, “how are they going to fill up the fifteen hundred seats in the Arrington Bowl?”
“There’s an invited audience,” Stone said. “The Bowl has its own entrance and parking, separate from the hotel’s. People have been fighting over the tickets for months. The Times says scalpers have been offering ten thousand dollars a ticket and getting no takers.”
“There’s never been anything like this, has there, Dad?”
“Not in my memory. Centurion is making a documentary film about it, and it’ll be shown on TV at Christmas.”
“Dad, can we rent a car while we’re there?”
“You have to be twenty-five to rent a car these days. I’ll arrange for you to go to Centurion in a hotel car, and Leo can send you back in one of his.”
“Sounds good.”
“You’re going to have to get used to a lot of security at the hotel,” Stone said, “what with two presidents and a lot of other VIPs. You’ll be issued ID cards, and you can’t get in or out of the hotel grounds without them.”
“All the time, or just for this event?” Peter asked.
“Just for this event,” Stone replied. “After the opening, it’ll be just like any other hotel.”
“Has there ever been another hotel like this one?” Ben asked.
“Well, there are some very fine hotels scattered around the world,” Stone said. “But The Arrington will be unique, I think.”
“You know, I think Mom would have liked all this,” Peter said. “I mean, she had already given her permission to build the hotel on the property, but I really think she would have loved the way it’s turning out.”
“I think she would have, too,” Stone said.
Then they all ate quietly for a while.
Finally, Peter asked, “When is Felicity arriving from London?”
“She arrived yesterday,” Stone said, “but she’s been resting.”