Arms Hotel Lobby, Saturday [1/2]

[awesomebigsis]

Since the Welcome Picnic was today, Ellie wasn't expecting things to be very busy. The students would be needing dorm rooms, after all, not hotel rooms. She was still there, though, if anyone needed anything from the hotel.

[no ocd today]

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[montecito_east]

Mary was just getting back to the island today from a trip to Las Vegas. She entered the lobby, pulling her wheeled suitcase and carrying a newspaper.

"Hello Ellie. Wouldn't you rather be at the picnic today instead of watching the desk?" asked Mary, setting her newspaper down. On the front page was a large picture of Mary kissing A.J. Cooper with a headline asking "Who is Cooper's new mystery woman?"

[awesomebigsis]

"Oh, I don't mind being here. I can meet the newbies anytime," Ellie replied. She was kind of more interested in the newspaper Mary was carrying, eying it curiously. But she did not say anything about it.

[montecito_east]

"Are you sure? I could cover for you. I need to catch up on my reading anyway," said Mary, pointing at the newspaper. "Can you believe I'm a Las Vegas native and my hometown paper labels me a 'mystery woman' just because I've been gone for two years?"

[awesomebigsis]

"Nothing the media does surprises me much anymore," Ellie admitted. "So it's not a big mystery then, huh?"

[montecito_east]

"If someone at the paper did their research, they might remember that I used to be the hotel manager at the Montecito and that I'm still a stockholder," said Mary. "But they made such a big deal of this kiss! What was I supposed to do? Everyone else in our group that night was with their significant others. Cooper and I were the only ones at the table who were single, so at midnight, he gave me an innocent little kiss."

The picture on the front of the newspaper didn't look so innocent, though.

[awesomebigsis]

"Oh." Ellie eyed the photo again. "Nothing wrong with a kiss on New Years."

[montecito_east]

"From the way the tabloids reacted, you'd think that we'd done something scandalous, and believe me, there were people who were a lot more interesting at our table," said Mary.

[awesomebigsis]

"It's Vegas, right?" Ellie said with a grin.

[montecito_east]

"That's right. It's Las Vegas, and next week they'll have someone else who's more famous than me on Cooper's arm, and everyone will forget about me again," said Mary.

[awesomebigsis]

"That's got to be better than having people gossip about you, right?" Ellie asked.

[montecito_east]

"Definitely!" said Mary. "I've seen too much attention from the Las Vegas tabloids. That's why I'm still living in Fandom."

[awesomebigsis]

"Fandom's a good place to go to get away from it," Ellie said. "I certainly don't miss that aspect of LA."

[montecito_east]

"Anything that you were running away from in LA?" asked Mary.

[awesomebigsis]

"Not really?" Ellie replied. "I just don't miss the paparazzi."

[montecito_east]

"The paparazzi were a pain, though most of the time I was able to use them to my advantage and get the casino mentioned as the place to stay in Las Vegas," said Mary.