LA: A Mother/Daughter Story

I, the visitor. She, the guide.

Headed cross-country, I peer out the window. The plane bounces, lofts high above Vegas, where I’d taken her and G’ma to celebrate her twenty-first. Now, two years later, I’m on my way to L.A. to visit my daughter’s new home, anxious to see how she’s doing, if I’ll like her new boyfriend. She’d booked the hotel, planned the itinerary, recommended the restaurants we’d try. I, the visitor. She, the guide. A role reversal I looked forward to playing.

LAX. 2:30 p.m. I cab it to the Palihotel on Melrose in West Hollywood, my daughter’s new neighborhood, a few blocks from her apartment. It looks cool, she’d said. She wants me to stay there. I’m game. The cabbie drops me at a long, lean two-story building, lit with thick marine glass lamps with emerald green bulbs, wrapped in dark brown clapboards, organic like a tree. Neat pots of pigment-saturated geraniums line the windows. “Palihotel” in movie marquee bulbs, a porch, a patio invite me in. A gent in a piping-trimmed, navy blue blazer monogrammed with a P. greets me with charm, makes me feel at home. A couple of high profile travel magazines had recently mentioned the Palihotel as one of the best new hotels in the country. I expect some pretension, but receive warmth, friendliness.