“There isn’t,” Bailey says.

Then she shifts her bag higher on her shoulder. And starts walking toward the hotel’s entrance.

I grab the suitcases from the trunk, hurry to keep up. I catch up to her by the revolving doors.

“That guy was so annoying,” she says.

I start to say he was just trying to be friendly, but she isn’t interested in friendly. And since I have to pick my battles, I decide this isn’t going to be the one I choose.

We head into the hotel and I look around the lobby: high atrium, the bar, a Starbucks off to the side. Hundreds of rooms. Just the type of nondescript hotel I was hoping for, an easy place to get lost in. Except maybe I’m looking around a moment too long because a hotel employee catches my eyes.

She has a name tag on, AMY, her hair in a short bob.

We get in line at reception, but it’s too late. She walks over, a smile plastered to her face.

“Hi there,” she says. “I’m Amy, the hotel concierge. Welcome to Austin! Is there anything I can help you with while you’re waiting to check in?”

“We’re good. Unless you happen to have a map of the campus?” I say.

“Of UT-Austin?” she says. “Absolutely. I also could help set you up on a campus tour. And there is some outstanding coffee that you won’t want to miss when you head to that part of town. Are you coffee drinkers?”

Bailey eyes me as though it’s my fault Amy is hovering and jabbering on—and maybe she isn’t wrong. I did ask for a map as opposed to just telling chatty Amy to move along. But I want a map. I want to hold something in my hands that makes it seem a little more like I know what I’m doing.

“Can I set up a shuttle service to take you there?”

We get to the front of the line, where a desk clerk named Steve is holding out two glasses of lemonade.

“Hiya, Amy.”

“Steve! I was just about to set these two ladies up with some college maps and good flat whites.”

“Excellent,” Steve says. “I’ll get you settled into your digs. What brings you to our little corner of the world? And how can I go about making it your favorite corner?”

That’s it for Bailey. She gives up and starts to walk away—Steve the final nail in the aggressively friendly coffin. She heads toward the elevator bank, drilling me with a final look as she goes. A look of blame for these conversations she can’t handle, for being far from home, for being in Austin at all. Any goodwill I managed to accrue on the plane is apparently gone.