“What were you thinking about, Papa?” Heloise asked him as she caught up to him. She had seen him walking along alone when she went looking for him. She had put her nuclear weapons away for these few days, particularly since Natalie wasn’t there. It was almost like old times.
He looked up and smiled when he saw Heloise and put an arm around her. “It sounds silly, but I was thinking that maybe your children will come to school here one day.” He had never expected her to do so, and suddenly it had become a tradition as she followed in his footsteps. He wondered what his parents would say. This had never been their dream for him, but it had been a good life and a career he still loved.
“I don’t think I want children,” she said pensively, as they walked along arm in arm, and he was surprised to hear it. He had always expected her to marry and have babies, even now that she would be working at the hotel.
“Why not?” he asked, watching her eyes.
“They’re too much work,” she said, brushing the idea away, and he laughed.
“So is a hotel. And let me tell you that no matter how much work children are, they’re worth it. My life would be nothing without you.” The emotion he felt for her was strong in his voice.
“Even now, with Natalie?” Heloise was haunted by her. Her eyes were sad when she looked at him, and he nodded emphatically.
“Even with Natalie. That’s not the same thing. I loved your mother very much, and I love Natalie. But the love you feel for a woman, or a man, is not the same as what you feel for a child. It doesn’t even compare. My love for you is forever. Love for a partner is there for as long as it lasts, sometimes it lasts a lifetime, sometimes not. My love for you is to my grave.” It was a serious thing to say, and she was quiet for a long moment as they stopped walking, and she looked into his eyes.
“I thought that had changed,” she said quietly, and he shook his head.
“It will never change. Never. In my entire lifetime.” She nodded then and looked relieved. It was hard for him to imagine that even as grown up as she seemed to be, she was only a child who thought she would lose her father to someone else, or already had. It explained her rejection of Natalie. And it wasn’t so surprising since at the age of four she really had lost her mother to a man. But in Miriam’s case, Heloise had never had her. Her mother had only been on loan for a brief time. The defection and abandonment of her mother had been the ultimate betrayal, which had made her fears about Natalie, and her resulting anger at him, so much worse. He understood that better now. And he was glad he had come alone. He held her tightly in his arms for a moment, stroking her long silky hair, and then they walked back to his hotel arm in arm with a feeling of peace. He had said everything she needed to hear. It hadn’t been enough to know it, or assume it, or hope it; she had needed the words, and she had needed to hear them from him.
The eve-of-graduation dinner that night at the school-run hotel was a festive event. It was held in an auditorium that had been festooned and decorated, and a number of the students as well as the director of the school gave speeches, some of them very emotional. And afterward most of the students went to small nightclubs and bars around Lausanne, and the bars on campus, for a last time. Heloise went out with her friends, and she was genuinely sad to leave them. After this they would all be scattered around the world, although two of them said they were doing internships in New York, but neither of them were people she knew well. And she heard that François had secured a job in Paris at the Plaza Athénée, which he preferred to working at his family’s hotel in the South of France. From now on they would all be crawling their way up the corporate ladder in the hotel business, satisfying their supervisors and serving their clients’ needs. It wasn’t an easy business, they all knew by now, but it was the path they had chosen, and they couldn’t wait to get started. Only two people had dropped out, one because of family illness and the other due to pregnancy and a shotgun wedding, but even she had promised to return. There were a hundred and seventy-eight students graduating in Heloise’s class, and fewer than two thousand in the school, including graduate students. It was acknowledged to be the finest hotel school in the world and a major coup to graduate from there.
And the graduation ceremony was very moving the next day. It followed all the school’s venerable traditions and hadn’t changed a bit since Hugues had graduated more than thirty years before at her age. Prizes were given, and Heloise got two honorable mentions. The crowd in the auditorium stood up and applauded them at the end of the ceremony as an orchestra played, and then a huge cheer rose from the students and the crowd, and they were distinguished graduates of the illustrious École Hôtelière de Lausanne. There were tears streaming down Heloise’s cheeks and in her father’s eyes as she found him and they embraced.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said in a choked voice, and there was no one in the room for her, or in the world, except the two of them at that moment. And he was glad once again that he had come alone. He had needed to share this with her, and to confirm his dedication to her and his love. He was deeply sad for her that Miriam hadn’t come. She was such a fool and had missed the boat with Heloise all her life. She had absented herself from every major occasion, just as she had this time. She cared about no one but herself. He was sorry he had given Heloise such an inadequate mother, and he hoped that she and Natalie would be friends one day. It was too late to act as her mother, but it would be good for her to have a staunch, mature female friend, other than Jennifer, Ernesta, and Jan, all of whom had been good to her. But Natalie would be family now. He had tried to be everything to her, mother, father, mentor, adviser, but he still felt she needed a woman in her life, and he was sorry he hadn’t provided one before this. In some ways he had waited too long, and now instead of welcoming it, Heloise resented it and had declared war on Natalie. He hoped there would be a truce one of these days, but he didn’t mention it to her in Lausanne.
The graduation dinner that night was a grand affair, with excellent food and a very decent band. He danced with his daughter, and she danced with her friends for the last time. After all their hard work for two years, this was a night of celebration and saluting their accomplishments. And the next morning they congregated for the last time, after being out the night before till six A.M. Heloise hadn’t even bothered to go to bed. After hugging all her friends and exchanging contact information, she got in the car with her father, went to the airport in Geneva, and fell sound asleep as soon as they boarded the plane. He covered her gently with a blanket and smiled as he looked at her. She looked like a little girl again with her bright red hair and her freckles. She was a woman now, with a life and career ahead of her, but she would always be his baby, in spite of her accomplishments. He leaned over and kissed her and watched her while she slept as the plane headed to New York.
Chapter 18
THEY BOTH HIT the ground running when they got to New York. Hugues was handling the usual dicey situations at the hotel, employee disputes, threatened lawsuits, labor unions, arriving important guests. And Heloise was on duty at the front desk the night they got home. Her diploma was still in her suitcase, but it made no difference here. She had to help an arriving guest with lost luggage deal with the airline, find a change of rooms for a complaining guest who hated the suite she had, which was hard to believe since it was one of the new ones, but the guest in question said that the color green made her anxious and gave her migraines and there were green tassels on the drapes. And miraculously Heloise was able to switch suites with a guest who hadn’t arrived yet. She had to call a doctor after midnight for a guest whose five-year-old had a high fever, and she had to get security to deal with a domestic argument between two drunks on the fourth floor, without calling the police if at all possible so they didn’t wind up on Page Six of the New York Post. And she had to scold room service several times at two A.M. for not answering their phone, and explain to another guest why the concierge desk was not open at five A.M. She finished work at seven, and was dead on
her feet when she got to her father’s apartment and saw that Natalie was there. She hadn’t seen her since she got home the day before, and she was so tired she didn’t care. They were having breakfast as Heloise walked past them to her room with a cursory hello. She hated the look in her father’s eyes when he looked at Natalie. He looked like he was about to melt into a puddle on the floor. Heloise thought it looked ridiculous for a man his age to be so lovesick, but she tried not to notice as she headed to her room.
“How’d it go last night?” he asked as she went by.
“Okay. We had a nasty situation on the fourth floor. The Morettis got into a fight, and both rooms on either side wanted to call the police.”
“What did you do?” He looked concerned, and she seemed mildly sheepish as she answered.
“I sent Dom Perignon to all the people who complained. Bruce spent about an hour with the Morettis. Apparently he had made insulting comments about her mother, and Bruce sat with them until they were so tired and so drunk that Mr. Moretti went to bed, and we gave Mrs. Moretti a complimentary room on another floor. I didn’t know what else to do. And I got a doctor for six-nineteen at two A.M. Her kid had strep, and an ear infection.”
“You did all the right things,” her father praised her. She had learned more than ever in the past two years that hotelry was as much about diplomacy and ingenuity as about service, and you had to think on your feet. She was good at it and had the correct instincts.
“The Morettis need a shrink,” she said with a grin, as she took off her uniform jacket and threw it on a chair. She had kicked off her shoes at the front door. She glanced at Natalie then. The wedding was in less than four weeks and her own party in a few days. “How’s the wedding coming?”
Natalie grinned and then sighed. “My sister-in-law broke her ankle Rollerblading last week. Both my nieces have mono and may not be able to come. There’s a threatened air strike in Holland so we’re not sure about the flowers. We haven’t set the menu yet, and your father doesn’t want a wedding cake. And three of my clients want their installations that week while they’re away. Other than that, it’s fine.” Heloise couldn’t help laughing at what she’d said. She seemed a little mellower now that she had her degree and had spent three days alone with her father in Lausanne. Natalie was glad she hadn’t gone, and with all she had to do, she couldn’t have anyway. And she knew that Heloise would have viewed her as an intruder if she had.
“That sounds about right for three weeks to D-day. Most of that stuff usually happens a few days before. You’re ahead of the game,” Heloise said, as she spoke to her more pleasantly than she had in months, and her father smiled. Their time together at the graduation in Lausanne had done her good.
“I’m not sure that reassures me.” Natalie looked nervous and as though she had lost weight, but she seemed happy when she gazed at Hugues. Her future stepdaughter still scared her, but she was being friendlier than she had all year. Maybe she was just tired from a long night and the flight the day before and didn’t have the energy to be nasty to her. Natalie wasn’t sure. She didn’t trust her yet after her fury of the previous months.
“Sally will help you work it all out. She’s great. She can pull anything off!” Heloise said easily. “She found a rabbi once in half an hour when the one they had didn’t show up. He was on his honeymoon in the hotel, and she got him out of bed to do the wedding, and she called a cantor that she knew. It went off perfectly. And why don’t you want a cake?” she asked, looking at her father disapprovingly.
“I feel silly. Maybe I’ve seen too many weddings. Besides I never like them. I want a decent dessert,” he complained.
“You have to have a wedding cake. You can order dessert from room service, but you should have a cake,” she scolded him as she grabbed a muffin off their breakfast table and ate it as she headed to her bedroom. She was so tired, she could hardly think. “I have to be back on duty at three o’clock. The front desk schedule sucks,” she said over her shoulder as she walked into her room and closed the door, but at least she didn’t slam it this time. Natalie looked at Hugues with a surprised expression once the door was closed.
“Better?” she asked him. It certainly looked that way.
“Maybe,” he said softly, so Heloise didn’t hear him. He was wondering if she was going to move to her new apartment after the wedding. He would have liked more time alone with Natalie, especially if Heloise was going to be difficult about her, but so far she showed no sign of moving out, maybe just to annoy her. “I think she’s afraid to lose me,” he whispered. “I told her that couldn’t happen. You can’t steal me from her, and I know you don’t want to. Thanks to her mother, I’m all she has, for now anyway, and for the past seventeen years. It makes you a much bigger threat than you would be otherwise.” Natalie nodded. They had talked about it before, and she understood better than Heloise realized, which was why she had tried to be understanding, although Heloise’s behavior had been beyond the pale for six months. She hoped she was calming down and was happy that it looked that way now. She had lost hope of their ever being friends.
“Her mother wasn’t at the graduation?”
“Of course not. She was on vacation with Greg in Vietnam, although she had a year’s notice of the date. She would have missed it for a hair appointment or a new tattoo,” he said angrily.
“That’s hard for Heloise. You can’t explain to yourself why your parents aren’t there when they could be. If they’re dead, at least you can understand. If they’re alive and don’t show up, all it tells you is that they don’t give a damn. It’s hard to feel loved by anyone after that. Your parents can really do a job on you,” she said with a knowing look.
“I tried to make up for it for all these years, and I was always there for her. But Miriam never has been. Sometimes I think the absentee parent does more harm than the present parent can do good.” Natalie nodded, and then she mentioned the wedding cake again and reminded him of what his daughter had said.
“All right, all right. Wedding cake. You pick it. I’ll order something else. I think they’re tacky and embarrassing. And I won’t do that ridiculous thing where you shove it in my mouth and smear it all over my face.” He was too European for that, and it was a custom he detested and had never understood. “You can feed it to me with a fork.”
“I promise.” she said, looking pleased. She wanted all the customs and traditions and little superstitions. Something borrowed, something blue. She had a garter trimmed in blue lace, and even a penny for her shoe. She had waited forty-one years for this and given up all hope of getting married and had stopped caring until he came along. Now she was going to enjoy it to the hilt. He knew that and was touched, and had humored her in all of it except the cake.
“Just don’t ask me to sample fourteen of them in the kitchen like every other bride. You order what you want.” She already knew she wanted a chocolate mousse interior with ivory-colored buttercream icing, marzipan ribbons decorating it, and fresh flowers. She had shown the baker a photograph of exactly what she wanted. This was her dream wedding, and she planned to have only one in her lifetime, so she was going all out. And she loved her dress. It didn’t look ridiculous for someone her age. It was simple and elegant, and she wanted Hugues to be swept off his feet. She knew he had seen a lot of weddings and brides at the hotel. She wanted to be the most beautiful one he had ever seen.
An hour later they both left for their day. Natalie was seeing new clients. She had promised to look at one of the hotel rooms that had had a leak, which was a good opportunity to redo it. And Hugues had a dozen meetings back to back, and a meeting of the Hotel Association to attend. He had been the chairperson several times over the years. And it was always a useful way to maintain good relations with the owners and managers of other hotels. Heloise was back at the front desk at three and had promised to cover for one of the concierges for two hours.
The days afterward were equally insane. Heloise barely had time to get ready for her p
arty, and Sally handled all the details, although Heloise had gone over everything with her again the day before. It was going to be a grand celebration of her birthday and graduation. The room was all decorated in white and gold with white flowers on every table and gold balloons hanging from the ceiling. And her father had hired a fantastic band, and let her friends stay till four A.M. After that they served breakfast in a smaller room. Heloise said it was the best party she’d ever been to, and she had a ball. Her father wanted to reward her for her work at the École Hôtelière, and he had also wanted her to feel special and not pushed out of place by their wedding.
Hugues and Natalie disappeared discreetly around eleven and left the young people to have their fun. As it turned out, it was a happy prelude to their wedding, Natalie enjoyed it, and Heloise had definitely been nicer to her since they came back from her graduation. She was being more mature about it and was clearly less angry at her father and even his future wife. It was as though she had finally understood that she wouldn’t lose him. She wasn’t happy about his marriage to Natalie, but she was no longer on a mission to make her life a living hell. And she was a little embarrassed now by how angry she had been. She had admitted it to Jennifer when she got back from Lausanne.
Natalie was spending the weeks before the wedding struggling with the seating at the reception, and in spite of the holiday weekend, they were expecting just over two hundred guests. But so far everything was going according to plan, although Natalie was visibly nervous about it and had never organized such a major event in her life. She found it much harder to keep track of than designing an apartment or a house, or keeping all the orders straight. This wasn’t her thing at all, and she was relying on the hotel staff to guide her and give her advice, and trying not to disturb Hugues about it. He had enough to do running the hotel, and she wanted him to be surprised.
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