“She’s very, very good,” Heloise said admiringly. “I’d like to meet her sometime. Is she young? There’s a really nice fresh feeling to what she does, while staying in the whole tone of the hotel,” which was old-world elegance with a new touch.
“She’s young to me. Not to you,” Hugues said, referring to Natalie’s age. “I think she’s thirty-nine.” He knew exactly how old she was but didn’t want to look too sure, or appear to know too much. It would have been the perfect opportunity to tell her he was dating Natalie, and in love with her, but he didn’t want to tell her so soon and risk upsetting her on her first night home. He wasn’t sure. So he didn’t say a word, except about Natalie’s decorating and her age.
“I’ll bet she’s cool,” Heloise volunteered.
“She is,” he said quietly, and then Heloise wanted to go back upstairs. They had room service in their apartment that night, and she told him everything about the school, and Francois, the boy she was going out with.
“Are you in love with him?” her father asked her nervously, afraid of what he’d hear.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t want to get distracted from school and screw it up. It’s pretty hard. But we’re both applying for internships next summer for our hospitality year. We’re applying to the Ritz, the George V, and the Plaza Athenee.” Hugues looked crestfallen the moment she said it.
“I thought you were going to do your internship year here with me,” he reminded her.
“I can do both,” Heloise said sensibly. “I can do six months in Paris, and the rest with you. That way I’d be home by Christmas next year.” But he had been expecting her return six months earlier, in June. It meant she would be gone for another year, and the last four months had already felt like an eternity to him. But not to her. It was obvious that she was having a ball in Lausanne, with Francois, the school, and all her new friends there. She said there were going to be ten of them staying at Francois’s parents’ chalet in Gstaad over New Year’s. They were very successful and owned a hotel in the South of France. So they had that in common and a lot more. It was her first affair, and whether she admitted it or not, her father could see that she was in love.
She went downstairs after that to visit her old friends all over the hotel. She knew all of the night staff, stopped to visit the phone operators and the front desk, and kissed the concierge on duty before she came back upstairs again. Hugues was talking to Natalie when she came in. And once Heloise was in the room, he said good night and hung up.
“Who was that?” Heloise asked with a smile. To her father, she was still a child, whether or not she really was. And it was difficult to explain to a child that he was in love with Natalie. Saying it made him feel uncomfortable and disloyal to her somehow. He knew that that was foolish, but that was how it felt.
“Actually, it was Natalie Peterson, the interior designer who did nine-twelve. I told her how much you love what she did. She says she’d love to meet you. Maybe in a couple of days.”
“Sure.” Although she’d noticed it, Heloise didn’t comment on the fact that he had called her at ten o’clock at night. Heloise assumed they’d probably gotten to be friends while she did the work. “That would be fun,” Heloise said with a smile, and went to their kitchen to help herself to some wine. Her father noticed it and was surprised. That seemed grown-up to him too, although he had always let her drink wine at table if she wanted to, which she rarely did. He hoped she wasn’t drinking to excess with her friends at school. There was so little he could control now, or even influence, from so far away, which was the plight of all parents in his shoes. Once they grew up, they were on their own, with all their good and bad decisions and consequences thereof. All you could do was hope that what they did wasn’t too high risk and the consequences weren’t dire.
“What are we doing tomorrow?” she asked him, as she sat cross-legged on the couch, sipping the wine, while he tried to get used to the idea.
“Whatever you like. I’m at your full disposal for the next two weeks.” He still had to work, but he had let everyone know that he would be in and out of the office while his daughter was in town. And he had warned Natalie that he would see very little of her too. She was going to Philadelphia on Christmas Eve for a few days, to stay with her brother and his family. She was going by train with her older nephew, who had just started law school at Columbia.
“I have to do my Christmas shopping tomorrow,” Heloise explained. “I didn’t have time to do it in Lausanne. I had exams till yesterday.”
“How did you do?” he asked with a look of concern. He was afraid that Francois might be distracting her.
“Okay, I think. I know a lot of the stuff we’re studying, from being here,” she said, looking relaxed.
They chatted for a little while, about school, Switzerland, and what the school had been like when Hugues had gone there, and eventually Heloise yawned and went to bed. On Swiss time for her, it was very late. And just as he had for nineteen years before she left, he kissed her and tucked her in.
“Night, Papa … it’s so good to be home,” she said sleepily. She blew a kiss in the air, turned on her side, and was almost asleep by the time he left the room.
He went to his own room then, sat pensively for a minute, thinking about her and how good it was to have her home, and then called Natalie again. She was still awake and wondering how it had gone.
“How is she?”
“In love with that boy, I think. But she seems happy to be home. Now she says she wants to do an internship at a hotel in Paris next year before she comes back. That means she’ll be gone for another year from now.” He sounded disappointed as he said it, and Natalie felt sorry for him. He was having a difficult time letting her go.
“It will go by very quickly,” Natalie reassured him, “and you can go over and visit her anytime.”
“It’s hard to get away from here.” She knew that was true too. He was so attentive to the hotel and on duty and available almost all the time. He always left his cell phone on when he was with her, even at night. And it was rare for him to let it go to voice mail, except when they were making love. Any other time, he answered.
“So when am I going to meet her?” Natalie sounded excited at the prospect, and she wanted to get the ice-breaking over with so she could get to know her.
“How about coming for a drink tomorrow? After work.”
“That sounds perfect,” Natalie said happily. “I can’t wait. This is like meeting a celebrity or a movie star,” she said, laughing.
“She is to me,” he confirmed, but she knew that. “How about seven? If it goes well, maybe we can all go to dinner.”
“Great!”
“I miss you,” he said in a whisper. He didn’t want Heloise to hear him, although he knew she was sound asleep, but just in case.
“So do I. I love you, Hugues.” And she hoped that one day she would love his daughter too. She wanted that for all of them. She wanted to be Heloise’s friend, not stand in for her mother, which wouldn’t have felt right. More like a favorite, very close aunt.
“I love you too, Natalie,” he said gently, and a moment later they hung up. He went to stand in Heloise’s bedroom doorway for a moment. She was sleeping peacefully with a small smile on her face. He closed the door softly and walked to his bedroom with a feeling of peace he hadn’t had since she left. He knew where she was tonight, that she was safe and that he would see her at breakfast in the morning. All was well in his world.
The next morning Hugues and Heloise ordered room service for breakfast. Two waiters came upstairs to serve it instead of one, and both kissed her excitedly when they saw her and told her that the hotel wasn’t the same without her and she’d better hurry up and finish school and come back.
And after that she went out Christmas shopping, and her father insisted she take an SUV from the limo service since it was snowing, and he knew she wouldn’t find a cab.
She shopped all day, met an old school friend from the Lycee for lunch, and was back looking happy and tired at five o’clock. She bounded into her father’s office, and Jennifer looked up at her with a smile.
“It sure is nice to have you back,” Jennifer said as Heloise kissed her on the cheek on the way past her into her father’s inner office. He was signing checks at his desk, and looked up with delight when he heard her come in.
“Do I have any money left, or did you spend it all today?” he asked with a grin.
“I spent most of it. But I left you enough so you can buy me a Christmas present.” She cackled at her own joke, and he laughed.
“Oh really? What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know, something I can use at school. Like a tiara maybe, or a full-length sable coat.” Her face grew serious then. “Actually, I was going to ask you if I can have new skis. My old ones are all beaten up, and I’d love to have new ones for Gstaad.” It was a reasonable request, and one he liked.
“I was thinking of that myself.” He had also bought her a shearling parka at Bergdorf that he thought she could wear to school, and a gold bangle bracelet with her name engraved on it, and “Love, Papa” engraved inside. He had had a much harder time shopping for Natalie, who was simple and chic and appeared to have everything, and he wanted to give her something sentimental that she would wear. He had settled on an antique locket with a diamond heart on it, on a long gold chain, at Fred Leighton, and he hoped that she would like it. “Do you want to go out to dinner tonight, or just eat here?” Heloise looked embarrassed the minute he asked. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and she wanted to spend time with him, but she wanted to see her friends too. She had made dinner plans with two of them, and they were going to a party afterward in Tribeca.
“I’m sorry, Papa, I’m going out with friends. How about tomorrow night? I won’t make other plans.”
“Don’t be silly. That’s fine. Of course you want to see your pals.” He tried not to look disappointed and had to remind himself that he was not the only thing in her life, and she was young. “By the way, Natalie Peterson, the decorator, is coming over to have drinks with us at seven. She wants to meet you.”
“I’d like to meet her too, but I don’t know if I have time. We have a dinner reservation downtown at eight.”
“You don’t have to stay long. She’s thrilled you like the suite.” Heloise smiled, gathered up her packages a few minutes later, and went upstairs to get organized for that night. And Hugues tried to look calmer than he felt. He didn’t want to insist on her meeting Natalie, but it was important to him, and he was trying to act nonchalant.
When he went upstairs himself at six-thirty, Heloise was racing around the apartment wrapped in a towel, talking to a friend on her cell phone, making additional plans for that night. She waved to her father and disappeared into her own room. And the desk called him promptly at seven to tell him that Miss Peterson was downstairs. He told them to send her up.
He opened the door to her himself and didn’t dare kiss her in case Heloise ran back into the room. He whispered to Natalie instead.
“It’s a little crazy around here. She’s going out. I told her you were coming for a drink because she liked the suite so much.”
“That’s fine,” Natalie said, looking relaxed. She was used to young people Heloise’s age from her nephews and nieces. Her brother in Philadelphia had four, among them twins Heloise’s age.
He poured her a glass of champagne, and half an hour later Heloise appeared in black leggings, a black leather tunic, and toweringly high-heeled black sandals, and her hair was still wet. Hugues had never seen her wear an outfit like that before, and he couldn’t tell if the tunic was a dress or a top. She had always been much more conservative, and in the sexy outfit she looked frighteningly sophisticated and adult. A very fashionable adult, like the women in the halls of the hotel and the bar.
“This is Natalie, the interior designer who worked magic in nine-twelve,” he said as he introduced the two women, and Heloise smiled at her. She thought Natalie looked like a nice person. She had a warm, easy manner and a sincere smile.
“I really love what you did,” Heloise said truthfully as her father handed his daughter a glass of champagne and invited her to sit down. “I can only stay five minutes. I have to pick everyone up at quarter to eight, and we have to get downtown.” It had stopped snowing, but at this time of year, before Christmas, it would be hard to find a cab. She accepted the champagne anyway, sat down on the couch, and took a sip. “My father said he’s giving you more suites to do. I bet they’ll be gorgeous,” Heloise said politely, with a cool smile.
“Maybe you can help me pick the fabrics this time,” Natalie said easily, watching her. She was a very pretty girl and looked more sophisticated than she’d expected or than Hugues had described.
“That would be fun. But I’m leaving pretty soon. I’m sure you and my father will do a good job.” She glanced at her watch then with a look of panic and stood up. “I’ve gotta go,” she said to her father, kissed him on the cheek, and looked at Natalie, oblivious to anything that was going on between them. “Nice to meet you,” she said, and two seconds later they heard the front door close.
“I’m sorry,” Hugues said, looking disappointed. “I wanted you two to have a chance to talk. She wants to see her friends while she’s here. I forgot to take that into account.” Most of all, Natalie realized, he had forgotten to take into account that she had her own life now.
“It’s fine,” she said easily. “Kids don’t want to waste their time with old farts like us.”
“I may be an old fart,” he said with a smile, “but you very definitely are not.” She looked anything but in a short skirt, high heels, and a pretty blouse.
“I am to her,” Natalie said realistically. “To her we’re practically dead, and she only has two weeks here, so it makes sense that she wants to see her friends. Does she suspect anything about us?”
“Not at all,” he said firmly. He had been very careful that she didn’t. “I haven’t said anything except about your design work in the hotel. I wanted her to meet you first. And she just got back last night.” Natalie nodded and kissed him as he poured them each another glass of champagne. “She’s grown up a lot since she left,” he said, looking slightly unnerved. “I think it’s the boy.”