“Where were you?” he asked her casually as the room service waiter brought their dinner in on a rolling tray. Hugues would have liked to cook for her himself, but he never had time. There was always some crisis he had to manage, or the constant overseeing of the hotel. The Vendome was a huge success because he was always there himself, attending to every detail. And his staff knew that he was ever present, aware of everything that went on and everything they did. It kept them on their toes.
“I was with Jan all afternoon, working on the big wedding. She has a lot of work to do. She hired four assistants and she’s still afraid she won’t get it all done. I was lending her a hand,” Heloise said vaguely, as the room service waiter served them lamb chops and haricots verts. Hugues was careful about what they ate and spent an hour in the gym every morning before he went to work. At forty-five, he looked younger than his age and was in great shape.
“I went by there, and I didn’t see you,” her father commented.
“I must have been up here doing homework by then,” she said innocently.
“A likely story,” he teased her with a grin. Her grades were decent even if they weren’t great, and it was a difficult school. She was equally proficient in English and French, and her Spanish had remained fluent, due to her long conversations at the hotel. “So what are you doing this weekend? Are you having friends over?” he asked warmly. He had four VIPs checking in that weekend and a foreign head of state on Saturday, which meant additional security and Secret Service in the lobby and all over the hotel. The foreign dignitary had booked an entire floor, save for Hugues’s private apartment on that level, and they had to close off the floors above and below him, which was annoying since they couldn’t use their two penthouse suites on the floor above, nor the presidential suite on the floor below. And those three suites alone were big revenue sources for them. They charged fourteen thousand dollars a night for the presidential and twelve thousand for each of the two penthouse suites. They had two dead floors on their hands for the weekend, although they were charging the foreign government a fortune for their occupancy but the hotel’s security costs would be high too, with their entire security staff working overtime all weekend.
“Yes, I think I’m having a friend over, maybe two,” Heloise said, staring at her plate. Hugues thought she was unusually quiet, but she’d had a cold and he assumed she was tired. They both had had busy weeks. It was January and bitter cold outside, and everyone was sick. Illness spread like wildfire through the hotel in flu season, with so many people working there. Signs everywhere reminded employees to wash their hands. “I think Marie Louise is coming over tonight, and maybe Josephine. We’re going to sleep downstairs.” It was a privilege he accorded her, particularly at this time of year when the hotel wasn’t fully booked. There was a small room on the second floor that people used for their assistants or bodyguards.
“Just don’t drive room service crazy with a lot of requests. No grilled cheese sandwiches at four in the morning, or banana splits. Order before midnight, please. The room service staff is too small after that to take care of you girls too.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said demurely, and smiled at him, which for a fraction of an instant made him wonder what she was up to. If he hadn’t known her better, he would have thought she had a boy hidden somewhere up her sleeve, but Jennifer assured him she wasn’t ready for that yet. But he knew that day would come, and he would mourn her childhood and total adoration of him when it did. He loved being at the hub of her world, just as she was at his.
They finished dinner quickly because he had to get downstairs for a security meeting in anticipation of the foreign president’s arrival the next day. Heloise went to Mrs. Van Damme’s room then and offered to walk the dog for her. The elderly dowager was very pleased. She’d had a hip replaced recently and no longer walked Julius herself. And she liked it when Heloise took him out. She took him on long walks and came back with brilliant pink cheeks from the cold, and Julius had fun with her, more so than with the bellmen who walked him quickly around the block and brought him back.
Heloise left the hotel a few minutes later in a parka and jeans, with a wool cap on her head and a long knitted scarf and gloves. It was bitter cold, and she ran the old Pekingese quickly around the corner. She stopped in a doorway where a man was lying under a cardboard box in a sleeping bag. She tapped politely on the box as though it were a door, and a wizened old face peeked out and smiled when he saw her. He looked a little drunk, and he had a filthy blanket wrapped over the sleeping bag, which looked new. She had bought it for him with her allowance the week before. She had been checking on him for several weeks and brought him leftover food they gave her in the kitchen. No one ever questioned her requests or asked what they were for. They just assumed she had a healthy appetite or was taking it upstairs for a friend.
“Are you ready, Billy?” she asked the man lying on the sidewalk, and he nodded. She looked like an angel fallen from the sky to him. She had promised him a room for that night. He didn’t really think she’d do it, but he followed her anyway and was surprised she had shown up. He got slowly to his feet, and she helped him fold the blanket and the sleeping bag. He smelled awful, and she tried to hold her breath, as the Pekingese watched.
“Where are we going?” Billy asked her, and she pointed around the corner away from the main entrance of the hotel. There was a door that some of the employees used that led up a back staircase. It was kept locked, and she had taken a key from maintenance that day. And together they walked slowly toward the unmarked door that was on the back side of the hotel. She rapidly unlocked it and told him they had to walk up two flights of stairs.
The room she had blocked that afternoon herself on the computers was on the second floor. She knew the maids had already done their turn-down rounds, so the coast was clear, except for the security camera she hoped no one was watching too closely. She counted the half flights until they got to two, as Billy followed slowly and the dog panted on his way up. She had first met Billy two weeks before, when she stopped to talk to him one afternoon. He’d told her he’d been sick but hadn’t been able to get into a shelter, and Heloise wanted to get him out of the cold and off the street. This was the only way she could think of to do it, and she’d been planning it for two weeks. This was the perfect night. They weren’t fully booked, some of the security staff were out sick, and she was sure she could get Billy into a room, for the night at least. How to get him out again would be another problem, but she was sure she could figure out a way, so no one would ever know he’d been there. And she planned to put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and clean the room herself after he left. But first she wanted to get him warm and fed and off the streets for the night. It was her gift to him.
“Are you okay?” She turned to smile at him, before she opened the door into the second-floor hall. Julius continued to watch them with interest, turning his head from side to side.
“I’m okay,” Billy reassured her. “I like your dog,” he said politely as Heloise smiled.
“He’s not my dog. I walk him for a friend.” And then she put a finger to her lips, opened the door, and led Billy to a door only a few steps away. She had the key in her hand and unlocked it rapidly and ushered him inside.
The homeless man looked around and began to cry. “What are you doing?” he asked with a look of panic. “I can’t stay here. They’ll put me in jail.”
“No, they won’t. I won’t let them. My father owns the hotel.”
“He’s going to kill you for this,” Billy said, looking worried for her as well.
“No, he won’t, he’s a nice man.” She was turning on the lights in the room. It was one of their smaller rooms, which was how Heloise knew she’d get away with it. It would be one of the last rooms they gave out, and in the slow season like January they wouldn’t need a room this size. Billy was looking around in amazement at the luxury and comfort she had brought him to. It looked like paradise to him. It had a king-size bed, an enormous TV, antiques all over, and a large immaculate bathroom. His eyes were huge in his ravaged face as he looked at the young girl who had brought him here.
“What about your mom? Won’t she get mad at you?” He looked genuinely worried about her.
“She’s married to someone else.” He stood there looking around him then, and Heloise gently suggested he sit down. “I have to take the dog back. Why don’t you watch TV or something? I’ll come back in a few minutes and order you some food.” He nodded as he stared at her, genuinely bereft of speech, as she quietly left the room with Julius and took him back upstairs to Mrs. Van Damme.
“What a long walk you two had.” She had no way of knowing that Heloise had barely walked him more than a block, and he’d been back in the hotel the rest of the time. His owner took off his cashmere sweater, and Heloise kissed her on the cheek and hurried back out again. She was back in Billy’s room on the second floor in less than five minutes and let herself back in with the key.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed with a stunned expression, afraid to lie down. He looked terrified and happy all at the same time and immensely relieved to see her again. She had already figured out that she would have to hide somewhere in the hotel that night, since she couldn’t go back to her apartment if she was pretending to be with Marie Louise. And she obviously couldn’t stay with Billy in this room, although she was sure he wasn’t dangerous. She had spoken to him often in the last few weeks. He just looked cold and old and tired by his life on the streets. He had told her he was sixty-two years old, and this was something special she wanted to do for him, to show him someone cared.
“What would you like to eat?” she asked, handing him a menu, and he looked confused the moment she did. She wondered if he needed glasses and didn’t own a pair. “What’s your favorite kind of food?”
“Steak,” he said with a big grin, although he was missing a lot of teeth. “Steak and mashed potatoes, and chocolate pudding for dessert.” Heloise picked up the phone and ordered it from room service, with a salad, and she translated the chocolate pudding into chocolate mousse, with a big glass of milk. And then she sat with him, while he turned on the TV with the remote, and she put the Do Not Disturb on the door. “I’ve never seen a room like this in my life. I used to be a carpenter. I worked in a furniture factory when I was a kid, but we never made nothing like this.” She couldn’t help wondering what had happened to him after that, but she didn’t dare ask.
Half an hour later, room service arrived and knocked on the door. She answered immediately and spoke through the door, and the waiter delivering it recognized her voice.
“Thanks, Derek. We’re not dressed. Just leave it outside. And thank you.”
“Sure thing. Have fun.”
She waited until she heard the elevator door close, then pulled the rolling table in as Billy’s eyes grew wide. The food smelled delicious, and she pulled a chair up to the table for him. “Have a nice dinner,” she said softly. She wrote down her cell phone number, and told him to call her if he had any problem, or wanted something else to eat. “I’ll get you breakfast tomorrow morning. You’ll have to leave pretty early, before things get busy in the hotel. I can get you out the same door.”
“Thank you,” he said, his eyes filling with tears again, as he started to eat the delicious dinner. “You must be an angel from Heaven, disguised as a little girl.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “Keep the door locked, and put the chain on and don’t go out in the hall.” It never occurred to her that he might refuse to leave the next day. So far everything had gone according to plan. “And don’t answer the phone.” He nodded and devoured his steak as she let herself discreetly out of the room and went back down the stairs, happy with the way things had gone. The look on Billy’s face was worth it all.
She checked things out in the ballroom, and the decorators and florists were setting things up for the wedding the next day. She hung around for a while, and then went down to the basement and visited the wine cellars. She stopped in the uniform room, where everything was hanging in dry cleaner bags. She knew it was going to be a long night, and all she had to do was avoid her father for the rest of it. No one was surprised to see her drifting from place to place. She let herself into the first aid station, knowing they had a bed and an exam table; with luck, she could spend the rest of the night there. It was after midnight when one of the room service cooks came in for some burn medicine and was surprised to see her there.
“What are you doing here?” she asked with a look of surprise to see Heloise lying on the exam table half asleep. She was listening to her iPod in the dark, and both of them were startled as she leaped to her feet.
“I’m playing hide and seek with a friend,” Heloise said nervously with a grin. “She’ll never find me here.”
“Are you up to mischief?” the cook asked her with a suspicious look.
“No. But please don’t tell my dad.”
“You’d better go back upstairs.” The room service cook was not one of Heloise’s closer friends and hadn’t worked at the hotel for long. Heloise went back up to the ballroom then, and everyone had gone. There were voluminous billowing satin curtains, and Heloise concealed herself behind them and tucked in for the rest of the night. All she had to do now was wake up in time to get Billy out of the hotel. And by sheer luck, the morning cleaning crew started vacuuming at six A.M. and woke her up. She came out from behind the curtains and went back to the second floor and knocked on Billy’s door. She could hear the TV on, and she spoke through the door and told him who she was.
He whispered through the door, “Is that you?”
“Yes,” she whispered back, and he let her in. He looked as though he had bathed, and he was clean shaven. His hair was combed, and he looked happy to see her. “Did you get some sleep?”
“Yeah, best night of my life.” There was an empty wine bottle next to the bed, from the minibar, but he didn’t seem drunk, and he was wide awake. He was used to getting up early to clear out of the door-ways where he lay.