“How can things work out if the guy's in Sweden?”
“It's a global romance, Eddie.” She pulled out her medical kit, extracted a couple of cough drops, and offered them through the gate. He shook his head and held up the coffee.
“I've got what I need. Watch out for that George, Tara girl.”
“You watch out for that cold.” She pocketed the cough drops he'd refused. Eddie was one independent man. “See you tomorrow.”
George gave Tara a warm greeting and held the door for her. He might frown and bristle if Eddie crossed the hotel's invisible outer border, but he was a great ambassador for the hotel to all its guests. It was a shame that two of her favorite men had no use for one another. You couldn't meet George without thinking you could rely on him, but he was haughtier than
Downton Abbey's
butler, Carson, and regarded Eddie as a fenced dog regards a passing squirrel. At some time she knew they had had words. Eddie was a man who would have no patience with George's claim to own the public street.
George held the door for her, and she passed into the hotel. Few rooms in San Francisco matched the high-ceilinged lobby of the Hotel Belmont for quiet, old-fashioned elegance and the feeling that one had entered a well-managed private home. The tall gilt-framed antique mirrors and curated California oil paintings on the pale yellow walls, the fresh flower arrangements that spilled from blue and white vases on polished antique tables, the rich carpets, and fabrics that muted the sound of the city outsideâall gave the room a feeling of old family wealth. Guests could gather in deep armchairs by the fireplace for coffee and pastries in the morning, or enjoy wine and cheese and bay views in the afternoon. And the place offered free Wi-Fi. Tara felt the Belmont offered visitors the best of old San Francisco's stateliness with a good dose of convenience as a bonus. As she crossed the lobby, she waved at Jennifer at the reception desk then shifted direction as Hadley Stewart signaled her from the concierge desk.
Hadley had the phone to her ear, her hand across the receiver. “What's the number of that 24-hour pharmacy you like? The guest in 403 left his meds behind.”
Tara set down her bag, reached for a hotel notepad, and wrote the number.
Hadley mouthed a thank you as she punched the number into the phone. It was a small thing, but it was what Tara did, a hundred times a day, what she was good at. Helping Hadley help a guest made Tara feel her day was back on track. She crossed to the elevator alcove and the staff room door.
In the staff room she put her bag in her locker and clipped her Belmont badge to her jacket lapel. While the brand managers of the Dorset Hotel Group liked most of the employees in uniform, the dress code for the concierge staff specified business chic. For Tara that meant gray suits, dressy sweaters, heels, and pearls. Once she was ready for work, Tara reached for the
life-changing
mystery box. She had it in her hand when her boss, the general manager, Arturo Villanova, and her fellow staff members entered. She dropped the box back in her pocket and took her place at the table.
Arturo held a regular Thursday meeting to outline staff coverage for the weekend's events and to identify any special attention that particular clients required. The Belmont drew quite a few repeat guests, whose needs were well known. For the most part the staff who reported directly to Arturo made an experienced crew that worked well together. Jennifer managed the reception desk, Hadley headed housekeeping, Josephine Miles was the chef, and Noah Tibbs was in charge of valet parking and bellmen. Security was another matter. The Belmont relied on a group of four taciturn hulks, who had the social graces of San Francisco's own Dirty Harry. Everyone had been trained to call them for situations that required muscle rather than courtesy and graciousness, but they didn't attend staff meetings, and no one hung out with them. Tara had never called them.
 “On your toes everyone.” Arturo plugged in his tablet and flicked on the screen that laid out the weekend's staffing details. He turned, paused, and glanced around the room at his theatrical best. “Why do people come to San Francisco?”
In unison they groaned the expected answer to that very rhetorical question, “Romance.”
“So at the Belmont we give them romance.” There was the smallest hint of Arturo's native Spain in his raspy smoker's voice, and Tara thought he would make a good Gypsy King. Arturo had a following in the business because he set the highest standard of hospitality. He would spare no effort to improve a guest's stay. He instilled pride in everyone at the Belmont.
He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Even though this is low season, at the Belmont we have a busy weekend aheadâtwo anniversaries, one honeymoon, one rehearsal dinner, and oneâmarriage proposal party.” His tone implied that other, lesser hotels deserved to be empty. He turned to the screen with its calendar of room occupancy and staffing needs by date.
In spite of Arturo's obvious satisfaction with their success, Tara found herself fading in and out of attention. She knew just which junior suite he had set aside for the couple celebrating their fiftieth anniversary as well as the deluxe room where he would put the newlyweds. Her left hand in her suit jacket pocket encountered the worn little box, and its scuffed surface reminded her of the mystery woman's words. She was replaying those words in her mind when Arturo made a dramatic pause.
“Now, listen up children, timing is everything on Saturday. Our groom-to-be wants uninterrupted privacy for his evening marriage proposal moment.” With his next breath, Arturo mentioned a name that got Tara's full attention. She nearly came out of her seat.
“Wait. Who's proposing to whom?”
Arturo frowned at Tara's interruption. Hadley gave her a nudge to suggest caution. One didn't interrupt Arturo.
 “Daniel Lynch.”
Noah chimed in. “The boy billionaire of Warp Speed Capital. He's proposing to the banking heiress, Nicola Solari, the one that looks like Scarlett Johansson.”
Tara knew that her jaw had not literally dropped, but she could feel her slight double chin. She wouldn't catch stray insects, but she probably looked stunned. Her ex-boyfriend was coming to the Hotel Belmont to propose to a woman who appeared in the society pages of every publication in the city. No charity event happened without her fashionable presence. Tara was no hockey fan, but that her ex-boyfriend Daniel was bringing Nicola Solari to the Belmont to receive his proposal counted as a full-body check.
Stunned, unable to hear Arturo through the buzz in her mind, Tara felt the strongest urge to jump up from the table, grab her bag, and run. It made no sense. She ought not to care. She did not love Daniel, so what was this feeling of devastation about? She would figure it out later. Right now she needed to focus, stay in her chair, and behave like a professional. She pulled the little box from her pocket, folded her hands around it in her lap, and held on.
As Arturo went on filling in the details of Daniel's extravagant proposal plans, Tara's mind began to throw up explanations for her distress. Maybe it was simply that Daniel's plans emphasized her lack of plans. Somehow Daniel had moved on while Tara had become stuck. She had not been paying attention, or she would have noticed Daniel appearing as Nicola's escort in the society pages. Now Daniel was proposing to a woman who was rich, thin, and beautiful, while she, Tara, was saving her pennies, dating an imaginary boyfriend, and dressing to minimize the effects of her love affair with salted chocolate gelato and a certain North Beach arugula-topped pizza. When was the last time she had gone running? She would have to start again.
Arturo explained how Daniel had arranged to take over the hotel on Saturday evening for the proposal and for a party of his friends and family. It seemed odd to her that Daniel would pick the Belmont for his proposal scene. Of course, he didn't know where she worked. They had not kept in touch. They had not even kept the friends they'd once shared, but if he wanted to impress Nicola Solari, there were more extravagant venues.
The next few minutes passed in a blur until Hadley nudged her again. “Tara, Arturo wants to know who you have lined up to do the flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“For the proposal scene.”
She had been imagining how Justin would propose to her at the base of Coit Tower, looking out over the bay. It took a moment for her brain to catch up.
Daniel had apparently requested the Tower Room for its view of the slender white tower on top of Telegraph Hill. He wanted the room strewn with red rose petals. He wanted champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries and a photographer to capture every moment. He wanted a string quartet to play. In short he wanted a perfect cliché. Weeks earlier, before she had connected those requests with a specific client, she had ordered exactly what the client wanted. Now, however, something teased her memory. She had seen plenty of images of Nicola, and Daniel's generic romance choices did not seem right.
“Does Nicola have a favorite flower?”
Arturo nodded as if she were a bright pupil. “Thank you, Tara. Call Mr. Lynch, will you?”
Tara made a note.
Call ex.
She could imagine how that conversation would go. She and Daniel had practically invented the IDO/NOWIDON'T romance. When they'd moved in together, she had started imagining Daniel's proposal, picking sites and times, always ready to look her most radiant. Daniel had focused on furnishing their apartment. He left the day the design store delivered the last piece they'd selected as a perfect fit for their odd-shaped living room. He left her with a huge rent, a camel-colored leather sectional, and a collection of matching all-clad cookware. In the end she had sublet the apartment and sold the furniture on Craig's List. She had dated persistently and unsuccessfully for eight months, and then one day, she just couldn't do it any more, and invented Justin.
Can't find the perfect boyfriend? Invent him.
She had made Justin Daniel's opposite. He was indifferent to home furnishings, he preferred going out to cooking gourmet meals, and he would never break up with her.
When she looked back on her time with Daniel, she could see that she stuck with him out of her own fears rather than out of genuine admiration for his sterling qualities. When they'd met in those first days of college, she had been daunted by U C Berkeley's vast campus, endless course offerings, and hordes of students, and had appreciated Daniel's confidence in navigating the bewildering new experience. He was a planner and a tech whiz. He knew how to get a jump on housing or courses or events. He had strategies for the best place to sit in class, the best places to work on campus, the best ways to get across campus. She had envied his skill and worked to hone her own planning abilities. Only later did she understand that all Daniel's strategies were about Daniel needing to be first in whatever he tried.
As Arturo wrapped up the meeting, reviewing their assigned tasks, Jennifer pushed a note across the table in front of Tara.
Cough drop?
Tara nodded. She realized she was still clutching the mystery box and put it back in her pocket. Under the table she passed Jennifer the cough drops Eddie had rejected. Jennifer mouthed a thank you, unwrapped a drop, and popped it in her mouth while Arturo looked the other way. She had been quick, but not quick enough. Arturo's ears caught the rustle of the wrapper, and he frowned at all of them. “Everyone's had a flu shot, right?” he asked.
They all nodded. Arturo had a horror of illness. No one came to work with even a sniffle at the Belmont. As they waited for his signal that the meeting was at an end, Arturo held them in place a moment longer with his stare.
“I don't need to tell you that we have a unique opportunity to begin a connection with two of the most prominent families in the city. If we want them to think of the Belmont as their home in the city, everything must be perfect this weekend.”
He turned to Tara.
“One more thing. Ms. Keegan, I need you to tell me where your friend our neighborhood homeless man is camping out these days.”
“You mean Eddie?” Tara was shocked. “But he never bothers the hotel's guests.”
“Nevertheless, he needs to disappear, so to speak.”
She met his gaze as squarely as she could. “You don't think I can tell you where he sleeps.”
“Oh, I know you can, and the hotel expects you to recognize where your loyalty lies in this case. Just let security know, and they'll take care of it.”
Tara didn't move. The last thing she would do was to put security onto Eddie. Even the cops would be kinder. The police did sweeps of certain neighborhoods, and San Francisco had special cleaning teams that rousted homeless people from the alleys around Market Street in the wee hours in order to clean up the ugly side of street life. She had never seen such a team in their neighborhood, nor did Eddie leave trash behind, but Eddie had a thing about authority, and there was no question that the hotel security team would be ruthless.
Tara resolved to avoid security, at least until she could warn Eddie.
The door closed behind Arturo, and she went straight for her bag. She didn't know what she was looking for. Her hands shook until she finally upended her bag. Her tidy kits came spilling out, but she could see nothing likely to help the your-ex-is-getting-engaged situation. She didn't need a Band-Aid or a phone charger or spot remover. She needed... What did she need?
She stood with her empty bag clutched to her chest, looking down at the items on the tableâher kits for make up, and toiletries and hygiene needs, her wallet with IDs and credit cards, her business cards. Her water bottle, her dark chocolate, her grandmother's house keys, her music, an extra pair of flats, a zip drive, a phone charger, a pink jeweled LED flashlight, her chopsticks and measuring tape, and her pocket knife with all its tools. She had that feeling of an impending disaster for which the jumble on the table would be useless.