Hotel Vendome (12 page)

But the high point for Heloise came in January, when the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne accepted her for the fall. She hadn’t applied to a single other college. And she was ecstatic when she got their letter. It was exactly what she wanted, and it was her dream. She called all her friends at school to tell them, none of whom knew what colleges they were going to yet and wouldn’t know till March. She was all set.

The months after that flew by, with the usual activities at the hotel, important guests, VIPs, foreign dignitaries, famous movie stars, and politicians. Her father narrowly averted a strike by the kitchen staff. Some employees quit or retired, and new ones were added. She rarely had time to stop and peek in at the wedding receptions. And she spent every weekend working at the front desk, for experience and practice. And everything he saw her do had a bittersweet quality for Hugues, knowing that she was leaving in a few months, even if it was only for a year or two. He was hoping that she would do her year of internship for her degree at their hotel, but Heloise wasn’t sure. She was thinking of trying her wings at another hotel, possibly in Europe, before she came back to the Vendome for good.

Hugues was sad about her leaving to go to school in Europe and said so to Jennifer, but she thought it would do him good. It was time for both of them to cut the cord. And she knew it would be hard because they were so extremely close.

Heloise went out with some of the boys from her class that spring, but she had no serious romance. Her whole focus now was on leaving and starting school in Lausanne. It was all she thought or talked about. And Hugues planned a trip around Europe with her for the month before he dropped her off at school in Lausanne. It was going to be the first real vacation he had taken in years. And Jennifer made all the arrangements for him. They were planning a few days at the Hotel du Cap/Eden Roc at Cap d’Antibes. From there they were driving to the Splendido in Portofino, flying to Sardinia, and then to Rome. They were going to drive north then to Florence and Venice and eventually wind up in Lausanne. And they were both looking forward to it.

Jennifer could only imagine how lonely he would be when he came back alone. She had gone through it herself when her kids left for college. She wisely suggested he take on a new project for the fall. Heloise seconded the idea and convinced her father to redo some of the bigger suites, to keep them fresh and new, especially the presidential and penthouse suites. The hotel was now fourteen years old, and it was time. They had done small repairs on an ongoing basis to keep things in good condition, but Heloise suggested new colors, new fabrics, and a fresh decor in their big suites. They agreed that he’d need a decorator, and Jennifer got a list of names. There were four, three women and a man, and Hugues agreed to meet them when he came back at the end of August, after dropping Heloise off in Lausanne. She and Jennifer agreed that it was just what Hugues would need to keep him even busier and distracted without her.

The trip that they took in Italy and France was the most exciting of Heloise’s life, and they had a wonderful time. They stayed at the best hotels in each location, ate fabulous food, admired the virtues and details of each hotel, and decided to borrow a few. It was a terrific trip for both of them, and Hugues’s heart was heavy when they got to Lausanne and checked into the Beau Rivage Palace, where he had done an internship himself when he was young. Being there was a trip back in time for him. It reminded him of his parents and how strenuously they had objected to his attending the venerable school that Heloise was about to start. And no matter how sad he was to see her leave, he had to smile in spite of himself when he saw how happy she was, how excited to be starting classes, and learn everything she could before coming to work at the hotel with him. It touched his heart.

The school itself was as beautiful as he remembered, with spacious modern buildings, neat walkways, handsome trees, and well-kept lawns. There were housekeeping services for the students, and phones in nearly every room, along with Internet access everywhere. The school was impeccably run. They even gave each student their own computer, which they would take with them when they left.

Heloise was required to take two of the eighteen sports they offered, and signed up for swimming and modern dance. They wanted to encourage healthy bodies and minds and expected them to work hard.

There was an excellent library, state-of-the-art kitchens, and several restaurants on campus, which the locals loved coming to. They offered courses in oenology, to learn about wine, which Heloise signed up for, after getting interested in it in Bordeaux. And there were two bars run by the students, which were full every night.

Heloise signed up for the Management of Hotel Operations Programme and would be taking classes in English and French. There were fifty students in her section, and another hundred and thirty in the longer program, representing eighty-five nationalities combined, equally divided between men and women. There was no question in Hugues’s mind, or Heloise’s, that she would have a wonderful time there, and learn everything she needed to know. But it made his heart ache to let her go.

The chill of fall was already in the air in late August, and the forests and mountains around the school were beautiful. It all reminded him so much of his youth. He had taken her to Geneva for a day as well. It was only an hour from the campus, and he had shown her where he and his parents lived when he was a child. This trip was a pilgrimage of sorts for him.

They both cried when he left her in her studio room. Heloise looked as sad as he did the day he left, but an hour later she was unpacking, and a flock of young people invited her out to dinner, and by that night she had half a dozen new friends. Hugues was on the plane to New York by then, looking out the window and wondering what he would do without her in New York. It made him miss her even more to see the dog when he got home. She looked at him expectantly, as though wondering where Heloise was. He unpacked that night and was in his office the next morning at six. Jennifer was surprised to see him there, with a stack of finished work piled up beside him, when she came in at eight.

“What are you doing here at this hour? Jet lag?” she asked, pouring him a cup of coffee and setting it on his desk.

“Probably,” he conceded. “The apartment is so quiet without her, I couldn’t stand it, so I came down here to work since I was awake.”

“Do you remember what we promised Heloise we’d do today?” she asked him in a maternal tone. He was suffering severely from empty-nest syndrome. Having been both mother and father to his only child, losing her to a school three thousand miles away was a big adjustment, and a hard one, just as they all had known it would be.

“What was I supposed to do today?” He looked blank.

“Pick a decorator, so you can start doing the remodel on the suites on the ninth and tenth floors.” She handed him the list again, and he looked bored.

“Do I have to? I don’t have time to think about it. The union is threatening a strike.”

“That’s why you need a decorator, so you can take care of things like that.”

“Heloise and I can pick fabrics when she gets home. It’s waited this long, it can wait another few months.” He tried to dodge her.

“No, it can’t. You promised your daughter, and I promised her I’d see to it that you pick one of the decorators and get started before she comes home.” He growled but looked at the several photographs of apartments and hotels his assistant handed him. One was too modern and too stark; the rooms done by the man were too ornate. All four interior designers were the most successful in New York. The last two both did work that seemed in keeping with the hotel, elegant and sophisticated without being overdone. “May I make appointments for you with both of them, so you can see which one you like? After that, they can submit designs and plans for the suites, and an estimate of cost.”

“Fine,” Hugues said, sounding irritated, and Jennifer was unimpressed. She and Heloise had agreed to follow it through whether he liked it or not. And for now, it was “not.” The last thing he wanted was a decorator following him around, waving swatches in his face and color charts. The whole project sounded like a nuisance to him, but it needed to be done to keep the hotel elegant and fresh.

Jennifer left the room with the sample photographs, and he went back to the work on his desk and forgot about it. He had a text message from Heloise that afternoon. She said she was running between classes and didn’t have time to talk, but everything was great. The obvious excitement in her text depressed him even more. He knew he was worrying unreasonably too. What if she found a job at another hotel, like the Ritz, and never came back? He was torturing himself with a thousand fears. He missed her terribly.

He was in a dark mood for several days and startled when Jennifer told him a week later that he had appointments with the two decorators back to back that afternoon.

“I don’t have time,” he growled at her, which was unlike him. But he had been short with her and everyone else since his daughter left. He was in pain. Jennifer knew it well and had gone through the same phenomenon when both her children left for college within a year of each other. Her job at the hotel had distracted her and made the process less painful. And she was committed to helping Hugues get through it too. He had been a good employer and a good friend over the years, and if she was able to get him to adjust to Heloise’s leaving for school in Switzerland, she was happy to help out. And the decorating project he had discussed with his daughter seemed like their best shot at it for now.

Despite a considerable amount of grousing and complaining, Hugues showed up in his office, five minutes before the first decorator was due to arrive, and shot his assistant a dark look. She had forced him to take the two meetings.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she smiled at him. “The suites on nine and ten will be even more gorgeous once you do it, and you can charge more for them. And if you don’t hire someone to do it, Heloise will kill us both when she gets back.”

“I know, I know,” he said, looking exhausted, and ten minutes later the first of the two decorators arrived. Her credentials were excellent. She had decorated some of the most important homes in New York, a hotel in San Francisco, two in Chicago, and one in New York, and all were of similar size and feeling as the Vendome. Hugues discussed the project with her for a few minutes and was instantly bored. She talked about fabrics, textures, window treatments, and paint tones in a way that put him to sleep. She was in her mid to late fifties, had a fleet of people working for her, and could easily have done the job, but nothing she said excited him. He had Jennifer take her upstairs to look at the four suites, and when she came back, she said he had to throw everything out. It was all dated and passe and yesterday’s news. She wanted to give the suites a whole new look. What she said sounded too extreme to him, and he suspected that the bill she would present would be too. He asked her to give him an estimate, understanding that the fabrics and furniture he chose would be a variable, but he wanted a range, and told her he’d get back to her after that. But nothing about his meeting with her had inspired him to give her the job. And he looked bored when Jennifer walked back in.

“I have a feeling she could wind up costing you a fortune,” Jennifer commented, and Hugues agreed.

“She wore me out just listening to her. If her decorating is as boring as she is, the suites will look worse than they do now,” and they didn’t look bad. Jennifer agreed with him, and twenty minutes later she escorted the second woman in. She was younger than the first one, looked quiet and conservative, and had a briefcase full of sketches, swatches, and suggestions for him. She had already looked at some of the suites online and had some interesting ideas that, much to his surprise, he actually liked. And she gave the project some energy and life.

Her name was Natalie Peterson, and she was best known for doing important homes in Southampton and Palm Beach, and a few in New York City, and she had done one small, elegant hotel in Washington, D.C. She was thirty-nine years old, so her list of accomplishments wasn’t as long as the previous woman’s, but she had won several awards for her design work. She was impressive in her presentation and delivery, and he liked her enthusiasm. She seemed vital and alive, and she had a twinkle in her eye.

“What made you want to undertake this project?” she asked him, which was an interesting question. “What’s your underlying goal? Keeping the hotel up to date, enhancing its reputation, charging more for the suites than you do now?”

“Keeping my daughter happy because she wants me to do it, and if I don’t start it before she comes home for Christmas, she’ll have my head.” Natalie laughed at the honest answer and smiled at him across the desk.

“She sounds like a young lady with a lot of influence on her father,” she said wisely.

“Absolutely. She’s been the woman in my life since she was four years old.” From what he said, Natalie wondered if he was widowed or divorced.

“She’s away at college?”

He nodded with a proud expression. “She’s at the Ecole Hoteliere, the school for hotelry in Lausanne. She just started a week ago. I was opposed to it, even though I went there myself.”

“You don’t like the school?” Natalie asked with interest. She was curious about him. He looked like a serious, successful man, and he was obviously crazy about his child.

“I don’t like having her so far away. And I didn’t want her in the hotel business, but she’s very determined. It’s going to be a long two years, waiting for her to come home, unless she does her internship in hospitality experience here at home. I can’t wait to have her back,” he said honestly with a wistful expression that touched her heart. He seemed very vulnerable when he said it. She had read his bio, and knew his experience and that he had just turned fifty-two. He looked younger than his years and was in great shape. “Do you have children?” he asked her then, and she smiled.

“No, I don’t. I’ve never been married. I’ve been too busy building my business, and now it feels a little late for that. And I won’t be home with sick kids or dealing with teenage crises instead of doing your job.” He laughed at what she said, and she seemed comfortable with who she was. “Your daughter seems like a good person to keep happy. Why don’t we start work on one of the suites and see how it goes? We might even get it finished before she comes home for Christmas, if we get decent delivery dates on the fabrics. And I like the furniture you have. I’d like to incorporate it in the new designs.”