Hotel Vendome

Chapter 6

HELOISE BEGAN HER senior year at the Lycée with more self-assurance than she’d ever had before. She knew what she wanted to do now, and had established clear goals. She sent her application to the École Hôtelière de Lausanne in October.

She told Mrs. Van Damme about it when she did. Her old dog Julius had died several years before and had been replaced with a white female Pekingese named Maude. Mrs. Van Damme emphatically approved of Heloise’s idea of going to hotel school since it was what she loved. Her grandson Clayton was at Yale and wanted to study photography eventually, which Heloise knew from talking to him that summer, and his grandmother was encouraging him to pursue his dream too. She said that in the end it was all one had, and turning those dreams into reality was the only worthwhile path. Heloise liked hearing from Clayton but hadn’t seen him for several months. She had been too busy since the summer, and he was enjoying his freshman year in college and seldom came to New York. But he called Heloise from time to time and said he liked Yale but was thinking of transfering to Brown, where he could study photography.

The elderly doyenne seemed to be failing in the past year. Heloise worried about her and always promised herself she’d visit her more often, but she was particularly busy with school-related activities, and it was her last year at home, if she got into the hotel school in Lausanne, as she hoped.

Over Thanksgiving Mrs. Van Damme got ill. She caught a nasty cold that turned into bronchitis, and to pneumonia after that. Hugues stopped in to check on her daily. And Heloise came in to see her religiously every day after school, and brought her little vases of flowers that Jan made for her. Her son came to visit her from Boston, and after consultation with her doctor, they put her in the hospital. She left the hotel by ambulance. And Heloise kissed her goodbye and promised to take care of her dog. Hugues and Heloise visited her and brought her a big bouquet of flowers. But Mrs. Van Damme seemed less and less interested as the days went by, and a week before Christmas, she quietly slipped away in the night. She was eighty-nine years old and the only grandmother figure that Heloise had ever had. All her real grandparents had died before she was born. And she mourned the loss of the elderly lady who had been kind to her all her life. And she was grateful when her son allowed her to keep Maude.

They went to her funeral at St. Thomas, and many of the hotel employees attended as well. Hugues asked Jennifer to arrange for a van to get them all there, there were so many. Even Mike the engineer went, wearing a dark suit. So did Ernesta, Bruce, Jan, several of the maids, an elevator man, two bellmen, Jennifer, Heloise, and Hugues.

Heloise saw Clayton there with his parents, but they barely had time to say hello as they left the church. He looked as bereft as she felt. And living in the same hotel with her, Heloise had had the chance to see her more often, and perhaps know her better, than her own grandson, who didn’t see her often and rarely came to New York. It was a somber day for Hugues and Heloise, and put a damper on Christmas for them.

It was a busy season at the hotel, and Heloise had already tried to implement some of the things she had seen in Paris. Jan was trying to do their flowers for the lobby now like Jeff Leatham at the Georges V, from photographs Heloise had taken there. And she had added many things to their brunch menu that she had noticed at the Ritz. People were already commenting on how spectacular the flowers were, and how great the brunch. Hugues was proud of her and she was pleased. And she was applying what she had learned in Bordeaux to the wines she selected from their cellars. And as soon as she’d gotten back after the summer, she went back to work organizing their donations to the food bank, and working downtown at the soup kitchen and family shelter once or twice a week. Hugues was very impressed.

But the high point for Heloise came in January, when the École Hôtelière 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 Vendôme 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 Vendôme. 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 passé 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 École Hôtelière, 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.”

He liked the sound of that. It was far less expensive than the suggestion of the other decorator, who wanted to throw everything out. And they had beautiful things in the rooms now. They just needed some freshening up and new touches. He liked the way this woman thought. And he also liked the idea of trying her out on one suite instead of plunging ahead with four. And despite her reputation, because she was considerably younger than the first one, she was willing to make adjustments on fees and price, and she had more time, although she had a considerably smaller staff and did most of the work herself. She said she had two assistants and a design assistant, so she kept her overhead low. The other woman had a twelve-man office with three young designers working for her, and a color consultant on staff. When Hugues asked, Natalie said she did all the color work herself, and her clients had been happy with it so far. He had heard good things about the hotel she’d done in Washington, and he asked her to give him an estimate for the first suite if he decided to move ahead. She promised to have it on his desk within a week. She seemed hungry for the job, and he liked that about her too. She was matter of fact and down to earth and didn’t put on airs. She stood up then and thanked him for the meeting, and said she didn’t want to take more of his time. And they had already arranged for Jennifer to show her the suite before she left.

“I’ll try to get the estimate to you this week. And if you decide to do the project with my office, I have some free time at the moment while another client is still building her house, and I think we could get off to a pretty rapid start, since there’s no construction involved. But I work with a great architect if you ever decide to go in that direction.”

He had actually enjoyed the meeting and smiled as he shook her hand and then walked her to the door. Jennifer was waiting to take her upstairs and was back twenty minutes later, looking pleased.

“I like her,” Jennifer volunteered before he asked her, after the decorator left. “She seems sensible, energetic, and young.” She was old enough to have experience, but young enough to be flexible and not too set in her ways.

“So do I,” Hugues admitted. “I think Heloise would love everything she said and would enjoy working with her. And she wants to use the furniture we’ve got. That’s a big plus.”

“Did you hire her?” Jennifer was happy to see him smiling again and in a better mood. He was excited about doing something that would make his daughter happy when she got home.

“Not yet. She said she’d send me an estimate this week. But she came very well prepared.” He had been favorably impressed.

And true to her word, Natalie had the estimate on his desk in three days. Her price was reasonable for the design work and to oversee the project, and the costs were going to be even more reasonable since she had suggested they use the painters he had on staff at the hotel.

“What do you think?” Jennifer asked him after he’d read it, and he was smiling again.

“If she sticks to it, the estimate is great.” He was about to tell Jennifer to call her, and then decided to do it himself. Natalie was quick to come on the line. She sounded like an upbeat, happy person, and he liked that about her too.

“It’s a deal,” he said simply. “I like your estimate. When can you start?”

“How about next week?” It was going to be a scramble for her, but she wanted to impress him so she’d get the other three suites to do after this. “We’ll get started. I’ll work on fabric samples and color swatches this week.” She suggested doing the bedroom in pale yellows, and the living room in warm shades of beige and taupe, if that appealed to him. He liked that, and she suggested a meeting on Monday morning, unless he had time over the weekend.

“There are no weekends in my life anymore,” he explained, especially now that Heloise was gone. When she was at home, he would take breaks occasionally to spend time and do things with her, but now he worked seven days a week. There was always something for him to do in the hotel.

“There aren’t in my life either,” Natalie said simply. “That’s the advantage of not having kids.” Or a husband, she almost added and then didn’t. She had never married but had lived with a man for eight years, until he ran off with her best friend three years before. Since then she had done nothing but work, and she didn’t regret it. Her business had been booming ever since, and she thought that getting a sample suite to decorate at the illustrious Hotel Vendôme was a major coup. “How about Sunday afternoon? I just don’t want to come too late. I’d like to show you the samples in the room, while it’s still light. They have to work in electric light too without washing out, but you’ll get a truer sense of the palette if we look at them in daylight first.” She was very professional with him.

“Why don’t you come for brunch? We do a very decent brunch here. Particularly since my daughter changed the menu. We can go up to the room to look at the fabrics after we eat.” It sounded sensible to him and he liked talking to her. And Sundays were never as hectic for him as the rest of the week.

“That sounds great. Thanks very much. What time?”

“Meet me downstairs at eleven. I don’t want to take up your whole afternoon,” Hugues said pleasantly.

“Thanks again.” They both hung up then, and Natalie let out a whoop of glee and shared the good news with her assistants. “We got the job!” she shouted, and they echoed her delight. “We’re going to have to work our asses off to do this quickly. I really want to get the other three suites. And maybe the presidential suite after that. So let’s not drag our feet on this one. I only want to show him fabrics that we can get quickly. No fourteen-week back-stock orders, and nothing that’s been discontinued or has to be woven especially for us.”

“Got it,” Pam, her main assistant, said, and Natalie said she’d go to market herself to look for fabrics for the next two days. She wanted to see if she could find some new paintings for the rooms too, without destroying their budget. But she had some great resources for art and asked her second assistant, Ingrid, to check that out. She wanted to show him as much as she could on Sunday. And she wanted to get started soon.

The rest of the week was crazed for her. They had several other jobs they were working on, and she had Jim, her design assistant, tackle them, while she went out looking for fabrics and ideas for Hugues.

When Natalie arrived at the hotel at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, she was carrying two enormous canvas bags of fabric samples, and several boards with paint samples that she had had mixed for him. Hugues came out of his office and suggested she leave them at the front desk, as they headed toward the dining room. A bellman took both bags from her. She was wearing a white Chanel jacket and jeans with sexy high heels. But everything about her shrieked “respectable” and “attractive.” She had long straight blond hair she wore pulled back and looked like a young Grace Kelly, and he noticed that she wore pearls at her neck and on her ears. There was nothing showy about her. She gave off an aura of competence and good taste. She was carrying a Kelly bag in a neutral cashew color, with an Hermès scarf tied to the handle. He liked walking into the restaurant with her, and she complimented him on the handsome decor of the room, which worked very well and was at the same time cozy and chic. It had long since become one of the most popular restaurants in New York, noted for its great food, fine wines, and casually elegant atmosphere.

They chatted about work and travel over brunch, which Natalie commented was excellent. She told him she had lived in London for four years, and then come back to New York.

“Do you miss living in Europe?” she asked him. He was still very European, in his manners and his dress, and the hotel had a decidedly European feeling to it, and in the way it was run. It was one of the things their guests loved most.

“Not really. This is home now. I’ve lived here for almost twenty years. I just hope my daughter doesn’t decide she wants to live in Europe after going to school in Lausanne.”

“I doubt it. It would be hard to give up all this, and an adoring father. I’m sure she’ll want to come back when she finishes school.” Natalie smiled at him warmly.

“You never know. She’s only nineteen. She’ll have fun there at her age.” She was already looking forward to skiing in the Alps and had been e-mailing him about it.

Natalie talked about some of her ideas for the rooms then, and she was anxious to show him what she’d brought. As soon as they finished lunch, she retrieved her bags from the front desk, and he grabbed a key and took her upstairs. She liked what she saw in the room. It was even prettier than she remembered, and the first thing she suggested was moving some of the furniture around, to give it a feeling of more space. She took one piece into the bedroom and suggested they get new lamps. He had never liked the ones they had, so he was pleased. She propped the paint samples against the walls then, and spread the fabrics around in groups and explained how she would use them.

Just looking at what she had chosen brought the room to life. There were warm taupes and dove grays, an ivory color, and a few dusty soft blues. It all worked together beautifully, and one by one they eliminated the fabrics he liked less. She suggested a new rug, and he agreed, and he liked her ideas for the window treatment, and the right wall color jumped out at both of them immediately, and she was going to trim some of the moldings in the living room in taupe. He loved what she suggested and how she did it.

She put what they had selected in one bag, and everything they had rejected in a stack on the couch, and then they walked into the bedroom and did it all again. The yellows she had selected were absolutely perfect in the room. In less than two hours they had made all the important decisions, and she promised to order everything in the coming week. And then they sat down in the living room, and she showed him photographs of the paintings that she liked. There were two that he approved immediately, and he was impressed by how reasonable they were. He thought she was a genius at what she did.

At three o’clock they were back in the lobby, and they were both excited by what they’d accomplished in a short time. One of her big bags was full of the samples of everything she was going to order, and the other was full of what he didn’t want, although he had liked some of that too, but not as much as the rest. She had given him great choices, and he liked the prices of the fabrics she wanted to use. She had stayed away from expensive brocades and velvets and had stuck with sturdy fabrics that would hold up to constant use.

“It was great,” he said as he smiled at her. “You made it fun. I wish my daughter were here.”

“We’re going to knock her socks off with a fabulous new suite when she comes home,” Natalie promised, and she could hardly wait to start. She wanted to knock his socks off too, since he was paying the bill.

He thanked her again and walked her outside. The doorman hailed her a taxi and put her bags in it for her, as Natalie shook Hugues’s hand and smiled at him.

“Thanks for brunch and a terrific afternoon,” she said warmly.

“Thank you for a beautiful new suite.” He returned the smile as she got into the cab, and he waved as they drove off, and then he walked back into the hotel with a happy expression on his face, and a spring in his step. He hadn’t had this much fun since Heloise left for Lausanne. The concierge nodded at him as he walked by, wondering who the pretty woman was. He hadn’t seen Hugues look that peaceful and relaxed in years.