Hotelles (11 page)

I wake up just as we are about to come in unison. In my state of half-sleep, I imagine him leaving without asking questions or revealing his identity.

 

Anonymous handwritten note, 6/6/2009—I've never had that dream, but my God . . . I've already experienced that scene!

 

I WAS REFLECTING ON SOPHIA'S
dance, when a red light on the booth's ceiling started flashing. I guess it was the final count.

Ten, nine, eight . . .

Sophia turned to face me and pressed her ass up to the glass in front of the anonymous client; she closed her eyes and inserted her middle finger into her vagina as she pushed the invisible string of her underwear to the side. With her finger, she was simulating the penetration of a very different member, first slowly, then with increasing speed.

. . .
seven, six, five . . .

Was that in her contract? She had to finger herself vigorously, as though she were trying to make herself come, as opposed to the customer.

. . .
four, three, two . . .

She really seemed to be enjoying herself, but I had a hard time seeing her in such a degrading position. What a game of fools: a few euros for an unsatisfying fantasy. She batted her eyelashes in spite of herself. Was she really about to come, right there, a few paces from me, for that loser behind the glass?

. . .
one, zero.

The room was suddenly plunged into darkness. Instinctually, I ran toward the exit as I heard her behind the chipped red door collecting the clothing she'd removed during the show.

 

SHE MET ME OUTSIDE, NEAR
the bouncer.

“Don't tell me you liked that or I'll start to worry . . . but then again don't tell me you didn't or I'll strangle you!” she cried, shaking me affectionately.

I had never dared ask, but I was fairly sure that her collection of lovers had included women. Who were they? What did they look like?

“I didn't say anything!” I laughed.

The early afternoon sun was inviting. I wanted to go for a walk, in spite of all the shopping bags weighing me down. I had two full hours before my interview, and it would only take me about thirty minutes by metro to get to the studio in Levallois-Perret. Sophia's heady perfume, a blend of floral notes and patchouli, was in contest with the enormous, steaming kebab sandwich she'd gotten as we were walking. She may have been eating like a trucker wolfing something down on the side of the road, but men still stared. She effortlessly exuded sexual availability and always drew a lot of male attention. She barely even realized it.

When she'd finished her snack, we sat down at a table in the sun in Place des Abbesses and sipped Monacos, her favorite beverage. Perhaps I was feeling a little tipsy: I didn't waste any time in telling her about my unfortunate meeting the night before.

“That's crazy! You
have
to tell David!”

“Tell him what, exactly? That his brother treated me like a princess for about ten minutes and like a tart the rest of the night? And why, you might ask? Oh, wait, I know: because I
am
a tart!”

Two yuppie men drinking beers and scoping their next conquests from a neighboring table looked at us with lewd intent.

“Elle, he set a trap for you behind his brother's back. You can't just let this go!”

“David could learn a lot about me, Soph . . . For now, he accepts me for who I am, even though I'm about ten rungs down the social ladder from him. But he'd never be able to get over that part of my past. Can you imagine what the press would say? ‘David Barlet, CEO of the Barlet Group, marries a call girl.' ”

“Fucking shit, Elle, you're not a call girl . . . You're an escort, it's totally different.”

More staring from our right.

“Oh, yeah. Try and explain that to the paparazzi!”

She glared at the two oglers, then turned back to me with a smile on her face:

“Did I hear you correctly? Did you say ‘
marry
'?”

“Er, yeah.” I sighed. “It happened the night before last.”

“Ooh! No feeling sorry for yourself! One of the hottest, richest men in France wants to put a ring on it—on
you
. So be good and don't screw it all up at the last minute.”

My phone buzzed from my bag, cutting her off.

BDN, Urgent: Annabelle, are you available for a mission tonight at the Champs-Élysées theater, 8:30? The client will pay triple your usual rate since it's so last minute.

Please get back to me ASAP.

Sorry, no, other plans.

 

I replied without hesitating. Just as I was keeping David in the dark on my employment at Belles de Nuit, so had I hidden from Rebecca my recent engagement to the famous bachelor.

As for the identity of the person who had requested the surprise mission, I was sure it was none other than Louie Barlet. Who else? He had even told me last night: “See you tomorrow.”

“There's one thing that bothers me in this story,” Sophia went on. “How did his brother know about you?”

“I don't know. I think he's a regular client at the agency. Considering the girl he left with at the gallery, I wouldn't be surprised.”

“Rebecca has literally hundreds of girls in her catalogue. It's kind of a big coincidence he happened to see you there.”

“David must have shown him a picture of me . . . ,” I speculated. “He must have spotted me while browsing the catalogue.”

My phone demanded my attention again.

You turned down three missions last month. You know the rule: one more and I'll fire you. Think about it.

I've thought about it.

Okay. Do you need a reminder of the amount of money I fronted you? You still owe me. Lest you've forgotten, YOU asked me to delay the reimbursement plan. And so long as you have not paid back every penny, you are bound by contract. I may be understanding, but my business is not a charity!

 

I had not forgotten. One thousand seven hundred fifty-five euros left to pay. My current savings could cover it, but then I'd have to forget about my present for David.

“Are you okay?” Sophia asked, worried.

“Yes, yes . . . Rebecca's just harassing me.”

“Tell that old harlot to shove it!” snorted my friend. “A little pocket money from your billionaire and you can tell her where to stick it.
Servant
.”

Scowling, she threw an invisible leash over an imaginary minion. My rebellion against Rebecca gave her an opportunity to free herself of her own enslaved condition, at least a little, the time to have a laugh.

“Millionaire, not billionaire,” I corrected.

“Yeah, but you should be able to more than cover your debts. Erase that bitch from your phone.”

I did as I was told and deleted Rebecca's text message. But no sooner had I done that than another popped up with a chime on my list of unread messages.

“God, the old hag is obsessed!” Sophia cried.

“Umm, no, it's not her . . . Shit.”

The polite, concise words on my screen were far more concerning than anything Rebecca Sibony had to say. Money would no longer be an issue in my life—a victory, considering the miserable cards I had been dealt at birth.

But you can't buy professional recognition.

“Who is it?”

“My interview . . . It's been cancelled. They hired somebody else. The weather girl.”

“That old cow?!”

“I know . . . But everybody already knows who she is.”

“Hmm . . . I don't understand why you want to work for those jerks in television anyway. I think you would be amazing at a magazine.”

“Let me remind you that my fiancé is practically the ‘jerk' in chief,” I retorted.

“Listen, I didn't even know you were getting married until about five minutes ago.”

Sophia tried to cheer me up. Somehow, though she had spent the better part of the day dancing faceless in front of a window, she still had energy to console me.

“At least you won't have to worry about being a Hotelle anymore.”

“A ho-what? Excuse me?”

“Rebecca never told you?”

“No . . .”

“Apparently, another girl named Elle used to work for her. She got pretty well known for ending all of her missions in a hotel room. And, you know, ‘hot' plus ‘Elle' equals ‘Hotelle.' Not bad, right? I guess it stuck.”

The other girl may have been named Elle, but she sounded a lot like Sophia. A girl who sparked male desire during the day from her booth and put it out at night in a hotel room for a fee.

“I had no idea Rebecca was so creative,” I joked.

“Anyway, for you, that's all finished.”

I wish I could have been more sure. I had really wanted the interview to go well so that I could close the door to the Josephine—and all the other rooms in the Hôtel des Charmes—once and for all. To be simply Annabelle. Not a “Hotelle.”

“Do you mind if I call David?”

“No, go ahead. Do you want me to go?”

“No, stay.”

I patted her tan forearm for emphasis. The summer had given her a really beautiful glow  . . .

“Let me guess, your media mogul is really busy, right?” she said as I hung up from our brief exchange.

“During the day, yeah. But that's what is so weird . . . He wants me to meet him at his office.”

“Now?”

“Yes, right away. He's waiting for me.”

“Maybe he's throwing you a press conference: ‘Annabelle Lorand, you plan to marry David Barlet, and you're also a call girl . . . Is it difficult to straddle such vastly different worlds?' ”

“Don't be ridiculous!”

 

I QUICKLY SAID GOOD-BYE AND,
being weighed down by my purchases, hopped in a cab for Porte de Sèvres on the city limits. I had never been inside Barlet Tower before. The tall, scintillating structure dominates Paris's southern skyline, and is a stark contrast to David's taste for old buildings in his private life. Up close, it was even more chilling. I entered the main hall with its dizzyingly high ceilings.

“Mademoiselle Lorand?”

A petite, plump blonde, whose braided bun accentuated her kind of equestrian look, approached me as soon as I set foot inside. No doubt she had been waiting for me.

“I'm Chloe. Monsieur Barlet asked me to take you to his office. Would you please follow me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Actually,” she corrected herself as though her life depended on it, “he'll meet you in the conference room. He's with someone in his office right now.”

“Okay.”

I felt as if I had walked into a machine that was much bigger than me, and in which Chloe was probably only a minor cog and, as such, no doubt under a lot of pressure. In the time it took us to get from the elevator to the transparent door where she left me, Chloe looked at her watch at least a dozen times.

“Would you care for some coffee? Tea? Water? A cold beverage?”

“No, I'm fine. Nothing, thank you.”

“Okay. Monsieur Barlet will join you in less than”—she checked her watch one last time—“three minutes. Four max.”

“Perfect,” I said, almost laughing.

But I stopped myself, trying to imagine this poor girl's life, in which every meeting was calibrated to the second. I realized it was like that for the man I was about to marry, too.

I sat down in one of the shiny new leather chairs on wheels and flipped through an economic journal that was sitting on a corner of the table. A shadow appeared behind the frosted window. I smelled his cologne, that unmistakable blend of lavender and vanilla, before I realized it was him. My nose was just beginning to register the scent when a voice at the doorway seized my attention:

“Elle! Here and in person! What an honor!”

Louie Barlet was pressing his hands into the knob of his cane and looking at me intently. His suit was just as close-fitting and elegant as the one he'd worn the night before. My chest seized, and my breath grew short. I must have resembled a dead fish, or some other such unappealing creature, because his smile grew wider and his usual look of disdain disappeared. Instead, he put on the affable expression he'd had on when we'd first met.

Could I trust his good-natured appearance? Had he tracked me here after I'd refused Rebecca's request to meet him tonight?

I walked over decisively and planted myself so close to him he couldn't escape my questions.

“What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?”

Apparently, he was enjoying this uncomfortable and almost laughable situation. His presence, which seemed even less called for here than at the gallery the night before, infuriated me. And yet he acted so intently self-assured, as though each one of his cells knew it had a legitimate reason to be here.

“I think I was clear when I said no,” I railed. “I am not available tonight. Nor any night, for that matter.”

“But I understood that from the start.”

At least he was admitting to being behind my latest invitation. I was steaming, and had to resist the impulse to wring his neck or unbalance his bad knee.

“So . . . So why did you follow me here?”

“I did not follow you, I promise.”

“Liar!” I boomed. I was having difficulty controlling my anger.

“Calm down. Chloe just told me you were he—”

“There you are, you two!”

David's cheerful voice sauntered into my bubble of anger, which instantly popped, leaving his arms to wrap me in measured warmth.

“At last you meet. I'm delighted.”

Everything was “splendid” or “delightful” for David. If he wasn't using overly enthusiastic adjectives, it was probably because he found the situation mediocre or, rather, terrible. In this moment, he seemed sincerely happy to see the two of us together.