Hotelles (8 page)

“No, not for now. But thank you for asking.”

He nodded courteously.

I felt guilty leaving her alone, and for taking the cat. But I was also relieved. I could not imagine blending her world with that of my future husband. Her refusal to come live with us seemed natural. That was how big of a difference existed between the two social worlds. In spite of how much he loved me, David would never accept my mother as she was. And despite our mother-daughter bond, she would never agree to live in this moneyed universe of power and artifice.

“Will she be leaving soon?”

David had offered something else that I could not refuse: he was paying for Mom's treatment in Los Angeles. Twenty-five thousand euros in cash. He and Maude hadn't even met yet.

“She's supposed to leave in less than a month. But I'm waiting for the clinic to confirm.”

“Good,” he said with sympathy in his voice.

“Actually, while I'm thinking of it: I need to give you my guest list.”

“Don't stress over it. Nothing is urgent. Besides, David always has me overestimate the number of guests.”

“Okay . . .”

“Good night, Mademoiselle.”

“Good night, Armand.”

My sleep was deep but disturbed by worry. When I awoke, David was gone. He'd left at dawn to attend to the thousands of obligations that filled his days. A surreal calm had settled over the old building, and morning rays bathed its rooms in light. I slipped into a robe and padded barefoot over the cool floor tiles. It was a daily pleasure. In the hall, the hourglass gleamed, thanks to Armand's nocturnal dusting.

I noticed that the butler had turned the timepiece. Probably at David's request. Sand was emptying from the top bulb into the bottom. A small mound had already begun to form. How many minutes or hours did it represent? And how many were left before the last grain fell?

I noticed a series of engraved inscriptions on the surface of the glass: a graduated scale, from one to fifteen. Minutes? Hours? . . . Days? Considering the slow rate at which the sand seemed to be accumulating at the bottom, I decided it must be the last of these three options. Fifteen days. Two weeks, grain by grain, before our wedding day. I had to smile at David's clever thoughtfulness. I wasn't the kind of girl who turned soft at the slightest romantic gesture . . . but, still, it was really sweet of him.

Only then did I notice a small robin's-egg-blue envelope lying on the ebony console table where Armand usually put David's personal mail. It looked like an announcement. Had Armand sent out the invitations without consulting me first? It was not addressed to anyone. I waited a moment before opening it. I thought about how in the past three months of living together, I had never seen David's handwriting. Text messages. E-mails. But I had never laid eyes on his penmanship. An absence that could have put him on my list of suspects in the notebook affair. But no! It couldn't be him!

I couldn't take it anymore. With racing heart, I caved. I lifted the flap and withdrew a folded piece of paper. A perforated page resembling those I'd been receiving for the past several weeks . . . and yet the first to arrive at my new address. So my nutcase had found me.

The words on the page were familiar. So familiar that I felt the room begin to sway around me:

That's not how he's going to make you come undone, miss.

8

June 5, 2009

. . .
you come undone, “miss.”
Why would David “
miss
” me? That wasn't like him. Still, I had come to the inevitable and horrifying conclusion that David was my harasser. Yet it didn't make a lot of sense for him to talk about himself in the third person. And why would he denigrate himself like that?

Was he that crazy?

Another equally baffling question: How was he reading my thoughts? Had I said them out loud? Maybe in those moments between waking and dreaming? My mom said I used to sleepwalk when I was little and that sometimes I even talked in my slumber. Maybe it was happening again?

I dressed quickly and spent the rest of the morning feverishly rummaging through the house—the term doesn't really do justice to the place, the luxury and size of which made it more of a palace—looking for a note or anything that David could have written by hand. Nothing in the bedroom, soon
our
bedroom, nothing in the living room or in any of the other common rooms in Duchesnois House. Nothing on the famous console table in the entry. As for his office, the obvious place to look for such a thing, it was locked. And I didn't know how to ask Armand to open it without arousing suspicion.

“May I help you with something, Mademoiselle?”

I was on all fours, digging through the kitchen garbage.

“No . . . ,” I stammered. “No, I think I accidentally threw out my to-do list.”

“Oh, that's annoying . . . Do you want me to look? I think I know what your handwriting looks like.”

If the message in the envelope had not been so personal, I could have used Armand as a resource. He knew David so well. But, alas . . .
that's not how he's going to make you come undone, miss
.

“Thanks, Armand . . . I can handle it. We shouldn't both get our hands dirty over this.”

I laughed nervously. He nodded and disappeared into his office.

When at last  . . .

Tennis with François rescheduled: Friday 9 p.m.

The fluorescent Post-it spotted with milk and tomato sauce was definitely David's work. Compared with the handwriting on the anonymous notes, David's script was much rounder and more elegant. It was less nervous, almost feminine. This was incontrovertible evidence: David was not my harasser. Immensely relieved, I also felt badly. I froze on the floor next to the garbage, my bottom glued to the cold tiles. How could I have doubted him?

After a while, I put the new message in the silver notebook next to the others. I stared for a moment at the strange writing. Who could have written them? What was his or her problem? Why did the jerky, almost haphazard script make me feel so uneasy? Why did I get the feeling that writing these notes caused their author great suffering?

 

I SPENT THE AFTERNOON ON
the phone with Mom and Sophia. I also received calls from some recruiters with whom I'd recently interviewed—all unfruitful. Then I got this text message from David:

I'm getting home early tonight. Want to go out?

 

Early for David meant nine o'clock, at best.

No, sorry. I promised Mom I'd go to her last checkup with her before she leaves for L.A.

Your appointment is that late?

 

It isn't easy lying to a man who deals with half-truths all day for a living. I would have to be more convincing.

No, it's at 6:30, but you know how it is . . . They keep you waiting for at least an hour, then there's the time with the doctor . . . I don't think we'll get out before 8:30, 9 o'clock, and then I have to take her back home.

Right. No worries. Text me when you're on your way home.

OK, but don't wait to eat. I'll probably have dinner with Mom. You know how she is: once I'm with her, she won't let me go.

I understand. Hope all goes well. Love you.

Love you, too. And thanks again for everything you're doing for her.

 

David didn't reply. He'd probably been whisked into a meeting or off to deal with some emergency. My phone buzzed an hour later. This time it was someone else:

BDN Mission: Meeting at the Alban Sauvage Gallery, 15 Rue de Sévigné in the 3rd Arrondissement, 8:30 p.m. SHARP. The client will recognize you.

Invitation attached to this message.

Have a nice night.

BDN, Belles de Nuit. Rebecca, my boss, always sent this kind of last-minute mission. And she would keep pestering me until I had answered and she was sure I would make the meeting. The agency's reputation depended on it.

The first time she'd sent me a message like that, she'd also included instructions on what to wear. Now that I had more experience—and she'd gotten positive feedback from my clients—she dispensed with such advice.

But I had been firm with her recently: until further notice, I wasn't taking any more missions. “For personal reasons,” I had said. Her latest message suggested she didn't care. For her, I was still in the catalogue of girls. So I sent her a curt
Got it, thanks
.

After all, I needed money now more than ever. My motives were pure: after this final mission, I would be able to afford the vintage watch I'd admired at Antiquités Nativelle. It was to be my wedding present to David. My way of surprising him, of taking his breath away.

I wasn't cheating on David since it would be for him. “I am not cheating on David”—I repeated the mantra to myself several times.

Yes, this would be the last time.

 

“THE LAST TIME, HUH?”

“The last time.”

I tried to sound convincing. But it wasn't easy. I had a hard time making myself believe it: the last time, really, and then it would all be behind me? This part of my life could be relegated to my memory, so long as no one went digging?

“Didn't you say that the other day?” Sophia asked over the phone in a moralizing tone. I was choosing my perfume. “And the day before that, too!”

I didn't want to feel guilty, so I tried to concentrate on the present moment. What was I going to wear? A black dress with a flowery tutu by Repetto, ballerina flats, and a black leather bag by Nina Ricci. And maybe this top my personal shopper said was really “in” this season. And which perfume?

 

Even in the secrecy of these pages, I'm a little embarrassed to admit it: I love how the male sex smells. To be precise, I love the smell of the man I love. My first time was when I was sixteen; even then I grew intoxicated as I inhaled the scent of the man who was about to possess me. If I concentrate, I can still catch a whiff of that heady bouquet, a blend of vanilla, alcohol, and fading flowers.

That's why I always wonder how I smell. Does my scent awaken desire in my partners, as theirs does in me?

They would never suspect it, but whenever I meet a man I find appealing, be it just a tiny bit, one of the first questions that crosses my mind is: And what about his scent? Will it overwhelm my senses and make me burn for the man who produces it?

 

Anonymous handwritten note, 6/6/2009—Nonsense!

 

I FEEL NAKED WITHOUT PERFUME.
When I turned sixteen, I started working at the mall every weekend as a greeter in a perfume shop called Quatre Temps. The extra money had made a big difference, and the experience left me with dozens of sample perfume bottles, all free, and a chronic inability to remain faithful to any one scent. I choose my perfume based on my mood.

“Are you still there . . . or did you hang up?”

Sophia brought me back to the present tense.

“Yeah, I'm here . . .”

“Don't tell me you're doing it to pay for that watch?”

How did she know?

“No!” I cried.

“Fuck, I can't believe it . . .
That's
why you're doing it! You're such an idiot. You'd marry the first schmuck who came along.”

Perfect: Miss Dior Chérie, an updated classic, a little old for me but not too much. I sprayed both sides of my neck.

“That's not very nice to David,” I parried.

“About that, so . . . how was last night? What was his big surprise?”

I don't know why, but I decided not to say anything about all that had happened over the past twenty-four hours, the marriage proposal and the latest anonymous letter.

“Oh, nothing. David just knows how much I love lobster. Last night he took me to Le Divellec.”

“Ugh. Don't tell me, ‘the best seafood restaurant in Paris,' barf.”

“Something like that, yeah.” I laughed.

“And after . . . how was it?” she asked, reverting back to her favorite topic.

“Umm . . . I'd give it an A-minus.”

“I see . . . So you guys aren't comfortable with each other yet, to put it nicely.”

I couldn't pull one over on Sophia when it came to sex. But I could cut the discussion short.

“Soph, I have to finish getting ready . . .”

“Go, get ready, girl!”

A half hour later, I took a cab to avoid being late.

 

THE ALBAN SAUVAGE GALLERY WAS
on Rue de Sévigné, not far from the Saint-Paul metro station in the Marais. Its facade was narrow, but inside it felt spacious, thanks to its depth. The gallery was made up of a series of small rooms separated by white movable panels. The window displayed a giant pink resin phallus dressed as a doll in a white dress, black patent leather shoes, and a pearl necklace. There was no mention of the artist.

A quick look around and I saw that the conceptual installation inside did not vary: a scrotum disguised as a Care Bear, a vulva wearing a Bob the Builder costume, and so on. Each sexual body part was somehow dressed up as a children's toy.

“What do you think?”

A bald young man with five o'clock shadow had hurried out of the gallery to greet me. His smile as well as the glassy look in his eyes suggested alcohol. Behind the door, I could make out the sounds of laughter, glasses clinking, and whispered cattiness: a typical Parisian gallery opening. Nobody really cared about the art. The important thing was to see and be seen, enjoy the free food and drink, and, above all, get an invitation to the next gathering.

“I don't know . . . I'm waiting for someone.”

“Come in. Maybe he's already here.”

The way he said it, I could tell he was gay, but I still wasn't sure I wanted to follow him in.

“Come ooooon,” he insisted, grabbing my arm and sighing dramatically. “Don't be such a ninny!”

I had no other choice but to follow him through the packed quarters. It was a mishmash of people, from journalists in black uniform, to disheveled artists with tattoos or piercings, to half-naked creatures in designer dresses.

I was wondering who on earth would need an escort here, where everyone seemed so well connected and too-cool-for-school, when my bald man in horn-rimmed glasses handed me some champagne and stuck out his hand.

“Alban Sauvage.”

“Oh . . . !” I exclaimed. “So this is your place?”

“Yeah, mortgaged to the hilt and costing me arm and leg, but yes, it's my place.”

Did he need a beard or something? A mom to impress? Investors to persuade? Or worse: Was I a kind of conceptual happening, something dreamed up by one of the sickos in attendance?
The call girl in the land of contemporary art.

I didn't know what to say.

“You . . . ?”

“No, not me. Follow me, I'll introduce you.”

When I saw my client, I thought it must be a joke: he was wearing an elegantly belted suit that showed off his waist, while his open jacket revealed a matching vest. The man was in his forties and carried a silver-knobbed cane in his right hand. His face was fitted with a pair of sunglasses. Alban abandoned me without introducing us, whispering an excuse:

“I must go. I have some Chinese to fleece. Kiss, kiss, darlings!”

I couldn't move. I was like a statue. The man removed his smoked-glass spectacles and looked me up and down without saying anything. But did he need to? Once he'd removed his slightly grotesque glasses, there was something magnetic about the way he gazed at me. And though the color of his eyes was nothing special—hazel that sometimes looked gold, depending on the light—there was a rare intensity in their expression. If looks could kill, I mused, before quickly banishing the thought from my head. It wasn't easy. He was giving me a deadly look. I felt like I was his prisoner. He was searching me. He was trying to get inside me. Before saying one single word, he'd already taken up residence in my being.

“Good evening, Elle.”

He was good-looking: his face was long and egg shaped, with high cheekbones and a straight profile. His demeanor was stately, though his neck a little stiff. And his hands were like those of a surgeon or a pianist  . . .

Without contest, he was in the top three of my most attractive clients. He wasn't like those living statues that stand at the entry of some clothing stores. Nothing like that kind of vapid girl-magnet. He had the aura of someone who had come out of a novel and onto the silver screen. Like a god who had at last come down to the level of humans.

I did not have to look around to feel the room's attention on him. Women especially were converging around us like flies to honey. He wasn't doing anything special—he wasn't doing anything at all, just standing there, immobile. And yet he crushed the male competition through his regal attitude alone. He was perfectly present while being completely detached. He appeared to be floating above the vile masses.

“Good evening,” I stammered.

With some effort, he took a step toward me, adjusting all his weight onto the precious cane. He wasn't faking his infirmity, and instead of breaking the charm, it only added to it. He was a man of more than one posture, apparently. It was obvious he had a story, and a painful one at that. The mystery only made him more appealing.