at times how painful it was that Miriam left Heloise out of her life now. His parents had been right, she wasn’t a good wife, and she was an even worse mother, to Heloise anyway. She was far more interested in her two children with Greg Bones and her new rock star life with him. She was in the press incessantly as she followed him around. She had stopped modeling, and was constantly on tour with him, although she promised to have Heloise come to London for Christmas that year when they got back from a concert tour in Japan.
Heloise still hadn’t heard from her by Thanksgiving. It was always a busy time at the hotel. The hotel was full, and several families were staying there. They had two weddings scheduled in the ballroom. A famous actress was staying at the hotel with her assistant, her hairdresser, her current boyfriend, her bodyguard, her two children and their nanny, and they had a block of suites on the tenth floor. And when she helped the maids turn down the room, Heloise had been excited when she caught a glimpse of the actress, Eva Adams. Heloise thought she was even prettier than her pictures. She had two Chihuahuas with her, and she had been very nice when Heloise asked if she could pet the dogs. She had wanted to ask for her autograph but knew that was against the rules, and that was one rule her father never permitted her to break. No one in the hotel was ever allowed to ask their celebrity guests for autographs, and he was intransigent about it. He wanted guests to feel at home and protected, not invaded by employees requesting autographs. And of course they weren’t able to ask for photographs either. And no one ever broke those rules. It was one of the reasons why celebrities felt so comfortable at the hotel, because their privacy was respected, according to Hugues’s orders to his staff.
“She’s really pretty,” Heloise said happily as she chatted with Ernesta when they made the rounds.
“Yes, she is, and she’s a lot smaller than she looks on screen.” The movie star in question looked tiny and delicate, and had a dazzling smile and enormous blue eyes. She had been lounging in the suite with her entourage when they came in, and she was very pleasant to the maids and thanked them for what they did, which wasn’t always the case with movie stars. Heloise had heard many stories about how badly they behaved and how rude they were sometimes. But this one had been warm, friendly, and polite.
Heloise was still talking about her when she and Ernesta went down to the laundry with a rolling basket full of towels from the tenth floor. As Ernesta handed over the basket, Heloise noticed something sparkle in the heap of towels, and she reached in and grabbed it just before Ernesta dumped it into the big bin. Much to everyone’s surprise, Heloise held up a diamond bracelet in her hand. It shimmered enticingly and looked very expensive. It was about an inch wide and was solid diamonds all the way around.
“Wow!” Heloise exclaimed as everyone stared at what she’d found.
“You’d better call security,” the head operator of the laundry told Ernesta, and she nodded and reached for the phone, but Heloise shook her head, still holding the bracelet.
“I think we should call my father.” It looked like a very fancy bracelet, even to her, and Ernesta didn’t disagree. She wanted to get it into the right hands as quickly as possible. Someone was going to be reporting it as lost or stolen very soon. Guests often misplaced their valuables, and the maids were always the first to be accused. Ernesta wanted none of that. Heloise dialed her father’s office, and Jennifer answered, and when she heard the story, she told them to come up. So far no one had called.
Hugues was in his office, signing some papers at his desk, when Ernesta and Heloise appeared, and his daughter held out the bracelet, and his eyes grew wide.
“Where did you find that?”
“In the towels,” Heloise said as she handed it across the desk to him, and he took a closer look at it. There was no question, it was real, and a valuable piece.
“I’ll put it in the safe. Someone should be calling about it very soon.” He smiled at Ernesta then and thanked her for her honesty, and she looked at Heloise.
“I didn’t find it, sir. Your daughter did. She pulled it right out of the towels. I didn’t even see it.”
“I’m glad she did,” he said, and handed it to Jennifer to put in the safe. “Let’s see what happens,” he said quietly, and much to everyone’s surprise, no one called for two days. He had gone down the list of all the guests on the tenth floor, but none of them had reported the bracelet missing, and he had to wait for someone to call so it didn’t wind up in the wrong hands. He wondered by then if it had been a visitor to the room and not a guest.
Then finally Eva Adams called, the movie star with the large entourage. And unlike most celebrities, she didn’t report the bracelet stolen, she said that she had lost a bracelet somewhere in the last two days, and didn’t know if it was in the street or at the hotel, and she wanted to let Hugues know in case someone found it. He said that a bracelet had been found and offered to come to her suite. He asked her to describe it, and it was clearly the one Heloise had found in the towels from her floor. He brought it to her room immediately, and she was thrilled. He didn’t ask but guessed that it was worth half a million dollars or more. Maybe a million. The diamonds were large and the bracelet wide, it was a major piece of jewelry to lose, although he suspected it was probably insured. And she was ecstatic to get it back.
“Where did you find it?” she asked him as she put it back on her wrist with a look of gratitude and relief. He smiled, conscious of Eva’s beauty. He had a weakness for women who looked like her, and for actresses and models in general, which had been his downfall once before.
“My daughter saw it in the towels in the laundry room. We knew it was from someone on this floor, but we had to wait for your call.”
“I had no idea where I’d lost it. I called everyplace I’ve been in the last two days. I didn’t want to accuse anyone of taking it. I was pretty sure it must have fallen off my arm. What can I do for your daughter?” she asked, assuming that she was older than she was. She didn’t make the connection with the little girl in braces who had come in with the maids two days before and asked if she could pet the Chihuahuas. She had assumed she was the maid’s daughter, maybe following her mom at work over the holiday weekend. Eva hadn’t paid much attention to her, although Heloise’s impression was that she had been very nice. “I’d like to give her a reward,” Eva Adams said immediately.
“That won’t be necessary,” Hugues said, smiling at her. “She’s eight years old, and I wouldn’t let her accept a reward. She was with one of the maids, if you’d like to give her something. But my daughter enjoys wandering around the hotel, she just likes meeting the guests and ‘helping’ me out.” He laughed. He looked extremely handsome as he did, and Eva flirted with him a little. It was an occupational style for both of them and meant nothing.
Eva went to the desk in the room and signaled to her assistant, who rapidly brought her a checkbook. Eva sat down and wrote out a thousand-dollar check to cash for Ernesta, and handed it to Hugues. He accepted it gratefully for the maid.
“What’s your daughter’s name?” she asked him with interest.
“Heloise,” he said quietly, wondering what she had in mind, an autograph perhaps.
Eva Adams laughed. “Like Eloise at the Plaza?”
“No.” He returned the smile. She seemed very human and very kind, and all of the employees who had dealt with her had said as much to him. She was a very nice woman and had caused no problem at the hotel. “Heloise with an H. She’s named for my great-grandmother, and she was born before I bought the hotel. But now she is Heloise at the Vendome.”
“How sweet. I’d like to meet her before I leave so I can thank her myself.”
“She’d like that very much, and she’s going to be very happy you got your bracelet back. She was concerned about it. We all were. It’s beautiful and obviously a very special piece.”
“It’s Van Cleef, and I was very upset when I thought I’d lost it. Heloise is pretty terrific to have found it. I’d like to see her before we go back to L.A. tomorrow, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll be happy to arrange it,” he said discreetly, and left the room a few minutes later. He told Heloise about it that afternoon, and that Miss Adams wanted to see her the next day. Heloise was thrilled to hear it, and ran to find Ernesta to tell her the news that the bracelet had been claimed. The maid already had the check by then and was delighted with the reward.
“I should give it to you,” Ernesta said fairly, but Heloise smiled and shook her head.
“Papa wouldn’t let me have it. I’m not allowed to take money from the guests, except from Mrs. Van Damme for walking Julius. He made an exception for that. So you get to keep the reward.”
Ernesta had a thousand uses for it and was smiling broadly as she went back to work turning down the rooms. Miss Adams and her entourage were out, or she would have thanked her herself. Instead she left a note on her pillow with an extra box of chocolates.
And the next morning Hugues reminded Heloise that she had to put on a nice dress and her party shoes
