“What were you thinking about, Papa?” Heloise asked him as she caught up to him. She had seen him walking along alone when she went looking for him. She had put her nuclear weapons away for these few days, particularly since Natalie wasn’t there. It was almost like old times.
He looked up and smiled when he saw Heloise and put an arm around her. “It sounds silly, but I was thinking that maybe your children will come to school here one day.” He had never expected her to do so, and suddenly it had become a tradition as she followed in his footsteps. He wondered what his parents would say. This had never been their dream for him, but it had been a good life and a career he still loved.
“I don’t think I want children,” she said pensively, as they walked along arm in arm, and he was surprised to hear it. He had always expected her to marry and have babies, even now that she would be working at the hotel.
“Why not?” he asked, watching her eyes.
“They’re too much work,” she said, brushing the idea away, and he laughed.
“So is a hotel. And let me tell you that no matter how much work children are, they’re worth it. My life would be nothing without you.” The emotion he felt for her was strong in his voice.
“Even now, with Natalie?” Heloise was haunted by her. Her eyes were sad when she looked at him, and he nodded emphatically.
“Even with Natalie. That’s not the same thing. I loved your mother very much, and I love Natalie. But the love you feel for a woman, or a man, is not the same as what you feel for a child. It doesn’t even compare. My love for you is forever. Love for a partner is there for as long as it lasts, sometimes it lasts a lifetime, sometimes not. My love for you is to my grave.” It was a serious thing to say, and she was quiet for a long moment as they stopped walking, and she looked into his eyes.
“I thought that had changed,” she said quietly, and he shook his head.
“It will never change. Never. In my entire lifetime.” She nodded then and looked relieved. It was hard for him to imagine that even as grown up as she seemed to be, she was only a child who thought she would lose her father to someone else, or already had. It explained her rejection of Natalie. And it wasn’t so surprising since at the age of four she really had lost her mother to a man. But in Miriam’s case, Heloise had never had her. Her mother had only been on loan for a brief time. The defection and abandonment of her mother had been the ultimate betrayal, which had made her fears about Natalie, and her resulting anger at him, so much worse. He understood that better now. And he was glad he had come alone. He held her tightly in his arms for a moment, stroking her long silky hair, and then they walked back to his hotel arm in arm with a feeling of peace. He had said everything she needed to hear. It hadn’t been enough to know it, or assume it, or hope it; she had needed the words, and she had needed to hear them from him.
The eve-of-graduation dinner that night at the school-run hotel was a festive event. It was held in an auditorium that had been festooned and decorated, and a number of the students as well as the director of the school gave speeches, some of them very emotional. And afterward most of the students went to small nightclubs and bars around Lausanne, and the bars on campus, for a last time. Heloise went out with her friends, and she was genuinely sad to leave them. After this they would all be scattered around the world, although two of them said they were doing internships in New York, but neither of them were people she knew well. And she heard that Francois had secured a job in Paris at the Plaza Athenee, which he preferred to working at his family’s hotel in the South of France. From now on they would all be crawling their way up the corporate ladder in the hotel business, satisfying their supervisors and serving their clients’ needs. It wasn’t an easy business, they all knew by now, but it was the path they had chosen, and they couldn’t wait to get started. Only two people had dropped out, one because of family illness and the other due to pregnancy and a shotgun wedding, but even she had promised to return. There were a hundred and seventy-eight students graduating in Heloise’s class, and fewer than two thousand in the school, including graduate students. It was acknowledged to be the finest hotel school in the world and a major coup to graduate from there.
And the graduation ceremony was very moving the next day. It followed all the school’s venerable traditions and hadn’t changed a bit since Hugues had graduated more than thirty years before at her age. Prizes were given, and Heloise got two honorable mentions. The crowd in the auditorium stood up and applauded them at the end of the ceremony as an orchestra played, and then a huge cheer rose from the students and the crowd, and they were distinguished graduates of the illustrious Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne. There were tears streaming down Heloise’s cheeks and in her father’s eyes as she found him and they embraced.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said in a choked voice, and there was no one in the room for her, or in the world, except the two of them at that moment. And he was glad once again that he had come alone. He had needed to share this with her, and to confirm his dedication to her and his love. He was deeply sad for her that Miriam hadn’t come. She was such a fool and had missed the boat with Heloise all her life. She had absented herself from every major occasion, just as she had this time. She cared about no one but herself. He was sorry he had given Heloise such an inadequate mother, and he hoped that she and Natalie would be friends one day. It was too late to act as her mother, but it would be good for her to have a staunch, mature female friend, other than Jennifer, Ernesta, and Jan, all of whom had been good to her. But Natalie would be family now. He had tried to be everything to her, mother, father, mentor, adviser, but he still felt she needed a woman in her life, and he was sorry he hadn’t provided one before this. In some ways he had waited too long, and now instead of welcoming it, Heloise resented it and had declared war on Natalie. He hoped there would be a truce one of these days, but he didn’t mention it to her in Lausanne.
The graduation dinner that night was a grand affair, with excellent food and a very decent band. He danced with his daughter, and she danced with her friends for the last time. After all their hard work for two years, this was a night of celebration and saluting their accomplishments. And the next morning they congregated for the last time, after being out the night before till six A.M. Heloise hadn’t even bothered to go to bed. After hugging all her friends and exchanging contact information, she got in the car with her father, went to the airport in Geneva, and fell sound asleep as soon as they boarded the plane. He covered her gently with a blanket and smiled as he looked at her. She looked like a little girl again with her bright red hair and her freckles. She was a woman now, with a life and career ahead of her, but she would always be his baby, in spite of her accomplishments. He leaned over and kissed her and watched her while she slept as the plane headed to New York.
Chapter 18
THEY BOTH HIT the ground running when they got to New York. Hugues was handling the usual dicey situations at the hotel, employee disputes, threatened lawsuits, labor unions, arriving important guests. And Heloise was on duty at the front desk the night they got home. Her diploma was still in her suitcase, but it made no difference here. She had to help an arriving guest with lost luggage deal with the airline, find a change of rooms for a complaining guest who hated the suite she had, which was hard to believe since it was one of the new ones, but the guest in question said that the color green made her anxious and gave her migraines and there were green tassels on the drapes. And miraculously Heloise was able to switch suites with a guest who hadn’t arrived yet. She had to call a doctor after midnight for a guest whose five-year-old had a high fever, and she had to get security to deal with a domestic argument between two drunks on the fourth floor, without calling the police if at all possible so they didn’t wind up on Page Six of the
“How’d it go last night?” he asked as she went by.
“Okay. We had a nasty situation on the fourth floor. The Morettis got into a fight, and both rooms on either side wanted to call the police.”
“What did you do?” He looked concerned, and she seemed mildly sheepish as she answered.
