Hotel Vendome

“You can get married. But you can’t retire till I take over this hotel and know what I’m doing. You probably know more than I do about running it. You’re not going anywhere!” Jennifer laughed in answer, and suddenly Heloise realized that she’d be sitting in her father’s office, at his desk, and it was a strange feeling. She didn’t see how she could ever step into his shoes and do the job he had. She still had so much to learn. It was humbling thinking about taking his place, and it made her sad. She was having so much fun working with him that she didn’t want him to leave, but she realized that it was probably better for him, and he felt ready. She wasn’t sure she did. She needed to get used to the idea.

Jennifer and Bruce surprised them then and said they were getting married on Thanksgiving when her children could be there. And Bruce had three children too. Heloise was happy for them, although she was upset when Jennifer said she would retire in the next few months too. And Heloise managed to say hello to everyone before the party ended. It was a beautiful night for her father and she enjoyed it too. And they were talking about it when she and Brad went upstairs after the party. She was tired and still overwhelmed by her father making her general manager and passing her the baton. He was the master of surprises. He had done it to her with his marriage to Natalie, then the twins, and now this.

“What if I can’t do it, or I screw up, or I destroy the hotel in some way?” she said to Brad with a look of panic as they undressed. Her father had always been there with her. She had never run it alone, except briefly when he was sick.

“You’ll do it even better than he did,” Brad said confidently as he pulled her onto the bed and into his arms. “You already run this place, you just don’t know it yet. Your father would never have passed it on to you, if he didn’t think you could do it. He loves this hotel too much to take that risk. He knows you can do it, and so do I.” She was the only one who wasn’t sure. It was a big responsibility for her at her age. Being general manager of one of the most successful hotels in New York at twenty-seven was a major feat. And he had no doubt that she would do it brilliantly.

“Will you help me when I screw up?” she asked, as she leaned against him and he held her close.

“Yes, but you won’t. You’re not going to need a lawyer to help you run it, just the good people you already have.” They had been in business long enough for some of the staff to retire and move on in the past few years, like Ernesta, and now Jennifer, and even her father, although he wasn’t very old, only sixty. She hadn’t expected him to retire for another ten or fifteen years and figured she’d be ready by then. But having young children and a younger wife made him want to enjoy his life and not just work till he dropped. “I’ve been thinking lately, by the way, that we need to make some changes ourselves.” Brad looked serious as he said it, and Heloise looked puzzled. Her father had said that night that when they came back from their year in Europe, he wanted to buy an apartment, and Natalie could decorate it, and they would move out of the hotel. He was going to give Heloise their apartment when they went away. She was ready to move into a bigger space. She had been in the same small suite for years with Brad, and they liked it. It was home to them now. Everything was suddenly changing so fast. She told Brad about her father’s apartment then, and he seemed pleased. Living at the hotel was convenient for both of them, although it meant that she was on call all the time. But he was used to that too. It was her style, and Hugues’s. And maybe Stephanie’s one day too.

“Those aren’t really the changes I had in mind, although it’ll be nice to have more space. I was thinking of something else,” he said quietly, as she looked into his eyes.

“Like what?” She hoped he didn’t want them to move out of the hotel. She would never do that, especially now, even though she knew it was intrusive sometimes living where she worked.

“I think you’ll be much more efficient as a general manager,” he said pensively as though pondering it, “if you have a stable home life.”

“I do,” she said, smiling at him and realizing that he was teasing her. “We’ve been together for seven years. How much more stable can it get?”