Hotel Vendome

Brad came back to find her again just after she caught the bouquet, and the music was starting up. It was getting livelier and younger as the afternoon wore on. “If that’s an omen that you’re the next bride in the room, then you’re a dangerous woman to dance with,” he teased her. “But I’ll brave it anyway. Care to dance?” She set the prized bouquet down at her table and headed back to the dance floor with him. They were there for ages until Sally came to tell her that Natalie had gone upstairs to change. Her sister-in-law had gone with her, and Sally said Heloise could stay at the party, and she’d let her know when they were ready to leave. Her father had disappeared too. And they had already posed for photographs earlier in the day, right after the receiving line, in a small room adjacent to the ballroom.

The bridal couple were flying to Los Angeles that night, staying at the Bel Air, and then flying on to the Palmilla in Baja the next day. They had thought of spending their wedding night here at the hotel, but Hugues knew that if he did, he’d be called on for every crisis, and he wanted to leave town immediately after the wedding, which was why they had decided on a daytime ceremony and reception.

Heloise continued dancing with Brad until Sally came to get her, and then they both went outside with a crowd of people to watch them leave the hotel. Jennifer and Bruce were there with other wedding guests. The Rolls was waiting for them, and bellmen were handing out rose petals, and a few minutes later Hugues and Natalie appeared. He wore a beige linen suit with a white shirt and an immaculate yellow Hermes tie, and Natalie was wearing a white Chanel suit and her new diamond earrings. They looked like a magazine cover as Hugues pulled his daughter into his arms and hugged her tight.

“I love you,” he said, holding her for a minute, and then Natalie hugged her, everyone threw rose petals, and a moment later they got into the car, and they all waved as they drove away. Heloise stood watching them for a long minute, fighting back tears, and feeling unexpectedly abandoned as Brad touched her arm and was looking down at her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. They’ll be back in two weeks,” she reminded herself, and then went back to the party with him.

It had been hard watching her father leave, but Brad was a good distraction when they went back to the wedding, and she smiled when she saw Jennifer and Bruce dancing a fast dance together. They were pretty good. And Brad and Heloise got back on the dance floor too as the band played on.

They were among the last guests to leave, and it was the best party she had ever been to. And as the party ended, Heloise invited some of the young people, and both of Natalie’s nephews, to her new rooms. They ordered beer and hamburgers and pizza much later, and the room was full of laughing, and talking until after midnight, and Brad looked as though he hated to leave her. He said he was spending the next day with his parents before they went back to Philadelphia with his brother, but he asked if she’d like to have dinner with him sometime next week. And she smiled at him and nodded. She liked that idea very much, and it was interesting that he was at Columbia Law School and not somewhere far away. He promised to call her and set it up, and she stayed in her own apartment that night. It would have been too lonely upstairs without Natalie and her father. She had already decided to move her things down the next day.

And as she climbed into her new bed, thinking about everything that had happened that day, the ceremony, the dancing, all the people she had met, dancing with her father, catching the bouquet, and meeting Brad, she decided that it had been a very special day, and a turning point for her as well as them.

And on a plane headed for Los Angeles, the bride and groom toasted each other with champagne and kissed as they sailed through a star-filled sky and held hands. And the captain announced over the PA system that there were honeymooners on the plane. “Good luck to Hugh and Natalie,” he said, shortening Hugues’s name, and everyone on board cheered, as the newlyweds beamed.

Chapter 20