The Hotel Riviera(10)

We clinked glasses, sipping the brandy reflectively, both enjoying the quiet time after the rush.

After a little while I said, “I see you met our new guest, Mr. Falcon.”

Miss N gave a derisive little snort. “Well, hardly. He’s not very friendly.”

“Not civilized is more like it.”

She gave me a long look. “Be careful,” she said. “He’s dangerous.”

I looked at her, surprised. “And what would you know about dangerous men, Miss N?”

“Quite a lot, my dear.” Her blue eyes behind the pale plastic spectacles met mine. “I was married to one.” And with that she turned and gazed placidly out across the bay.

Now I don’t know much about Miss N’s private life, but a husband? And a dangerous one? She couldn’t have told me anything more surprising.

“I didn’t know you’d been married,” I said, dying of curiosity.

“Very few people do. He was a Scotland Yard detective, quite a famous one. I kept my own name because that’s who I was at my school, you see. I suppose I was a bit ahead of the feminists, but I alway felt I had earned my way in the world without the help of a man, and that I was entitled to be recognized in my own right. I was Miss Mollie Nightingale, headmistress of Queen Wilhelmina’s School for Girls, and Mollie Nightingale was who I intended to stay.”

“Well, good golly, Miss Mollie,” I said with a grin, making her laugh. Impulsively, I reached out and took her hand. “I’m so glad you’re here, Miss N,” I said.

“Thank you, my dear.” She gave me that long piercing stare again. “It’s always good to have a friend.”

I nodded; there was a good feeling in my heart again. “So, did you notice the other stranger in our midst tonight?” I asked casually. Too casually apparently, because Miss N caught my tone and raised her brows.

“The handsome one? Who could miss him?”

“He’s not that handsome.”

She thought about it. “Perhaps not, but very fanciable as the girls at my school would have said. Actually, sex appeal is what my generation would have said he had, and that’s not a bad thing.”

I was a little stunned to hear Miss N talking about husbands and Scotland Yard detectives and fanciable men with sex appeal, but was forced to admit that was exactly what Jack Farrar had. “Not for me, though,” I said. “Remember, I’m the abandoned wife, the one still married but without a husband.”

“Don’t close your eyes to romance because of Patrick,” Miss N said sternly. “Live your own life, Lola.”

I sighed. “It’s hard. Sometimes I don’t know what I am anymore, or where I am in my life.”

“So exactly who do you think you are, my dear?” she said.

I looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Tell me, who are you? Who is Lola March Laforêt?”

I hesitated, thinking about what she meant. “Well…I’m a woman. I’m thirty-nine looking at forty. I’m a chef. I’m den mother to my guests. I want to make all their vacation wishes come true, spin a little magic for them, here at the Hotel Riviera.” I looked at her. “I guess that’s about it.”

“Think about what you’ve just told me. You are all those wonderful things, Lola; you do spin a magic spell for your guests. We love it here and it’s all because of you. Never forget who you are, Lola, because you are someone special. You touch our lives and leave us feeling better for knowing you. And that is no small feat, my dear.”

And then she drained her glass, picked up her book, and with a last, lingering look at the midnight-dark sea, where Bad Dog still rode at anchor, she said good night.





Chapter 11




You know, it’s not easy dealing with a broken heart, even though mine was broken long ago, long before Patrick left me. Sometimes I’m so sad at the loss of my dream love affair, I spend entire days in my kitchen trying out new recipes. Hence the extra pounds that have floated onto my once-slender frame, sticking to my bones like marshmallows to hot twigs.

Sometimes, I allow myself to be angry and resentful, stomping around acting mean to everybody; I know it’s unfair but I just can’t help it, and I’m always sorry afterwards. And then there are the long, long lonely nights when I cry into my pillow, wondering where he’s gone, hugging my little hen to my chest while she clucks sympathetically. But then, no one ever said it was easy being a woman.

It had all started out so beautifully with Patrick, so glamorously, so romantically over champagne and caviar and locked glances.

I was working in Las Vegas as dessert chef at a grand restaurant in one of the grandest hotels, with the freedom to create whatever dishes I wished and a fabulous kitchen to do it in. I loved my job, I was happy there, even though there was little time for a personal life, Anyhow I’d decided to take a breather from men, since I wasn’t having much luck with them.

It was my thirty-third birthday and I’d made my own cake, chocolate of course with a praline ganache filling. After the last diners had departed I shared it with my fellow workers, then I cast off those baggy chef’s pants and got into my skinny black jeans and—very daring for me—a black chiffon blouse, the kind that’s ruched at the top and hangs sexily off one shoulder. I’d bought it as an impulse birthday gift for myself from one of Vegas’s smart boutiques. I was astonished at the astronomical cost, but then I’d told myself firmly that it was my day and no one else was buying me extravagant, romantic gifts.