Chapter 11
11
9 NOVEMBER
The day is grey and overcast, and big black clouds float above as if it’s about to rain hard. I’ve been waiting for a break in the weather to clean the front windows of the hotel, so I hurry to gather what I need. You’d think the incessant rain would do the job for me, but the windows need a decent scrub more than anything.
I slip on my raincoat and take my cleaning supplies outside. I’m keen to see how much brighter the lobby and guest lounge will be once the build-up of grime is washed away. Even though it’s a little early for Christmas decorations, I’m going to string tinsel and Christmas lights up. Later, once renovations are done, I’ll decorate the wooden ledge inside with the ‘creche’ nativity scene, but I don’t want to do that now and risk the stunning vintage set getting damaged or dusty.
Outside, I slide on rubber gloves and dunk my cloth into the soapy water, marvelling at how menial work such as this is really quite satisfying. Perhaps it’s because I’m avoiding writing, and even chores I usually despise like vacuuming or mopping are a delight when each word I type feels weighted, like an insurmountable effort that goes nowhere.
Once I soap and scrub down each window, I refill my bucket with clean, clear water and use my squeegee to wipe the suds off, the mindless task allowing me to ponder about my writer’s block and possible solutions.
This late in the game it’s probably best to write anything, no matter how clunky the sentences are. Get those words on the page with the knowledge that I can shine it up later, because I can’t edit a blank page and if I don’t stop deleting what I write every evening then that’s all I will have; a white, blank, page. How hard can it be to write a light-hearted festive romance? So, my own love life went up in a big ball of flames, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember how love feels . All I need to do is forget about my own woes and get into the head of my heroine Hilary…
While I have the satisfaction of washing these windows, I picture my heroine and what she yearns for. A Parisian romance? Parisian Christmas romance. What’s so hard about clearing the mind and getting into the zone? Nothing. I dream of a hero for Hilary who woos his amour , whispering sweet nothings… as he gently?—
‘It’s nice to see a cleanup finally happening but what about the windows above those?’
And just like that I’m pulled from my fictitious romantic meanderings with a bang in the shape of my surly American neighbour. ‘ Bonjour , Noah. Was there something you needed from me?’ I arch a brow while my heart hammers at his intrusion. I won’t let him know I’m ruffled by his constant man terrupting, and I certainly won’t acknowledge his advice on cleaning my windows, for pity’s sake.
Noah shoves his hands deep in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his feet with that same coiled energy, like he’s trying very hard not to take over and do the upper windows himself, or at least tell me in great detail how to do it better.
If I stay silent, will he stay or will he go? One, two, three ? —
‘It’s only that I don’t see the point of cleaning the lower windows if you’re not going to do the ones above. It looks worse that way.’
‘How do you know I’m not going to do the ones above?’ Which I am not.
The ones above are too high for me to reach unless I dig out a ladder, but therein lies another problem. I can safely step up two rungs of a common household ladder; any higher than that, flight mode is activated and fear sets in. I don’t want to have to pay someone to do such an easy job though. And surely this is a good start. Maybe I can rope Manon into doing the higher windows another time?
Although, I’m not going to tell Noah any of this.
‘I know you’re not going to do the ones above because no one in their right mind would do the windows below first because the drips would run down the windows from higher up and ruin all that hard work.’
I give him a cool stare. ‘Do you always give unsolicited advice to women?’
His lips pull to one side as if the idea amuses him. ‘Is that a trick question?’
I bristle. ‘Was there anything else, Noah? The suds are drying and soon you’ll be complaining of streaky windows even though I have no idea how it affects you, yet here you are.’
‘I’ve already explain?—’
‘ Oui, oui , this ugly hotel is impacting your bar. I got the memo.’ I hope he hears the sarcasm in every single syllable.
He folds his arms and surveys the fa?ade as if seeing it for the first time. ‘I wouldn’t call it ugly, I’d call it… shabby.’ I guess sarcasm is lost on Noah.
‘Shabby?’ I give him a stony glare.
He nods enthusiastically as if he can finally get his point through my clearly thick head. ‘A little… decrepit. But now you’re here so I’m hoping things will improve, non? If you’d like a ladder, I can bring mine so you can do the windows properly.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
Manon wanders outside with a yawn just as rain starts falling. ‘Ooh, that looks great but what about the higher windows? It looks shabby without them done too.’
Noah gives me a triumphant smile as if to say, See? ‘I’ll bring my ladder over so you can reach.’
‘A ladder, great!’ Manon says. ‘But Anais is afraid of heights. She has a two-rung limit. That’s why I always have to paint the high bits.’
‘Oh!’ I say, needing to escape. ‘That’s my phone ringing. I’ll be back.’
Never. Why is he so irritating? It’s not just me, in my misandry era, is it? Although Manon seems to get along with him just fine, but I suppose he’s not correcting her every five minutes, is he? And with steam coming out of my ears, a story forms as I storm off in a huff.
The man wore a woollen beanie that had seen better days. But it was of no concern to Hilary, as she folded away the ladder and stepped over the motionless form on the pavement. He wouldn’t need it where he was going…
When I’m mad, I clean. I march into a storage room at the back of the hotel and pull out all of the plastic tubs. In a huff, I sort what can stay and what can go. There are stacks of newspapers and magazines. Tubs of old rotary telephones from the sixties. I startle when I open a box full of porcelain dolls with painted glass eyes. Their faces are crazed and cracked with age. As I rummage through oddities, my blood pressure slowly lowers and I manage to push thoughts about my interfering neighbour from my mind and focus on the task. I unearth a box of brown medicinal apothecary jars that are so pretty we can repurpose to them use around the hotel as vases.
I keep going until I’ve sorted every box, finding all sorts of weird and wonderful bric-a-brac. Old-fashioned board games, French prayer books, and two bottles of wine that look like a rare vintage to my untrained eye. I hope they haven’t turned into vinegar. I put the lid back on one of the tubs of newspapers and use it as a seat and take my phone and google ‘1949 Chateau Latour Bordeaux blend’. I scroll through results until I find a wine searcher site that offers up varying prices for the vintage, ranging from €2,000 and above. My eyebrows shoot up.
Perhaps all these quirky curiosities around the hotel can be sold? Even the creepy porcelain dolls might hold value for the right buyer. I keep going. Behind a stack of tubs, I find a set of four antique armchairs that can be saved if we replace the cushion inserts. There are frames in all sorts of styles and colours.
I pull out one of the armchairs to sit on while I look up antique traders and land on the website of a local vintage shop in the 5th arrondissement that buys from the public. I spend the next little while cataloguing what I’ve found and take photos so I can reach out and garner any interest.
Maybe the hotel is already beginning to pay for itself? I leave the storage room much happier than when I went in. My eye is drawn to the light pooling into the lobby, and I catch sight of Noah leaving with a ladder tucked under his arm.
‘Well played,’ Manon says from her perch on the sofa in the guest lounge, laptop next to her.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The whole getting mad at him thing because you’re afraid of heights and feel a spark towards him so you storm off and voilà, Noah returns with his trusty ladder to get the windows clean to his exacting standards, thus leaving you with another job completed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re turning out more and more like me every day.’ She waggles a brow.
My mouth falls open. How can she get this so wrong? ‘It’s infuriating that he’s taken it upon himself to clean the windows when I specifically told him we didn’t need or want his help. I can’t believe you’d think this is a good thing, Manon! What gives him the right…?’
She holds up a hand. ‘Save it, please. Let’s plan what job we want him to save us from next. The painting? Shall we tell him we have no idea how to cut in the high bits and it’s a little scary being a whole four rungs up the ladder?’
I fight a smile because Manon is wrong, but she is funny. ‘You’re single-handedly going to set feminism back a hundred years, Manon, with that nonsense.’
‘If I don’t have to paint the high bits then I’m totally OK with that.’
I plonk down on the sofa next to her. ‘You’re a liar too. Please don’t encourage Noah. I can’t handle any more of his condescending him pathy. I swear he thinks it’s still the Roaring Twenties for crying out loud and us little women are best hidden away in the kitchen making batch food and leaving the heavy lifting to the men.’
She shakes her head. ‘You’re crazy not to accept his help.’
‘We don’t need his help!’ I cry. ‘But then he goes ahead and does it anyway.’
She averts her gaze but not before I detect a guilty look in her eyes. ‘I told him he could do the windows.’
‘Manon!’
‘What?’ She lifts her palms into the air. ‘Look at this room now bathed in natural light, even though the skies are moody today, just like some people who shall remain nameless. Anais .’
‘Ugrh, there’s no getting through to you. Come and see what I found.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’ I grab her hands and pull her from the sofa.
In the storage room, I show Manon all of the items that we can either sell or use around the hotel, like the four armchairs that will be our next DIY project.
‘Do we really have to sell the wine? I’ve never tried a vintage from 1949. What if it’s the best thing we ever tasted?’
‘Think of it this way. It’ll be the best thing we never tasted.’
‘How did I know you’d say that?’
‘Help me take these chairs to the guest lounge. We’ll see about finding new cushion inserts and hopefully we can save the velvet blue fabric. And the frames, we can paint those.’