The Honeymoon Hotel (33 page)

‘Not from Flora,’ I said. ‘Julia’s been out for a few lunches with Laurence.’ I paused. ‘The first few were apology lunches, apparently, but I don’t know what the excuses for the others were. She’s very keen on herbal medicines, apparently. And they go to the same osteopath in Highgate, so that’s good.’

I waited for Caroline’s cackle of approval, but instead, just heard a thoughtful
hmm
.

Should I ask if I’m still fixing up your ex-husband?
I wondered crossly. No one at the Bonneville seemed to give me actual
instructions for anything any more, while at the same time expecting me to have done things by telepathy.

Fortunately Caroline then changed the subject to the only thing I really wanted to talk about but couldn’t ask about, for obvious reasons.

‘You must be delighted to have got Joe out of your hair at last,’ she said. ‘I must say, it’s nice having him home. Even if he is a bit … glum.’

‘Glum?’

‘Mmm. Keeps wandering about with this glum thinking face on. Going for long walks. I’ve been making him take the guests’ dogs with him, but that’s not what I brought him back to Wragley Hall for. What do you think it is, Rosie? Was there some girl trouble in London?’

‘I don’t know what’s going on with Joe,’ I said, which was the truth.

‘Well, he won’t talk to me about it, that’s for sure,’ she sighed. ‘I suppose he’ll just have to walk it out, whoever she is.’

And that wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all, so I didn’t ask any further.

*

At least planning the wedding with Emily was fun. I did wonder whether Emily Sharpe was such an amazing actress that she was hiding a reptilian dark side beneath the sunny transatlantic exterior, but eventually I came to the reluctant conclusion that she would have been just as nice if she’d stayed in London and I were organizing her wedding to an architect, rather than to the undead, half-wolverine seducer of Renaissance Venice.

She came back the week before the wedding to help sort out final details, but there wasn’t much left to do. I had to invent an entirely unnecessary cake testing, so she wouldn’t feel she’d missed out.

Emily and I were sitting in my office on Wednesday morning, sampling tiny squares of pastel genoise sponge (yes, she was so nice she was even actually
eating
the cake before her wedding) when she hesitated a couple of times, then said, ‘Rosie. I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages. Who was that blond guy I met at Helen’s wedding? The one who blanked me?’

‘Joe?’ My heart bumped in my chest, but I tried to make it sound casual. ‘That was Joe Bentley Douglas. The owner’s son.’

‘Joe.’ Emily groaned, and she covered her mouth. ‘Oh, my God, it
was
him. I thought it was, then I thought, no that’s just too weird, and then he left before I could ask …’ She lifted her eyes to me, and I could see she was genuinely mortified. ‘I thought my films had some freaky coincidences in them, but this is just too much.’

‘You know him then?’ I asked, twisting the knife in myself, more than in Emily.

She nodded, then winced. ‘I do. What did he say?’

‘It’s not really any of my …’

Emily put her hand on mine. She was very good at theatrical gestures, I noticed.

Oh, stop it
, I told myself.
She’s just a friendly, tactile person. Like Joe
.

‘He said you two dated in America,’ I confessed. ‘And you dumped him and never returned his calls.’

‘Is that what he said?’ Her beautiful eyes drooped.

‘More or less.’

Emily chewed her lip, and then covered her face and made a muffled ‘aarrrggghhh’ noise.

‘Rosie, this might be TMI,’ she said through her fingers. ‘But do you ever do shitty things you’re not proud of, and hope they’ll never come back to bite you – and they do?’

‘They always do,’ I said. ‘Yet the noble stuff vanishes without a trace.’

She pummelled her own head, groaning, then looked up at me. ‘I’m going to tell you this because I feel like maybe you can get Joe to forgive me? It’s just so weird and coincidental. It has to be the universe pushing me to do it.’

‘Joe’s very big on the universe,’ I said drily. ‘He’d back you up on that.’

She sighed, and looked at me. I tried to keep my face neutral, even though my heart rate had just doubled.

‘Okay, so, I met Joe while Ben and I were on a break.’ Emily did guilty air hooks to show she knew it was a cliché. ‘Ben had gone off to do a film in Canada; I’d just got down to the last two for a few projects and lost them. It’s not always easy being an actor, dating an actor. Anyway, my American friend Amber was desperate to go to this beach party in Santa Cruz. I didn’t want to go, but I did, to be her wingman, and I met Joe. And he was … well, you know him, right? He’s lovely.’

I nodded. He was so much more than just lovely.

Emily gazed at the Bridelizer but she wasn’t seeing it. ‘It was
one of those perfect holiday romances. Right place, right time. He taught me to surf, I taught him to make pancakes, we spent all day together, and all night, if you know what I mean. But it was intense, it wasn’t going to last. It couldn’t have. Even if Ben hadn’t come back from Canada and proposed, which he did …’ She looked genuinely guilty.

‘Is that why you didn’t return Joe’s calls?’

‘Yeah. I know. I’m not proud of that. Ben had to fly back to Europe to do some location filming, and I’d got a part this time, so I went with him. I didn’t know how to handle it. I just thought it would be easier to put Joe and what we had in a box and leave it in California.’

‘He didn’t find it particularly easy.’

She pulled the layer of marzipan off her cake. ‘No. I realize that. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for that look on his face when he saw me here.’

‘And you really had no idea this was his family’s hotel?’

‘Of course not! You think I’d have come here if I did?’ Emily looked horrified. ‘He never told me his parents had a hotel. He didn’t even tell me he had a fancy surname – he was just Joe Bentley. I got the impression there was some sort of family business he wasn’t interested in taking over, which was why he’d come out to the States, to do his own thing.’

And instead he’d ended up coming back, I thought. Back to the hotel he didn’t really want to work in, to be bossed around by me, and then to find Emily there. No wonder he’d flipped out.

‘Poor Joe,’ I said aloud.

‘Well, he’s kind of an idealist.’ Emily looked honestly at me. ‘I guess you know him better than I do, but I never expected to find he was a
wedding coordinator
. He was so down on marriage. He used to say it was meaningless, but at the same time he’d be insanely idealistic about the perfect woman.’

‘That’s you.’

She shook her head. ‘No. It’s not me. His perfect woman’s a lot more down-to-earth. He needs someone to balance him out. And, come on, I work in films. We all know there’s no such thing as perfect. Even I don’t look like Emily Sharpe half the time.’

We picked at our cakes in silence; then Emily said, ‘Can you tell him all that? Can you explain?’

I felt my face go red. ‘I don’t think I’m the right person, to be honest. I think he needs to hear it from you.’

‘Okay.’ She wrinkled her nose, more at herself than anything else, I guessed. ‘It’s just … I feel so bad about this. I feel like I can’t marry Ben knowing I’ve … knowing I’ve maybe broken Joe’s heart. But he was so lovely …’ She pulled herself together. ‘What if I wrote a letter? Would that be enough?’

‘I think that might help,’ I said. ‘But …’ I hesitated. ‘Be kind. I know it’s hard, but your relationship meant a lot to him. If you could explain what he meant to you, not underselling it or giving him false hope. Just … recognizing it was the right thing at the right time. A part of who you both are now.’

‘I like that,’ said Emily. ‘I’m going to do that. Thanks, Rosie.’

‘Pleasure,’ I said. It wasn’t.

With Joe gone, and my desk full, I focused my energy on all the positive, happy, wonderful things going on in my life. Because for once, I had a lot of blessings to count. June was pleasantly warm; Emily wasn’t a diva; I got an amazing discount on champagne flutes because I didn’t care about negotiating like a hard-arse; but the truth was that without Joe around, for the first time my fourteen-hour days at the Bonneville were beginning to feel
too
long.

To my annoyance, Laurence didn’t seem to appreciate the effort I was putting into being his deputy manager as well as everything else. He’d gone very vague again, and was spending quite a bit of time away from the hotel, not answering his phone. I knew I should be worried in case he’d had some new health scare, but frankly, I didn’t have the energy. What little I had left after running round the hotel covering for Joe, Laurence and Helen was going into feeling unspecifically cross whenever I didn’t have to deal with the public.

Worse – and this had
never
really happened before – I found myself feeling jealous of the brides who floated in, starry-eyed and drunk with love, to talk about their big days. Where was
I going to find that, wiring emergency buttonholes at two in the morning, or putting out two hundred gold chairs because everyone else had gone home?

Even the hotel seemed to be closing itself off to me. It had never felt so much like someone else’s business as when I was letting myself into its empty heart, at the top of the building, behind the fire door.

*

The final straw came when the second Mrs Bentley Douglas arrived three days before the Benily wedding, just as my stress was reaching maximum velocity, and dropped Otto and Ripley off in my office, which was stacked with handmade name cards, crystal table settings and other fragile and expensive things.

‘Only for a day. Or two. I’d have left them with Laurence, but he’s nowhere to be found, as per usual,’ she said, as Ripley tapped her way over to the window and started lisping ‘All That Jazz’ out of it as if it were a television screen.

‘He’s here,’ I said. ‘Did you check under his desk?’

‘Of course I did,’ she said over the tapping. ‘And in that little room next to his office. I know all the tricks, Rosie, I used to help him hide from Caroline.’

‘Then can I give you the number for our emergency nanny?’ I was probably a bit spikier than I should be. ‘Because much as I love spending time with Otto and Ripley,’ I gave Otto a quick smile; he was sitting on my spare chair like a constipated owl, ‘I’m about to go and deal with a lot of glass, and it would be awful if something happened.’

The door opened and Gemma bounced in. ‘Rosie, I’ve got the – oh.’ She tried to reverse her way out, but it was too late.

‘Mummy, why is that lady so fat?’ asked Otto, pointing at Gemma.

Gemma made a choking noise, but I was past caring.

‘My assistant will take you two down to the restaurant and get you both an ice cream!’ I announced. ‘Won’t you, Gemma? You will! Wonderful. Off you tap.’

When I’d shoved the three of them out of the office and closed the door, Ellie wrinkled her eyebrows sympathetically. Well, as much as they still could wrinkle. ‘Rosie, can I give you some advice?’

I bit back the retort that since she’d worked in the hotel industry for about three years and I’d been here, on and off, since I was sixteen, I wasn’t sure what that would be. But I was tired.

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Everyone else does.’

‘You’re working too hard.’

‘No, no, it’s fine, I—’

‘You’re not getting any younger,’ she said brutally. ‘And you’ve got to think about yourself. Laurence wants to hand this place on to his kids – it’s all he’s ever wanted. If he had his way, Otto and Ripley would be sent off to catering college now. Joe’s being lined up as the manager, and even if you stay you’ll never be in charge. Laurence will take advantage of you, just like he took me for granted,
and
Caroline. It’s what he does.’

I thought this was pretty rich, coming from someone who was about to leave both her children with a woman who
couldn’t even keep a ‘Thank you for arranging our wedding!’ orchid alive beyond the honeymoon, but I said nothing.

She fixed me with a piercing look. ‘You must have been headhunted by now, yes?’

‘Um …’

Ellie was sharp; she caught the brief flicker on my face. ‘Well, don’t be stupid, if someone’s offered you a better job, for crying out loud, take it. Leave and come back if you have to. But don’t end up like Caroline. Pouring your heart and soul into your new hotel because you let your old hotel screw up your family. There’s more to life than folding other people’s bloody towels into swans, Rosie.’

And suddenly, I saw the truth of what she was saying. Something clicked inside me. I couldn’t stay here, regretting what hadn’t happened with Joe. I had to do my own thing. Open myself up to new chances. Let the universe—

Oh, for God’s sake.

‘You can always come back,’ said Ellie, then added over her shoulder, ‘though I have no idea why you’d want to, seriously. The spa here is woeful these days.’

*

Caroline and Laurence were very surprised when I asked if I could have a meeting with them both in Laurence’s office, the day before the biggest wedding of the year.

Caroline had come in specially from Oxfordshire, and Laurence had cancelled a morning’s extended dental check-up to make the only time I had free, in between emailing confirmations of canapé calorie counts to Missy Hernandez and
arranging nail technicians. I was secretly relieved I didn’t have time to think too hard about what I was going to say, because my heart was flip-flopping back and forwards on the decision every quarter hour. But I had to do it. I
had
to.

‘If this is about your bonus …’ Laurence began nervously.

‘… you’ve picked a punchy time to negotiate it,’ Caroline finished for him. ‘I can’t say I’m not impressed, though. Have you been on another management course?’

‘It’s not that.’ I fidgeted with my watch. I’d made notes and gone over and over my reasons, but now Caroline and Laurence were sitting behind the desk, the way I remembered them from my very first interview, surrounded by black-and-white photos of film stars and memorabilia of the hotel’s glamorous past. They’d given me my first chance. They’d supported me and encouraged me. But at the same time, I could see that they’d let the hotel dictate their lives and ruin their marriage, and much as I respected them, I couldn’t let it happen to me. I had to be bigger than my job. I had to have a life outside it.

‘I don’t know how to put this,’ I said, ‘but I’ve been offered a promotion, with another hotel. I’ve decided to take it. I’m giving you my notice, starting from Monday. I’ll get this big wedding out of the way first, and obviously I’ll work with my replacement to make the handover as smooth as possible.’

My confidence wobbled when I saw the shock on Laurence’s face, and the disappointment on Caroline’s.

‘But we were going to promote you!’ said Laurence.

I did feel a twinge of guilt about that; but at the same time
I knew the goal posts would have shifted again, come deadline time. They always did, with Laurence.

‘You keep promising me promotions but the goal posts always move,’ I said. ‘This job is on the table. With no strings.’

‘Oh, Rosie,’ said Caroline. ‘What can we offer you to make you stay?’ She spun round to eyeball her ex-husband, who quailed in his chair. ‘Did you negotiate the bonus for her target? I hope you weren’t mean with it.’ She turned back to me. ‘We’ll double whatever it was. What if we formally offer you the position of manager right now? Because it’s yours.’

‘It’s not that,’ I said. This was agony. ‘I just think … maybe it’s time I set myself a new challenge. I love working here, but …’ I swallowed. I was on the verge of tears. ‘I need to feel appreciated for what I know I can do.’

Laurence coughed. ‘You’ve had a hard year, and I know we don’t show our appreciation enough. But, Rosie, you understand this hotel. You bring so much of yourself to your job.’

‘Maybe that’s the problem. I feel, Laurence …’ It was all too late. ‘I feel as if you take it for granted that everyone loves this hotel so much that they’ll sacrifice everything for it. Social life, relationships, free time, promotion …’

I glanced at Caroline. Laurence had lost the one woman who properly understood him because he’d made her put his stupid hotel first, instead of their marriage. And I’d started to turn into an automaton too, telling brides what kind of weddings they should have, to fit the hotel’s demands. Joe had shown me that.

‘The Bonneville’s a wonderful place,’ I said, ‘but it shouldn’t be more important than people. Nothing should.’

Caroline looked taken aback, but then her expression melted into a sad one. Laurence just looked taken aback.

‘I understand what you’re saying,’ she said gently. ‘There’s nothing we can say to make you stay?’

You can make your son come back
, I thought.
And wave a magic wand. And fill the sky with magic wishing helicopters
.

I didn’t say that, obviously. I shook my head and tried to look like the slick business professional I didn’t feel like inside.

And then there was a brief knock on the door, and to everyone’s surprise, Joe barged in. When he saw the three of us – particularly me – he stopped but, to his credit, didn’t back out. He stood in the doorway, filling it with his off-duty checked shirt and jeans.

‘Oh,
here
he is,’ said Caroline sarcastically. ‘They seek him here, they seek him there. They seek Joe Bentley everywhere. Where did you get to? There are five dogs back at Wragley Hall missing their walker.’

Joe shoved his hand into his messy blond hair. It had grown since I’d seen him last; it was falling into his eyes. ‘Yeah, sorry, Mum, I just needed some space.’

‘Your mother’s been very worried,’ said Laurence.

‘And very understaffed,’ she added. ‘I had to let Alec show that couple round. They’re not getting married at Wragley Hall now, you won’t be surprised to hear. Although the groom is coming back for an extreme survival stag weekend.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s why I’m here,’ said Joe. He looked directly at me, and I felt a shiver run across my skin. ‘I know Rosie’s
understaffed for the wedding at the weekend, since I – since I walked out, so I’m back to help with that.’

‘You don’t have to,’ I said at once, feeling my face turn red and hot. ‘It’s all under control.’

‘No, that’s a
good
idea,’ said Caroline. ‘You need to pick up as much from Rosie as you can, Joe, while she’s still here.’

‘While she’s still here?’ Joe glanced up, surprised. ‘Why? Where’s she going? Have you poached her, Mum?’

‘If only.’ Caroline seemed genuinely sorrowful. ‘I’m sorry to say Rosie’s working out her notice and leaving us.’

Joe turned to me, and I couldn’t read his expression; it was guarded, but his eyes moved quickly over me, as if he wanted to say more but didn’t know how. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said stiffly. ‘I hope it’s nothing … we’ve done.’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘Just an offer I couldn’t refuse.’

An awkward, sad silence descended on the room, and I tried to think what Ellie or Helen would say now. Or Emily. Emily would have some charming way of diffusing tension. I wished I could be more like Emily.

‘So …’ Laurence opened the globe-shaped cocktail cabinet. ‘Anyone fancy some wheatgrass? I know I do.’

‘If it’s okay with everyone else, I’ve got to make some calls,’ I said, and excused myself.

*

I heard the door open, and the rustling sound of footsteps following me down the carpeted corridor.

‘Rosie? Wait.’

I stopped without turning, then felt Joe touch my arm. The
skin tingled where he touched it. Maybe he felt it, because he drew his hand away almost at once.

‘It’s nothing to do with me, is it?’ he asked. ‘Please don’t leave on my account. I’m thinking of going back to the States, in any case.’

‘Are you?’ A cold breeze went through me. I made myself look at him, a forced cheerful expression on my face.

He nodded, and bit his lip. ‘It’s one option.’

I knew I should say something, but I didn’t know what. He seemed to be struggling with the right words, and my own track record in that department was so woeful that I’d only make it worse.

‘You don’t have to help tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I meant it about everything being under control. I can see it’d be painful to be—’

‘I’m not going to try to stop the wedding, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said.

‘I didn’t think you were,’ I lied.

Had Emily written that letter to him? I’d forwarded some mail on to him at Wragley Hall, but nothing that looked like a life-changing, heart-breaking love letter.

‘I want to be there to help you.’ Joe held my gaze for a long moment, then said, ‘I’ll pick up the schedule for tomorrow from Gemma.’

Then he turned and walked off. No apology, no explanation, nothing.

Charming.

You’re doing the right thing
, I told myself.
The right thing
.

*

I know I said that I liked a few tiny details in a wedding to go wrong so I could fix them, but I’d ironed out every possible snag in Emily Sharpe’s wedding so firmly that when the day finally dawned, there were no tiny details that
could
go wrong.

No. Just whacking great enormous ones.

The day got off to a brilliant start when I checked with Helen and Dino that the wines for the evening meal had been set aside – and we discovered that the suppliers had delivered ten cases of hazelnut liqueur, not the exquisite Tokay Benedict had requested to go with the pudding. Dino went into a very Italian meltdown, Helen had to re-source the wine, which, it turned out, was quite rare, and – I’m cutting this short, you understand – the upshot was that Wynn and his trusty Volvo were dispatched to a warehouse in Wembley to collect it.

That was the first cock-up, all before I’d had the special bridal breakfast of fresh croissants and coffee in silver pots sent up to Emily and her attendants, getting ready in fits of giggles and tears in the bridal suite. I took the trays up myself on a cart, partly to wish them well for the day, but also to check that there wasn’t anything I needed to nip in the bud there.