‘Oui.’
I narrow my eyes. Subdued. She’s teasing me. ‘Count me out. How are you so bright and bubbly today?’ By the looks of her peachy complexion and clear eyes, Manon is suffering not one after-effect.
‘One alcoholic beverage, one water. Those are my set-in-stone drinking rules. And I didn’t partake in any shots. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that side of you before. I was a little blown away. Uninhibited Anais is a whole different person.’
I groan and lie my head on the kitchen bench. The cool of the stainless steel is a godsend for my thumping headache. ‘How am I ever going to face Noah again?’
‘What do you mean? He had a great time with you.’
‘That’s not the real me and you know it.’
Manon lifts a lock of my hair. ‘Ah, she’s under there somewhere.’
‘We’re supposed to be painting the guest lounge today, but I don’t think I have the energy.’
‘Why don’t you write?’
With a hangover as ghastly as this, I’m not sure I can do much except suffer and wait for it to pass. ‘Oui, perhaps I’ll focus on my book today. One thing I’m still confused about is, why the death metal band? It doesn’t gel with what I know of our neighbour so far. It seems an odd choice.’
‘Ah.’ Manon leans her elbows on the bench. ‘Every now and then he opens the bar for struggling Parisian musicians, so they get some exposure. He also gives them a percentage of the beverage profits to help them out. Due to his generosity, the bar has quite the cult following, as locals want to support artists, and I suppose Noah too, who is the brains behind it all. Not such a bad guy, eh?’
I don’t want to give Manon the satisfaction of seeing my surprise, but I am a little taken aback by Noah’s actions. It’s agreat opportunity for musicians to share their gift, and for him to share part of the spoils with them shows a sweet side to his character.
‘It’s good of him,’ I eventually manage, and am rewarded with an eye roll. ‘I better get to work so the entire day is not wasted.’
Manon yawns. Maybe she’s not so bright-eyed and bushy tailed as I once thought. ‘The new mattresses for the four guest suites are due to arrive today along with the new linen. How about I get everything washed and folded away, if we’re not painting the guest lounge today?’
We have a small laundry at the back of the hotel. While the machines are antiquated, they’re all in working order. ‘Great idea.’
‘Leave it to me.’
In my suite, I sit at the desk and wait for inspiration to strike. While I’m waiting, I open a new Word document and start typing up my Christmas card list. I even include Noah’s name because it’s the neighbourly thing to do. Once that’s done, I go back to my manuscript and start over.
Rain lashed at the window while Hilary sat at her desk, waiting for inspiration to strike. She had a lot on her mind, what with the surly neighbour next door intent on ruining her life. Wild and robust in nature, the man was a walking cliché, but nobody but her could see it. Yeah, sure, he might have had a soft side to him, with his generosity helping local musicians, but that didn’t give him the right to boss her about. Now she’d made things a hundred times worse, by drinking too much in his bar and attempting to tango with the damn man, and who knows what else. He was exactly her type, and that’s why she had to avoid him. Short of vanishing, she didn’tquite know how she was going to manage that. Unless he had himself a little accident…
A little accident? What is wrong with me? I go back and edit.Unless, he had himself a little accident…My keyboard keys are clattering in time with the pounding in my head and in the end I abort mission and decide a nap is the best option.
22
30 NOVEMBER
The following Saturday we’re up early after a long night painting the guest lounge, which has taken far longer than we expected. The hotel is deathly quiet; JP and his crew have downed tools for the weekend and the backpackers are out. It feels suddenly strange that the place is bereft of so many bodies scuttling around, their radios blaring, the jokes they tell to make the day go faster. A scream every now and then when Manon pranks them.
‘What are your plans today?’ I ask Manon who is tucking into a buttery croissant, showering the island bench with crumbs. Around the corner we have the most beautiful boulangerie, Le Petit Lux, where we buy fresh croissants, pastries or a baguette that we heap with lashings of salty butter.
‘I’m going out with, uh… Kiki tonight, but aside from that not much. Unless you’ve got more painting that needs doing and, in that case, I’m busy all day.’
I laugh. ‘I was thinking we should start compiling books for the library room. We could use some of the collection from suite nineteen, but they seem too special, don’t you think?’
‘Oui,until we know more, we should leave that room as it is.’
‘I agree.’
‘We need to figure out what we’re going to call the hotel library. I was thinking of Library Anaïs. What do you think?’
‘After yourself? I love it!’
‘Not myself! Anaïs Nin. One of the first and finest female writers of erotica, she was also a committed diarist who lived a more, shall we say… wanton lifestyle, and wrote titillating diary entries about it all. I’ve been reading a biography about her and she’s wild enough to be endlessly fascinating. There are so many wonderful quotes attributed to her, but one of my favourites is…’ I find my phone and pull up my notes app where I’ve been jotting quotes from the author herself and I read: ‘“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”Isn’t that perfect for the library room?’
