‘I’ll get it later. Look, here they are.’
We’re holding a job interview for maintenance staff today. We’re hoping to find a team of two superstars who’ll handle making up the suites and doing the laundry in-house. I placed an ad online last night and a husband-and-wife duo contactedme for more information. They’ve got great references and have worked in and around Paris at various hotels. And this time I took it upon myself to call those references and make sure they were legitimate.
‘Bonjour,’ I say and welcome them in. They’re in their sixties and are lively and energetic. After we’ve shown them around the hotel, we sit down in the guest lounge to chat.
‘We’ve worked in prestigious hotels all our lives,’ the wife, Lina, says. ‘While that’s been great, we’d like to slow down a little now. Eighteen rooms, including the owners’ suites, is an achievable number for us.’ We didn’t include suites nineteen or twenty on our tour and they didn’t question it. ‘We’re a great team and we work well together. If you take a chance with us, we can offer you long, loyal service and a wealth of experience.’
Manon and I exchange a glance. It’s an obvious choice. ‘We’d love you to join the team. We’re learning as we go so we are really lucky to have experts such as yourself willing to help. One thing you should know is, once the hotel is up and running, I’ll be looking to sell. I’m not sure if that will sway your decision, but if so I understand.’
They confer in whispers before saying, ‘We’d love to accept the position. However, our daughter is about to have a baby and we’re going to stay with her for a couple of months.’
‘Oh.’ I deflate. A couple of months! ‘So when would you be ready to start?’
‘We’re planning to return to Paris early February. Do you think you could hold the position for us until then? We know it’s a big ask, but it’s important we’re there for our daughter and our grandchild.’
I weigh it up. Manon and I would have to handle all the cleaning and washing on top of our other work around the hotel. It’s probably doable as we’re only soft launching, and hopefully by the time the couple are back from visiting their daughterwe’ll have a few more suites renovated, funds depending. Manon gives me a surreptitious nod. ‘Oui, we can wait for the right staff, that’s not a problem.’
Once they leave, Manon turns to me. ‘Do you really think you’ll still sell this place?’
I frown. ‘Oui, of course. All my money is tied up here and I don’t have the time or inclination to be a hotelier. The sooner I can extricate myself, the better.’
Manon’s face drops. ‘It’s just… hasn’t it been fun? Even all those marathon painting sessions and washing so many white sheets I saw snowy spots for a few hours. Pranking the tradespeople, meeting Camille who is going to set TikTok on fire, and hopefully not an actual kitchen. It feels like we’re on the brink of something special. I don’t know – maybe this is the stupid love-struck phase I’m battling, but this place has a heart and a soul and, for the first time in my entire life, I feel like I fit. Even though the salary is woeful. So woeful it’s actually non-existent.’
‘It really is woeful, but it will get better once we have paying guests. I’ll make it up to you when we sell, I promise.’
‘So you won’t think about keeping the hotel, not even if it’s wildly successful when we launch?’
I search her face. It’s evident Manon has fallen under the spell of L’Hôtel Bibliothèque Secrèt, but my cousin is fickle at the best of times. How do I know a few months from here, her enthusiasm won’t wane? And what am I even saying? There’s the mortgage to consider, the loan from my parents. It’s too much. ‘I don’t think so, Manon. How can I? This place needs an owner who is hands on, there for any dilemma twenty-four-seven. That’s not going to be me, is it? While I might have been going through a tough patch with my writing, that’s where my passion lies. Not in running this place, as much as I have come to love it, like you have.’ It does grow on you, this little boutique hotelacross from thejardin, the history, the story we are slowing unfurling…
‘What about the secret library?’ she asks. ‘You’d give that up?’
The secret library. That does give me pause. How can I entrust that space, and the history it holds, to just anyone?
I purse my lips together and I envision the sale, and the next owner. It’s a worrying thought. ‘I don’t know, I guess I’ll have to.’ My brain is telling me to be practical, but now my heart has other ideas. How can I abandon the mystery writer and her secrets?
What makes it worse is I’ve had the most amazing idea to honour suite nineteen. I wonder if we can pull it off? And what will that mean when it comes time to sell…?
I’m winding my scarf around my neck when Manon finds me in my suite. ‘Where are you off to?’ she asks.
‘We. You and me.’
‘OK, where areweoff too?’
‘La tour Eiffel.’
She tilts her head. ‘You’ve got a burning desire to visit the Eiffel Tower?’
‘Oui. Hurry, we’ve got tickets so we can’t be late.’
Thirty minutes later, we’re herded into the glass elevator that hangs on to theoutsideof the tower and are making our way slowly up to the summit. The view is incredible from this vantage point. We exit at the very top onto the open-air balcony located just below the spire. ‘What are we doing here?’ Manon asks. ‘While I joked about you being afraid of heights, this is a little… high.’ Wind whips her hair from her face and carries her words with it too.
‘Oui, but you’re lucky we didn’t have to take all of the 1,665 stairs to get here.’
‘Non!Are there really that many?’
I nod. ‘But visitors are only allowed to climb 674 steps. The rest are not open to the public, so the elevator is necessary after that stage.’
‘That’s still about six hundred steps too many.’
