LoveMakers

by Gould, Judith

  Soon the time was ripe. Elizabeth-Anne gave the gardener twenty thousand francs, and the promise that his job would not be jeopardized. He then lured Miss Hepple into an upstairs bedroom, where he and the unsuspecting nurse were 'accidentally' discovered making love. The gardener was 'fired' on the spot, and Miss Hepple was sent home in disgrace. Elizabeth-Anne called Henry and assured him that two nurses and one therapist were quite adequate. Besides, she insinuated, after the incident with Miss Hepple, she could no longer trust his judgment when it came to hiring nurses. The young gardener was immediately rehired.

  Money spoke. And spoke.

  As the renovations on the villa progressed and Elizabeth-Anne immersed herself in other arrangements, she came to glorious life. She had never felt better or looked better. She supervised every step of the villa's conversion. It was a game - a game that cost millions - but even Ilse Lang agreed that it was the best therapy Elizabeth-Anne could have had.

  She was building another hotel, but one so vastly different in concept from the others, that it was a true challenge. And she was doing it all behind Henry's and Vartan Dadourian's back. She relished simply pulling it off and proving to herself, once and for all, that a wheelchair- ridden old woman need not stop living or working. But best of all, the conversion of Le Fleur de Matin from villa to hotel became a labor of love for everyone involved, and that was the key to its subsequent success.

  Never had Elizabeth-Anne known so many people working hand in hand. The construction workers became her fast friends; two of them in particular, Bertrand Delcroix and Francois Bricteux, became not only her protectors, but co-conspirators. Early in the morning on certain days, they would lift her, wheelchair and all, into the back of their open lorry, tie the chair securely down, and then hoist Dorothy-Anne up beside her great-grandmother. Then the truck would rumble off, with Elizabeth-Anne in her throne in the back, holding a parasol, while Dorothy-Anne gazed out over the tailgate. It was a sight which made her famous to all Provence.

  But these extraordinary outings did not merely serve as entertainment for an eccentric old woman. Elizabeth-Anne was on a mission. Bertrand and Francois drove her all over Provence and the neighboring provinces of Dauphine and Languedoc, scouring the countryside for anything which would embellish their jewel-like little hotel.

  Their frequent searches for art and antiques paid off handsomely. Invariably, they returned to Le Fleur de Matin at night loaded down with precious finds. For instance, at a fifteenth century chateau which was being demolished, they haggled for an ancient, fifteen-foot high, baronial fireplace mantel. They scoured far and wide for more fireplaces; every room was to have one. They bought antique Provencal beds and chairs, and then they discovered the richest, most unexpected find of all - a huge, marble, pre-Christian era sarcophagus which was to become the famed bar in the courtyard. After they transported it back, it was discovered that it was too huge to fit through the gates. Undaunted, Elizabeth-Anne ordered a section of the wall ripped out, and the sarcophagus was moved in.

  The villa was connected to the neighboring farmhouse by a two-story, arched gallery and the buildings became one. The new structure was even more rambling, and thus charming, than the last. The colonnaded loggia overlooking the courtyard became the protected dining terrace Elizabeth-Anne had envisioned, and she spent hours there, thanks to the elevator she had installed which gave her freedom of movement throughout the four floors.

  Elizabeth-Anne decided that the staff of this tiny hotel must be exceptionally gracious, and she hand-picked everyone from the concierge to the chef, who she lured from a three-star restaurant in Dauphine. Small wonder, then, that Le Fleur de Matin became an exclusive club of sorts. Everyone said that staying there was like staying with friends. Which was, Elizabeth-Anne congratulated herself, exactly what she had set out to do in the first place.

  However, even she had not dared to predict the hotel's phenomenal success. It had been a therapeutic labor of love, and because of that, she'd have been content to underwrite a losing proposition. Instead, she found herself most pleasantly surprised. Although, with its mere twenty- five guest rooms, it was the smallest of all the Hale Hotels, Le Fleur de Matin quickly became the most famous in the entire chain, and one of the most celebrated inns in the world. Within its very first season its standing as the favorite haunts of internationally known artists, writers, and film stars was firmly established. It was at once forbiddingly expensive, terribly exclusive, and overwhelmingly casual - but on the intimate, lovely, and friendly scale that few first class hotels ever achieved.

  As the years passed, Elizabeth-Anne was to create other Les Petits Palais, the small palaces, as she called them. They were all conceived along the same lines of exclusivity and beauty as Le Fleur de Matin, and were all just as hugely successful. The second was a Tuscan villa with muraled rooms and formal gardens that overlooked Florence. Next, Elizabeth-Anne found a turreted, white, fairy-tale chateau on the Loire which overlooked the farmlands and river from within its one-hundred-acre wooded park. Then a fifteen-story, stucco villa rising from the beach up an entire hillside in Puerto Vallarta, each floor boasting its own tiled swimming pool overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And the list went on from there, each more fantastically beautiful and warmly charming than the last.

  These were Elizabeth-Anne's pride and true passion; with Les Petits Palais her role of the innkeeper as hostess was brought one step closer to her lifelong idea. She became the chatelaine of far-flung palaces and villas, as well as friend and confidante to the world's most celebrated guests. Even heads of state were drawn to these private hotels, many to write their memoirs, some just to relax in the rarefied, enchanted atmosphere. Selectivity was the key to the success of Les Petits Palais, for they were the very essence of the lifestyles of the rich and famous. They quickly became one of the worst-kept secrets in the world.

  6

  Although no one knew it, as 1985 began, the last days of Elizabeth-Anne Hale's life were drawing to a close. There were some things Elizabeth-Anne told everyone, some things she confided only to her nearest and dearest, and a few things she kept to herself and never told a soul. The cancer was one of the things she kept to herself. She didn't see any reason to upset her family and friends by telling them about it. Everyone would know soon enough, anyway.

  Above all, Elizabeth-Anne didn't want Dorothy-Anne to know. She and Freddie were too happy. Bad news traveled fast. Too fast, she thought as the big yellow-and-black Rolls-Royce sailed sagaciously through the thick New Jersey rain.

  Elizabeth-Anne rested her chin on her hand as she stared out the rain-streaked window. The tires hissed on the wet pavement, and the windshield wipers thumped steadily, tossing aside the heavy, thick sheets of rain.

  Suddenly, Elizabeth-Anne pressed the button which lowered the glass partition between her and the driver. With the sterling head of her Baccarat crystal cane, she rapped on the slowly descending glass. 'Faster, Max,' she said urgently.

  Max hesitated, his eyes glancing at Elizabeth-Anne in the rearview mirror. She seemed so strong, so sure of herself. But her usual, imperturbable calm had for once deserted her. 'We're already going the speed limit, Mrs. Hale, ma'am,' he said politely. 'The road's slick. Everybody else has slowed down.'

  'My vision is still excellent, thank you,' Elizabeth-Anne replied crisply. 'Perhaps those people are not pressed for time.' She paused deliberately. 'I am. And you might bear in mind, Max, that I am not everybody else.'

  He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. This was the first time she had ever chewed him out, or told him how to drive. He let out the deep breath slowly. 'Yes, ma'am, Mrs. Hale.'

  'Well? Then step on the gas!'

  Elizabeth-Anne sat painfully forward and craned her neck so that she could see the speedometer inching upwards until it reached seventy-five miles per hour. The car was a tank, nearly three-and-a-half tons of fine-tuned machinery, and once momentum was achieved, it surged majestically forward through the rai
n.

  A satisfied expression came into Elizabeth-Anne's blue eyes. She sat back in her seat and pressed the button; the glass partition rose soundlessly.

  She pushed up the cuff of her white silk blouse to glance at her wristwatch, then sighed. Rush or no, the watched pot never boils. She decided to try to get some work done, hoping that, once immersed, she would lose all track of time.

  Still, she couldn't help wishing that she weren't so vain. Flying to Baltimore would have been much easier, but Max would have had to carry her from the car onboard the plane, and upon arriving a virtual stranger would have had to carry her off. She couldn't bear the thought of it. Then, too, Max was the only person she trusted to keep mum about her whereabouts. Anyone else was bound to talk. It was still too early to let anyone know why she was visiting the Johns Hopkins University Hospital.

  As long as the car ride didn't take much more than four hours, she preferred driving to taking a jet anyway. A lengthy car ride was difficult enough. She always had to plan in advance, cutting down on her fluid intake twelve hours before each ride so that rest stops were not necessary. Something as simple as going to the bathroom was no longer simple. Oh, how she hated this infirmity! Her fierce independence was rankled no end by her powerless, atrophied legs. She despised having to use the wheelchair. She'd been in it for years, and she still hadn't been able to get used to it. She was only grateful that at least she had enough money to be able to employ people to compensate for her legs.

  She sighed angrily. All her life long she had despised people who felt sorry for themselves. The last thing she needed now was to join their ranks.

  Without further hesitation, she reached for the Vuitton attaché case on the seat beside her. The sturdy, miniature suitcase had served her well for decades; just the sight of it reassured her now.

  She placed the case on her lap, flipped it open, and reached for her small, Ben Franklin-style reading glasses. Perching them on her nose, she snapped on her reading lamp and took out a three-inch thick report bound in clear plastic. She gazed down at it. Printed at the top right-hand side of the page was a letterhead:

  Hale Real Estate Acquisitions Board

  Empire State Building

  350 Fifth Avenue

  New York, New York 10001

  The logo at the top left-hand corner of the page was the emblem of Hale Hotels, Inc., a blanket corporation and the parent company of the sprawling empire Elizabeth-Anne had built. The symbols of her home state, Texas, were artfully intertwined: a stylized pecan tree, a mockingbird, and a bluebonnet inside a Lone Star outlined in blue. On either side of the Lone Star were two smaller red stars, four altogether, symbolizing not only the state where her empire had had its roots, but that rarest of the rare in the hotel business: a conglomeration of five-star hotels worldwide.

  The title of the report was neatly centered on the thick cream stationery:

  COMPILED FEASIBILITY STUDY

  Potential Conversion of Central Park South Site

  into

  Mayfair Hale Hotel

  And under the title were typed the legends:

  Property Still Open For Negotiation

  Other Known Bidders: None

  Suspected Secret Bidders: None

  Hotel Possibilities Previously Explored By:

  Best Western

  Helmsley

  Sheraton

  Elizabeth-Anne's face creased into a frown. She would have to check into just why the other three hotel corporations had turned down the site. But she was gratified to see the red ink stamped onto the title page and onto each of the subsequent 526 pages within. The single word warned: CONFIDENTIAL. Smaller red letters, also stamped, further warned:

  ORIGINAL ONLY COPY IN EXISTENCE

  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES

  MAKE COPIES OF ORIGINAL

  The melodrama was, in fact, necessary. Elizabeth-Anne had long ago learned that corporate espionage was rife even in the hotel business. Furthermore, when it was learned that Hale Hotels had its eye, however lazily, on a certain piece of property, she could count on the real estate price invariably, greedily, skyrocketing. To counter this, once the Hale Acquisitions Board had recommended a certain property be bought and she had endorsed it, the sale was slyly negotiated through a third, secretive party.

  She opened the report and began to read.

  The feasibility of the new hotel, indeed all the possible pros and cons which could be imagined, had been discussed in scrupulous detail. The report started by cold-bloodedly reducing the property and its existing, sweetly gaudy Belle Epoque-style building to their value in dollars and cents, then projected the future worth of the property alone under various depressed and inflated financial climates. It had also predicted the cost of converting the building into a hotel, as opposed to the staggering fortune necessary to raze the structure and start from scratch. It then went on to project the number of rooms versus the years the hotel would have to operate at various vacancy percentages in the red, before it could be turned around to operate in the black.

  The legal department had studied that essentially New York phenomenon: the effects a potentially outraged citizen's group would have upon the razing, or even conversion, of the existing building, if it decided to fight to protect the structure by seeking landmark status for it.

  An independent marketing survey rated existing New York hotels and had sent out 15,000 questionnaires to regular Hale Hotels business customers, whose addresses were on file in the central Hale data bank. The return- postage-paid questionnaire sought answers as to what, in particular, enticed travelers to any one hotel.

  The creative department had mapped out the potential hotel's particular style: from ballroom, to theme restaurants, all the way down to the last napkin ring.

  The hotel managers of the existing Hale Hotels reported on what essential services all world-wide hotels offered, what significant services were offered exclusively by Hale Hotels, what was lacking in any one hotel, and what, in particular, would make the projected new Hale Hotel far more desirable than any other hotel in the city and, indeed, the world.

  The in-depth coverage of all possibilities was mind- boggling.

  Elizabeth-Anne felt overwhelmed by it. Nothing had been like this in the beginning. No longer was the slightest, most seemingly inconsequential item left to acumen, instinct, chance, and a galloping, maverick, gambling spirit. It made her feel somehow useless, as if she were a lone dinosaur plodding through the modern world. And she wasn't at all certain that she liked the way the business world had changed. In the age of computers and surveys, she had no choice but bow to the report writers. But that didn't mean she had to like it. Everything was so . . . so cut and dried. The chances for errors were greatly reduced. But, somehow, that had taken all the life out of it.

  She felt a tinge of regret, and a stirring of gratitude . . . gratitude that she had been born when she had, at a time when a person could still have vision and spunk and fulfill their dreams on ne'er but faith and hard work.

  She closed the report, marking her place with her thumb. Taking off her glasses, she pinched the bridge of her nose, then stared out the rain-streaked window. The visibility was even worse than before, and the tattoo of rain on the roof was a muffled, but constant drumbeat.

  With an abrupt gesture, she slammed the report back into her attaché case. She had been a fool to even open it! She was in no mood to deal with work now. She couldn't simply distract herself from the mental anguish that plagued her. There was no turning away from the inevitability of the truth. Perhaps when the trip was over, when her mind was once again fresh and at rest, reassured about her own future, she could pick up the report again. But not until then.

  Not until the tumor inside her, of which no one but she and the doctors were aware, was cut out, exorcised from her body.

  The doctors had assured her that her chances were good, despite her age.

  Why, then, did she feel so darkly convinced that she was dying? That this was the
beginning of the end?

  7

  These memories. There were so many of them.

  Time seemed to have become frozen, and the minutes stopped ticking.

  She felt something soft and deliciously cool against her forehead. She opened her eyes and smiled wanly up at Mrs. Ramirez. 'I'm scared,' she whispered.

  'Do not be.' Mrs. Ramirez smiled with gentle reassurance. 'It will be fine. Everything will turn out fine. See?' She stopped wiping Dorothy-Anne's head, reached into the front of her blouse, and held out a tiny glittering medallion hanging from a thread-thin gold chain. 'It is the medal of the Blessed Virgin. I wear it all the time. José, a nephew of mine, he and his wife went to Fatima. They brought it back.' She paused. 'It has been blessed.' On an impulse, Mrs. Ramirez put down the cloth, reached behind her neck, and unclasped the necklace. Then she hung it around Dorothy-Anne's neck. 'You wear for now. The Blessed Mother, she look after me. Now she look after you, too.'

  'Thank you,' Dorothy-Anne whispered.

  She watched Mrs. Ramirez rinsing out the cloth in a bowl. The big woman crossed the room, then stopped in the shadows near the doorway. 'I see about the telephone. Maybe is already fixed.'

  Dorothy-Anne heard Mrs. Ramirez's voice, but the face did not seem to belong to her. Suddenly the face she saw was a handsome one with a stubborn chin and the angular cheekbones, a head of silver hair, and arresting aquamarine eyes with their wise, all-knowing expression.

  Dorothy-Anne sighed softly and shut her eyes. 'Great- Granny,' she whispered, although she knew it could not be.

  Not here. Not today. Not ever again.

  It had been the last time she had seen her great- grandmother alive.

  Three short days ago a lifetime that had spanned the better part of the century had ended.