Paris Lights

by C. J. Duggan

  ‘And you consistently managed to under-deliver with every under-seasoned, flavourless meal I had the unfortunate task of eating.’

  My mouth fell open.

  When I saw the hope diminish in Gaspard’s eyes I knew I hated Louis Delarue, that he was a soulless bastard.

  ‘Monsieur Delarue, I am saddened to have disappointed you,’ said Gaspard. Long gone was the big-noting, grumpy chef who had threatened violence if Louis Delarue so much as stepped into this kitchen and said a bad word against his cooking. In his place was a quiet, sad old man and my heart broke for him.

  ‘And are you always so consistently an arsehole?’ I said.

  Cathy’s head swung around so fast I thought her neck might have snapped. Her reaction was nothing compared to the way my breath had stopped as soon as the words had unintentionally tumbled out of my mouth. Still, I had no choice but to face the music now, squaring my shoulders and holding my ground as Louis turned to frown at me, as if he could not believe what he’d just heard. I could barely believe it myself, even more so when a wolfish grin spread slowly across his face.

  ‘The girl who lives on an island far, far away,’ he said, turning fully to me. He had obviously pinned my Aussie accent.

  ‘If you’re about to make a joke about Australia being built by convicts, then spare me, I’ve heard nothing but that for the last two years in London.’

  Geez, Claire, overshare much?

  Louis looked at me as if I was a piece of mould growing in an abandoned Tupperware container. He stepped closer to me, standing just to my side, forcing me to crane my neck to meet his eyes.

  ‘I am meant to make my decision on whether I can put my efforts into saving this hotel and bring it into the leading category of fine dining and luxurious accommodation. The Trocadéro is one of hundreds of applicants striving to be chosen to be brought into the twenty-first century; it makes for a very difficult decision.’

  I tried to swallow discreetly, but I was having a hard time concentrating on staying calm and keeping my breath even while his rich accent rolled over me like thunder. I dared not blink as he spoke to me. His cocky grin was back in place, curving the corner of his mouth as if he had a dirty little secret. It would be absolutely hot, if I didn’t want to punch him in the face so badly.

  ‘Your point being?’ I could hear the words come out but I was powerless to stop them.

  ‘The point is I am eternally grateful to you, Claire.’

  My name on his lips sent warmth through me, and I didn’t quite like to admit the feeling.

  My eyes narrowed, and my silence urged him to explain himself further.

  He smiled then, delighting in the fact I didn’t follow. ‘Because you have just made my decision a whole lot easier,’ he said, before he turned his attention to the others and gave a nod of approval. ‘Au revoir et bonne chance,’ he said, before casting me one last ‘fuck you’ look and pushing through the kitchen door, leaving us in shock.

  ‘What did he just—’

  ‘He said “goodbye and good luck”,’ said Francois, who threw his dishcloth across the room into the sink. Taking in the looks of anger and despair, I realised that I may not have understood the language but I sure got his meaning. Louis Delarue would not be helping us, and it was all my fault.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Death by minibar.

  Downing the last of some booze whose name I couldn’t even pronounce, I chucked its teeny-tiny bottle onto the bed next to me. It clinked against all its empty brothers and sisters, as it landed beside empty chocolate wrappers and packets of chips. If I was going to be checking out in the morning I might as well have a huge blowout tonight, I thought as I opened the very last mini bottle of alcohol and saluted to my laptop screen.

  ‘Cheers, Paris, it’s been real,’ I announced, taking a big gulp, before spluttering and choking on the vile amber liquid. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, fucking shit.’ I cringed, examining the bottle that sat snugly in my palm. What the hell did I just drink?

  I checked the label to make sure it didn’t say Le Draino or have a mini skull and cross bones on it. That’s all I needed to top off my Paris experience: jilted tourist dishwasher found face down in Parisian penthouse suite. Well, at least the penthouse part sounded impressive. And it would certainly be a relatively painless death, unlike the poor people I was bearing witness to on my computer screen. In my tipsy, self-pitying state, I had taken it upon myself to Google who exactly this Louis Delarue joker was. And it had taken me all of two-point-five seconds to come to the conclusion that he was a big deal, a really big fucking deal.

  What have I done?

  Louis Delarue was an author, a restaurateur, a TV celebrity and revered as one of the most highly acclaimed chefs of his generation. Not only was he a regular judge on a BBC cooking show, but he was also the co-creator of his own widely successful show Renovation or Detonation, the very show I had been binge-watching for the past hour. The formula was pretty much the same: he would rock up to some struggling hotel, check in, critique the accommodation, eat and bag out the food, then yell and scream at the staff until they were at breaking point.

  There was a moment where I actually felt relieved that I had saved the Trocadéro staff from such bullying. It was hard to watch, hard to imagine him yelling at Cecile until she crumbled. But to my horror there was also a common theme in the show: the staff always responded to his tough love; they begrudgingly respected him and listened to him, and he actually made a difference to these businesses. His unpacking and repacking of the hotel’s issues transformed the hotel, each change and suggestion made sense, and the transformations were something to behold. He used his own money and his own team to renovate key spaces in the hotel to show them their potential. Every show ended with teary, thankful staff, and a glimmer of humanity in Louis Delarue. He was a cantankerous bastard, but he knew what he wanted and regardless of how he got there, he drew out the best in people.

  I spiralled into a deep depression. I felt terrible, not only from the contents of the minibar swimming around my insides, but because I had completely sabotaged any chance the Hotel Trocadéro had of Louis Delarue taking on the hotel for a project. I hadn’t even had the nerve to meet with Cecile after lunch; I had disappeared to the sixth floor in order to digest what the hell had just happened. There was no doubt in my mind that Cathy and the team would have Cecile filled in by now. My mind flashed to me calling Louis Delarue an arsehole, and I died a thousand deaths, throwing myself backward on my pillow and wishing that when I woke up in the morning it would all be a dream, or rather, a big, nasty nightmare. But every time I closed my eyes I saw him looking at me through the car window, up from the street, at the table in the kitchen; he was everywhere, taunting me.

  I pulled myself up with a groan; the circle on the YouTube screen was whittling around, loading the next clip, and there he was again, but this time he was sitting down, a beautiful garden the backdrop as he was interviewed by a woman off camera. The whole interview was in French, but I didn’t need subtitles to pinpoint his charisma. He was almost unrecognisable, and his manner seemed light, even playful. I could hear the effect he was having on the interviewer as she laughed. His eyes twinkled as he squinted against the sunlight. I almost caught myself smiling at the screen as he burst into laughter, and then I cursed myself. Don’t be fooled, Claire, this man is like a spider, luring prey into his web before striking a deadly blow. It was the kind of thing that made him an A-grade villain, a man you loved to hate – or was it hated to love? Either way, I was equally relieved and horrified. All I could do was catch the next Eurostar to London and go back to tampering with my own life, which was just as big a mess. Me and misery were becoming fast friends.

  There on my plush bed, legs crossed, staring blurry-eyed at the laptop screen, I had never felt more alone, until, in what seemed an act of divine intervention, my Skype icon flashed with an incoming call. I flinched, fearing it was my increasingly and alarmingly tech-savvy mother, who had tracked m
e down on yet another platform, but much to my relief, it was my sister Sammi. I couldn’t click the accept button fast enough to see her bright, sunshiny smile pop up on my screen. I screamed, clapped and cried.

  ‘Hee-eey,!’ I sing-songed, waving at the screen.

  ‘Hee-eey,’ she sang back, laughing at my enthusiasm. ‘Or should I say, “Bonsoir”?’

  The twang of her Aussie accent saying bonsoir rather unconvincingly made me think that was what I must sound like.

  ‘What time is it there?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s one am … again.’

  I shook my head. ‘Bingeing on Netflix?’

  Sammy sighed. ‘The struggle is real.’

  I breathed out a laugh; despite sitting in my Paris penthouse I felt seethingly jealous of my sister and her simple pleasure. Netflix bingeing in her daggy PJs on Mum and Dad’s couch sounded glorious.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Huh? No, nothing.’ I was taken aback by how she could tell so much from my expression, even through a fuzzy Skype connection.

  ‘Liar!’ she said, shifting on the couch as if settling in to drill me.

  ‘Seriously, all is well, I’m staying in a really nice place,’ I said, trying my best to highlight the good things.

  ‘Oh sweet, what does Liam think of Paris?’

  Fuck! ‘Yeah, good, um, hey, have you heard of a chef called Louis Delarue?’ I asked, quickly shifting the conversation.

  It worked, judging by the rising of Sammy’s perfectly manicured eyebrows. ‘Are you kidding? You would have to be from Mars not to know who Louis bloody DeLaHubbaHubba is,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, so that’s a yes then?’

  ‘Ah, yeah, a big hell to the yes. Not long ago I finished all seven seasons of Renovation or Detonation. God, I love that show.’

  Was it possible to feel worse? That my hopes of being cheered up by my beloved sister were futile?

  ‘Why do you ask?’ she said, grabbing for the remote and turning the volume of the TV down to hear me better.

  ‘Oh, no reason … he came to the hotel today.’

  Sammy did a double take. ‘What?’ she said, suddenly muting the TV and adjusting her screen so I had her undivided attention. ‘Speak! Tell me every minuscule detail,’ she said very seriously.

  I sighed, fighting against rolling my eyes. I really didn’t want to bring down the pedestal Louis Delarue was sitting on for my sister, but if I didn’t vent to someone I was going to develop a stomach ulcer. What was a girl to do? If I was going to slash down her vision, I was about to do so with a chainsaw.

  ‘Okay, then, you asked for it.’

  Sisters. Always there for you. To listen, encourage, support with an unwavering love and fierce loyalty. Or at least that’s what I had thought.

  For a moment it seemed Skype had frozen, that Sammi’s face was permanently stuck with a confused scowl. I told her exactly what had unfolded in these past few days – minus the whole Liam fiasco. I told her I had chosen to stay on for a few days because I had been given an opportunity of a lifetime, until I had accidentally poured cold water on Louis Delarue’s crotch and called him an arsehole. I had thought that Sammi might find it funny, but she had covered her mouth in shock, which made me feel really shitty, and even more so now I was squaring off with her disapproving sneer.

  ‘Are you fucking crazy?’ she shouted.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘People would give their eye teeth to get an opportunity even to breathe the same air as Louis Delarue, and you have managed to assault him and insult him in the space of a few hours.’

  I rolled my eyes, suddenly finding my chipped fingernail fascinating. I was starting to regret having told her anything at all.

  ‘He’s like restaurant royalty.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’d never heard of him.’

  ‘That’s because you are too busy skipping after Liam and playing housewife.’

  Ha, if only she knew how that had changed. Then it occurred to me – until tonight I hadn’t actually thought about Liam, not once. I had been too busy. It may have been the day from hell, but as far as my heart went, I was kind of proud of myself.

  ‘Claire, you need to go and apologise.’

  ‘I’m going down to see Cecile in the morning,’ I said.

  ‘Not to Cecile, Claire. To Louis.’

  I scoffed, laughing at the absurdity of her words, until of course I realised she wasn’t joking. She was deadly serious.

  ‘I will not!’

  Sammi threw up her hands in despair. ‘You are so bloody stubborn, just do it!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Claire, this is bigger than you. You have to apologise to him, and you better hope that your begging skills are good enough for him to change his mind and reconsider helping the hotel.’

  Her words hit a nerve, and I hated her for that. My pride would fight every step of the way, but my guilt was definitely overriding any other emotion. Damn her!

  ‘I’ve gotta go,’ I said, afraid that if I kept hearing her out I might be persuaded.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Claire. Christ, anyone would think I was the older sister, the way you chuck a tantrum.’

  ‘I am not chucking a tantrum!’

  ‘Oh right, let me guess, you’re off to raid the minibar and eat all the chocolate then.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said, slowly extending my leg and sweeping the empty liquor bottles well out of view. ‘Goodbye, Sammi!’ I said in my no-nonsense, older-sister voice.

  ‘Apologise, Claire!’

  I waved. ‘Night-night.’

  ‘Claire,’ Sammi warned.

  ‘Byyyyeeeee.’ And I closed the lid of my laptop, leaving me in complete blissful silence.

  But the problem with silence was the freedom it afforded my mind to wander, and guilt to hook its clutches into me. By the time I had made myself comfy in my bed, ready for a much-needed sleep after the exhaustion of the day, I had half convinced myself that come morning, I would work on trying to fix things with Louis Delarue and see if there was any chance of him coming back to transform the hotel. In a way I hoped that maybe I would wake up and find that it had all been a dream, but as I closed my eyes and was once again haunted by Louis Delarue’s cold, hard blue eyes, I knew that it was unlike any dream I had ever experienced before. No, it was more than that. It was a bloody nightmare.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My ears were ringing so insistently the sound woke me up. It wouldn’t stop no matter how I tried to bury my head underneath the feather pillow. As the piercing sound continued, the more alert I became, and I lifted my head and squinted toward the sound. I realised that the ringing was coming from my bedside. The ornate old-fashioned gold-and-floral phone was rattling with every ring. If this was Sammi, ready to give me my early morning wake-up call and guilt trip, I would murder her.

  I clawed my way over the king-sized bed and scrambled to reach the phone, to put a stop to the sound.

  ‘Hello?’ I croaked.

  For a moment I thought it might have been a heavy breather on the other end, but then the distracted person at the end of the line must have realised I was there.

  ‘Claire? Claire, is that you?’

  I frowned, hearing Cecile’s manic question. ‘Well, I am the only one on the sixth floor, aren’t I?’ I know it was first thing in the morning, but I would like to think that my sleepy voice didn’t sound too masculine.

  ‘Ah, well, maybe not for much longer. Claire, you have to come down to reception right away.’

  Uh oh. I sat bolt upright. ‘Is everything okay?’ I asked, my chest starting to pound at a hundred miles an hour. The people who really stayed up here, the actual owners of the hotel, were they back? Did they plan to kick me out after the disaster of yesterday? Would I be suddenly on the street? I couldn’t exactly blame them.

  ‘Claire, please hurry, you must come down right away.’ The line went dead, and foreboding swept over me.

  I washed my f
ace, brushed my teeth and chucked my hair up in a topknot, working my fingers through my fringe and trying for that whole messy bun look, but somehow not pulling it off like most of the cover models would. I straightened my navy pleated skirt and polka-dot blouse, wedging my feet into my ballet flats, and gave myself the once over. I’d never been called beautiful, always falling more on the pretty or cute side. My eyes were far too big, and my chestnut-coloured hair was more kinky than curly. I sighed; at least if I was heading down to the firing squad I wouldn’t look hideous, and my dad had always said that my big blue eyes made him crumble any time I turned the sads on. Maybe I could use them to my advantage now.

  I had been practising saying sorry as I got ready; it had to be convincing, authentic, had to have an ounce of emotion, seeing that somewhere between sleep and waking I had decided that the only way to make it up to Cecile and the others was to swallow my pride and apologise to Louis Delarue for how I had treated him yesterday. It almost made me ill thinking about it, but of course with Cecile’s sudden panicked beckoning, tracking down Louis and doing the right thing might be the least of my worries. I shut the door behind me feeling nervous, and made my way down the hall to meet my fate.

  I didn’t know what would greet me in reception: maybe a revolted look from Gaston, or Philippe lowering his monobrow and shaking his head in disgust. Or would I get the cold shoulder from Cathy? So when the lift door opened and the first thing that greeted me was Cecile’s blinding smile I was never more confused.

  All air was knocked from my lungs as I stepped out of the lift and Cecile wrapped her arms around me in a powerful bear hug. Maybe I had been right last night: maybe saving them from the bad-tempered, soul-destroying chef would be better for them all?

  ‘Are you hungry? Come, sit with me,’ she said, hooking her arm through mine and leading me in the direction of the lounge like we were two Victorian ladies on a Sunday stroll. ‘Philippe, can you look after the reception for a while?’