by Mandy Baggot
‘Maybe try her a little later. Once she’s settled into the new surroundings. I’ll let her know you’ve called.’
‘It’s Keeley,’ she said. ‘Tell her it was Keeley.’
‘I will,’ Nurse Walters answered.
‘Bye,’ Keeley said, ending the call and slipping the phone into her pocket.
Rach put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close. ‘I’m guessing room nine isn’t good.’
Keeley shook her head. ‘No.’ She took a breath. ‘Room nine is where… people go to die.’
Rach drew her closer still and Keeley took a moment to enjoy the comfort of her friend beside her. And then her phone began to ring again. She drew it out.
‘Ethan?’ Rach exclaimed, eyes on the screen. ‘Who is Ethan, Keeley?’
Thirty-Six
La Barbouquin, Rue Denoyez, Paris
‘You cannot still be hungry.’
‘It is not for me. It is for Bo-Bo.’
Ethan still could not believe that the dog was behaving as if nothing had happened to it. The call from Antoine had been almost as shocking as the news that the ownership of the hotels was now shared with an animal charity. When Ethan had arrived at the hotel it was to find Antoine and members of his housekeeping staff attempting to corral the frightened rampaging canine in the underground carpark with mops, brooms and large cardboard rolls of Christmas gift wrap. The dog remained terrified until Ethan had fetched Jeanne from the hotel room and straightaway, her presence had calmed the dog and turned the violent yapping into uncertain whining. Then Jeanne had managed to launch herself at Bo-Bo and bearhug him to the ground while deftly snapping on a new lead Antoine had acquired from somewhere.
‘Bo-Bo should not even be in here,’ Ethan reminded.
He had needed to get out of the Tour Eiffel hotel earlier. He didn’t want the questions about the dog or Jeanne from anyone and he definitely didn’t want Silvie or Louis to find out and make a big issue about it. Louis’s shock over Ferne’s change in wishes would not last long. Ethan knew how the man responded to things. It was all immediate knee-jerks followed by simmering in the juices of rage, then finally a coming to a boil with renewed vigour. Just like he had when they were children when he would protest about something Ethan and Ferne wanted to do that he didn’t agree with. He had lost a man-at-arms when Pierre had passed away but today’s Louis would still try to find a way to push his idea through, maybe attempt to coerce the animal shelter somehow. Ethan now had to ensure that Perfect Paris was worth more to the charity going forward and looking at growth, than it would be as one quick financial fix in a sale. And he already had the beginnings of an idea forming…
‘Bo-Bo has been through a trauma,’ Jeanne responded, dropping a piece of cake into the dog’s mouth. ‘It is not every day that you almost die and then come to life again. It is like Jesus being reborn.’
Ethan looked at the still-slightly-grubby-looking girl, the beanie hat low on her head, her clothes baggy and loose on what he knew would be the tiniest of frames.
‘Is your girlfriend coming to see Bo-Bo?’ Jeanne asked then, sneaking another slice of cake from the whole of one Ethan had bought to share.
‘My girlfriend?’ he asked.
‘She promised to come for the Survivor Party,’ Jeanne stated. ‘Bo-Bo survived. She would want to celebrate with us, no?’
Celebrate with us? What was that sentence? There was no ‘us’, not with him and this scrap of a child and a dog with more lives than it was supposed to have. Not with Keeley. Was there? He had never really ever been part of an ‘us’. He had always kept things casual in his relationships, lightweight. He told himself it was living for the moment, but in reality he suspected it was more a case of not living for an undiscernible future. With life taking unexpected turns every single day, it was better not to hold on too tight to anything.
‘She is not my girlfriend,’ Ethan answered. ‘We have only just met.’
‘But you like her,’ Jeanne said, mouth moving around the cake. ‘I can tell.’
‘Well, I can tell that you have been eating a lot of room service while you were in the room I gave you. There is ketchup on your cheek and cheese souffle down your jacket.’
‘You said that I could “be your guest”.’ She sniffed. ‘You look a bit like that grumpy candle thing in Beauty and the Beast.’
‘Most guests do not binge-eat five or six main meals or stream as many movies.’
‘What do they do?’ Jeanne queried, letting Bo-Bo nibble crumbs from her cakey fingers. ‘Look out at the boring Tour Eiffel while they hold hands and kiss and whatever else.’ She clamped her hands around herself then, acting an embrace, and began to make the most hideous wet kissing noises with accompanying moans. ‘Je t’aime. Oh, je taime.’
‘Jeanne!’ Ethan ordered, taking her hands away from her smooching. ‘Stop that.’
The girl laughed and picked up her giant mug of hot chocolate, almost dunking her face in it. He couldn’t keep her at the hotel for very long. But where did she belong?
‘Where is home for you, Jeanne?’ Ethan spoke his mind.
‘Is she coming?’ Jeanne asked. ‘Your not-girlfriend?’
Classic avoiding the question. Something he had been quite the master at in his time. Sometimes he still was.
‘She said she would,’ he answered. ‘I think she is wanting to see this transformation of Bo-Bo with her own eyes.’
‘It is a Christmas miracle,’ Jeanne agreed, ruffling the dog’s ears.
‘Jeanne,’ Ethan began. ‘You cannot stay at my hotel forever.’
Her eyes grew larger still then and even Bo-Bo seemed to turn his head and show interest in something other than the cake. This dog really had made a miraculous recovery. There was no sign of injury on him at all.
‘So, it is your hotel! You… are a millionaire!’
Jeanne has spoken rather loudly and now there were definitely other customers trying to tune in to their conversation over the gentle Christmas carols coming from a radio.
‘I am not a millionaire,’ Ethan insisted. He wasn’t. But also he rarely took notice of how much money he did have. Because, when you had lived on the street, wealth meant something else entirely. It wasn’t a bank balance or stocks and shares. It was lukewarm discarded coffee. It was leftover food from bins. It was not feeling too scared to fall asleep for a few hours in the dead of the night…
‘I would feel like a millionaire if I could give people a room in my hotel and let them sign up to Disney Plus,’ Jeanne told him. Bo-Bo barked as if in agreement.
For a second Ethan felt good about her statement, and then he realised exactly what Jeanne had said. ‘How have you signed up to Disney Plus?’
She touched her nose with her finger smearing cake crumbs across it.
*
‘Let me get this straight, once more, before we go in,’ Rach began, halting Keeley outside the eatery. She blew out a breath. ‘We are meeting up with some guy you met on the street outside our hotel, who you also rode on a fairground ride with and ate dinner with, and went for a run with – where a dog was half-killed and then somehow got revived – and this is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
Keeley nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘But I still don’t know why you didn’t tell me,’ Rach moaned. ‘Would you have told me if I hadn’t seen his name flash up on your phone?’
‘Of course I would,’ Keeley said straightaway. She would have. Probably. Eventually.
‘So, who is he?’ Rach continued. ‘Because you haven’t said all that much apart from listing out a lot of really really random things that have happened that I didn’t know about.’
Rach was right. Who was Ethan? Now Keeley felt a little silly. She didn’t know anything about him. Except that she thought he was the best-looking guy she had ever seen and he listened to her, intently, with those eyes resting on her, looking as if he were reading her spirit. She had asked him what he did, but earlier Bo-Bo had taken priori
ty.
‘I… don’t know,’ Keeley admitted, putting her hands into the pockets of her coat and bunching up her shoulders against the cold wind. This area was unlike the surroundings around their hotel. There was graffiti on the shopfronts and bright mosaic planters on the pavement giving off a real grungy bohemian vibe. It was definitely another ‘hidden Paris’ location to mark on the map if it wasn’t on there already.
‘Keeley!’ Rach exclaimed. ‘Random men are usually my thing. You usually tell them your full name, your address, your first pet and that you’ve got a weakened immune system.’
That was all true. Slightly exaggerated, but all true. Keeley jutted her chin out a little. ‘I didn’t do any of those things.’
‘Wow,’ Rach said, looking a little impressed. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ Keeley replied. ‘He doesn’t even know I have to look out for symptoms of gout. Now, can we get inside because it’s turned freezing out here.’
Thirty-Seven
Keeley wasn’t sure what she was even doing here, meeting up with this mysterious man, a child who could be a runaway and a dog who had defied all the usual life/death rules of engagement. She also wasn’t sure about Rach being here either. Inviting Rach into this odd situation was giving the whole scenario validation and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It made her slightly odd friendship with Ethan less throwaway and more what-might-this-be-like-if-we-carry-on-meeting-up. And the reason she was supposed to be in Paris was for Silvie not for seeing potential mates. She swallowed as she pushed the door to enter. Was that how she saw Ethan? As a potential mate?
Her insides told her yes, that’s exactly how she thought of him, particularly now, looking at him sitting in a snug corner of the unconventional café-cum-bakery-cum-bookstore. There were so many books and things pickled in jars amid the books. It was like being part of a fairy-tale, perhaps Alice in Wonderland, where items were calling out ‘drink me’, ‘eat me’ or ‘read me’. And there was Ethan, dressed in that familiar business suit with waistcoat looking smart, but also somehow beatnik and avant-garde. He was completely fitting in with his surroundings though, wiping a serviette over Bo-Bo’s chin as the revived dog threatened to dribble on the table.
‘Is that him?’ Rach asked.
‘Yes,’ Keeley breathed, knowing she was sounding dangerously fangirl.
‘Well,’ Rach said, no nonsense, ‘you’d better introduce me.’
Keeley watched as Rach went striding off towards a table by the counter. It took a second for her to realise what was happening and she scuttered across the floor, reaching out to grab Rach’s jacket.
‘Rach! No.’ Keeley pulled her to a halt.
‘What?’ Rach asked. ‘You can’t have second thoughts about me meeting him now. I’m here and I want to see this guy you’ve hidden from me.’
‘I know,’ Keeley said. ‘But you’re going the wrong way.’ She turned Rach around a little, pointing her in the direction of Ethan, Jeanne and Bo-Bo. ‘They’re there.’
‘Oh,’ Rach said, her tone faltering a little.
What did that ‘oh’ represent? Keeley suddenly felt extraordinarily protective over Ethan. ‘Who were you expecting?’ she asked Rach. ‘Patrick Dempsey?’ She immediately felt guilt for sniping. And Rach wasn’t answering straightaway. Until:
‘If he was Patrick Dempsey I’d fight you for him,’ Rach answered with a sniff. ‘Come on then. Introduce me.’
Before either of them could make a move, Bo-Bo jumped down from the chair he was sitting on and came bounding over, leaping up at Keeley, all long limbs and energy, attempting to lick her face.
‘Oh! Oh, no, Bo-Bo, don’t lick my hair,’ Keeley begged, trying to get the pet to calm down. ‘Rach, help me. He’s already had one near-death experience, I don’t want him poisoned by the traces of hair products.’
‘Bo-Bo, down!’
It was Ethan, coming to their rescue, Jeanne rushing up behind him with the lead and a cross look on her face.
‘Don’t shout at him,’ the girl ordered, snapping on the lead and somehow managing to bring him to heel.
‘Bonjour,’ Ethan said, directing the greeting and those incredible eyes at Keeley.
‘Bonjour,’ Keeley answered, her cheeks heating up like a roaring log fire.
‘Bo-Bo’s alive,’ Jeanne announced, all teeth that looked like they were coated in cake.
‘I can see that,’ Keeley said, smiling and petting the dog’s head. Her touch only made Bo-Bo all excited again and she retracted her hand in a bid to stop the jumping that had to be distracting for those customers trying to have a relaxed time.
‘Bonjour, I’m Rach,’ Rach said, sticking her hand out to Ethan.
Jeanne grabbed hold of it first, shaking hard. ‘Jeanne.’
‘Jeanne,’ Ethan said. ‘Take Bo-Bo back to the table and give him some more cake.’
‘We might need another cake if these two are going to want to eat,’ Jeanne suggested. She grinned again and pulled Bo-Bo back towards the table in the corner.
‘Ethan Bouchard,’ Ethan said, taking Rach’s hand in his and giving it a shake.
‘Is that your daughter?’ Rach queried.
‘No,’ Ethan said quickly. ‘God, no.’
‘Then who is she?’
‘She’s a friend,’ Keeley jumped in. ‘The daughter of a friend. Did you say there was cake?’ She headed into the deeper warmth of the café, enjoying the eclectic mix of items on the shelves. It really was a case of more was more here.
*
‘It is nice to meet you,’ Ethan said to Rach. He swallowed. He got the feeling that this woman did not trust him for some reason. She seemed to be inspecting him like she was trying to work out if he was a real person or a waxwork. He also got the impression that if he stood still long enough and led her to think he was indeed fake, she would then expect him to break out of that mould at any second and relieve her of her handbag.
‘I’m not going to lie. It’s strange to meet you,’ Rach answered.
‘Strange?’ he enquired. He looked to his table, checking that Keeley had got there and that Jeanne wasn’t dipping her fingers into anything she shouldn’t be.
‘Keeley doesn’t meet men on the street and start up a relationship with them that she hides from her best friend.’
‘A relationship?’ Ethan said, unable to stop a laugh from leaking out. ‘We—’
‘You had dinner with her. That’s a date. You went running with her. That’s a date too,’ Rach carried on. ‘Keeley’s very particular about who she lets in. Very particular. Get it?’
‘I am… getting it,’ Ethan answered. He swallowed. He wasn’t getting it. Was he being warned off? Warned off from what? He didn’t even know he was getting himself involved with anything like a relationship. Except, somehow, he did know. The anxiety he was currently trying to batten down was testament to the fact that it was definitely something.
‘You screw her around and I will come for you. Do you get that too?’ Rach asked, stepping towards him.
‘Got that,’ he answered.
Then, all at once, Rach’s expression altered and she smiled at him. ‘Good.’
‘May I get you some coffee? Or something stronger?’ Ethan offered.
‘Stronger coffee will be fine for me. Keeley, she’ll have decaf.’
Thirty-Eight
‘You were right about believing in Bo-Bo,’ Jeanne said, gleefully rubbing the dog’s head as Keeley sipped at her coffee.
There was something not quite right about this coffee. Since Keeley had been in Paris she had really enjoyed the French style of coffee, slurping up as many cups of it as she could. But this… she couldn’t quite put her finger on why it wasn’t quite as satisfying. It tasted a little like the decaf brand Lizzie thought she was still drinking.
‘I know,’ Keeley answered. ‘And I am very glad I was right.’
‘He surprised us all,’ Ethan added. ‘Pretending to be so sick and then arising like a Jack In
the Box I am told.’
‘I’m sure it’s got fleas,’ Rach remarked, pulling up her jumper sleeves and scratching.
‘Oh, non,’ Jeanne said merrily. ‘That is most likely to be me.’ She swirled her straw in a large chocolate milkshake she was now drinking. ‘Parasites can actually help a little with the harsh weather in the winter. Keeping you warm.’
‘I hope you’re joking,’ Rach answered. She inched her seat away and focused on Ethan. ‘So, Ethan, what do you do for work?’
‘Rach!’ Keeley exclaimed. It sounded like her friend had turned into an overprotective parent who was sussing out the worthiness of a partner who wanted to propose.
‘He owns a hotel,’ Jeanne blurted out.
Keeley took a breath. That was not the occupation she was expecting. And a hotel owner. Somehow the two things didn’t marry up in her mind. Ethan’s slightly devil-may-care attitude and the organisational skill set a hotelier would need to succeed.
‘I am a part-owner,’ Ethan jumped in. ‘A very small stake in the business.’
‘But he’s a big enough deal to give me a room to live in.’
‘Jeanne. I—’ Ethan started.
‘What hotel?’ Rach jumped in. ‘How many stars?’
‘Rach!’ Keeley was starting to regret bringing Rach with her. She had actually adopted a very stern expression whenever Ethan had said anything and immediately asked a zillion questions like she was a reporter asking ridiculous things at a government briefing.
‘No, it is OK,’ Ethan reassured. ‘It is a hotel I helped to begin with my best friend. I mainly worked in the background, but now they have… left the business… I want to try and ensure the hotel is… how do people say these days?’ He smiled then. ‘Being the best version of itself.’
‘The hotel we’re staying in is nice,’ Keeley told him. ‘But—’
‘You told me the menu is a little too elaborate,’ he reminded. ‘A lot of small things.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I am interested for this because… I want to improve my hotel.’