There's a Small Hotel

by Elizabeth Cooke

Overview

"There's a Small Hotel" is a novel set in the Hotel Marcel in Paris near the Eiffel Tower.

The narrator, an attractive American woman in her 60s, can see over the treetops from her balcony, a row of apartments, that when lighted from within at night, reveal vignettes of French domesticity, involving love affairs, violent dinner parties, fisticuffs, and the police.

She becomes involved with the personalities within the hotel and across the street, and thrills to an unusual and exciting Paris sojourn.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781458216809
Publisher:	Abbott Press
Publication date:	07/10/2014
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.32(d)

Read an Excerpt

There's a Small Hotel

---

By Elizabeth Cooke

Abbott Press

Copyright © 2014 Elizabeth Cooke
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4582-1680-9

---

CHAPTER 1

Jean-Luc Marcel

Mine host. With an engaging smile, he stands behind the lobby desk, wielding his power over his patrons. I think it's his voice that makes the greatest impression, deep and flowing with the fastest possible French or slower in accented English, but always positive and friendly. There are exceptions: when he is berating some contractor who has disappointed him in his 'renouvellements', which are constant – the building is old, art deco architecturally, and in constant need of tweaking, or a plumber who has not properly fixed a leak. Mon Dieu! The French words really fly, timbre rising accordingly to match.

"Madame!" he says effusively, running from behind the lobby desk. (It is small. Only two people can fit behind it). "You are here again. Merveilleux." And he embraces me with genuine warmth.

"Oui, Jean-Luc," I respond. "At last. I so need Paris – how long has it been ---18 months? – seems an eternity. Finally, I have my precious cocoon of the Hotel Marcel once again. And for two whole weeks. It's only the first Friday and I expect to spend every day of my visit doing exactly what I want. What a luxury! Ah," I sigh, and sink to the cushions of the couch in the lounge area.

Meantime, my bags are being placed near the elevator by Mounir, the Moroccan driver Jean-Luc always engages to meet me at Charles de Gaulle or drive me on excursions out of town. Mounir is an odd little fellow, greeting me with his van and bringing a gift, like anise-tasting North African cookies (awful) or a bunch of wilted flowers.

But he is sweet and greets me always with "I love you, Madame. I love your money," always accompanied by a large giggle. Ah well. At least he's honest, but we like each other. Or is the proper word respect? From a distance?

I am here for restoration. The last year has been hectic and onerous. Five years of widowhood isn't easy. The past months, I thought I had at last found a companion to enjoy, but, in recent weeks, I suffered a romantic disillusion with him that has left me needing the spring and song of Paris that is eternally here. Although it is not spring, it's a brisk Friday morning in October, yet equally elating to my spirit and touching the roots of my heart.

Paris. Once again. I have found you.

In my charming room on the fifth floor (always the same), I throw myself on the bed and stretch in utter comfort, then rise to go to the French doors leading to the narrow balcony over the avenue and get my first close look at the Tour Eiffel. It is still there, thank God, rising to the clouds above me, tall and secure like a glorious tree of life shading Les Invalides and L' École Militaire and my small hotel at its feet.

And across the street are those same apartments that provide vignettes into Parisian living. What fun.

I wonder what happened to the red-headed woman in apartment building 1 who slapped her husband? Or was he her husband?

Did the young man on the fourth floor of building 2 ever get his furnishings placed properly, enough to please him?

And the party, in the third apartment building, with Yves Montand's voice in the background, will I get to view another? So many questions to answer.

I can't wait.

What a feast!

CHAPTER 2

Surprise

Tired as I am from the flight from New York, before I sleep, I put on the white terry cloth robe, provided by Hotel Marcel, turn out the bed-lamp, and step up and out the French doors to the balcony to renew my vigil on the opposite apartments. I notice, which I hadn't before, that attached at the top of each building, there is a wooden door to a small structure that could be the attic room.

Perhaps the femme de ménage lives there. Perhaps it is rented to an impecunious student. Or perhaps it contains storage boxes for the family possessions not in use below.

This night, the night of my arrival, nothing seems to be going on. The lights in the front windows of the apartments before me are all dim and silent – no distant sound of music or lighthearted chatter. Disappointed, I retire to bed.

Early in the bright Saturday morning, I step out upon the balcony once again in my robe, to taste the air and smell Paris: there is coffee brewing and the faint aroma of fresh bread and somewhere, in there, the far off scent of roses. Below me, the traffic is at a low pitch – it is still very early – and suddenly, across the street, at the top of apartment building 3, I see the upper half of the attic door open and a woman's face appears.

It just pops out. Her hair is tied up in some scarf. The face is round, not young, and a cigarette dangles from her lips. She takes a puff, exhales, coughs, and then takes a deep breath of restorative air, looks up at the sky, then abruptly the door is shut.

Femme de ménage, sans doute.

I am startled. It all happened in seconds. I wait a beat to see if any other attic door will produce a new face but it does not happen and I return to my room, dress and proceed downstairs to my awaiting freshbaked croissant. One can order breakfast in the room but I prefer to see who will be sitting at the long table in the salon next to the foyer and perhaps hear a story or two.

With a café au lait in hand, hot and steamy, I sit across from a rather beautiful young (mid- 30's I surmise) woman. She is exotic, with lustrous dark hair, full lips and luscious figure, in chic white shirt and dark pants. She offers a timid smile and nod of recognition to which I respond "Bonjour."

I immediately think where is Jean-Luc? Now this is someone he would surely find attractive. Divorced, father of three growing children, and, over the years I have known him, accompanied for a time, by special, different women, always dark haired. But none like my breakfast companion.

No contest! This lady was something special.

Jean-Luc does appear with a tray on which is a small bowl containing glorious apricot preserves, "straight from Brittany.... just arrived," and he approaches my plate with a large spoonful in hand.

"Madame?"

"Bien sur," I reply with a grin.

"And Mademoiselle?" he continues, still with spoon in hand, turning to my breakfast-mate."

"Merci," she replies demurely.

"You have met?" he says, gesturing between us with the spoon.

"Only now," I say, reaching my hand across the plates to shake her extended fingers.

"Isabella," she says, her words deeply accented. "I am from Spain."

"And I am Elizabeth, New York" I reply. "I love Spain ..."

"Ah you know it.....?"

"I wouldn't say that ... but I have spent time in Barcelona ... and in Sitges.... The resort of choice for Barceloneans," I say awkwardly.

"Sitges! We call it the Riviera d'Espagne ... on the Costa Brava ... I was born there!"

"Really ... I adored it – the beach with its rocky surface ... exciting ... so different." I find it hard to believe anyone was actually born in that little resort town, but of course that thought is ridiculous.

Jean-Luc is standing there, tray in hand, head moving from one of us to the other, nodding happily at this exchange.

"I was in Madrid last August," he suddenly interjects. "I should love to see Sitges," and right away, I know Isabella is in for some major attention. Then to me, he says, "Mademoiselle Isabella is staying here longer than you are," and to her, "enough time to find an apartment, that's right, isn't it?" and to me, "and you are here for only a couple of weeks – correct? Perhaps you two will get together for an excursion, if you like, or perhaps a dinner with me some evening? Eh?" He is really smiling. "L'Ami Jean -My favorite restaurant ... right in the neighborhood. You would love it, Mademoiselle. Great Basque food ... very famous chef, there," and he kisses his fingers in that French gesture of delight.

"Oh ... I don't know," Isabella replies, looking at her apricot preserves modestly. I am curious that she isn't more enthusiastic, with this suggestion from our charming hotelier.

Jean-Luc turns abruptly and moves down the row of breakfasters with his tray of preserves, offering a spoonful to each, his face disgruntled.

I turn to Isabella. "Don't you like Monsieur Marcel? He is such a good host – he cares a lot about the people who stay here."

"Oh, I know. He is very, very nice. In fact, I find him charmant ... très sympathique, but I must remain at a distance ... I must find work. and a place to live ..."

"But what has that to do with dinner one night?"

"I don't know," she says, distressed. "Everything."

And she is gone.

CHAPTER 3

Surprise in Spades

On Sunday morning, I am at my post, 6:30 AM on the balcony, enrobed in white terry cloth, awaiting the appearance of the femme de ménage to open the top half of the attic door of apartment building 3 and puff her cigarette.

And, aha! There she is again, but this time her grayish hair is down around her face and her complexion is extremely ruddy. Perhaps that extra glass of vin rouge ... I ruminate, when suddenly the top half of the attic door of apartment building 1 is thrown open and the head of a man emerges. He looks around, his expression churlish and mean in the brutish face, and in seconds, his eyes come to settle on me, dressed in white terrycloth, directly across the avenue.

Why is he there? Are the husband, the gentleman with the whitening temples, and his red-haired wife, still residing in the rooms below?

Who is the ugly creature in the attic room? We are face to face, so it seems. I am frozen as his eyes bore into mine. Seconds pass. I feel like prey being sized up by a predator because his expression changes, from plain ugliness to one of lustful desire to attack, or so I imagine.

I quickly step off the balcony and shut the French doors. I am shaken, quaking.

How stupid of me to stand out there in the broad daylight and spy on my neighbors.

Of a sudden, I know now they can spy back! At least at night, my lights are off when theirs are on and they cannot see me.

But at night, when I am undressing to go to bed my lights are on and in the dark from across the street, the man with the aggressive face could be watching if the French doors to the balcony are open (which I like for the soft October breeze).

I am scared and dismayed. How oblivious of me not to realize that it works two ways. Life does. And all the clichés regarding getting what one deserves and what goes around comes around apply. My world has reversed itself. I am not just the voyeur anymore. I am now the voyee, and what an uncomfortable feeling.

My little game is over. And yet I know my curiosity will insist, now and then, that I take a peek. Carefully.

Very carefully.

CHAPTER 4

A First Tremor

On Monday, after a restless night to put it mildly, I am off to see an old and dear friend, and what a wonderful day it turns out to be! Sue, the American -born Marquise de Chevigny, meets me for lunch at Caviar Kaspia, the elegant Russian shop-cum restaurant specializing in caviars and smoked salmon. It is on the Right Bank on the Place Madeleine. On the second floor is a dining room about as inviting as any in Paris. Soft green walls, softer banquettes, faint Russian melodies wafting through the air, and the smoked fish, the buckwheat blinis, the perfectly poached eggs with caviar on top, and the carafe of iced vodka in its own little silver ice bucket – well, an unbeatable repast for all time.

I love my friend Sue. The Marquise! She is still beautiful yet so unassuming and funny and – well - American. We had been to school together in New York City, both daughters of doctors, each of us rather irreverent and perhaps too sassy for our own good. In each of our 60 years, life had led us on many an adventure with Sue marrying a fabulous French Marquis with a château to live in and two children to raise, and I – well, I had spent those six decades exploring two marriages, (one divorce), two children as well, then widowhood – with much travel in between – Hawaii, Mexico City, most of Europe, with a New York base and Paris for dreams.

"Ah, dear friend," Sue is saying. "We are now both widows."

"How did Paul die?" I ask gently.

"Well, we went on a trip to South Africa, last year – absolutely fascinating. that place, but that's another story. His doctor told him to wear support stockings on the plane – he had had some circulation problems in his legs – oh, the vein thing – you know, it happens as one ages – and he was eight years my senior. Anyway, he wore them but hated them so – that on the return flight – you know it's many hours from Johannesburg to London – there's no direct flight from Paris – Anyway he hated those stockings so much– he refused to wear them on the return and when we got off the plane at Heathrow, he could hardly walk. I literally had to hold him up."

"Oh, Sue ..."

"And by the time we got home, back to the château, he was exhausted. That evening, we had an early dinner – very simple and in the middle of it he excused himself - and suddenly the femme de chambre came into the dining room hysterical and told me that Paul had fallen in the salon and wasn't breathing...." Sue suddenly stops speaking.

"Oh, my dear.."'

"No, no. I'm all right." She takes a sip of vodka from the tiny glass next to the carafe.

"He was dead, of course. A massive blood clot to the heart ... one to the brain too ..."

"My Bob's was a heart attack, it's been five years now ... but then, he drank and smoked all his life long ... even after an earlier heart attack in his sixties. He was 13 years my senior."

"Our stubborn men!" Sue says, with a rueful smile.

She looks at me, presses my hand. "Now we are widows of the world."

"And what does that mean? What is it like to be a widow?"

We both laugh, our eyes sparking one to another. "It's lonely," I say.

"Doesn't have to be," she says with her typical Sue-grin.

"I guess not," and I think of my unrequited love affair with a married man who turns out in his later years, to prefer men. The blow to my ego has been significant.

Just how do you compete with that set of affairs? I wonder. The answer is you don't.

"Anyway, there is still much to distract," I say. "There is Paris, above all, and wonderful food like this smoked salmon and sunsets and glorious friends like you, Sue, and my small hotel where frankly I am having a fine time peeking into the lives of the apartment dwellers across the street. At night when their lights are on, I watch from my balcony the goings on inside their living rooms ..."

"No bedrooms?"

"No. Wrong side of the buildings, I guess. But on my last visit, I did see a woman slap a man's face ..."

"Oh goody, goody ..." Sue is laughing.

"Presumably it was her husband ... but one never knows. And a dinner party – that was in another apartment where they were playing Yves Montand ..."

"How delicious. You must invite me over one night ... like going to the theater...."

"Only better, because it's real," I say, rising. Then, "Lets do this again soon, right here."

"Where else," says my friend with her delightful pixie smile.

It is near 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon when I return to my room. The bed is neatly made – and beckoning – oh that vodka at lunch – and all is tidy. As I remove my jacket, I see a bowl of white roses, perched on the desk. Ah, Jean-Luc. You shouldn't have, I think. (He has done this from time to time), but no. I see a card.

It is a plain white envelope and inside the card has firm dark writing:

"For the Madonna on the fifth floor western balcony."

A creeping chill slowly overtakes me as the sun moves behind buildings, and my little room grows from amber to tan to almost dark, as I stand there, cold as frozen rain.

Brutus. That is the name I have given the creature across the street–in the attic above apartment building 1 where the slapping incident occurred 18 months ago, in the salon below on the second floor.

This man is certainly no femme de ménage, nor poor student nor a carton of books relegated to the attic. No. He is Brutus. Who is he really? Why is he there and what in hell does he want with me, the Madonna yet?

Madonna. That's rich. I am 60 years old, and although not as weather beaten as some, I am still what I am and that's not young ... though perhaps from a distance ...

Oh his face, I can picture the heavy, grizzled jaw, and oh yes, rather massive shoulders, certainly middle-aged and surely ugly in his white tee shirt, but it is the eyes that had pinned me down yesterday morning, glistening, glaring eyes that penetrate even in my sleep.

Now, somehow, he is here in my room, the beast, Brutus. He has invaded my space, my privacy and my peace of mind. He has come in the form of aromatic, full-blown white roses, so pure and inviting, upon the writing table.

I have always loved roses. Particularly white ones.

Not anymore, and they land in the nearest wastebasket which, with quivering hands, I put outside my door to be taken to the trash.

Where they belong.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from There's a Small Hotel by Elizabeth Cooke. Copyright © 2014 Elizabeth Cooke. Excerpted by permission of Abbott Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---