Lost in Hotels (11 page)

I struggle under pressure when getting ready, but luckily, I planned this outfit in my head. I throw on my Rick Owens that now fits the way it should and not the way it did when I bought it on sale at Bergdorf’s. My makeup goes on sparingly, and I do a quickie blowout with the door closed as not to give away my beauty regimen to a guy who is used to women who can just put on lip-gloss and go. I look in the mirror and see a different person than when I arrived in Paris, ignited within by a passion I haven’t felt in years.

“You look incredible in that outfit … I can’t even stand it,” David says with an earnestness that has me glowing the minute I step out of the bathroom. He grabs my hand with a gusto that allows me to be the woman for the first time in a long time, and he leads me out of the room as the Ritz comes alive in a different way than I ever imagined. The lobby purrs with a sophisticated buzz of passing diners and hotel guests on their way to or returning from their fabulous adventures. Everyone seems to look at us as we pass. I smile, despite speculating if, perhaps, they wonder what a man like David is doing with a woman like me.

After such an incredible evening, I almost forgot that Paris waits just outside the walls of my room that became the perfect place in the world in those last hours. The lobby looks entirely different by night, as if dressed in the light of its best tuxedo. It dazzles with emblems of gold above grand seating areas illuminated by flickering candlelight. I have such a different feeling inside me as I pass through these revolving doors yet again, as the hotel car idles right at the curb.

“Monsieur Summers, your car is here for you.”

The chauffeur opens the door, and I sit once more in the same seat I took in search of David. I held the found treasure in my hand unwilling to let it go for even a second out of fear it might vanish in front of my eyes.

“How did he know you were coming?” I ask.

“I called down while you were in the shower.”

“Are you always a step ahead?”

I want to ask where we’re going or what’s in store for the night, but for once, it feels nice to allow someone else to take care of me. I imagine it will be somewhere modern and trendy, as David seems the type. Maybe he’ll take me to a sushi restaurant or somewhere new where it’s hard to get a reservation. The tinted windows of the car make it difficult to enjoy Paris by night, but who cares when David is next to me. It’s no more than a few minutes when the car comes to a stop and the door pops open in front of a red restaurant called Davé. David grabs my hand and leads me inside.

“Mr. Summers, how good to see you again,” says a handsome Chinese man who appears to be the owner. He takes his hand with a successive bow that David mimics in return.

“Davé, this is Catherine Klein.”

He extends his hand with a more genteel grip; his hands are as tender as soft butter.

“Miss Klein, welcome to my restaurant. David is a very good customer, and I take very good care of both of you.”

The restaurant isn’t at all what I was expecting, this retro-chic parlor of Maoist red walls dotted with black and white photographs of Carla Bruni, David Bowie, and the former French
Vogue
editor Carine Roitfeld dining throughout. There, in one of the photographs, next to a caricature of John Galliano, is a picture of my David in a group of attractive but not famous faces.

“Wow, you’re even on the wall. That’s impressive.”

“He puts all of his friends on the wall. It’s less about the people being famous and more about who he connects with.”

Dim lights lend the feel of a modern-day opium den. Black lacquer chairs surround closely packed tables of incredibly fashionable guests hovering over quiet, intense conversations, and a backbeat of Charlotte Gainsbourg. Our table is tucked in a corner with a Ming-looking lamp made out of a vase set on a white tablecloth.

“Is this okay?” David asks before sitting down.

“Yes, perfect actually.”

We both disrobe of our winter coats that the waiter takes with him without giving a numbered ticket in return. There are no menus. I tuck the overly starched napkin into my lap as my eyes once more return to David, who has long since returned his gaze. He grabs my hand and strokes it with his thumb in a rhythmic motion that’s soothing to my heart and tells everyone around us that I am his and he is mine— at least this one night.

“So, this is the type of place that doesn’t really have a menu, so I’ll just order for both of us, if that’s okay.”

“No, totally, I love that idea,” I reply.

“Is there anything you don’t eat?”

“Nope, just order away. I’ll try anything once.”

“Anything?” he asks with an arched eyebrow as his leg rubs against my inner thigh under the table.

“So, I want to know more about you, David Summers.”

“Uh-oh, what do you want to know?”

“Have you ever had your heart broken?”

“Sure, when I returned home from Rio and this woman I met didn’t even try to contact me,” he says with a sly smile.

“I’m being serious. Have you ever been head-over-heels in love?”

“I’m not sure. But I have to say that I really haven’t made it a priority in my life. Marriage has always petrified me, and I always felt like love was a one-way street in that direction. I just can’t imagine having to answer to another person or being responsible for keeping another human being happy and fulfilled for the rest of my life. That seems like an incredibly long time.”

His words resonate with my own experience, the reality of when passion fades to companionship and that flame of desire simmers into a diminished light leaving you craving so much more.

“But you’re on the road so much, don’t you get lonely?”

“You can be lonely in a house full of people. My parents were terribly lonely with each other. I have to tell you I really love my freedom. I can do and go wherever life takes me, and I usually find something fascinating and familiar in almost every place. That is with the exception of Zurich … I don’t particularly like the Swiss.”

My mind returns to my own life back in New York. I realize that David is actually the perfect guy to have a fling with because in real life, he would be entirely unavailable. There’s a guilty comfort in knowing that I still have that other life waiting for me in New York instead of chasing this unattainable guy all over again at this stage of my life. Perhaps I’ll even be more fulfilled at home with this incredibly intense experience I will now carry with me forever. Yet, something about David draws me in so deep. It’s as if he’s capable of so much more, but resists it with his swagger that makes me drop to my knees willing to do anything for just a moment more.

“I totally agree with you, forever is a very long time,” I echo in agreement.

“And that’s kind of what I like about you, Catherine. You’re espoused to life, a lot like me, and not chasing this romantic fantasy that all these other women I meet are obsessed with obtaining.”

There’s a carnal desire for him that perseveres and grows deeper inside me sending a quiver through my body.

The food finally arrives in a series of small oval white plates with a heaping of poached lemon chicken, leafy sautéed greens, and fried brown rice. David pokes his fork into a tender chicken breast. Food is the farthest thing from my mind. With less than twelve hours left in Paris, I study his every move from how he holds the fork and lifts it to his mouth to how he uses his napkin after sipping sparkling water from the glass. He’s the closest thing I’ve known to an addiction in life, and all I can think about is that one last fix, just one more time with him tonight that will have to be my last before our lives part ways, as they must.

CHAPTER 4
LOS ANGELES

T
HE LATE AFTERNOON Virgin Atlantic flight puts you down at LAX in time for a late power lunch, avoiding the flurry of Asia-originating flights that somehow always take longer at their inefficient customs where everyone, including this British gentleman, is treated like a potential criminal. When you are arriving from gray London, early spring in LA can be as hot as summer. The sunshine lures my eyes away from the baggage carousel illuminating that curious space-age building at the center of the airport that’s some sort of restaurant or bar.

As you step into the taxi, the airport has a full-time staff passing out papers that instruct you on how much the cab ride should cost at the end of your trip, even though it somehow always costs a lot more.

“The Chateau Marmont, please!” I yell to the driver, who lets me lift my bag into the trunk shared with a well-used spare tire and crowbar.

“Sunset Boulevard, correct?”

“Yes, please, but take the four-oh-five.” It usually has better phone reception than the alternate route, which some say is quicker but is so ugly with its barren oilfields and sixties strip centers that it’s not even worth the saved time.

I’ve never been the fan of LA that all my other Londoners profess to be. Sure, the women are the hottest of any in the states, but with minds like children’s paste that struggle with intelligent conversation and only make for good undressing and disappointing sex.

It also took me years to figure out the nuances of the city from street pronunciations like La Cienega, said with a Cee-EN-IGGA, who’s a total bullshitter, and who is the real deal, especially in business.

That’s probably why I’ve been sent to LA so much in my career—a mix of private venture funds lured by the cache of Hollywood only to discover that the few people who get rich in this town are the talent and the producers. Then there was the whole advertising movement with major firms buying out the independent design and marketing firms hoping they could better monetize the businesses, and then once they would buy the firms the owners that were bought out would laze out their tenures at the company only to set up the same business again once their non-compete clauses ended.

LA is a land of wizardry and liars, especially when it comes to start-ups looking for their celebrity angel investors who got rich quick and think that the second time will be just as easy. There’s no tech start-up this time, luckily, this trip I have a meeting with an Ed Hardy-style entrepreneur who wears flashy baseball caps and drives a Bugatti. He’s created a healthy baked potato chip called the Air Chip, which is apparently all the rage in the United States and a good candidate for us to acquire and expand or take public.

The entrance of the Chateau is about as exclusive as you get in LA. A baronial manor towers above the Sunset Strip made even better with its infusion of Hollywood history and revolving door of starlets. There’s a doorman even by day, a woman though, who holds a clipboard that she’s probably held since her club days. She stands out front to make sure no one who doesn’t fit into the milieu of the chateau gets on the front driveway, let alone inside. My taxi arrival causes suspicion. She holds up her hand and approaches the rear window.

“Can I help you?” She leans in and says with more of a statement than a question.

“Hello, my love. Would you mind helping me with my bags?” I dismiss her as the trunk pops open, and she radios a bellman who quickly descends the stone driveway with a bouncing brass trolley in tow.

“Could I have your name, sir, to pass along to the front desk?”

“Absolutely, I’m David Summers.” I warm her up with my stare as she loosens up and the clipboard falls to her waist. I see a woman who was once a party girl, but now has morphed into some sort of post-party boho elitist.

“Welcome, Mr. Summers. Where are you coming from?” she asks as though genuinely interested.

“I’m just in from wet and dreary London, and I have to say you shouldn’t be smug when greeting me with this type of ill weather.” She winces at the now-missing sun. “And would you mind telling me your name again? I see you every time I’m here, and my head is usually so stuck in work that we’ve never exchanged pleasantries until now.”

“I’m Suzy, and I told the front desk to have your room ready by the time you’re upstairs.”

She turns away with an element of dismissal, perhaps because I didn’t know her name, and she should actually have progressed from Suzy to Sue to Susan by her age. Knowing her name will be crucial to getting my guests in quicker come the weekend.

Chateau Marmont is about as old and grand as you get in LA, something I don’t usually gravitate to in America with its love of charm and faux-antiqueness, but there’s something otherworldly about a place where Hollywood history and pop culture seem to meet at a crossroads. A New York hotelier, who is much more of a socialite than an entrepreneur is, owns it along with his handful of boutique hotels in Miami, Los Angeles, and New York, and it’s still the place to be after all these decades.

The first-floor entrance, shaded by massive oak trees, is nothing more than an elevator landing and a staircase trimmed in scrolled wrought iron that I prefer to take up the two flights to the main lobby. It takes a minute for your eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the lobby. Its amber light glows from modish lampshades under a carved beam ceiling that looks as though stenciled by hand. It is equal parts private residence and social club with its stout magazine rack and vintage check-in counter carved out of the wall attended by a girl who defies her model looks with nerdy spectacles and askew pigtails.

“Mr. David Summers,” she says in an elongated sigh and tilt of the head.

“Yes, correct, that would be me.”

“All the way from jolly old England today?”

“Yes, indeed, and with pale skin to prove it, no less.”

“Pale is in; tan people are so … two thousand,” she says, looking over her black spectacles. “We’ve upgraded you to a premier suite. It’s usually booked for photo shoots and stuff, but not this weekend.”

“That sounds terrific, and I promise not to be even a slightly darker shade of ghost white on checkout.” I tilt my head down and grin ear to ear in hopes she would send a bottle of champagne to my room.

“You’re pretty fine just the way you are, but I think you know that already.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, but from such a pretty face, I will accept even inaccurate compliments gladly.”

“Insert swoon here,” she says, elevating a limp wrist to her forehead.

“You’re one of those anti-Hollywood realist types, too, I see.”

“It doesn’t get any realer than working the front desk, baby,” she says.

She passes a heavy, old-fashioned key into my hand and lingers a second as I take it without a hint of eye contact.

“It’s on the third floor and to the right as you exit the elevator. Dinner reservations can be made through Samantha, and I can help you if you need to know where to go out or to any bars or clubs or tea parlors while in town.”

“Yes, indeed, a tea parlor would be quite lovely. I will definitely ring you should I need anything.”

A quick cruise past the reception reveals a sleepy lobby this early in the day, a spare assortment of readers, and a writer hovering over an empty coffee mug in a corner who probably looks far more studious and intellectual than in actuality.

Outside, the sun has emerged. Its uniquely LA intensity brims over the terrace dining room, over a menagerie of vintage white canopies concealing rattan banquettes and bistro chairs with old-style bar and waiters in black and white uniforms who manage to be formal and artsy. Unlike other hotels in LA, the Chateau always feels like it’s part of the local landscape where people who live in the hills come down for supper, and moneyed starlets mingle over buckets of chilled bottles of rosé.

Back through the lobby, I give my sassy receptionist a nod. She doesn’t look quite as snoggable the second go-round. I retreat to the elevator and acknowledge my jet lag for the first time. The four-person elevator feels like a death trap. I hope I’m with someone I want to chat up and not this guy who waits until the doors close before giving me the once-over and then daring me with his eyes even though I never dare make eye contact.

“Bye,” he says as I make the exit to my floor, which I don’t acknowledge given that gays will chase you harder if you ingratiate their advances with comments or replies in any way.

My room looks like every other on the hall, at least from the outside. I have to study the solid wood door with gothic trim before I recognize a chunky iron handle, which feels overwhelmed by the thick key as I slide it into the hole. There’s a smell of another far grander time as I enter the room mixed with nuclear-grade American cleaning products. My shoes echo on the hardwood floors into the charming parlor room. Its sixties decor, a true rock star flop pad, overlooks a long terrace and the glossy marquees of Sunset Strip.

The bedroom exudes a sexy privacy withdrawn from LA’s blinding sunlight. There’s a queen bed and a type of bathroom you’d expect Marilyn Monroe to waltz out of in a towel. Its original pastel tile floors and porcelain white bathtub is more for overdoses than fucking. There’s also a kitchen with almost the same minty tile, a bulky stove, and wheezing refrigerator stocked with every high-priced bottle of alcohol you can imagine and more sweet munchies than you could ever dream of—a sure-fire cure to my jet lag.

My usual check-in ritual ensues as I strip off my LA arrival uniform of navy jacket and white shirt with my most comfy pair of Dior Homme denim. The balcony couldn’t look more inviting for a nap under a ray of sun that spotlights a perfect lounge chair. A layer of soot covers almost everything in LA, especially this terrace, but my tiredness wins over my bare back as I sprawl out in my striped Paul Smith boxers that look like a swimsuit if not for the cotton fabric and little logo affixed above the unstitched crotch.

I glance up and see the stoic stone building that looks like it was built for a Sofia Coppola movie with its Biz-ness glamour and aristocratic silhouette in this pretend of democratic colonies. Each visit to the Chateau yields a remarkably similar scene. Whether a Guatemalan housekeeper is dreaming out a window, a starlet is having a photo shoot along the penthouse terrace, or weekend bungalow action where real parties usually take place. There’s also something about having sex in the Chateau. It doesn’t compare to any other hotel with its bouncy beds and its showers that make for interesting angles against the cold, hard tile.

Then my cell phone chirps with its American ringtone that echoes against the spare white walls of the room.

“This is David.”

“Is this my dreamy David?” a raspy voice with a hint of a young girl whispers on the line.

“That would be me, I think.”

“I’m so glad you made it back to town. I just want to confirm we are on for tonight at ten?”

“That’s a positive. Please address the woman at the door as Suzy upon entering. That will make it a whole lot easier for you guys.”

“I know Suzy, babes. What’s your room number?”

“Actually, I’ll meet you in the lobby for a drink first.”

“That sounds sugar; I’ll see you in a bit love.”

I guess
sugar
is the latest it-word replacing
everything
,
perfection
, and
bananas
as the adjective du jour. I met Jamila when I first arrived in LA and would work out at Crunch, which was sort of the Hollywood gym for starlets back in the day. I’d watch her work the room in those tight black spandex shorts that hugged her ass just below a sports fleece that concealed her perfect shoulders and tits that weren’t the usual big and fake ones you see everywhere. She’d saunter over to a treadmill that sat in the perfect natural light, and as she’d step on the deck, she’d slowly undress down to a lone tank and even shorter shorts.

Forever she referred to me as her gay boyfriend, even if I would aver otherwise. I’m not one who takes offense at being called gay, but Jamila would test my limits by introducing me to her gay friends at the gym, which began to grate on me. For some reason, Americans think a guy with an English accent is effeminate and most likely gay. Then one day I had her back to my hotel and she, although insisting she had no real attraction to me, allowed me to show her my true talents. She has the kind of passion and sexuality that you’re not prepared for, insatiable, moaning as I devoured her without a single attempt to pull down my own pants or anything. On following trips, we would experiment even more, and afterward I would take her shopping and sometimes even help her out with cash when she had a slow and lean month acting.

The last time I was in LA, I told her I wanted to try something new, preferably with a friend of hers. She laughed it off at first, but surprised me by suggesting the encounter in our last conversation. However, the whirlwind of meeting Catherine and her joining me in LA this weekend has me feeling that seeing Jamila is ill timed. Unfortunately, I think she’s relying on it for the financial aspect of it given her prompt call. I figure there’s no harm in seeing her and giving her the money if she needs it and leave it at that, not to mention the other part of me who wants to see what could have been and what Jamila has in store for me.