Jane Sigaloff - Lost and Found

‘I’m so sorry to bother you, sir…’

Ben loved the formality of hotels. Being a paying guest was a prostitution of sorts. Instant respect without having to earn it so long as you had a valid credit card number. Where else would a thirty-something producer for a mediocre television production company, dressed in his underwear, be addressed with such deference? Although somewhat disappointingly she had resisted the urge to bob a curtsey. It wasn’t until he felt her gaze wander to his midriff and back that Ben realised he was only wearing boxer shorts. A cursory glance due south confirmed that nothing was gaping and everything was exactly where it was supposed to be, albeit shrinking rapidly.

‘I can come back a little later if this is a bad time?’ This time she looked him squarely and unblinkingly in the eye, the directness of her stare more than a little unnerving.

‘Really, it’s no problem. What can I help you with?’ Ben folded his arms across his chest to remove the likelihood of his hands accidentally straying to his groin area for a morning scratch. It was either that or hands on hips, which would have looked even stranger and much camper, if not like a little teapot. He would have pulled on yesterday’s jeans if he’d been able to see them. Obviously they were hanging in a wardrobe for the first time in their life. There were advantages to having an interfering older sister, but this wasn’t one of them.

‘It really shouldn’t take a minute.’

‘I was just getting up anyway…’ To his relief, Ben spotted a bathrobe and belted it round him to reduce his increasing feeling of semi-nakedness. But now, with his underwear still on underneath, he might have appeared more decent but he felt like a cross between Hugh Hefner and Lily Savage.

She was still hesitating on the threshold.

‘Really. Come in.’ Taking a step to one side, and with a hospitable sweep of his arm, he finally persuaded her to enter the room and, shoulders back, she strode past him to the bedroom.

Retreating to the sitting room, Ben pulled back a curtain, flooding the room with light. It had been dark when they’d arrived, but now a patchwork of power stretched out below, the long green rectangle of Central Park a perfect contrast to the density of towers midtown that made the New York skyline one of the most distinctive in the world.

The sky was a perfect high-pressure blue, and as the sun reflected off cars and windows, with glimpses of handkerchief-sized stars and stripes blowing in the crosstown breeze over twenty floors below, it was as if the city was twinkling. Surveying the scene, he was overtaken by a sense of pride. He loved London—its quirkiness, its history, its architecture—but the British just couldn’t do skyscrapers. Canary Wharf wasn’t in the same league.

‘I’ve just got to check a couple of drawers.’

‘No problem.’

‘The previous guest thinks she may have left something behind…’

‘Really?’ Ben silenced himself. Each word on the subject only deepened his deception. Picking up the New York Times he forced himself to sit down and act natural. He was an oxy-moron in action. Maybe just a moron. And he might as well have been holding the Times upside down for all the information he was gleaning.

Ben watched and listened over the top of the paper, half expecting the book to fling itself into open view from its inadequate hiding place. But on Tuesday he’d be back in London—or he could hand it in to Reception later. It was a win-win situation.

Sam stared at the Post-It in the centre of her desk. Melanie’s curvy writing filled the primrose-yellow. There had to be a logical explanation. But if she didn’t have it and neither did the hotel…

Her chest was tight. Only a diary. Only a diary. Only a diary… It wasn’t working. If anything, hysteria was tiptoeing a little closer. If she’d wanted to expose her soul to an audience she’d have been a talk-show host, not a lawyer. Yet now someone had the fast-track to her unencrypted inner sanctum and, worst of all, it wasn’t only her privacy that had been invaded.

Sam shook her head vehemently and deliberately. She needed a calming influence. There was only one person for the job. She might have moved out in October to start a joint life with Mark in their little house on the Fulham prairie, but thankfully she was still at the end of the phone.

Sophie eyeballed the phone, daring it to ring. She’d only popped out for stamps, and she’d left return messages for Sam everywhere. Something was up. She couldn’t remember the last time Sam had called her at home in the afternoon. All part of the not-needing-anyone-for-anything charade that she seemed to have successfully perpetuated with everyone who hadn’t met her before she’d finally split up with Paul.

Double-checking she had all the photos and samples she needed for her meeting, Sophie made herself another coffee. As the kettle boiled she stared critically into the mirror, pawing at imperfections only she could see before standing back to allow a more soft-focus view and grimacing to tighten the skin of her neck in an attempt to exercise the muscles responsible for keeping her chin in place.

As Mark swept in to the sitting room, pinstriped from head to toe, newspaper tucked under his arm, a bunch of flowers wrapped in the usual pastel paper from the flower stall outside the tube station, Sophie gave her hair a quick flick and hoped he hadn’t noticed her moment of gurning madness. She was never going to stop men in the street with her looks, but she’d always been attractive enough. And happy enough. It was just—well, what with all the planning for the wedding she couldn’t help becoming a little more self-absorbed and self-conscious…

‘Hello, you. Happy weekend. Smells gorgeous in here.’ Mark presented Sophie with the bouquet and planted an enthusiastic kiss on her cheek before striding over to the oven and peering in. ‘Mmm. Cottage pie. My favourite. You are clever. Lucky me. But only a small dish…’ He looked up. ‘So does this mean you’re abandoning me again this evening?’

‘Only for a few hours. And only for another woman.’

‘Excellent.’

Sophie smiled. Mark’s fantasies were as original as his taste in suits.

‘She’s just inherited four floors of Artex and woodchip in Richmond and needs serious help.’

‘Sounds expensive.’

‘Here’s hoping.’ Sophie walked over to her husband-to-be. His five-thirty shadow was giving him an atypically rugged appeal that she really quite liked. ‘It’s just an informal meeting—a chance for me to introduce myself and give her a few knee-jerk ideas—but at least this way I’ve still got the weekend to myself, and if she likes my recommendations it’s potentially my biggest project yet. Apparently her husband’s loaded.’

‘And hopefully devastatingly unattractive.’

‘Hideous, I believe. Anyway, there must be a good four hours of crucial sport for you to watch on cable until I get back.’

‘Well, they’re repeating the one-day cricket from India…’ Sophie pulled a face. She couldn’t understand the point of a sport in which the quick version took a whole day to play. ‘…plus there’ll be the weekend football and rugby previews, and of course essential tractor-pulling on Eurosport. But first I was planning on getting out of my uniform and having a little rest.’ Mark filled a pint glass with water from the mixer tap, liberally showering himself in the process.

‘Poor you. Have you had a horrible day?’

‘Not too bad, but it’s Friday so of course there was a large lunch to contend with.’

She should have known. His breath was far too minty for this time of the afternoon.

Mark grabbed at his love handles with a contradictory combination of pride and disgust. ‘These must be worth a fortune. Pure sirloin, frîtes and Fleurie.’ He gulped down his water, wiping his mouth on his forearm in the manner of a true nine-year-old. ‘What time are you off, then?’