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PATRICIA IS THE NEW STANLEY
Palm Springs was a vague indication, but if I went by what his mother had told me, it wouldn't be long before I could get my hands on him. All I had to do was frequent luxury hotels, posh dance halls and old-lady bars to try and locate him.
I had to take two separate buses to get there. And on the second one, I shared a row with a young guy named James, who had come from Milwaukee to work in Palm Spring as an apprentice cook. He didn't really know where he was going to apply for a job, although he secretly dreamed of being hired at the Parker. The Parker was his absolute goal, for it was there that the crème de la crème had been gathering for decades. It was where Frank Sinatra dined with Ava Gardner, where Dean Martin spent his weekends sipping whisky, and where John Waters and Divine made a mess in the midst of the bourgeoisie.
All these mythical stories were told to him by his father on his way home from the air base garage, where he worked as a mechanic until he lost his arm in a propeller strike on a bomber that had served in Korea. Since the accident, he'd become short-tempered and an addict to the neck of his gin bottle. He'd stopped telling his kid stories and gone off to commit suicide off a bridge, finding life without his right arm unbearable. But that hadn't dampened James's irrepressible urge and fury to cook food where his father would have been so proud to operate.
Arriving on site, after doing my accounts, I headed for the Parker, encouraging James to apply there but he preferred to start at a fast-food joint to get his bearings. I thought this was a typical place for Miles to stay and catch some merry widows. The rooms there really weren't cheap, and there were only suites left that I couldn't afford. Just as I was leaving in search of another bus to take me to a motel more within my means, I felt a hand rest on my shoulder. The guy it belonged to had been calling me from far away, but as I was wearing headphones with New Order on, I couldn't hear him. The guy in question was Barnabé, the hotel manager. I especially remember his pink sweater and pants as bright white as his teeth. His salt-and-pepper, frying-oil slicked-back hair gave him an exotic, honeyed look. He spoke in broken French and asked me if I'd be interested in staying in his hotel for free for as long as I wanted during its closure due to the terrible heatwave that was coming. In exchange for a spacious room, I'd have to look after the place, make sure everything was in order and that no one got in. I thought for a moment. There was talk of two weeks' free time in exchange for a bit of house-sitting. That wouldn't stop me from looking for Miles and escaping from time to time, even if it was contrary to his request and he assured me that I wouldn't want to leave the hotel with the heatwave that was going to hit the city the next day. It would be impressive, long, and of unparalleled power.
I took the most spacious room and the one with two air-conditioning units to cope with the heatwave Barnabé was predicting. However, on the big day, there was no particular heat, on the contrary, it was even windy. So I took the opportunity to throw myself into the indoor and outdoor pools, play pétanque and read in the hammocks. And when I read Luis Buñuel's autobiography, I said to myself, why don't I start writing my own? I hadn't directed Un Chien Andalou, or shot Belle de Jour, or met Hitchcock, but I had things to say, I think, I was on a couple's break, and I had two weeks to kill. I didn't feel much like writing by hand, and all the computers were password-protected. So, rummaging through their mess, I finally came across a typewriter, an Adler Universal 39.
I was all excited at the idea of writing about my life like a diary. I'd see where it took me. At the end of my fourth day on duty, the heatwave Barnabé had told me about arrived. And with it, all the surrounding noises fell silent. I could no longer hear the birds hiding in the shade, nor the cars passing in the distance, nor any sound from the city. It was as if the town had been suddenly deserted, as if time had stood still. A perfect atmosphere for writing a novel. The more I thought about it, the more ideas came flooding back, reminding me of the day I'd French-kissed Wynona Ryder, or how i turned down Beigbeder. They weren't the basis for a book, but they were anecdotes around which I could certainly build my story. I'd never been to Mars, but I felt as if I were living there, so alone did I feel. It was an extraordinary feeling, a crazy freedom. A freedom that would allow me to do whatever I wanted with this book, of which I still hadn't written a single word on the seventh day, but in which I had absolute faith. After all, Bernard Blier had written Buffet Froid in forty-eight hours. And on the tenth day, I set up the typewriter at just the right spot, opposite the bay window of my super suite overlooking a shaded patio with the desert mountains as a backdrop. It had become simply impossible to set foot outside, for fear of being barbecued.
So I stayed in the bedroom, taking baths, doing push-ups, yoga, meditation, watching The Simpsons or South Park or adult movies, depending on the mood. And whenever I thought I had to start writing at last, I always found something to do that would take me away from the blank page. And so it went until evening, when, as night fell, I heard an unusual sound, muffled but present, muffled but close. Since it wasn't quite as warm without the sun, I left my room in pursuit of this music from the thirties. And there, in the building that skirted the pool on its right, I saw the ballroom lit up, the tables set with tablecloths and china sets. I entered the place and, seeing no one there, took a seat at the bar, a little disconcerted, surprised and trembling at this disturbing and unforeseen scene. There, from a trapdoor in the floor, a balding fellow emerged, dressed like a butler in a red jacket with black lapels. His name was Lloyd, and he was the bartender for the evening, among other things, he told me. After asking me what I was doing here, he offered me a cocktail perfect for female writers, made with gin, pepper and a secret ingredient that was the envy of many. He asked me about my need to write, about my husband, about my desire to continue or to leave him. He in turn told me that he had been married, that he had left his wife for a man and that she had died of grief. He regretted it without regretting her.
I woke up the next morning with a pasty mouth, an Olympic-sized headache despite a single cocktail, and the surprise of discovering that I'd written ten pages during the night when I had no memory of doing so. The astonishment didn't stop there, however, when I turned on the TV and realized that I'd slept for two days in a row. I waited until nightfall to find Lloyd and demand an explanation for the drug with which he had prepared my cocktail. Although there was still music playing, the space was totally empty this time. There were no bartenders and no customers. So I went behind the counter and made myself a citrus mixture with a dash of vodka to perk me up and get back to my writing as quickly as possible. However, on rereading what I'd produced, I understood absolutely nothing. I was speaking in the masculine gender and about a situation almost similar to my own, in which I was a father who had agreed to keep a hotel in the middle of winter with his wife and son, and who was going to use the opportunity to write his novel. Unfortunately, his son Danny, who had psychic powers, was going to come into contact with the evil forces that populated the hotel. Surprised as I was, I found this parallel with my own life really interesting, so I set about fleshing out the story.
The heatwave, which was supposed to last a fortnight, lasted twice as long, the time it took me to finish the book. I called it Brillance and left the Parker relieved, ready to find my Miles.