Free The Last Resort by Carmen Posadas Page A

of what I’m talking about, the Baroness of Rothschild in France has written two or three books of this type and they have been runaway bestsellers. When you’re back in Madrid I’ll send them over to you. One is called
The Baroness Will Return at Five,
and the other,
The Art of Savoir-Faire.
They’re classy books, the kind that are worthy of such an important woman. For the moment, take a look at the outline I’ve drafted for you here, and when you get back we can talk further. How does that sound?
    Following the letter was a three-page outline as to how the book might be structured: “How to react in an embarrassing situation,” “How to receive guests,” “The proper way to conduct oneself at a variety of social occasions: baptisms, weddings, gala dinners, funerals . . .” And so on. The last page ended with a two-line postscript:
    Don’t say no, darling. You’d be great for this. Let’s get together when you return—and don’t stay in the sun too long, it’s terrible for the skin. Hugs and kisses from your friend,
    JP Bonilla
    When she finishes reading, Mercedes takes off her Giorgio Armani glasses and takes a long sip of her Pimm’s. She peers into the glass and fishes out the cucumber garnish (peel and all) and pensively nibbles. Suddenly, she spies a basset hound, his head cocked a bit, observing her from nearby and she motions for him to come over. She offers him the tiny slice of cucumber, but the dog trots away in the opposite direction. The silence is total and unbroken except for the sound of the dog’s paws clicking very faintly against the clay floor. The two are inside a glass-walled solarium with a hot-water pool. Outside, the sun shines down rather weakly, but inside it is hot, and a sticky sort of steam casts a shadow on the yellow of the walls, the red of the floors, and the bright green of the giant plants and trees, which veritably engulf the surrounding environment.
    The Story According to Mercedes, Part One
    I suppose I ought to start off by saying that i am not a great fan of small hotels in the middle of nowhere. But then again, this thought—and many, many others, for that matter—would never have even occurred to me a few months ago. The truth is, I knew very little about what I liked and didn’t like back then. Stupid, I know, and ludicrous if you consider that my passport says I am forty years old—two years younger, in fact, than my real age. But I must admit that L’Hirondelle d’Or is a far cry from your average hotel, and it is exactly as the brochure described: “One of the most exclusive luxury spa hotels in the world, a haven in the middle of the red lands of Morocco, where guests come to rest, eat well, exercise, and escape from all worldly distractions.” I doubt I will actually run into “. . . Martin Amis, finishing his latest novel in quiet solitude, or Mick Jagger, unwinding after his tour with the Rolling Stones” as the pamphlet attests. Something tells me that at this time of year I would be hard-pressed to “bump into Isabelle Adjani indulging in the spa’s legendary restorative mud treatments,” and as of yet I still haven’t seen a single “. . . pop star sharing confidences with the crème de la crème of the English aristocracy near the buffet table by the pool,” but I can easily imagine that this would be “. . . the kind of place where one might cross paths with Italian signoras who are devotees of exquisite, healthy cuisine, French men utterly taken with the notion of ‘clean living,’ and people from all over the world who absolutely insist on conducting their private lives in the most rigorous solitude.”
    All of this is straight out of the hotel’s promotional brochure, which is designed as soberly and seriously as this elegant hotel, printed on vellum paper with blue ink-drawings—no photographs, God forbid. Strictly drawings—this isn’t the Holiday Inn, after all. One thing is true, however. For the moment, at least, I