It was one of those mornings when she looked like slutty woodland creatures had dressed her... . I like this opening line even better than "It was a dark and stormy night."
I love South Beach, but if I wake early I make coffee in my room, I've even posted pics of my trusty coffee pot, and I go out and read the paper on the terrace. There's a side of life in a boutique hotel, even in a big commercial hotel or in a world-reknowned luxury hotel, that I don't want to know about, and it's at its tackiest as the sun is coming up. Better far to stare numbly at the ocean.
I went downstairs in the Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo, around 6:30 one morning. We'd arrived the night before, had a great dinner
(yes, there), and collapsed. The morning sun in the bathroom made me want to go look at boats. Yachts, to be precise, and I pulled on jeans, tee, rubber-soled shoes, bucket hat (quieter than a hairdryer), left Himself snoring, made note of room number, and found my way to the lobby.
There were coffee and croissants on offer, and I tucked in, while I watched a parade of very dressed-up ladies exchange cheek kisses at the Concierge desk and hurry away. By very dressed up, I mean 5-inch heels, sequins from head to toe or at least from chest to crotch, festooned in glittery jewelry. They spoke French or English to the Concierge and his minions, various languages that begin with
R to one another. Only hair and makeup showed what I thought was an effortless natural look. I assumed they were off to get an early start on jewelry shopping, exploring, clothes shopping, gambling, shoe shopping, as, limo by limo, they waved extravagant goodbyes and left. Now feeling like a poor relation, I went back upstairs to dress properly for lobby/grounds/dock exploration. Himself was awake by this time and asked what the lobby was like in daylight. "It's very dressy here, even more so than in Paris," I told him, and I described a couple of the outfits.
Yes, of course. Were I not so easily abashed, I too would have seen that the girls looked like a bad morning in South Beach: like they'd passed out poolside the night before, been wet down by pool help in the morning, and had gotten dressed to go home in whatever the escorts from the latest event had left behind. In fact, they were the escorts from the night before.
There's not much to do in Monaco if you haven't arrived by water and don't gamble (and aren't working off your sequins), except dine out, and as we spruced up for dinner that night I asked Himself a dangerous question: "How do I look?"
This time, of course, he'd had his answer ready since early that morning: "Your amateur status is unquestionable."
