Mebel has no choice but to step out gingerly, curving her body to protect her precious Dior handbag, even though sheknows it is futile against the rain. She looks up at the building in front of her, half hoping that it would be half as gorgeous as the one in Paris. But there’s no such luck. The Saint Honoré School of Culinary Arts, Cowley, is a humble affair, located in what looks like a converted block of old English houses. She turns back to the driver, about to ask him if there’s been a mistake, but her words catch in her throat as he flings her beloved suitcases out of the cab and onto the curb.
“Cheers,” he says, and with that, he ducks back into the cab and drives away.
Mebel looks around her at the relatively empty street. There’s no one to help her with her bags, and the rain, though not heavy, is unrelenting. It is now that Mebel realizes that in addition to being damp and miserable, she is also freezing. It is barely September. What in the name of autumn is going on? Teeth chattering, she grabs the nearest Louis Vuitton suitcase and drags it down the driveway and into the building.
This reception hall is a far cry from the one in Paris. No one talks in hushed voices and no one is walking around like they’re on their way to some important meeting, namely because there is only one person present—a short middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair shorn into an unforgiving bob is dozing off behind the reception desk.
“Excuse me?” Mebel says, and the woman jerks up with a snort.
“Oh, hello!” she says, grabbing a pair of glasses from the desk and shoving them onto her face. “Are you”—she checks her notes—“Mebel Tan—Tana—”
“Tanadi,” Mebel says. “Yes.”
“Ah yes, of course. We’ve been expecting you.”
Despite the gloom that has settled over Mebel in the past few hours, the words “We’ve been expecting you” bring about a wave of relief so intense that she almost breaks down then and there.
“You have?” she says in a wobbly voice.
“Yes, Mr. Moreau called ahead to let us know you’d be arriving today. I’m Agatha, I’m the—well, I do everything around here. I’m the building manager, the school registrar, what have you. You need anything, you come to me.”
Mebel thinks of the numerous people the Paris branch had on staff. There had been at least six that she could see in the reception hall alone, and probably more bustling about behind the scenes. And in this one, all they have is…Agatha. Agatha smiles at her. Mebel thinks of Simone, the cool French receptionist. Well, to be fair, Mebel would much rather deal with Agatha than Simone. Having come to this conclusion, she smiles back at Agatha, whose smile widens in response. For a moment, the two women grin with manic nervousness at each other, then Agatha stands.
“Well! We’ve got your room all ready for you.” She spots Mebel’s suitcase and says, “Oh good, you’ve got just the one bag. Our rooms aren’t very big, I’m not even sure if it can fit that suitcase, but we’ll—”
Grimacing, Mebel says, “I have more bags.”
“Oh? Where are they?”
“Outside.”
Agatha has not struck Mebel as the athletic type. There is a softness about her and she wears shoes that can only be described as orthopedic, and yet as soon as she hears the word “outside,” she bursts into a sprint that would put Usain Bolt toshame. Before Mebel’s brain can even catch up with what’s going on, Agatha is out of the building, shouting, “You can’t just leave fancy bags like these outside, not in Cowley!”
Mebel hurries outside, the Dior handbag bouncing off her arm, the goldware jangling as she jogs after Agatha. To her horror, Agatha is shouting, “Get back here, you villains!”
Sure enough, Mebel spots two youths sprinting away, each one carrying one of her Monogram Louis Vuitton suitcases on his back. “No!” Mebel cries. But even she knows that it’s too late, that there is no point in trying to run after them. The boys are too fast and too far away for her and Agatha to catch up to. And anyway, these Ferragamos were made for the runway, not actual running.
And so Mebel stands at the end of the driveway and watches helplessly as two of her Louis Vuitton suitcases disappear down the street and round the corner. The sight is so surreal that Mebel can’t quite grasp the magnitude of it. What did she have in those two suitcases? God, please let neither be the one that has all her handbags. She doesn’t know what she would do without her bags. What if—oh no—what if they were the ones that contained her underwear? Mebel glances at Agatha. As friendly and warm as Agatha has been so far, Mebel doubts that she’d be comfortable sharing her underpants with Mebel.
“Oh dear,” Agatha says, trudging back toward Mebel. She is breathing hard, her hair plastered in a sweaty mess to her forehead. “I’ll help you file a police report about this, but I’m afraid that’ll probably be the last time we see those boys and those beautiful suitcases of yours. The coppers here are hopeless. Have you got any valuables in there?”
“Both the suitcases and the insides of the suitcases veryvaluable, yes,” Mebel says. She must be in shock. If this had happened to her while she was traveling with Henk, she would be in absolute pieces. But somehow, something is keeping Mebel together in this moment, and she doesn’t quite know what it is. Maybe it has to do with the fact that, compared to losing a husband and a forty-year marriage, losing two suitcases full of stuff isn’t quite as horrible? Or maybe she’s in denial. Whatever the case, something allows Mebel to merely shrug. She grabs hold of the one remaining LV suitcase, the two carry-on bags, and the hatbox and says, “Well, at least now I know all my things can fit inside my dorm room, ya?”
As it turns out, Mebel is wrong about that. She suspects that she might have been too optimistic about the size of her room as Agatha leads her up a flight of the narrowest staircase she has ever gone up. The staircase is so narrow, in fact, that both of Mebel’s shoulders brush against the walls as she walks up backward, dragging her heavy suitcase and cursing whoever designed this godforsaken building. When she finally reaches the second floor, Agatha leads her down a stuffy hallway, speaking in a hushed voice as she walks.
“These are all accommodations for our esteemed students, like yourself,” Agatha says.
Mebel is confused by how closely spaced the doors are to each other. They pass by six doors before Agatha stops at number 9 and says, “Here you are.” She unlocks the door and pushes it open. “Ta-da!”
Do not cry, Mebel tells herself for what seems like the hundredth time that day.
It is a challenge not to. In front of Mebel is the smallest, dingiest room she has ever seen in real life. It reminds Mebelof a prison cell, except without a personal toilet in the corner. Instead, there is, inexplicably, a sink in one corner of the room. Why is there a random sink inside this bedroom? Why is the window so tiny? Why is the bed so narrow? Why is she here instead of being home in her luxurious mansion, ordering air-fried truffle fries from Wendy?
Mebel steps gingerly inside, pushing her suitcase in front of her. There is just about enough space for the remaining suitcases to fit inside the room, but once she’s pulled them all in from the hallway, she finds that there’s no way she can lay them down and open them up. Agatha stands in the doorway, smiling in a way that can only be described as “silently shrill.”
“Right!” she says, her hands clasped in front of her bosom. “Well, I’ll let you settle in then, shall I? It’s rather late, so get some rest. Classes start bright and early tomorrow. Cheerio!” With that, she backs out and closes the door gently behind her.
Mebel’s phone buzzes then, and she pounces on it. Maybe it’s Henk? Maybe he’s finally realized what a huge mistake he’s made and he’s begging her to come back? But it turns out to be Meimei, one of her friends from the country club.
