Page 42 of The Love Thief
CHAPTER THIRTY - ONE Stay or Go?
Maya was the Queen of Seduction. Her desire to keep me in Delhi as her creative muse and project manager on her dream California-inspired diner was impressive.
She blatantly appealed to my badly damaged ego, telling me that I was the singular person on Earth who could create the newest, trendiest eatery in India, and also promised me massive amounts of publicity.
Maya wasn’t just a pretty, young rich heir to a hotel dynasty; it turned out she was also a social media influencer with one and a half million followers.
Under her social media handle, @mayafoodiegirl, Maya transported her Anthony Bourdain–like approach to food to her followers.
Her postings covered both the food and the culture, along with mouth-watering photos.
She favored out-of-the-way mom-and-pop joints all over Delhi, ones that served authentic and exotic international cuisine.
Fearless about the food she covered, Maya featured Ethiopian, Moroccan, Portuguese, Chinese, Lebanese, Burmese, and just about everything that wasn’t the usual samosas or dosas.
She offered me full use of the hotel’s PR firm to garner coverage in India’s largest newspapers and magazines, TV interviews, as well as introductions to Bollywood stars who would all show up for the Grand Opening party.
I was mesmerized by the thought of it all.
It really wasn’t a hard decision. My choices were to go back to San Diego and look for a new career (since my reputation in the local food business had been trashed through Barry’s bullshit) and spend the upcoming holidays with Mom, or I could stay in Delhi making magic with Maya and her seemingly unlimited supply of money and imagination.
I decided to stay.
I was taking a long, hot, jasmine-scented bath when I heard Maya calling my name as she walked in on me.
Note to self: hotel owners have passkeys to all rooms.
“Good morning, Pari,” she sang out.
“Oh geez, Maya, have you forgotten already? My name is Holly.” “Yes, my personal Pari! Pari means ‘fairy,’ and you, dear girl, are mine for making dreams come true.” She laughed.
Maya was dressed in a sorbet-colored confection of silk layers that managed to seem both traditional and fashion-forward chic at the same time.
After six weeks of living in pajamas and sweats while recuperating at Mom’s, followed by three weeks rotating a few pairs of yoga pants with cheaply made local tunics, I was excited to think about wearing clothes that looked good and reflected my newfound blissful state.
“Holly, something’s different about you,” Maya said suddenly, a quizzical look on her face. “You’re glowing, and your eyes are all sparkly. You seem so peaceful. Did you meet someone?”
Feeling somewhat shy and hesitant, I nodded my head yes.
“Yes, I met myself,” I said, my cheeks flushing.
“I know that probably sounds strange, and it is a bit strange, but I had this amazing experience in the Ganga. Sadhviji had told me to give my troubles and pain to the river, so on my last day in Rishikesh, I went into the water next to Vashistha’s Cave.
As I was floating and remembering her advice to surrender, I was filled with a sense of unconditional love for myself and everyone. It was like a miraculous healing.
“My suffering disappeared, and since then, I have been in a state of something I would call bliss.”
“Oh, Holly! What a blessing! How wonderful!” Maya exclaimed. “It sounds like you experienced a state called nirvana .”
“How long do you think it will last?” I quipped back.
Maya closed her eyes as if searching for the right words. I watched, wondering what her answer would be.
“It’s not something that fades with time.
You’ve been touched by grace; you’ve seen the face of the Divine, and this experience will always be with you.
Even though there will be difficult days during the course of your life, as there are for all of us, you will carry this knowledge in your heart as a touchstone of who you really are,” Maya said, channeling her inner Goddess Saraswati.
I took a deep breath and savored the idea for a moment.
And then, changing gears and summoning my best Valley Girl accent, I rallied back. “Awesome, Dudette! Let’s go enjoy every minute of this probably temporary bliss. Besides, I’m dying to see the rest of this amazing property.”
With its five-star rating, the Four Seasons Gresham Palace in Budapest had been the most luxurious hotel I had ever stayed in up to that point.
As Maya guided me through its lobby, she proudly explained that her hotel had been ranked a rare seven stars, thanks to the spectacular level of experience and service they offered their well-heeled guests.
We began with a stroll through the lush gardens filled with majestic ancient banyan trees whose twisted and gnarled trunks, resembling elephants’ knees, reached deep into the earth.
The large, leathery leaves of the stately banyans provided a dark green canopy of shade against the bright sun.
Palm trees and flowering trees I had never seen before peppered the wooden path we walked.
Small benches beckoned one to sit, meditate, and breathe in the intoxicatingly sweet frangipani.
Despite the incessant traffic around the hotel, the garden was a relatively quiet sea of tranquility in a city of twenty million.
Maya guided me through the pool area, the outdoor dining patio, the Ayurvedic spa replete with a fresh juice bar, and a gym filled with every high-tech piece of equipment available.
She introduced me to the spa manager as “the new VIP consultant who will be creating the hottest new foodie place in Delhi,” and directed her to make sure I had a private trainer and a daily massage since she planned to work me hard, and I would need to “keep my chin up and my nervous system chilled.”
We then walked outside to Maya’s favorite offering, an outdoor yoga deck built at the base of a gigantic shade tree where live music accompanied the asanas.
A small group of international yoginis in their requisite lululemons were in warrior pose while a young, Bollywood-level-gorgeous man played the sitar and his beautiful wife provided the rhythmic, resonant bass of the tabla.
They both broke into big smiles when they saw Maya, who was enthusiastically blowing them kisses.
Never a fan of yoga, I started to reconsider giving it another try in this serene and enticing environment.
While my wrist may never again support me in downward dog, I had enough strength to fake my way through a basic spinal twist. It was easy to imagine myself doing some simple flow yoga to the live soundtrack provided.
Now that I had seen the best of the pool, gardens, spa, and yoga offerings, we headed into a gallery near the lobby, where Maya introduced me to her ancestors in their museum-quality portraits.
Her paternal great-grandfather had built this hotel in the 1930s, leaning on the Maharaja’s palaces of Jaipur, Udaipur, and Mysore for inspiration.
The gallery, with its museum-like hushed stillness, held happy memories for Maya.
When she was a young girl, her father would often bring her to view these portraits while recounting stories of his youth growing up in the hotel and learning the trade at the foot of his beloved “Dada.”
“My father once told me, ‘Someday you will be the queen of this hotel, Maya. You and your children to come will continue the family dynasty,’” Maya recounted solemnly.
“I really do love everything about this business. When I step inside each day, even when the world around me is chaotic and crazy, I feel like I’ve entered my own beautiful and elegant world. A world where I am safe and loved.”
We basked for a long moment in the bliss of each other’s company before continuing on our tour.
Our final stop was a café that had been shut down for a few years.
This was the site of Maya’s current passion project.
The café, once a jazz club open to the public, had its own driveway with a valet stand in front of the restaurant entrance.
Hotel guests, however, could use their key cards to access the café through a secret passageway just off the lobby.
It was easy to visualize transforming it into a cool, chic California-style diner.
With different flooring, a paint job, and new furniture, the dining area could easily be designed to look and feel like Malibu.
Maya was lit up like the Fourth of July, chattering away about where the flat-screen TVs would go, and about the slick, bleached-wood-plank flooring it would have, and creating a signature line of flip-flops.
The small stage upon which the hottest, coolest musicians had been featured would become a dance floor with a big old-fashioned jukebox to twist the night away to the surfer tunes of the sixties and seventies.
She was unleashing a creative orgasm of ideas that felt like we were on a tandem hang ten on a “surf’s up” kind of day.
I was getting a contact high from her enthusiasm.
Unlike many hotels where there was one large shared kitchen for all the food operations, the café had its own well-sized kitchen that was in pretty good shape.
With a slight remodel and some new equipment, a frying station, and three new grills—one for beef, lamb, and turkey burgers, one for veggie burgers and all things vegan, and one for everything else—this kitchen would be an easy project.