One Summer In Paris

“Don’t even joke about it. I was afraid he was going to throw it at me, and it was a multipack. That would have been the end of me.” Meena sat down next to her and opened her lunch box. “Where’s your lunch?”

“I ate it.” Audrey put her phone on her lap. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know.” Meena investigated. “Pakora, rice, yogurt—that’s to absorb the heat from the chili.”

“It smells good. What’s in it?”

“Vegetables and love.” Meena grinned. “That’s what my mum told me. When I was little I thought you bought love in the market, along with carrots.”

“I can’t believe your mum makes all that for you every day and works as a doctor.”

“Yeah, well, home-cooked food is a big deal in my house. Mum says she finds cooking calming. I do, too. Sometimes I think my whole family is glued together by food.”

Audrey felt no envy that her friend had a place at Oxford University, but she envied Meena her family. “Is your sister still good at French?”

“My sister is okay but my cousin is better. She gets top marks in everything.” Meena ate a spoonful of yogurt. “It’s annoying how good she is at languages.”

“There’s a job I want to apply for, but my French isn’t good enough. Do you think she’d help?”

“Yes. If she doesn’t, I won’t help her with physics.” Meena leaned across, trying to read Audrey’s phone. “What’s the job?”

“It’s a bookshop in Paris. The pay is crap, but it comes with a studio apartment.”

With the money she’d saved from working in the hair salon she’d be able to afford to get herself to Paris and keep herself for two weeks, maybe three if she ate only one meal a day. Then she’d need to find a job.

True, she didn’t know anything about the Left Bank or the Right Bank and would definitely get them muddled up because knowing her left from her right was one of her biggest struggles, but she’d find a way.

“Wait.” Meena stopped chewing. “You’re going to have your own apartment and a job in a bookshop? That’s cool. But if your French isn’t good enough to apply for the job, how are you going to manage when you get there?”

The same way she’d lived her whole life. “I’ll muddle through.”

“You’re so brave. What do they want you to do?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that. Your French is pretty good, too.” Audrey thrust the phone toward her friend, and Meena read it quickly.

“You need to write a piece on why books and reading are important.”

“Crap.”

Meena wiped her fingers. “I thought you hated books and reading.”

“I do. I prefer movies.” Her secret passion was watching animated movies, but she’d never admit to anything so childish. “Obviously I’m not going to tell them that. Does your cousin like books?”

“Yes. She’s always reading.”

“Great. So if she could write why she loves books, in French, I’ll send that off. Can you ask her tonight?”

“Sure.” Meena peered into her lunch box. “Why does my mum make me so much food? If I ate it all I’d be the size of a small office building. Every day I have to throw it away in case she finds out I didn’t eat it all and gets offended. I don’t suppose you want some, do you?”

“Sure.” Audrey had to stop herself from falling face-first into the lunch box like Hardy and his dog bowl. “Anything for a friend.”

She consumed the rest of Meena’s food and tried to figure out a way to persuade Meena’s mother to adopt her.

She was on her way back to the salon when her mother texted.

Come home. It’s an emergency.

Audrey stopped in the doorway. Ellen was cutting hair. Milly answering the phone. The salon was heaving with people. And there was Mrs. Dunmore, who always booked on a Saturday because she liked Audrey to wash her hair.

She glanced at her phone again, torn.

Her mother’s idea of an emergency was running out of gin.

Saturday was the busiest day of the week at work. She was part of a team. She wasn’t going to let them down.

She switched off her phone and walked into the salon.

By the time she eventually arrived home, her mother was waiting for her at the front door, her face ravaged by grief and her breath smelling of alcohol.

“Ron and I have broken up.”

Audrey’s heart hit the ground. “But the wedding is in a week. What happened?”

She walked into the house and closed the door, keen to keep their problems firmly inside.

“I drove him away. Everybody leaves me. No one loves me.”

Audrey struggled to stay calm.

It was her worst nightmare. She’d put all her faith in Ron. “What did you fight about?”

“Nothing!”

“It must have been something.”

“I can’t even remember.” Linda waved her hand. “Something small. I said it was obvious that he didn’t love me and that he might as well just leave right now, so he did.”

“Did he—” Audrey swallowed. “Did he actually say he wanted to break up? Maybe he just needed some air.” She needed air all the time when she was around her mother. “Have you called him?”

“What’s the point? He was always going to leave at some point, so maybe it’s better that it’s now.” Her mother sank onto the sofa. “You’re right, I have to take control of my life.”

Audrey felt a flutter of hope. That was something, at least. “Right. We’ll make an appointment with the doctor. I’ll come with you, and—”

“I started with your room.”

“What?”

“Your room was a mess. Normally I overlook it, but I decided that from today we’re both turning over a new leaf.”

Audrey’s heart started to pound. She wasn’t the one who needed to turn over a new leaf.

“You tidied my room?”

“Not only tidied. I had a clear-out. You’re an adult now, Audrey. You don’t need all that rubbish around you. I filled two black sacks with things you should have thrown out years ago.”

Audrey stared at her mother, and a horrible premonition washed over her.

Surely her mother wouldn’t have—

She couldn’t—

She left the room at a run, taking the stairs so fast she stumbled twice.

Please no, no, don’t let her have done it.

She pushed open the door of her room and stared at her bed. “Mum?” Her voice was hoarse. “Where’s my teddy bear?”

Grace

When Grace’s parents died, it had been impossible to escape the sympathy. It had wrapped around her like tentacles, squeezing and squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. There was speculation, too, of course, about what exactly had happened on that night, but no one voiced their thoughts directly to her. Everyone had handled her carefully. They’d tiptoed, sent her anxious glances, whispered among themselves—is she doing okay?

It was the same now.

“One sourdough loaf?” Clemmie bagged it up and handed it to Grace with a pitying look. “How are you doing?”

“Great,” Grace lied.

She’d learned a lot about herself since David had left. She’d learned it was possible to smile while crying inside and make cheerful conversation even when you wanted to tell someone to mind their own business.

“You’ve lost a bit of weight.”

Grace paid for the bread. “Slimming down for the summer.”

“It must be so hard.”

She’d seen that same look in people’s eyes ten times a day in the weeks since David had left her. She used to love this small town that she and David had made their home, but now she hated it. In a city she could have disappeared, but here she stood out like a red wine stain on a white carpet. Everyone knew, and each encounter left another tiny cut in her flesh and her feelings, until she felt as if she’d walked naked through a thornbush.

If David hadn’t been the editor of the newspaper, his transgression probably would have made the headlines.

Editor leaves boring wife.

In the days after it had happened even the children in her class had avoided eye contact. None of them had asked her how her Valentine’s date had gone. They’d been particularly well behaved, as if trying to avoid her attention.

Several of them probably had Lissa as a babysitter.

They all assumed the affair must be the worst thing about it, but for Grace the worst thing was losing David.

Being left wasn’t a gentle thing. It was a vicious wrench, a tearing of flesh and feelings. Occasionally, she glanced down at herself and was surprised to discover she wasn’t bleeding. Such a trauma should at least leave a bruise, surely?

She missed the sound of his voice, his familiar solid presence in the bed next to her. She even missed the parts that had annoyed her, like the fact he always forgot his door key. Most of all she missed his gentle humor and wise counsel. She felt like a climbing plant that had lost its support. Without something to lean on, she was lying in an unsightly tangle, unable to unravel herself.

Her thoughts were an endless conveyer belt of what-ifs. What if she’d worn sexier underwear? What if she’d ar ranged more nights away in hotels? No, that wouldn’t have helped. He already thought she was too organizing. She could have encouraged him to arrange nights in hotels, except that then she knew it wouldn’t have happened. Part of the reason she organized things was because David didn’t. He preferred to be more relaxed and spontaneous, but Grace knew that didn’t get you a hotel booking on a busy day.

Would Lissa remind him to take his cholesterol medication?

She’d probably be too busy encouraging him to take Viagra.

“She was in here yesterday.” Clemmie lowered her voice in that way people did when they were talking about something scandalous. “I still can’t believe it. I mean Lissa. No offense, but there’s something a bit disgusting about it.”

Why was it that people said “no offense” before going on to say something clearly offensive?

“I have to go, Clemmie.” If it hadn’t been for the fact that Sophie was about to finish school, she would have contemplated moving.

“I mean, it’s obvious what he saw in her.” Clemmie was undeterred by Grace’s attempt to curtail the conversation. “She’s a pretty girl and no guy is going to say no to that if it’s on offer, is he? I blame her.”

I blame him.

The David Grace had married never would have had an affair, but she no longer knew the man she was married to. He was a mystery to her.

It was depressing to be part of such a desperate cliché, and mortifying to think everyone was talking about her.

“Here—” Clemmie dropped two doughnuts into a bag and handed them to Grace. “No charge.”

To top it off, she looked like a woman who needed to drown herself in sugar.

Sophie was sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework when Grace arrived home. “Hi, Mom.” She’d lost that open, trusting happy smile that had been part of her personality. Now there was caution, as if she did a quick audit to check if life was about to slap her again or if it was safe to smile. “Did something happen? You look pale.”

“Forgot to put my makeup on.” Grace put the loaf and the doughnuts on the table. As a child she’d learned to hide her feelings. She’d been a master of secrecy. So why was she finding this so hard? “There’s chicken in the fridge and I thought I’d put together a salad.”

“Delicious.”

The phone rang as Grace was rinsing tomatoes. She glanced at her phone and spilled half the tomatoes in the sink.

“It’s your dad.”

Sophie’s jaw lifted. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

She’d always been a daddy’s girl, which had made it harder when disillusionment took the shine off that relationship. Sophie hadn’t cared much when she’d discovered Santa didn’t exist, or the tooth fairy, but she’d almost broken when she’d found out her daddy wasn’t the man she’d believed him to be.

Grace rescued the tomatoes and sliced them with more violence than was strictly necessary. “He’s still your father, honey.”

She remembered feeling the same shock when she’d discovered the truth about her own parents. The puzzlement and disappointment of realizing they were human and flawed. Somehow you expected your parents to know better than you did. To be able to rise above the failings that afflicted other people.

It was frightening to realize adults didn’t have it figured out, because if your parents didn’t have the answers, then who was a child supposed to rely on?

“I don’t need reminding. It’s all I think about.” Sophie pushed her homework to one side and laid the table. Since that awful day when David had come out of the hospital, she’d hovered around Grace like a protective force field.

It was touching, but it also added stress because Grace had to watch her every move and every reaction. In front of Sophie she had to hold it together. No matter how angry and upset she was with David, she couldn’t share that with her daughter.

Sophie’s reaction had been worse, far worse, than Grace had anticipated. Although David had told her the news, Grace had insisted on being there because she hadn’t trusted David to handle Sophie’s emotions in a sensitive way. In the end he’d stumbled his way through it, as clumsy as a drunk knocking over chairs in a bar. He’d mumbled something about how people changed over time, and had started to say that he and Grace had grown apart but then he’d seen something in Grace’s expression and confessed that it had been his decision and his alone. When he’d started talking about Lissa, it had been hard to figure out who of the three of them was the most embarrassed. It had been excruciating.

For days afterward their daughter had raged around the house, ricocheting between anger and tears. It was disgusting. Gross. She was going to have to leave school. Everyone would be talking about it. She never wanted to see her dad again.

After a few days of continual sobbing, Sophie had returned to school, vowing never to trust a man in her life.

Together they’d stumbled and shivered their way through the next few months.

The only bright light in their dark days was that Sophie had been accepted into Stanford.

Grace showed only her pride and her joy. Dismay and fear she kept hidden.

How would she cope? What would she do when Sophie left, too? She was facing a life that looked nothing like the one she’d planned for herself. It was like hiking in the wilderness with no map.

David had moved in with Lissa the night he’d been discharged from hospital, and they were now sharing her small one-roomed apartment on the other side of town.

“I’ve decided I’m not going to travel this summer.” Sophie mixed dressing for the salad.

“What? Why? You’ve been looking forward to it.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Sophie tossed the salad violently, as if each leaf had personally offended her. “Unless you’d consider still going to Paris?”

“Alone?”

“Why not?” Sophie rescued a leaf that had landed on the table. “People travel alone all the time.”

Grace hadn’t traveled alone since she was eighteen. All the trips she’d taken in the last twenty-five years had been with David.

Should she feel embarrassed about that? Maybe she should have traveled alone. But why would she when the thought of traveling with David was so much more appealing? And it wasn’t as if they could afford multiple holidays.

“This trip was ridiculously expensive. Even if I cancel the hotel, I’ll still lose a fortune on the flights.”

“Then why cancel? You deserve a treat. I really think you should go, Mom.”

But it wouldn’t be a treat. It would be a cruel reminder of what she’d lost. She’d be imagining how it might have been if they’d done it together. She’d assumed they’d be making memories together. It hadn’t occurred to her that those memories wouldn’t include David.

“Maybe I’ll do something else later in the summer.”

Sophie put the salad in the center of the table. “If you don’t go, I don’t go.”

When had Sophie become this stubborn? “You’ve been planning it for months. Things have changed for me, but they don’t have to change for you.”

“Seriously?” Sophie clattered plates. “My father is sleeping with my friend, and you think things haven’t changed? Everyone at school knows, and most people think it’s disgusting and gross, which, by the way, it totally is. I mean, this is my dad and I’m having to think about—” She shuddered. “Never mind. Teachers keep asking me how I’m doing. Hello, humiliation.”

Every word she spoke inflicted more damage to Grace’s wounded heart.

For the first time in her life she came close to hating David.

“We’ll get through this.” She was surprised by how strong she sounded, and Sophie looked surprised, too.

“I don’t get how you can be so calm.”

“I’m doing my best in difficult circumstances, and that’s all anyone can do. You need to carry on and do all the things you were going to do before this happened.”

Sophie slid into her seat and pushed the salad toward Grace. “No.”

It was scary to acknowledge that a small, needy part of her wanted her daughter to stay home for the summer. Don’t leave me. But she wasn’t going to listen to her inner child.

“We’ll argue about it another time.”

They sat down to eat. Grace was relieved to see Sophie eating normally again. For weeks after David had left, she’d eaten almost nothing.

“I heard Sam is having a party. Are you going?”

“No.” Sophie sliced into chicken. “He’s still with Callie. And don’t look like that, because I don’t even care. I’ve chosen a career over relationships.”

“You can have both.” Grace helped herself to more salad and silently cursed David.

“A career is in your control. I am going to work my butt off in college and get a brilliant job. I am going to shatter that glass ceiling into so many pieces that all the men around me cut their feet on the shards.”

Grace put her fork down. “Don’t let what happened color your view on life. I don’t want you to miss out on love and family because of this.”

Sophie stabbed a piece of chicken. “Would you have married Dad if you’d known this was going to happen? I mean, you’ve been together forever and he’s thrown that away like it’s nothing. Was it even worth it?”

Grace thought back to the beginning of their relationship. The night that had brought them together. She and David were the only ones who knew the exact circumstances. She thought about the happiness they’d shared.

“I would. We had many happy years.” One day, maybe, she’d be able to look back with fondness. “And if I hadn’t met your dad, I wouldn’t have you. Sometimes you’re a pain, of course, but mostly you turned out pretty well.” She was relieved when her daughter threw her a grin.

Sophie stood up to clear the plates and paused, her attention caught by movement outside the window. “Dad is here!”

“No!” Grace stood up, too, heart pounding. “Why?”

“Probably because we didn’t answer the phone.”

The last thing she needed was an impromptu visit from David. It felt as if the universe was testing her, to see how far it could go before she cracked. “Go upstairs and do your homework, Sophie.”

Sophie folded her arms. “I’m not leaving you.” Her father walking out had made her draw closer to her mother. She had chosen a side, even though Grace had been careful not to encourage it.

She didn’t want Sophie to cut David from her life.

He hadn’t mentioned divorce since that awful night back in February, but Grace assumed he was going to raise it again at some point. Whatever happened, he’d always be Sophie’s father.

“Please, Sophie.”

“Mom—”

“Sophie!”

“Fine.” Sophie grabbed her laptop and headed for the stairs. “I don’t want to see him anyway.”

Grace thought about all the times Sophie had listened for her father coming home. She’d race through the house, filling it with her joyful yells, Daddy, Daddy.

She opened the door, hating the fact that she felt nervous. It seemed unjust that she should be the one feeling that way.

It had been weeks since she’d seen him, and her first thought was that he didn’t look like himself.

David was always clean-shaven, but today his jaw was darkened by stubble. On another man it might have looked as if he hadn’t bothered to shave, but on him it looked annoyingly good. The touches of gray in his hair looked good on him, too. He was broad shouldered and solid. The kind of man people leaned on in a crisis. She’d leaned on him. She wanted to lean on him now, but as he was the cause of this current crisis that impulse made no sense.

If he was suffering, it didn’t show. She, on the other hand, was fairly sure that her suffering was as visible as a drop of blood on fresh snow.

If he looked closely he’d probably see the nights she hadn’t slept, the tears she’d shed, the food she hadn’t eaten.

She made a note to always wear makeup from now on, even in bed. That way she couldn’t be caught out.

“Grace.” His voice was gentle. He might have been speaking to the victim of a traffic accident. I’m terribly sorry to be the bearer of bad news. “Can we talk?”

“You should have called.”

“I did. You didn’t answer. Please, Grace.” In that split second, she saw the old David. The David who had supported her through unspeakably tough times, the David who understood her.

She opened the door wider. “Five minutes.”

He stepped through the door and had the good manners to pause, waiting for her to direct him even though he’d lived here with her for twenty-five years. They’d bought the house together and when they’d picked up the keys he’d carried her over the threshold. They’d had sex in every room in the house, including the bathtub.

“Kitchen,” she said, and saw him glance into the living room as they passed the door.

“You moved the sofa.”

“The light was fading the fabric.” She didn’t tell him that she’d moved things around in the hope that she wouldn’t feel his absence every time she walked into a room.

He waited until she sat down before he sat, too.

“Where’s Sophie?”

“Upstairs, working.”

“How is she doing?”

“How do you think she is doing?”

“I don’t know. She won’t talk to me.”

For the first time she noticed he looked tired, too.

Too much sex, she thought bitterly.

“It’s been a shock for her. You have to give her time.”

David stared at his hands. “Hurting you both was the last thing I wanted to do.”

“And yet you did.”

He lifted his gaze. “Were you honestly happy in our marriage?”

“Yes. I liked the life we had, David.”

“Our life was safe and predictable, and I know you need that. But a marriage has to be more than a routine that doesn’t change. Sometimes I felt you wanted me as a support and a crutch. Not as a man.”

“You’re saying this is my fault?”

He spread his hands. “I’m not attributing blame. I’m trying to get you to listen to me and see that there are two sides.”

“Why? The time to have this conversation would have been before you had an affair and walked out.”

He rubbed his fingers over his forehead, as if he was trying to massage away the pain. She knew every one of his gestures. This one meant he was dealing with a situation for which there was no fix.

“Do you need anything?” He let his hand drop. “Money, or—”

Or what? The only thing she needed was sitting in front of her.

“I’m fine.” She still didn’t really know why he was here and then she saw him draw breath and knew she was about to find out.

He studied something on the kitchen counter. “Have you canceled the trip to Paris?”

“No.” Canceling would be the final acknowledgment that her marriage was over. Also, the moment she did it she knew Sophie would also cancel her own trip. She was still figuring out how to handle that.

“Right. Good.”