The Paris Connection

by Lorraine Brown

  I nodded, concentrating on my now-empty wine cup, putting my finger inside the rim and twirling it around and around. I could feel his eyes on me. We thought we had a connection, but we couldn’t have, how could we? Of course it had been lovely, the two of us wandering around Paris in the sun, with hours to kill and nothing to do but talk and walk. I felt excited about life again, had been reminded of how much fun it could be, and some of that was because of him and the risk-taking part of myself he’d tapped into. But in reality, Léo was exactly the sort of person I went out of my way to avoid. He was too good-looking and overconfident (on the outside, at least) and—most worrying of all—afraid of commitment. I’d never let myself fall in love with a man like that; it was the polar opposite of what was good for me. Until yesterday, I’d been reassured by Si’s stability and straightforwardness, by the fact he didn’t care about the past, and had concrete plans for our future. But now I wasn’t so sure.

  I pulled off the top of the milk, spraying it everywhere, all over the table, on the knees of Léo’s jeans. He laughed, wiping it off with his hand. I sipped at my tea and borrowed his phone again to check whether Catherine had posted any pictures of the wedding preparations on Instagram. Since I was going to this wedding whether I liked it or not, I had to find some way to feel invested in it again.

  “You are on Instagram?” said Léo, craning his neck to see.

  “Mmm,” I said.

  “You like it? All these showy photographs that people share?”

  “God, no,” I said.

  I felt him looking at me.

  “I know, I know, then why do I bother?” I sighed and promptly carried on scrolling.

  Three or four posts in there was a shot of Catherine. She was admiring herself in a full-length mirror, all wistful and serene in her white cotton robe, her hair up in curlers, and her three bridesmaids—her cousin Nancy, Jasper’s sister Sophie, and an ethereal-looking Alison—were gathered around her, one of them crouched next to her, another with her hand on Catherine’s shoulder. It was such a picture of female solidarity, of friendship, that I almost forgot myself and smiled. I zoomed in on Alison, looking for clues. I managed to deduce absolutely nothing, except that she looked lovely. That was the thing about weddings: everybody was at their very best, as though you were observing them through a rose-tinted filter. And Catherine had chosen the most gorgeous bridesmaids’ dresses. She’d described them to me in great detail on numerous occasions, but they looked even better than I’d imagined. I liked the way the magenta fabric pulled Alison in at the waist and then billowed out in romantic drapes down to her ankles.

  I refreshed the page, and Catherine’s most recent post came up.

  “Who is that?” asked Léo, his face so close to mine that I could feel the warmth of his breath on the nape of my neck.

  “Si’s sister, Catherine.”

  “This is the wedding you go to?”

  I nodded.

  Catherine had captioned the shot with the title: The calm before the storm.

  I had butterflies in my stomach for some reason, as though I knew it was going to reveal something to prove that I’d been right to have all these suspicions about Si and his secret messages. I clicked on the photo anyway, enlarging it, sliding my fingers across the screen, zooming in. It was a wide shot of the hotel room: the tiara laid out on the bed, the white satin heels by the door. The bridesmaids.

  “You know these girls?” he asked.

  “Sort of.”

  In the bottom corner was Catherine with her back to the camera, a teaser of the yet-to-be-revealed gown. Jasper’s sister was arranging the veil with the sort of soft, dutiful look in her eyes that only the most selfless of bridesmaids could achieve. Nancy was flopped on the sofa holding a glass of champagne aloft and looking altogether less interested. And by the door, leaning against the wall, were Alison and Si. She was looking directly at the camera, her hands clasping her bouquet. But Si was not looking at the camera, he was looking at her. His arms were crossed in front of him and he was all grim-faced, as if they’d had a row. Or he was upset about something. I couldn’t tell. They had some sort of history, I could see it in his eyes. She’d needed to speak to him at the wedding for a reason, and by the looks of it, he hadn’t liked what she’d had to say.

  Léo stopped fiddling around with the plastic lid of his tea. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Hannah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why has the photo upset you?”

  I put the phone in his hand.

  “It hasn’t.”

  And it was true: I wasn’t upset. I was angry and I wanted answers, but I wasn’t upset. I didn’t feel gutted about it. I wasn’t panicking about losing him. And what that meant about him and me, about the future we’d planned together, I couldn’t even begin to think about now.

  “Is that your boyfriend?” he asked, looking at the photo.

  “Yeah,” I said, laughing lightly.

  “And who is he with, this blond-haired girl?”

  “Alison.”

  It was hard to imagine that Si would throw away everything we had to start something with her. And then, for the first time, I thought: Would I consider it? Would I ever be the one to leave him?

  “Alison,” said Léo, as though he was mulling the name over. “And you do not like that they talk?”

  I nibbled on my thumbnail. “I wouldn’t usually care. Except that he got a text from her. Last night on the train, before I moved seats.”

  He put his phone in his pocket. “What did it say?”

  “Something about needing to talk to him.”

  “Well, they are at a wedding, non? There are things to organize.”

  “That’s what I’d thought, too, initially. But then when we were at Sylvie’s, I hacked his e-mail account and read his messages,” I said, visibly cringing.

  He raised his eyebrows at me, surprised. “Hannah! I did not imagine you to be the jealous type.”

  “I’m not usually. And I know I shouldn’t have read his stupid messages; he’ll go mad when he finds out.”

  “So why did you do it?”

  I put my head back, looking up at the ceiling, as though I was going to find the answers up there. “You’d be amazed what the prospect of marrying someone can do to you. Everything becomes much more urgent. There’s things you need answers to. I found myself thinking: Can I really spend the rest of my life with this person I’m not sure I trust?”

  He glanced across at me. “You know I am never going to trust you with my phone again, right?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t worry, my French wouldn’t be good enough to decipher your messages, anyway.”

  He tidied up his table, putting the plastic wine cup inside the paper cup containing the remnants of tea. “Are you really going to marry this guy, Hannah?” he asked.

  It was bizarre how my feelings about our relationship had changed in such a short space of time. Yesterday Si and I were wandering hand in hand across the Rialto Bridge and today I was crossing my fingers that he wouldn’t propose to me before I’d had a chance to work out if I still wanted him to.

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking down at my hands. It felt too dangerous to look at him, somehow, as though if we made eye contact, that would be the end of it. There would be no going back.

  “Hannah?” he said.

  I bit my lip. “Yes?”

  “Before we get to Amsterdam, and you rush off to your wedding, there is something I wanted to say.”

  He lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. My breath caught in my throat. I looked at the floor, the walls of the train, anywhere but at him.

  “What is it?” I said, my voice barely audible.

  “I cannot say this to the side of your head.”

  I looked at him, s
uppressing a smile.

  “Better,” he said, reaching out to smooth his thumb across my cheek.

  I swallowed so hard I was sure he must have heard me.

  “I wanted to say that some of the things I have told you today, I have never spoken to anyone about. Not a single person.”

  I nodded, the smallest of movements. “I know. Me too.”

  There was hardly any space between us. I could move my head the tiniest bit and we would be kissing, just like we had in my daydream.

  “And that I have been thinking, for a little while now, that . . . that we might—”

  His phone rang, filling the space.

  He pulled back, sighing. “Good timing, non?”

  I dabbed my forehead with the cuff of his hoodie, relieved, in a way, because I thought I knew what he was going to say and I wouldn’t have known how to reply. What I wanted to do and what I should do were two completely different things.

  He fumbled around for his phone, blocking his other ear with his finger.

  “Oui?”

  There was a moment or two of confusion on his face before he raised his eyebrows at me.

  “One moment, please,” he said.

  He held the phone out for me to take. “It is for you, Hannah. Your friend Ellie.”

  18

  I staggered down the aisle, Léo’s phone in one hand, my other gripping hold of whichever seat back I could grab.

  “One second, Ells, I’m just finding somewhere quieter,” I said, making it to the area by the doors. I took a deep breath.

  “Hey, Ells,” I said as loudly as I could without actually shouting, trying to regulate the sound of my voice. “Everything okay?”

  “Never mind me, what on earth is happening?” she said, sounding overexcited, the way she always did when there was some sort of drama she could get behind.

  “You read my e-mail, then.”

  “ ’Course I read your bloody e-mail. What’s going on, Han?”

  I slid down the wall so that I was crouching, my elbows resting on my thighs, my knees pressed tightly together.

  “I’m on my way to Amsterdam now. Nearly there, in fact. Should just about make it in time for the wedding.”

  “Jesus,” said Ellie. “How’s Si taking it? I bet he’s livid that one of his meticulously planned schedules has gone to pot.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Who’s this guy, then? The one with the phone?”

  I made a concerted effort to sound casual. “Just someone I spoke to briefly on the train. He was supposed to be going to Amsterdam earlier, too.”

  The sun came out from behind a cloud and light flooded the corridor, changing the way everything looked; the way it felt. The door to the next carriage slid open and a man wearing a gray suit came lurching through.

  “And what, you’ve been hanging out with him all day?” said Ellie.

  “Kind of.”

  “Is he hot?”

  I chewed my thumbnail. “He’s nice, yeah.”

  Strips of light moved around, bending this way and that as the train rocked us from one side to the other. Somebody else stumbled past on their way back from the buffet car and I stood up, flattening my back against the wall.

  “Good for you, Han. Sounds a lot more fun than running around after nutty brides. Does Si know?”

  “Si does not know.”

  Not a single part of me wanted to tell her what was really going on. I couldn’t even make sense of it myself yet, so there was no way I could put it into words. One day I would; when we got back to London, I supposed. She was quick to give advice and always told me, in no uncertain terms, exactly what she thought. Sometimes I listened, nodded, agreed with her and then did the complete opposite, but there was always some value to what she had to say. I just wasn’t ready to hear it yet.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay, Han, I actually screamed out loud when I read your e-mail.”

  I laughed. Trust her to be over-the-top about it.

  “But, um, before I go, I just wanted to . . . I felt I ought to tell you about something strange that happened earlier today,” she said, her tone turning serious.

  I frowned. “Go on.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’ve gone back and forth about whether to say anything, whether to wait until you got home. But when I saw your e-mail, I don’t know . . . I just got this feeling that it might all be connected somehow.”

  “What might be connected?”

  It felt as though my heart was beating in my temples. When Ellie didn’t answer, I knew it must be something bad, because there wasn’t much that rendered her speechless.

  “Ellie! What is it? Just tell me.”

  “Okay, okay.” Another nervous cough. “Do you remember that John’s thinking of moving jobs and Si had told him the head of marketing was leaving at his place, and that there might be a position coming up? And then, at dinner, Si told us the job wasn’t available anymore?”

  I didn’t like the babbling sound of her voice. Surely there couldn’t be anything else?

  “Yep, I remember,” I said, covering my mouth with my fingers.

  “Well, John bit the bullet and called the HR department, anyway. Said he was a friend of Si’s and that he knew they weren’t recruiting for the head of marketing position but was there anything else on the horizon that he might be able to apply for? And when he mentioned Si’s name, the guy said—now, I don’t want to jump to conclusions here, Han—that Si no longer works for the company.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “The HR guy was probably new.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice sheepish. “That’s what I thought. But John said . . . he said he spelled out Si’s name, his surname, everything. Gave him the department name, even the floor number. But the guy was adamant. Said he’d left several weeks ago.”

  I paced up and down the corridor, a few steps this way, a few steps the other. The suited guy came back and I moved to the side to let him pass. Léo’s phone was clamped to my ear, the screen slicked with sweat. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I didn’t know where to begin, how to articulate to Ellie that this was just the latest in a long line of things that didn’t make any sense.

  “Are you still there, Han?”

  “Just about,” I said.

  “What do you make of it?” asked Ellie gently.

  I covered my eyes with my free hand. This was too much, after everything.

  “I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing,” said Ellie, just as a train came shooting past in the opposite direction and the windows shuddered, the roar of its engine drowning out every other sound. We rocketed into a tunnel and it was suddenly very dark and very noisy. The line instantly went dead and I was relieved, because it meant I didn’t have to find an excuse to end the call.

  I walked back through the carriages, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. It felt as though the world was spinning, as though I couldn’t center myself. What had Si been doing, then, these past few weeks, if he hadn’t been at work? And if something had happened, if he’d left his job, why hadn’t he told me?

  “Hannah?” said Léo, touching my elbow as I drifted straight past our seats.

  “Oh,” I said, turning round. “I was miles away.”

  He got up to let me sit down. I fished his phone out of my pocket and gave it back to him.

  “Is everything all right with your friend?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, taking a sip of tea, not caring that it was stone cold. “Fine.”

  “Has something happened, Hannah?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “But you are drinking cold tea.”

  I shook my head. “We’ll be arriving soon. I can’t think about it now.”

  He watched me caref
ully. “What did your friend say?”

  I covered my mouth and nose, my hands in the prayer position. “Her boyfriend called Si’s work, something about a job. They said Si left weeks ago, that he doesn’t work there anymore.”

  Léo frowned. “So he has changed jobs and not told you?”

  “Maybe.” Maybe. I hadn’t thought of that. I’d jumped to the conclusion that he was without a job altogether, but perhaps he had just taken another one. But then I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have hidden that from me.

  “You will see him soon, non? You can ask him then.”

  I folded my arms around myself, feeling as though all the good feelings I’d built up over the course of the day had been sucked out of me and I was left with nothing but a cold, hard, hopeless shell. I pressed my temple against the window. We were in a built-up area now, the endless fields replaced by houses and roads and traffic. I was finally in the same city as Si and I’d never felt farther apart from him.

  “We should get our things together,” said Léo quietly, standing up, pulling down his stuff.

  I grabbed my bag, throwing everything haphazardly into it, stuffing the empty wine bottle into the nearest bin in case it fell out at the hotel and everyone thought I’d drunk it all myself. The aisle was already full of passengers dragging luggage down from the racks, flooding toward the doors, eager to be the first to get off. I felt like staying where I was, welding myself to my seat, refusing to leave the train. What if I just didn’t go? I supposed that would mean I was running away from my problems and I was determined not to do that anymore. I had to be strong. Face the truth and deal with whatever life threw at me.

  “Are we coming in on time?” I asked Léo.

  “Two minutes early. It is five minutes to five.”

  I put my palm on my chest, feeling it rise and fall. Everything felt wrong again. Léo would be gone soon, and in less than half an hour I would see Si again. And then, one way or another, I’d know.

  “Are you ready?” said Léo.

  I nodded. When the doors opened, we were among the first to step onto the platform. We hurried along, sandwiched between our train and a yellow double-decker on the opposite platform. Above us was a curved glass roof letting in a soft, mustardy light.