by Harper Bliss
“You don’t mind, do you?” Camille asks when we’re crammed into the elevator with Emma, her buggy, and a bag filled with everything she could possibly need in the next few hours.
“Of course not.”
“So?” She tilts her head.
“So… what?”
“What did you think of Flo? She was very friendly to you, wasn’t she?”
“For the few minutes we spent together, she was very courteous.” The elevator comes to an abrupt halt and we stumble out, Camille holding the baby and me taking care of all the other stuff. My trip to Paris suddenly feels a lot less glamorous.
“Why don’t we take her home?” Camille says more than asks. “Then you and she can get to know each other.”
Five minutes later, we’re in the car. I haven’t really found my bearings in Paris yet, but it turns out to be only a ten-minute drive to Camille’s house. That’s how at six o’clock I find myself in Camille’s lounge with a baby in my lap, instead of the much more sensual position I’d been imagining myself in all day while she was at work.
But Emma is endearing like most babies of that age. No longer a featureless tiny mass of flesh, but a veritable tiny person, a girl in waiting, with huge blue eyes and a tug of the lips that could pass for a smile if you were inclined to see it that way. She coos with pleasure every time I so much as lift her from my lap, and her small, clammy hands grab at everything they come across with a surprising fierceness. Her simple, unspoiled joie de vivre is infectious and before I know it, I’ve fallen in love with her as well.
Of course, Iris is jealous of the intruder in her territory so Camille gives her a treat, after which she just keeps asking for more, then walks off in a huff.
“It has been one of the most profound experiences of my life,” Camille says after warming up Emma’s bottle and sitting down next to me. She gives me the bottle, as if feeding babies should be in my repertoire of things I know how to do automatically just because I’m a woman. “Having that little bundle of joy come into my life.”
Camille rearranges Emma in my arms and I bring the bottle to her lips. She starts sucking immediately.
“Having had children of my own and having gone through all that entails, I never thought becoming Emma’s grand-mère would affect me so much. I never thought I’d feel such a big rush of love and such a sense of responsibility ever again. And because I’ve done it all before, now that I’m older and hopefully a little wiser as well, I want to do it better. I want to have more patience with her and want her to know how loved she is at all times. I want to do right by her.”
“You want to undo the mistakes you think you made with your own children. It’s very common. I’ve seen it happen with my parents when they became grandparents. Everything my brother and I weren’t allowed to have, these kids will have tenfold. I’m not just talking about material things, but affection and time and just the sheer amount of attention they give them.”
“It’s the circle of life,” Camille says wistfully.
“Except when we were little, our grandparents never fussed over us in the way that’s fashionable now.”
“Our grandparents didn’t have time for that.” Camille looks at Emma in my arms with a look of such undeniable, unquestionably permanent love, a pang of jealousy shoots through me again. One that makes me wonder whether she’ll ever come to Australia again. “Times are different now.”
“You’re hardly close to retirement.” I remind her. “And your foreign lover is in town.”
Camille puts a hand on my knee. “And she’s currently giving my granddaughter her bottle. If I was the more sentimental type, this would be cause for a tear of joy or two.”
This makes me laugh, and makes some of the tension drain from my shoulders. “And this weekend we’ll have an adolescent in the house.” Another event I’m not sure I look forward to entirely. There are so many people to meet in Camille’s life. So many good first impressions to make.
“Ben is a sweetheart. He’s the spitting image of his father, but he has a heart of gold.”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous.”
“I come with a lot of extra baggage. Children. Grandchildren. Political connections.” She gives a chuckle.
“Speaking of, I’m not leaving Paris until I’ve been introduced to the president.”
“You mean there’s such an easy way to keep you here?” She strokes my knee with her thumb.
“You know what I mean.” I check Emma for signs of fullness but notice none just yet. “Besides, I think you might have been downplaying your Dominique Laroche connection all this time. I think you may know her better than you’ve let on.”
“Even a president needs friends. Actually, let me rephrase that: especially a president needs friends.” She puckers her lips together, much like little Emma is doing while she’s extracting milk from the bottle. “It’s not that I see her more now than before she was elected, but when I do see her, everything is much more intense. The contact. The conversation. Because time is so limited, it weeds out the small talk and boils everything down to its very essence, even seeing friends.”
“Ha, I knew you were more than an acquaintance.” My voice shoots up so high, it startles Emma and her mouth loses its grip for an instant.
Camille waves me off. “You’re making too much of this, Zoya.”
“But I will get to meet her?”
Camille nods, her face drawn into a mysterious expression. “You will. I promise.”
We spend the next few hours fussing over Emma like two women who have lost their minds and can only focus on the tiny person that has been dropped into their midst. When it’s time to bring Emma back to her parents, I’m so exhausted, I let Camille go on her own.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ben arrives on Friday evening and even though I’ve seen countless pictures of him, when I meet him in the flesh he strikes me as even more of a golden boy. A young man so sure of himself, the fact that his mother has brought another woman into the house where he grew up doesn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. When he greets me for the first time with a handshake too firm for a nineteen-year-old, a slick, confident smile on his face, and the allure of a teen movie star who just walked the red carpet, I can only think I’m meeting a politician in the making.
He’s very affectionate with his mother, seems to adore her, and his effortless way with her, and as a consequence with me, puts me at ease. I’m beginning to think Camille’s children are of the rare enlightened ilk that truly takes no offense to their mother suddenly deciding to date a woman. Or perhaps they have too much going on in their own lives to spend much time obsessing over it. Flo with her newborn baby and Ben with the new chapter of his life at university.
I must conclude that Camille has been an excellent mother who has brought up her children in exemplary fashion—how else can the courteousness, confidence and utter lack of animosity in the two young people I’ve met this week be explained? And perhaps their father is a much more decent bloke than his philandering would suggest.
As the time for brunch approaches I can’t help but think how strange it is to be dropped into these people’s lives. These people I could so easily never have known. When Camille takes me to the market around the corner on Saturday morning to buy food, reassuring me that we will find everything we need for the brunch right there, and we drag an old-fashioned shopping trolley behind us that we fill up as we make our way from stall to stall, I stop and think about what I’d be doing if the smoke detector batteries in the rental apartment hadn’t died when they did.
I’d be visiting my parents in Perth. I’d finally be putting the house on the market and looking for a new place to live—somewhere to start my life over. I’d have planned a trip somewhere warm to escape the cold Sydney winter.
I’m somewhere warm now, much warmer in every aspect than I could ever have imagined. I observe how Camille interacts with the stall owners, who all seem to know her by name. Sh
e introduces me to a select few, but mostly it feels like I’ve stepped into a postcard of times gone by because even though farmers’ markets are all the rage these days, there’s an air of authenticity to this place that makes me believe it has always been here exactly like this.
Camille has invited her best friends Sylvie and Sébastien to brunch as well and they too seem elated to finally meet me. I’ve put myself in charge of drink pouring and the mimosas are very much appreciated by everyone at the table, not that, unlike me, anyone looked in much need of something to help them relax.
“Dad would have a fit if he saw you add orange juice to champagne,” Ben says. “He’d call it sacrilege.” Ben lifts his glass and holds it up to me.
“But your father is not here and this way we can drink more before Sébastien becomes too lyrical and Mathieu starts going on about the stock market as if it was the true love of his life instead of my daughter,” Camille says.
Everybody laughs and I laugh along, grateful that they’ve chosen English as their primary language for the day, which Sylvie seems to have the most difficulty with. But she tries, and for that alone I could kiss her. The fact that the conversation is being conducted in English for my sake, makes me want to keep it going as fluently as possible, to the point that I soon find myself asking Flo’s husband questions about his job as though I’m interviewing him for television.
“Ideally, we’d move to London. We talked about it,” he confides in me. “But now with Brexit all the rules have changed. It’s actually better to stay in Paris.” He heaves a small sigh and sips from his red wine—he’s the only man who considered a champagne cocktail too girly. “Besides, I could never actually tear Flo and now Emma away from Camille.” He leans over in order to speak more quietly. “Those two months Camille spent in Australia upset Flo to such a degree I was starting to worry.”
“Did I hear my name?” Flo elbows Mathieu in the arm. “Are you gossiping about me.” She looks at me. “He’d better only be saying good things about me.” She appears much more relaxed than when I first met her earlier this week.
“I was just warning Zoya about how you and your mother are joined at the hip. She has a right to know these things.” He grins at his wife.
“My dear husband is prone to gross exaggerations. I can get by without my maman for a longer period of time just fine.” They exchange some more words in French, then both smile at me. “But she is the only babysitter I trust so far,” Flo adds in English.
As if Emma knows the topic has—again—shifted to her, she starts crying. I notice how both Flo and Camille immediately jump to attention, the champagne-induced carefree playfulness leaving their faces.
Ben gets up and makes a calming gesture with his hands. “Je m’en occupe, les filles,” he says.
“My godson will make a wonderful father one day,” Sylvie says.
I watch Ben scoot off to the part of the living room where Emma’s bed has been set up for the day and remember what Camille told me on our very first date. That throughout her life her children always came first. That she silently endured years of infidelity from her husband for their sake. How she put her own needs on the back burner in order to give them the best life possible. Maybe Flo and Ben are just immensely grateful to their mother for keeping the peace all these years and all they want for her now is to see her happy, even if it means being in a long-distance relationship with another woman. With the stranger sitting at their table, making nervous conversation, trying to catch the nuance in the language they’re speaking for my benefit but which is not their own.
As thrilled as I am to be here in Paris with Camille, to have spent this first glorious week with her, I wonder if it all won’t be too complicated in the end. Mathieu might have been joking but I’ve only seen them together a couple of times and it is impossible to ignore how close Camille and her daughter are, and the way she lit up when Ben arrived home on Friday evening. She is a woman who has sacrificed for her children, who adores them, and will never be apart from them for longer than she has to, even now that they’re adults. It’s clear as day that she’s one of those women who needs to live in close proximity to her family.
A while later, after we’ve polished off most of the champagne and Camille has brewed a strong pot of coffee, the group has moved to the couch. Through my own growing tipsiness I’ve noticed how Camille has become more elated over the course of the afternoon, also helped by alcohol, no doubt, but perhaps also by the fact that she has us all in the same place. In this vast house where her grandparents used to live and where her children have grown up and are now reunited for a day.
Sylvie and Sébastien, who live around the corner, are just as lovely, switched-on and elegant as I would have expected Camille’s best friends to be. This glimpse into her life, albeit a festive and not an everyday one, teaches me so much about her, and makes me fall in love with her even more. This convergence of our two separate lives on opposite parts of the globe strengthens my feelings for her, and the conviction that I’ve met a truly special lady—one I never want to let go of.
Camille drops down next to me, her thigh touching mine and as she does, I see Ben and Flo exchange a look. What I wouldn’t give to be a—French-speaking, of course—fly on the wall when they discuss their mother’s new lover in private later. Or perhaps I’m better off not knowing what Camille’s children really think of me.
Camille, who must still be feeling the effects of the champagne, pecks me on the cheek. “I’m so happy you’re here,” she whispers in my ear, making me feel very self-conscious.
Camille on the other hand doesn’t shy away from public displays of affection in front of her children and best friends at all, and while she re-engages in conversation, she puts a hand on my knee and leaves it there. Perhaps she’s trying to make a statement to these people she loves most, and who love her, that this is who she is now.
We make plans for Sylvie and Sébastien to have us over for dinner next weekend, to have Emma sleep over next Wednesday evening, and to drop by Ben’s apartment in Marseille in a few weeks when we’re on our way to Camille’s house in Provence.
By the time everyone has left, and Ben has gone into town to meet some of his old school friends, I sink into the cushions completely exhausted.
“They loved you. I can tell,” Camille says as she lies down with her head in my lap, looking up at me. “It was a truly wonderful afternoon.” She smiles up at me and a rush of happiness blooms in my chest, but as is always the case, it’s accompanied by a sense of finality as well. As wonderful as today was, we only have four more weekends together until we’re relegated to living ten thousand miles away from each other again. And I already know that the time we’ll have to spend apart then will be much harder because of these weeks we spent together in Paris.
“It was lovely.” I say, looking into her bright eyes, simultaneously relishing this moment and regretting that we’re not in the sort of situation in which we can bring our groups of friends together, see how they mesh.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing.” I try to convince her with my wide, television smile.
“Come on, chérie. I know you better by now.”
It’s true. She does know me. Because I’ve let her. I’ve shown myself to her inside and out, because everything is more intense, more sped-up in our relationship. “I can’t stop thinking about when I’ll have to leave. About what will happen then and what our prospects are.”
She purses her lips together. “That’s still so far away. Try not to focus on that.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. The harder I try, the more I think about it. It hangs over everything I do like this gray cloud of doom.”
“Do you want to set a date for our next visit? Would that make you feel better?”
“Yes, of course it would, but it’s not that simple. Nothing between us is simple.”
“It can be.”
“Once my show starts, I won’t be able to come to Par
is until it finishes, unless I negotiate a longer break in the middle of the season.”
“I’ll come to you. It’ll be my turn again.”
“You have a job, too. And you have Flo and Emma.”
“Flo and Emma will be just fine without me for a few weeks.”
“But will you be without them?”
“Of course, because I’ll be with you.” There’s enough conviction in her tone for a smile to appear on my lips.
“What time frame are we talking about?” I ask.
She thinks for a few minutes, as do I.
“Christmas,” she says. “Surely you get some time off for Christmas and New Year? It’ll be even better if you don’t have to work.”
“I can’t have you spend Christmas without your family.”
“The kids can go to their father’s.”
I start to get excited about the prospect of having Camille with me for Christmas. “You could meet my family.”
“I would love to.” She grins softly. “See, it’s not that hard.” Her grin shifts into the mischievous register again. “We may have to record a few more videos to get me through.”
“We’ll see about that.” I lean down and kiss the grin right off her face.
While we get lost in a lip-lock that grows fiercer by the second, I wonder if Camille has the same doubts and fears as I have, and if she does, why they are so hard to address. Perhaps because actually tackling them in conversation, working through them with words, would drive us toward making decisions we’re nowhere near ready to make. Making plans for Christmas is easy, because it feels long-term, even though, in our particular scheme of things, we’re only planning the next time we’ll see each other.
But we have five more weeks together, and Camille is shifting on my lap, trying to pull me on top of her, and when she does that, when she tugs at my hands with such intention, the fear evaporates as if it never existed in the first place, as though this is our normal, this is the house we live in full-time together, and this is a regular afternoon in the lives of Zoya Das and Camille Rousseau.