“You still there?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“Great,” he said. “I’m at my building.”
“Oh, I should let you go,” I said. “We can talk—”
“What?” he asked. “No way. Don’t you dare hang up. I want to hear about the rest of your day.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it sounds way more interesting than my happy hour with the guys,” he said. “Besides, I have some office gossip that I’d be willing to share, but you have to bring something to the table.”
“Are you holding out on me, Knightley?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Switch to video when you get into your apartment,” I said. “I want to look you in the eye when you divulge your secrets.”
I heard a door shut and keys being tossed, and I imagined he was toeing off his black high-tops. I took a moment to grab the tray off the dresser and sat back against the headboard with my cake and whiskey in my lap. I heard a refrigerator open and shut, and then there was the distinct hiss of a beer bottle cap being twisted open.
“Okay, Martin,” he said. “I’m approaching my landing pad, also known as my couch. Let’s switch to video.”
I waited until my phone signaled that it was him, then I answered. I propped the phone up on the tray so I could talk to him while I nibbled my cake. Now that I was finally warm, I found I was starving. When he appeared on the screen, he was in a similar position on a leather couch with a fleecy blanket pulled up across his chest.
There was an intimacy to the connection, seeing each other in our relaxed positions with the cares of the world held at bay by the cover of our blankets. I glanced away from the picture of him with his dark hair flopping over his forehead and the mischievous glint in his eye. It suddenly felt a little too personal.
“Okay, tell me about your day,” he said. “What did you do? Who did you meet? All of it. Don’t skimp.”
I shook my head, reminding myself that this was Knightley. No need to make it uncomfortable. We were colleagues, after all.
“Well, since you asked, I started my day with a rigorous pole-dancing class,” I said.
I caught him on a sip, and beer spewed out of his mouth and all over the phone.
“Shit! Hang on.” He jumped up from the couch and hurried to the kitchen for paper towels. He came back and wiped down himself, his phone, and his couch. I managed three solid bites of cake while he was busy. I’m not gonna lie—I took a perverse pleasure out of shocking Knightley.
“Pole dancing? As in exotic dancing? As in stripper pole dancing?”
“It’s a form of fitness,” I replied, very primly.
“Yeah, sure, fitness,” he said. He flopped back onto his couch. There was a delighted glint in his eye. “Any chance there is video of this rigorous class?”
It was my turn to choke on my beverage. “Hell to the no,” I said. “And even if there was, you’re never going to see it.”
“Buzzkill.”
“Like I said, talking with you is like chatting with a fourteen-year-old.”
“Yeah, yeah, on with the deets.” He waved his beer bottle in a continue gesture and took a big sip.
“There are no more deets. After that it was a white-knuckle drive to this inn, where I am now enjoying cake,” I said. I held up my fork before taking a bite.
He watched me chew in silence for a moment, then his eyes narrowed.
“Martin, I have a very specific question for you,” he said. I met his gaze, curious. “Exactly what the hell are you doing in Ireland?”
chapter twelve
I TOLD YOU, I’m looking up old friends and stuff,” I said. I offered nothing more, even though that wasn’t entirely accurate.
“No, actually, you haven’t,” he said. “You told me you were there because you’re a workaholic—no surprise there—and you needed to reconnect with your past, but I know there’s something bigger going on, so spill it. Because no one here is talking. Whenever I ask Aidan or your right hand, Julia, they flee the room as if I’ve set it on fire. So tell me, why did you have to drop everything and race to Ireland? And I don’t believe any hokum about finding happiness, because when you were torturing me here in Boston, you looked plenty happy to me.”
“That’s because I enjoy causing you pain,” I replied. Not a total lie either.
“Martin.” His voice was low. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re doing.”
“Well, tomorrow I’m driving out to the Cliffs of Moher,” I said. Truth. “And then I’ll drive back to Dublin and fly to Paris.”
“France?” he asked.
“Well, I didn’t mean Texas.”
“So, now you’re off to France. Why?”
“It’s the next stop on my quest,” I said.
He put down his beer and rubbed his hands together. “Now we’re getting somewhere. What’s the quest, and why are you on it?”
“I’m trying to find myself,” I said. He stared at me, waiting, and I found myself adding, “I’m trying to remember what it felt like to—oh god, if you mock me, I’ll kill you dead.”
“There will be no mockery, I promise.” He made some sort of two-finger Boy Scout salute. Whatever.
I stared at him for a second and then said, “I’m trying to remember what it felt like to be in love.”
To my eternal relief, he didn’t mock. Instead, he tipped his head to the side, curious. “What do you mean, ‘trying to remember’? Has it been that long? And why do you need to be across the ocean to do this?”
And then, as if he’d poked a poorly made dam with a stick, what began as a trickle of random words with little meaning suddenly gathered force inside my chest and came out in a deluge of information that I couldn’t have held back if I’d tried.
“My father is getting remarried,” I said. “To a woman he met just a few weeks ago, because they think they’re madly in love. They want me to be in their wedding, but I can’t . . . I never . . . I’ve never even thought about my dad remarrying, and I just . . .”
He waited, not interrupting, not telling me what I should do or feel. He just listened.
“When my father told me he was getting remarried, I couldn’t find it in myself to be happy for him,” I said. “I just kept thinking, Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did he want to get married, why now, why her, why not just live together, and why did he want me to be a part of it—you know, all the whys,” I said.
“I’m guessing that didn’t go very well.”
“Now who’s the master of understatement?” I asked. “My father was hurt, and then he asked me when I’d stopped letting love into my heart.”
“Oof, that had to be tough,” he said.
I nodded. I met his gaze, saw the sympathy there, and quickly looked away. “It was. And of course my younger sister, Annabelle, thinks it’s all great, and she’s all over me because why can’t I be happy for Dad, blah, blah, blah. It got a little ugly, especially when she pointed out that I haven’t been in a real relationship since my year abroad seven years ago.”
“Seven years?” he asked. He sounded flabbergasted, and his eyes were huge. Like seeing-a-flying-saucer huge.
“Yeah,” I said. “During my postcollege gap year, before my mom passed away, I fell in love three times, with Colin in Ireland, Jean Claude in Paris, and Marcellino in Italy. Annabelle thought if I went back and found these guys, then maybe I’d remember what it felt like to fall in love, and I’d be okay with my dad getting remarried. It’s crazy, I know, but I didn’t know what else to do.” I shoveled more cake into my mouth.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jason picked up his beer and took a long gulp. When he finished, he lowered the bottle and leveled his gaze on me. “Are you telling me you had three different men in your life in one year and no one since?”
“Do not slut shame me,” I said. I pointed the empty fork at him as if I’d stab him with it. “I was twenty-two, it was a year abroad, and I loved every one of them.”
He made an annoyed face. “What? I would never. Three in a year is completely respectable. It’s the seven-year dry spell that has me boggled.”
“It wasn’t totally dry,” I said. “There just wasn’t anyone who was relationship material.”
“No, I refuse to accept that in all of Boston, you couldn’t find one man who was shaggable on a semipermanent basis.”
“I couldn’t,” I insisted.
“Really?” he asked. “And you’re not even going to pretend to consider me for a moment? I’m hurt, Martin, really hurt.”
I laughed, knowing he was teasing me, and he grinned in return.
“So, that’s my story, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Now, what’s the office gossip?” I asked. “I feel so disconnected from everyone.”
“Well, it started as a major brouhaha over the staff-room refrigerator,” he said.
“Why?” I asked. “And also, I was really looking for more of a who spatted with whom.”
“Oh, this is even better than a spat,” he said. “Because it involves a mystery.”
“I’m listening.”
“You know Michelle Fernando from Human Resources?” he asked.
“Yup.” I tried not to make a face, but it slipped out.
“I can see you do know her,” he said.
I bit my lip. “She’s just a bit rigid, you know? And coming from me, that’s saying something.”
He laughed. “Indeed. Well, someone got into the turkey club sandwich she brought for lunch a few days ago and took a quarter of it.”
“A quarter? Why not take the whole thing?”
“Exactly,” he said. He raised one eyebrow. “Needless to say, the signs went up immediately. She positively papered the place, calling out the culprit and demanding reimbursement.”
“Michelle does love her copy machine signs,” I said. “Let me guess, the font was Helvetica.”
Jason laughed. “As in give them hell-vetica? Yes, it was—in bold. And yesterday she had a personal pizza in the fridge, and someone took one slice, or again, one quarter of the pie.”
“No way.”
I knew I shouldn’t laugh, but I did anyway. It was hard to feel badly for Michelle. The woman had a well-deserved reputation for being a jerk, which had proven true when one of my team members wanted to take an extended maternity leave and Michelle refused. We’d almost come to blows over it because of the sheer unreasonableness on Michelle’s part in not letting the new mom attach her accumulated vacation time to her leave.
And as for me personally, she had positively vibrated with disapproval when Aidan and I filled out the paperwork for my leave of absence. She was one of those people who should never be given any sort of power. Ever. I couldn’t help but admire whoever was messing with her.
“Picture, if you will, Michelle, arms straight, hands balled into fists, stomping through the office, demanding to smell everyone’s breath to see who had eaten her pizza,” he said.
“She didn’t!”
“She did.”
I howled. “I am dying.”
“I know. It’s been as entertaining as all get-out,” he said. “Honestly, I can’t wait to see what the Quarter Thief does next.”
“Is that what everyone is calling him?”
“For now.”
“I like it.” I met his gaze and found a warmth in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. I wondered if I’d been too hard on him over the past few years. Maybe Aidan was right and Knightley wasn’t so bad after all.
“So, Paris tomorrow?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“Oui, and then I’m going to meet up with my friend Marcellino in Italy, hopefully for the annual wine festival at his vineyard, Castello di Luce—depending upon how things go in Paris, of course.” It made me feel vulnerable to share this much with Knightley, but I refused to be embarrassed that he knew about my quest. I’d made the decision to share, and there was no going back now.
“Well, now I’m jealous. Bon voyage, and this time, Martin, find out if he’s married first.”
I picked up my phone, preparing to finish the call. “Never going to hear the end of that, am I?”
“Nope,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and smiled before hanging up.
* * *
• • • •
RETURNING MY RENTAL car took longer than I’d anticipated, because of course it did. I got lost on my way to the Dublin airport from the Cliffs of Moher—totally worth it—and ended up at the wrong gate with a big old poster of John F. Kennedy smiling down at me while I tried to figure out where I was supposed to be. Naturally, my phone began to ring.
I checked the display. It was Aidan. Worried that it was some dire news about his cancer, I answered as I sprinted across the terminal, dragging my bag behind me.
“Aidan, hi, how are you?” I dodged a toddler who’d stopped for no apparent reason, zipped around a man in a wheelchair, and passed a couple who, guessing by their body language, were in the midst of a tear-fueled breakup. Judging by her lack of tears and his quivering lip, it was her doing the breaking, not him.
“Never better,” he said. He sounded chipper. “Listen, I know you’re busy, but I wanted to ask a favor of you.”
“Sure, what do you need?” I checked my boarding pass and read the gate number. I needed to be at sixteen. “Not to rush you, but I’m just about to board my plane to Paris.”
“Yes, I know,” Aidan said. “Jason mentioned you were headed to Paris and Italy, which is coincidentally where Robbie Severin is going to be. Severin reached out to us, Chelsea, and he’d like to meet with you in Tuscany. Can you do that?”
“What?” I dashed to the gate. I was going to kill Jason. Why had he told Aidan about Paris and Italy, and how had it come up with Severin? I mean, not that where I was going was a big secret, but what else had he told Aidan about my trip? Who else had he told? I had a sudden vision of Jason yukking it up at the water cooler as he told everyone at the ACC about my ex-boyfriend in Ireland being married. Argh.
I couldn’t hear Aidan over the airport noise and switched the phone to my other ear, hoping it was clearer. The flight display board behind the person at the counter read Paris with the correct departure time and flight number. Phew. I moved to the end of the boarding line.
“So, the wine festival in Tuscany next week,” Aidan said, raising his voice. “Can you meet Severin there?”
“Next week? Why does he want to meet there?” I stalled. I’d been in touch with Marcellino online. He was the only one of the three I’d been able to connect with, and I’d been looking forward to visiting him, but we hadn’t nailed down a specific date. My travel plans were pretty fluid, since I was retracing my steps and not knowing what I’d find—like a married Colin. Now if I had to hurry to Italy to entertain Severin, who was notoriously odd, it could ruin everything in Paris.
“He just wants to meet you,” Aidan said.
“But I don’t have my laptop or my files or anything,” I protested. Several people got in line behind me, looking as harried as I felt. “It’s not like I can give a presentation or anything.”
“This is more social than business,” he said. “I think he’s just looking to make sure his contribution is in capable hands. Can you do this?”
I had no idea what was going to happen in Paris with Jean Claude, and I hated promising to be in Italy when it might prove to be ill timed or really inconvenient, but this was Aidan. He was my mentor and my friend, and he needed me. There was no choice to be made.
“Of course, I’ll do it,” I said.
“That’s my Chelsea,” Aidan said. I could just picture his crooked grin beh
ind his beard.
The line moved. I was next up.
“Your passport and boarding pass, miss?” asked the airline representative. She glanced at my bag with a frown. “We’ll have to check that here at the gate, as the overhead bins are already full. You almost missed your flight.”
“Sorry, Aidan, I have to go,” I said. I was feeling frantic and rushed, two emotions that always put me on edge. “I’ll be in touch when I land.”
I ended the call, hearing Aidan say goodbye as I shuffled my things, trying to hand the airline rep my boarding pass while managing my passport—I could hear my dad’s voice in my head, saying, Don’t lose your passport—my phone, and my bags. I must have looked like a hot mess as the woman smiled at me in a reassuring way, handing my pass back once the machine registered it with a beep.
“Have a nice flight,” she said.
“Thank you,” I replied.
I hurried down the gangway, relieved to be on my way, only to stop at the end, where people were still waiting to board. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. The joys of travel.
* * *
• • • •
THE FLIGHT WAS mercifully short. We were barely up, then we were down. When the plane had landed, I reached for my phone, only to discover that it wasn’t in my purse. I checked everywhere in and around my seat as my panic slowly built. Suddenly, the top of my head went cold. And as the chill spread down through my body, I remembered with a flash that I had stuffed my phone into the outside pouch of my carry-on bag while carefully putting my passport in the zippered pocket inside my shoulder bag.
Like a nut, I raced down to baggage and watched with increasing dismay as my cute little carry-on did not appear on the carousel. I gave it a half hour, and only when all the bags had been claimed did I finally accept the truth. There was no bag for me.
“I am so sorry, mademoiselle. I will need you to fill out this property irregularity report,” said the middle-aged man with a name tag that read Daniel behind the customer service desk at the Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The same carry-on that the airline person had told me would have to be loaded onto the plane after the passengers boarded, because the overhead bins were full. And now here I was with no phone and no bag. Argh, this was a nightmare.
Paris Is Always a Good Idea Page 14