by A. E. Radley
She looked directly at Hannah. “And a family.”
Alice broke eye contact. “I want to thank everyone who came together to get the school back up and running. Thank you to everyone who donated their time, expertise, or materials. And, of course, thank you to the paramedics, hospital staff, and the fire service, without whom, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Alice looked down at the front row of benches. “And, most of all, I’d like to say thank you to Rosie Hall for being so brave. I think we saved each other.”
Everyone broke into applause. Hannah only realised a few tears had escaped when Mrs Palmer handed her a tissue.
“Thank you,” Hannah whispered as she dabbed at her tears.
Alice posed with Hardaker, the fire officers, and the mayor for a few pictures on the stage, with her plaque in her hands. The other teachers guided the children out of the hall.
“She’s something else.”
Hannah looked at her dad. “She is.”
“Maybe she’s the one?” he pressed.
“It’s really early yet,” Hannah said, not wanting to have this conversation with her father.
“I’ve seen how you look at each other.”
“Da-aad,” she whined.
He held up his hands. “Okay, okay!” He looked across the room and grinned. “Is Mrs Harper still single?”
“She’s still a miserable old battleaxe, so, yes, she’s still single.”
“Good. I’m going to work some of the Hall magic on her.” He left, and Hannah felt a little queasy at the thought.
Alice approached and looked over at the couple. “Aw, sweet. She could be your new mum,” she joked.
“That’s not funny,” Hannah complained, still feeling a little green.
Rosie appeared in front of them, looking serious as she often did when she’d had an idea and meant business. Hannah wondered if they were about to have yet another discussion about bedtime.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Rosie announced.
“Oh, yes?” Hannah asked.
“Yes. Miss Spencer’s house is much bigger than ours,” Rosie said.
They’d had lunch there the day before, not the sleepover Hannah desperately wanted, but they were on the way to getting Rosie comfortable enough in the unfamiliar surroundings.
“Yes, you’re right,” Hannah agreed, sharing a look with Alice as they both wondered what this was leading up to.
“And it has two bedrooms,” Rosie carried on. “I think it would be nice if Mummy had her own bedroom, and then I could share with Miss Spencer. Or Mummy could share with Miss Spencer, and I can still have my own room. It makes more sense because Miss Spencer is always over at our house anyway.”
Hannah wanted a hole to open up and suck her into its murky depths. Her daughter had basically invited them both to move in with her girlfriend. Her girlfriend, whom she had fallen in love with, but had only been seeing for a short period of time.
“That sounds like a great idea,” Alice said.
Hannah snapped her head up and looked at Alice in surprise. “It does?” she asked.
“I think so,” Alice said. “What do you think? Would you be open to sharing a room with me?”
Hannah looked down at Rosie’s eager face and then up to Alice’s wide smile. “I… yes, I’d like that, I’d like that a lot.”
“Well, then, we’ll try it out one day and see what happens.” Alice turned to Rosie. “What a wonderful idea. Thank you, Rosie.”
Rosie beamed with pride before leaving to seek out her grandfather.
Hannah turned to Alice. “I’m so sorry, she doesn’t know when to—”
“Hannah?” Alice interrupted.
“Yes?”
“I love you,” Alice said simply. “Let’s try being a family.”
Hannah’s mouth felt dry. Her heart hammered against her chest. Everything told her that it was too soon, but it also felt so right. Time away from Alice now felt like time wasted. She wanted to spend every moment with her.
“I’d love that,” she admitted. She cupped Alice’s face and leaned in to kiss her.
Whoops sounded from the still-crowded room, and Hannah pulled back and laughed, blushing as she did.
“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered.
1
Louise took a deep breath and quickly started to recite the schedule to her boss.
“So, as you know, the gala is tonight. The table plan is in your room for final approval as you requested. Your car arrives tomorrow at ten o'clock to take you to Charles de Gaulle. I'll be checking out of the hotel earlier to get the Guerlain samples that you requested for your sister, so I'll meet you at the airport at quarter to eleven.”
Louise knew this was an exercise in futility. Her boss knew the schedule back to front, and yet she felt the urgent need to fill the awkward silence that permeated the back of the limousine. She subtly turned her wrist in her lap to look at her watch.
“Hm,” Victoria murmured.
Louise looked up to see if her boss would say anything else.
Victoria continued to look over the top of her glasses at the passing Parisian scenery.
Louise debated if she should say something else. Maybe give another rundown on the first-class menu on offer on-board the flight from Paris to New York. Maybe attempt to get a tiny amount of kudos for having changed the red meat option from lamb for the entire cabin, simply because Victoria couldn’t abide the smell of lamb.
Not that Victoria would ever acknowledge any of the backbreaking, soul-destroying work that Louise did on a daily basis for the impossible-to-please woman. But she lived in hope that a nugget of gratitude would work its way into Victoria’s conscience.
Maybe enough to promote her from her role of assistant. Being an assistant to Victoria Hastings was certainly prestigious. Sadly, it didn’t pay the therapy bills that Louise would need if she managed to survive the role.
Louise’s mobile phone rang, and she answered immediately. “Yes?”
It was that awful French man from the gazette again. Blathering on about something or other and making little sense.
“Look, I’ve told you before, Victoria will not be doing any interviews. If you wanted to speak to her then you should have called before she arrived in Paris for Fashion Week. Do you have any idea how busy she is? Of course you don’t.”
The man continued talking hurriedly. Louise just shook her head, not even bothering to listen to what he was saying. She couldn’t believe the audacity of the man. Thinking that Victoria Hastings of all people would be able to drop everything and speak to some nobody. Did he have any idea who she was?
“Absolutely not, and don’t call this number again!”
Louise huffed, hung up the phone, and tossed it into her bag.
“Damn French,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Problem?”
Louise looked up and realised that Victoria had turned to glance at her. Louise took pride in her appearance, checking her reflection at least every twenty minutes to ensure she was looking her best. But the second Victoria looked at her, she felt certain that she must appear a wreck.
Victoria was the kind of woman who always looked perfect. She must have had a long conversation with Mother Nature in which she put her foot down and insisted she wasn’t going to age another minute. And so, forty-seven-year-old Victoria Hastings looked like a perfectly turned-out woman in her mid-thirties. Not a hair was out of place in her fashionable blonde bob. Her makeup was light but always on point, just enough to rouge her cheeks, plump her lips, and accentuate her steely green eyes. Nothing less could be expected of the editor of one of the world’s leading fashion magazines.
Louise realised that she had been silent for too long. Her panic at potentially not looking her best under Victoria’s frosty glare had thrown her.
“Um. No, no problem, Victoria. Just a journalist, some awful little French man. You know what journalists are like. I don’t even know why I bother sen
ding out press guidelines. He has been calling me here and Claudia back in New York every single day… I… He…” Louise swallowed nervously.
She’d said too much, she’d bothered Victoria with details that were of no interest to her.
Victoria simply stared at her in silence. Slowly, she rolled her eyes. Louise was sure that Victoria was internally questioning the incompetence she was surrounded by. She usually did. Now it was just a matter of whether Victoria would deliver a softly spoken, but scathing, remark, or if she would ignore her. Louise held her breath while she waited for judgement to be passed.
After a few more frosty seconds, Victoria turned and looked out of the car window again. The conversation was over.
Louise released the breath she had been holding. Silently.
Paris Fashion Week was everything she’d hoped it would be. The shows, the designers, the clothes, the city. But now it was drawing to a close. Three months of doing nothing but planning Victoria’s schedule had paid off. It had been a success. Not that anyone would know it from Victoria’s expression.
From the moment they had landed in Paris, her boss has been quiet and detached. More so than usual. At the best of times, no one would ever accuse Victoria of being friendly or talkative. In fact, Victoria was famously known for destroying careers with a simple look.
But the last few days had been worse than usual.
Louise reminded herself that there was just one more night between her and her comfy bed back home in New York. And the next morning she would be getting to the airport bright and early and thankfully not travelling with Victoria.
2
The elevator doors slid open, and Victoria put on her oversized Gucci sunglasses. She walked through the lobby of the Shangri-La Hotel, her heels tapping loudly on the marble flooring.
She could sense the receptionists discreetly looking at her as she walked past them. She imagined that they were breathing a sigh of relief at her departure.
The doorman, dressed in a top hat and a knee-length, forest green overcoat, opened the door as she approached. She breezed through and down the steps.
She let out an audible sigh at the fact that her limousine wasn’t in place. She looked up with annoyance to see that the vehicle was on its way down the hotel’s driveway, just passing through the wrought iron gates.
“Apologies, Ms Hastings.”
She turned to see the manager of the hotel rushing down the steps. He waved his arms frantically to hurry the black limousine up. The moment it came to a stop in front of the steps, he opened the back door and gestured into the car.
“Thank you for your stay. I do hope you found everything to your liking?”
Victoria hummed half-heartedly. While the Shangri-La was slightly above average in some respects, there had been some issues. For starters, the intolerable noise of the fan in her room and the maintenance imbecile who said he couldn’t even hear the noise when she had been positively deafened by it.
She passed the grovelling man and got in the back of the limo.
“We do hope to see you again next year,” the man continued, holding the door open and looking at her with a pleading expression.
Victoria felt that it was very unlikely that she’d ever come back should he continue to delay her. She wanted to get to the airport and take a few private moments to call her children to see how they were doing. She travelled a lot, but she never stopped missing them.
She was about to instruct the driver to go, regardless of the position of the passenger door, when she noticed the manager looking up the driveway with a frown. She could hear some kind of commotion from behind the car.
"Excusez-moi, Madame Hastings!"
She glanced out of the back window. A scruffy-looking man was running towards the car. It looked like he had run through the gates as they were being closed. He held up a piece of paper and was running determinedly towards her. Two doormen and a security guard were chasing after him.
She turned around and called out to the driver in a bored tone, “Go.”
The hotel manager closed the passenger door and the car slowly started to edge forward, the sharp turn of the driveway making a quicker departure impossible.
She heard shouts behind the car and rolled her eyes. It seemed nothing was going to go right during this trip.
There was a thump on the window. The scruffy man stood beside the car, holding up a Polaroid photograph. Victoria felt her mouth fall open in shock at the image.
It was Holly Carter. Her former assistant. The one who had abandoned her without a word exactly one year ago. However, there were vast differences between the Holly she had known and the woman in the photograph.
In contrast to Holly’s long locks, the photograph showed a woman with short hair. Victoria’s artistic sensibilities balked at the change. Long hair was finally back in fashion and the girl had chopped all of hers off. Not that Holly was ever one to toe the line when it came to fashion trends.
But the real shock was the unresponsiveness in her eyes. They no longer sparkled, there was a dullness to them that Victoria had never seen before. And Holly’s already pale skin seemed paler, almost sickly in appearance. The forced smile failed to distract from the fact that she looked quite frightened.
As quickly as the photograph had been slapped onto the glass, it was pulled away. Each doorman grabbed one of the scruffy man’s arms and dragged him away from the car.
“Wait,” she instructed the driver.
Victoria felt the brakes being applied, and the car came to a jolting stop. She opened the door and stepped out of the car.
The man was now on the tarmac, the two burly doormen on top of him, trying to hold him down. He looked up at her.
“You know her?” he asked, his voice thick with a French accent.
“Let him go,” she commanded in a soft tone.
The doormen looked in confusion at the manager who was standing helplessly by. He quickly waved his hands up to indicate that they should let him go.
Slowly, the man climbed to his feet. He clutched the photo in his hand and looked at Victoria expectantly.
She looked him up and down. She had no idea who he was or what he wanted, but he seemed to know Holly. And that was enough to grant him a few moments of her time. Even if she was running late.
She pointed to the car.
“Get in,” she instructed.
3
The limousine pulled away from the hotel for the second time. Victoria sat very still in her seat. She watched as the scruffy little French man attempted to make himself less of a mess by adjusting the hem of his appallingly coloured T-shirt.
“Merci,” he said through panted breaths.
Victoria stared at him, wondering what to make of him.
“Qui êtes-vous?” she asked.
“My name is Samuel Durand,” he replied in thickly accented English. “I cannot believe that I saw you on the television beside Clémence and now I am talking to you.”
“Clémence?” Victoria asked. She had no idea who or what he was referring to and was becoming a little uncomfortable with the situation.
“Clémence Dubois,” Samuel answered. He held up the photo of Holly Carter.
“That is not Clémence Dubois,” Victoria said coldly.
He looked at the photo. “To us, she is. That’s the name that was given to her. She was a, what do you say? A Jane Doe?”
Victoria stared at Samuel in confusion.
“Jane Doe,” he repeated. “For someone with no name?”
She reached out her hand and took the photograph from his. She lowered it into her lap delicately and stared down at the image, afraid of the terrible reality it posed. This woman was both Holly and a stranger all at once. The confusion and the warring emotions knotted her stomach.
“Was?” she asked. “You said, ‘She was.’” A shudder struck her.
“Is, is,” he corrected quickly.
Victoria sagged against the leather of the car seat in relief. S
he looked down at the photo, scarcely believing what she was seeing.
“I’m a freelance journalist,” Samuel explained. “My friend works at the hospital and told me a story of an American with no memory. They called her Clémence. I went to interview her. She was brought to the hospital just under a year ago, it was six months later when I met her. She was in an accident. Her head…”
Victoria looked up to see Samuel touching the palm of his hand to the back of his head. She understood that his language skills were preventing him from explaining the details. She nodded for him to continue.
“The authorities tried to locate her family. The American embassy was involved, but nothing happened. I told Clémence that I would try to help her, but I could find nothing.” He gestured to Victoria. “And then, when I had almost given up, I saw you on the news. Some old footage showed Clémence with you—”
“Holly,” Victoria interrupted in a whisper. “Her name is Holly.”
“Holly.” He wrapped his mouth around the new name and smiled. “Holly?”
“Holly Carter.”
“Holly Carter,” he repeated. “Do you wish to see her now?”
Victoria felt icy cold shock pour down the back of her starched collar. It was incomprehensible that Holly was somehow still in France, a year after she had abandoned her job and walked away.
“We can go to the hospital now? I know her doctor will be very pleased to see you,” Samuel pressed.
“S-she…” Victoria stuttered uncharacteristically. “She’s still in the hospital, now?”
“Oui.” Samuel nodded.
Victoria felt her mouth drop open. Her gaze fell back to the photo. She distantly heard Samuel call up to the driver and provide him with the hospital’s address.
“Madame Hastings?” The driver requested her approval for the change of destination.