by Ciji Ware
* * *
Juliet reviewed the lovely hours she’d spent with Finn as she labored up the six flights of stairs to Avery’s flat, but once inside, she immediately sprang into action.
“How does a dinner of scrambled eggs and sausage sound?” she offered after a quick survey of the contents of Avery’s miniscule refrigerator.
“Given I have one burner, it has great appeal,” Avery replied, leaning back on pillows Juliet had placed behind her after helping her move from the stool next to the wooden easel to her bed.
“How’d the painting go?” she asked.
“Not great.”
“No? I’m sorry. Maybe it’s too soon for you to stay seated for so long a time?”
“I just couldn’t... get into it.” Avery glanced at the canvas on her easel.
Juliet served their meager dinner on a small tray and held her own plate in her lap as the two ate their supper in companionable silence. After a few minutes describing the sights she’d seen at the botanical and Luxembourg gardens, Juliet brought up the idea of Jamie coming to Paris “... to keep you company over the holidays. He has time off since the editing department shuts down during the last two weeks in December.”
To Juliet’s relief, Avery was both touched and delighted at the prospect.
“I was already getting into a serious funk, knowing you’d be leaving soon,” she said. “What did you have to do to bribe Jamie to give up his vacation?”
“He was the one who suggested it,” Juliet said. “Spending Christmas over here with you was all his idea, and Finn said he could stay on his couch while he’s here.”
“Really? What sweethearts those two guys are.”
Impulsively, Juliet said, “Jamie’s been really worried about you, you know? Do you mind if I ask you if... you were ever attracted to him? I definitely think he is to you.”
Avery stared at her hands folded in her lap. “Jamie?” She raised her head and met Juliet’s gaze. “I might have been, if things had been different.”
“Different how? You mean about working for the same company?”
“Yes, that... and other things.”
“What other things?” Juliet asked, taking Avery’s plate with her own and heading for the small sink under the eaves. Behind her she heard Avery inhale a deep breath.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Juliet placed their dirty plates in the sink with a clatter and turned around.
“Know what? What are you talking about?”
“That Brad and I... had a major disagreement about... well, about the design department and how things should be run in the company.”
Juliet leaned back against the sink and rolled her eyes. “It no secret you two didn’t agree on the direction we were going with the video war games, that’s for darn sure.”
“It was more than that.”
“More? How more?”
Juliet wondered at Avery’s long pause, followed by another inhaled breath.
“Brad repeatedly tried to jump on my bones. Big Time.”
“Oh, shit! Really?” Juliet raised both hands as if warding off a blow. “Of course, really. Okay. Tell me. Everything.”
“Well, you asked for it,” Avery said, shaking her head in warning.
Juliet wiped her hands on a nearby dishtowel and took a seat at the end of the bed.
“Shoot.”
In the next few minutes, Avery spoke in a cool, calm voice, describing that Brad had “put serious moves” on her not long after making her design director.
“As you probably noticed, he and I met outside the office a few times, always, I see now, under the guise of talking business, but really because he wanted me... to... basically... sleep with him whenever he asked.”
“Oh, please! This is truly hideous!”
Avery was gazing into space with a faraway look as she recounted the details of a particular event that triggered her quitting GatherGames. “One evening when I was in the art department after everyone, including you, had gone home, he came in and wanted me to go to dinner to ‘discuss a situation that needed to be resolved,’ he said. He sounded so serious, I figured it must be something that was actually important, so I went. When I got in his car, he drove us to your hotel.”
“What an absolute jerk!” Juliet groaned.
“He said he’d ordered up dinner from room service and once we were in his suite, he immediately tried to... well, no, he claimed I wanted sex just as much as he did because I’d come upstairs with him. I protested that jumping into his turned-down bed with a chocolate on the pillow wasn’t what I provided in the way of artistic services. He got mad and grabbed my arm.”
“Oh lord! What did you do?”
“At that moment, I picked up one of the silver covers keeping our dinner hot and aimed it at his head—but my arm wasn’t long enough—so I banged him hard on the shoulder. He didn’t fall down, but at least he lost his grip on me and I ran out of the suite—straight into your other brother who was coming down the hall.”
Juliet covered her face with her hands, moaning between her fingers. “Jamie lives two doors down the corridor from him. Did you tell him what happened?”
“No... but Jamie saw that I looked a complete wreck, and I was only a few feet from Brad’s front door.”
Juliet removed her hands from her eyes. “So you didn’t tell anyone what had happened, and the next day you quit,” she stated flatly.
Juliet remembered how Brad kept rubbing his shoulder that same day Avery announced her resignation. When she’d asked him about it, he said he’d hurt it playing squash. It was probably bruised black and blue from Avery’s banging the domed food cover against him in her attempt to escape his clutches.
Juliet said, “Don’t you imagine Jamie has a good idea why you left GatherGames, given you ran into him right afterward?”
Avery slipped lower on the pillows. Pursing her lips, she replied, “Probably, but I just left without ever speaking to him again.” She suddenly rose up on her elbows, her eyes flashing. “However, you should know that I didn’t walk out of that office until I negotiated a very generous severance package out of Herr Thayer, thank you very much!” She fell back against the pillows, spent. “Believe me, I was thinking of quitting long before all this happened, and in a weird way, I was relieved.”
“And so you recommended me as your replacement to save any of the other women from risking harassment?”
Avery scowled at her across the bed, energized again by her anger. “You were totally ready to assume the job and deserved a promotion—and a raise—which I hope you got! And as I’ve said a million times, commercial graphic art isn’t my thing. Video war games aren’t my thing. The entire dot-com world wasn’t my thing! I was drifting down the wrong path and I knew months before this happened that I should get out of there. Amazingly, my mini trust fund from my dad had recently kicked in—which was a total surprise, actually—and that, blessedly, gave me an ace up my sleeve when it came to playing hardball with Brad about my severance package.”
“Good timing...” Juliet murmured. “And nice of your dad.”
“Guilt,” she said shortly. “But even before the dust up with Brad, I didn’t do anything about leaving the company because, basically, I didn’t want to abandon you and Jamie to that world... and I could see you both had many more ties to it than I did. Brad’s stupid move gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get outta there.” She shut her eyes, exhausted. “And now... how about you getting out of here? I’m wiped. See you à demain,” she finished sleepily in French.
Juliet remained motionless at the bottom of Avery’s bed for several minutes, staring out the gabled window over the frost-covered roofs of the city. Who could have imagined that because of Brad’s assault, my best friend would come to Paris and make a pal of Jean-Pierre, also studying portrait painting at L’École. Then, one night, out of nowhere, some guy with a Kalashnikov would rush into a little, neighborhood Cambodian restaurant and...
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br /> Juliet’s eyes filled with tears and she pressed her hand against her mouth to keep from making a sound that might wake Avery. It was just as Finn had said... unintended consequences... actions... and reactions that no one could predict.
No wonder visual images of traumatic events could repeat and repeat in the mind’s eye. In her own head, a whirlwind of thoughts revolved around her elder brother physically coercing her best friend; of two art students being mowed down by strangers bursting through the door of a neighborhood restaurant; of Finn grabbing her to dive for cover at the sound of a car back-firing...
She watched Avery’s breathing become deep and regular while she tried to absorb the impact of what Brad had done to the woman sleeping in this tiny garret in Paris. She considered the way that everything she and Avery were dealing with currently had flowed from that single event. But despite all that, she realized her dearest friend was in the right place, now, and doing the right thing.
Juliet glanced at Avery’s easel, where a portrait of an intriguing man of middle years stared back at her. Some would judge his hair in need of a trim, but the strands strafing his collar and his direct gaze gave him an appealing, raffish look of an artist or writer. Avery’s portrait depicted a person it would be interesting to get to know and Juliet marveled that Avery still had the guts to keep on keeping on, despite everything that had happened since she’d begun the canvas.
You inspire me, Avery Evans... and I’m just warning you, I might turn up back here sooner than you ever imagined.
Juliet carefully rose from Avery’s bed so as not to awake her, knowing that at least two of the three Thayer siblings would dedicate themselves to helping her survive this nightmare, especially after learning the part their oldest brother had played. And then she silently padded down the six flights of stairs and let herself out of Avery’s building. The streets were deserted and for a moment, she felt a stab of apprehension at the thought of walking to the metro alone. Should she call Finn? She pulled her cell phone out just as a taxi approached and she flagged it down with a wash of relief. Settling into the back seat as the red numbers of the meter flashed, her thoughts drifted to Finn. Would she have ever met him if she hadn’t rushed to Avery’s side? She reminded herself for the hundredth time that despite the attraction she had begun to sense they both had been feeling, he was still, technically, a married man, with a number of devils, as he called them, to wrestle in the coming months—and perhaps forever. And soon, she’d be six thousand miles away.
She was startled when the cab halted abruptly. Her mind had been wandering and she hadn’t even noticed they’d crossed to the Right Bank. Through the taxi’s window she spied L’Étoile de Paris below the spot on the road where the driver had pulled up to the curb. Across the water, the glowing Eiffel Tower beckoned her welcome.
“Ici, Madam?” he inquired gruffly.
It was late and Juliet imagined it must be unnerving to drive at night in a city where other terrorists might be contemplating new attacks. She hastened to assure the cab driver he’d stopped in the right place.
“Oui, oui, monsieur. Merci beaucoup.”
She handed him the euros noted on the meter, plus a few more to show her appreciation, and got out of the car. Lights were still on in the barge’s pilothouse, and as she mounted the gangway, she caught sight of Finn in his leather chair, a book flat on his chest and his eyes closed. Peering more closely through the windows, she saw he’d already made up her bed on the sofa and turned down the covers.
What a kind and thoughtful guy he is...
Even though they’d known each other such a short time and under very bizarre circumstances, and they were just friends—or pretending to be—she had never experienced such consideration and care from any man in her life. What would it be like if she moved to Paris? What would it be like if the two of them—
She called an abrupt halt to such meanderings and tapped lightly on the door. In the next instant, Finn leapt to his feet, then sank to a crouch, his eyes darting frantically to the far corners of the cabin before they locked on her figure peering through the window at him from outside on the deck.
She watched him take a deep, steadying breath and then attempt to smile. He rose to his full height once more and crossed the stateroom to open the door.
“It’s... you,” he said. He briefly covered his eyes with his fingers and shook his head as if attempting to rid himself of whatever images were in his brain. “You’re back.”
“Yes, I’m back,” she repeated in a deliberately casual tone, stepping over the threshold and gently closing the door behind her. In the silence that hung heavily between them, she draped her coat on a spoke of the boat’s wheel next his jacket. Turning around, she asked, “How about I make us some of that Sleep Well tea you have? I sure could use a cup.”
“Obviously, so could I.” After a moment’s pause, he made no effort to dismiss his odd reaction to someone attempting to enter his lair. He gestured toward the chair from which he’d leapt to his feet and said, as if he were angry with himself, “just when I thought it was safe to go back into the water... the shark bites again.”
He crossed the pilothouse in the direction of his makeshift kitchen, brushing past her without meeting her gaze. “But, let me make the tea. Feel free to go below to get ready for bed.”
Juliet remained standing where she was in the middle of the upper cabin, watching him pull out a brown, earthenware teapot and a tin of loose tea, realizing that he had a very big struggle ahead of him and would most likely think himself unfit for female company for a long time to come. She was startled to feel a pang of sympathy not only for herself—since she could no longer deny that she was very drawn to this man—but strangely, also for his wife Kim. Whatever had passed between them, the last few years must have been its own kind of nightmare.
* * *
The next day, Juliet found herself replaying the moment when Finn jumped up from his reading chair with a look of panic in his eyes. Adding his emotional state to her list of worries, she entered Avery’s flat, determined to persuade her to let her own father know of his daughter’s whereabouts and her continuing fragile condition. Juliet had brought her laptop with her and swiftly composed a draft email to him while Avery was brushing her teeth and choosing what to wear for the day.
“Here,” Juliet announced a few minutes later, holding the computer screen in front of her friend. “Read this. I think you should send it... or something close to it. I’m leaving soon and your father should know what’s happened to you. He’s in New York and could get here much faster than I could if there was another emergency.”
Avery’s lips compressed while she absorbed the proposed message.
“I just gave him the facts,” Juliet said, hoping Avery wouldn’t be furious with her. “It only says that you’ve been living in Paris this last year; that you were shot in the terrorist attacks on November thirteenth, that you’re recuperating well here at number seven, near the art school where you’ve been studying advanced portraiture. It’s just basic information, Avery... nothing more. And he deserves to have it!”
Avery continued to stare at Juliet’s composition until she leaned forward, and with her good hand, typed in, one letter at a time, her father’s email address and savagely pushed the ‘send’ button.
“There! Are you satisfied?” she demanded, tight-lipped. “Fat lot of reaction you’ll get. Now, can you help me on with these damn jeans?”
By the time Juliet had assisted Avery into her clothes, she heard a ping resounding from her computer.
“Well, well, what do you know?” Juliet chuckled, trying to keep the “I told you so” out of her voice while peering at the screen. “Here’s a reply from someone named Carolyn Bryson that your father is in China on a business trip ‘with uncertain internet access,’ she says, but that you will hear from him ‘the very minute’ she’s back in contact with him and adds she’s very distressed to hear what happened to you.”
“Don’t h
old your breath about my dad,” Avery said, turning away and rummaging with one hand in her sock drawer. “He always has employed very nice administrative assistants who eventually just respond ‘sorry, period’ to me in one form or another.”
“Well, this Carolyn person adds, ‘Your father had word that you were living in France and was very worried. I’m sure it will be a great relief to know you are safe and recovering—news I will tell him as soon as I am in touch.’”
“How would he know I was living in France?” Avery demanded.
“Maybe he was worried he hadn’t heard from you in a year and called someone in San Francisco who knew you’d come over here? Then, when he heard about the Paris attacks, he mentioned to his assistant how concerned he was. This Ms. Bryson sounds great.”
Avery remained silent for a moment, and then said, “Well, we shall see if I actually hear from the man himself.”
Until she’d been shot, Avery had made it a practice never to discuss her parents, other than in a few biting comments over the years, leaving Juliet to conclude that her friend had been disappointed by her mother and father any number of times in the past.
“Okay, then,” Juliet said with deliberate cheer, “let’s leave it alone and see what happens. Meanwhile, which doc is it today?”
Silently, Juliet told herself she could only hope that the dramatic events in Paris would be enough to prompt Stephen Evans to reach out to his injured daughter who suffered from more than just physical wounds to her arm and shoulder. Meanwhile, Avery pointed to her winter coat draped over a chair, along with piles of clothes she hadn’t managed to put away.
“No doctor appointments today, thank God. Today I want to put on that coat, walk to school, and sit in on one of my portrait painting classes.”
Juliet reacted first with pleasure that Avery was making efforts to put her life back together. Then came a wave of worry.