The First Love
Page 17
Fenne formally accepted her position at the museum, working alongside the Curator with the title of Historian as she had always dreamed of. She frequently drags me to her work-related dinner parties and I pay her back by forcing her to read some of the submissions I receive. Since the submissions are fiction, Fenne shudders whenever she is handed a few chapters. If she becomes particularly unhinged while reading, I set those stories aside for immediate consideration. So far, they are the ones that make it to the bestsellers lists.
True to her word, Fenne donates her time to giving art lessons at the two local foster homes twice a month.
Twenty-two months after Fenne moved in with me, we returned to France, along with Elise and Natalie, to re-unite with Juliette and also with Sofie. We stayed together at Juliette’s Chambre d’hôtes and took Elise and Natalie to the Palace of Versailles, where Fenne arranged a special “after-hours” tour of the Queen’s Garden. We revisited the exact bench that we made out on and gave the girls two different renditions of the experience we shared that evening in the Royal Chapel. Fenne insisted that I threw myself at her, then finally confessed the moment she lost the battle to hold herself back from our first kiss. Justine also joined us on one of the evenings in Juliette’s garden as we celebrated each other, the moon, and the new year. It is one of my most cherished memories of being surrounded by my dearest friends.
With all of us together, beneath that special moon, in front of those I cared for the most, I asked Fenne to marry me.