Christmas at Tiffany's

by Karen Swan

  Cassie shook her head. ‘No, it won’t make any difference. Luke’s insistent we spend it together.’

  Kelly opened her mouth as if to say something . . . then changed her mind and bit her lip.

  ‘He’s nuts about you. That’s the problem,’ Kelly said, patting her knee. ‘Who’d have thought it? You come to New York having no idea at all about the fashion industry – who’s Oscar de La Renta, Kelly? Who’s the editor of Vogue? . . .’ Cassie blanched and Kelly squeezed her knee . . . ‘And yet you end up taming its prodigal son. I didn’t know you had it in you,’ she said fondly. ‘Look, I’ll be back first thing, okay? We’ll have breakfast together at Sant Ambroeus – for old times’ sake.’

  ‘Sure,’ Cassie said, taking a deep, brave breath.

  The buzzer rang. ‘That’ll be Brett. I’m meeting him in the lobby,’ Kelly said, getting up.

  ‘I’ll walk down with you,’ said Cassie, pulling her new coat from the back of the sofa.

  ‘Are you going to be all right on your own? I’d offer to take you to Luke’s in our cab, but we’re going in the opposite direction,’ Kelly said apologetically.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m going to walk. I love walking in the snow.’

  Kelly grimaced. ‘Have you got any suitable boots? You don’t want to wear your leather ones in the snow. They’ll get trashed.’

  ‘Ah-ha!’ Cassie said, pulling out her welly-green muck boots from the hall cupboard and staring down at them wistfully. How ironic, she thought – that they’d remained unworn since her first day here, only to be worn again on her last.

  They travelled down in the lift together, waving cheerily to Bill, who was about to clock off.

  Brett looked dashing in his penguin suit and Cassie felt a well of resentment rise up in her as she waved them off. She knew that right now, this very instant, across the pond, the Hogmanay reel that she and Gil had held every year would be in full flight. The bells would have sounded an hour ago, the first-footers would have turned up with their lumps of coal, and kilts would be flying, sashes slipping, men whirling and women twirling as they danced in the new year.

  She wanted to be doing something that could compete on that scale too – laughter and noise, music and drinks, finery and flirting. She didn’t want to spend it sitting in an empty loft with fairy lights in an artful heap on the floor and Blondie on the iPod. This New Year’s Eve had to be memorable, iconic. It had to show Gil she was okay without him – even if he’d never know it.

  She set off and trudged through the snow alone. It was still pristine, and as clean and fluffy as freshly washed feathers, but she knew that by daybreak it would be tainted, melting into a grey slush as revellers and gritting trucks and multitudes of cabs did their worst. She was almost pleased that she wouldn’t be here to watch the city sink back into its greyness.

  Almost.

  She walked along, past partygoers and couples all en route to somewhere vibrant and alive. She felt their energy and good cheer as they smiled and wished her a good new year as they passed. If they only knew what this one had been like, she thought, smiling back.

  She tried to buck up, to be flattered that Luke wanted her all to himself. Kelly had been right. Who would have thought it? In spite of his reputation and her determination not to get attached, things had turned serious between them. He wasn’t making it easy for her to leave, and she already knew they weren’t going to sleep at all tonight.

  She turned into his street, past the red-brick buildings that characterized this part of the city. All around, the sounds of parties in high-up apartments bounced off the walls, echoing and mixing until the city seemed almost to vibrate with celebration.

  She pressed the entry buzzer and waited for the street door to click open.

  ‘Hi, babe,’ his voice said through the intercom.

  She climbed the stairs and rapped on the door.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, opening it and sweeping her into his arms there and then in the lobby.

  ‘You’re . . . you’re in black tie!’ she said, wriggling back to get a better look at him.

  He shrugged and smiled at her. ‘What can I tell you? I wanted to make tonight special for you.’

  ‘But you said you hate wearing penguin suits,’ she said, the irritation spilling out in her voice as she looked down at her padded coat, skinny jeans and muck boots. ‘Look at me! You could have warned me,’ she moaned, shrugging off her coat and stamping her feet on the floor to dislodge the snow. Swinging the door open, she walked into the loft. ‘If I’d known, I’d have—’

  ‘SURPRISE!!’ came a cheer from the far side of the room. In front of her, Kelly and Brett and Bas, Stefano and his fiancée Ilya, Raoul, Bonnie, Molly and a scattering of Luke’s friends cheered loudly. They were all wearing sparkly cone hats on their heads and holding glasses of champagne in their hands. Balloons bounced across the floor, hoovering up dust, and streamers hung dreamily from the black-and-white galleries. Someone started up the music.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said in utter amazement, turning back to him, her hands up at her mouth. ‘You threw me a leaving party?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he smiled, fishing in his jacket pocket and bringing out a key.

  He was biting his lip, but his eyes betrayed his excitement. He took a deep breath. ‘I want you to have this. I want you to move in with me, Cassie.’ He linked his arms around her waist, pulling her in to him. ‘I want you to . . .’

  But she’d already caught sight of a huge banner hanging above the door. It said just one thing.

  ‘Stay!’

  PARIS

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The driver let her out on the corner, clearly without giving any indication to the cars behind, whose drivers honked their horns and shook furious fists at her – as if it was her fault – as they swerved on the cobbles, their tyres squealing, whilst the driver unloaded her bags from the boot. She had arrived here with vastly more luggage than what she’d arrived in New York with. Had she been stopped at Customs on the way through, they’d have assumed she worked in the undertaking trade, such was the quantity of black clothing inside the suitcases.

  Anouk was sitting watching from a table next to the window, her signature tortoiseshell shades on, even though it was New Year’s Day and the sky was boasting all the brightness of a duvet. A tiny espresso was sitting in front of her, and she was holding a cigarette between her fingers.

  Cassie clattered over, having to make several trips to get her bags through the narrow gaps between the tables.

  ‘Chérie,’ Anouk beamed, getting up at last to proffer three kisses. ‘Bienvenue à Paris!’

  She put a gentle hand on Cassie’s shoulder, tipping her head slightly to the side as if in sympathy. ‘I must be honest, I did not think you would come. Even yesterday, all day, I was waiting for the call when you would say you were staying after all.’

  ‘He threw a Stay party.’

  ‘A what?’

  Cassie bit her lip hard and nodded. ‘Talked Kelly and Bas into it too. Told them I’d be bound to stay if he asked me to live with him.’

  ‘I see,’ Anouk said quietly, taking in Cassie’s grey pallor and swollen eyes. ‘Come. Sit,’ she said, turning and catching the waiter’s eye – which was easy enough since he hadn’t stopped staring at her since she’d arrived – for more coffees.

  Cassie crumpled into the chair, vaguely tuning into the different frequency in the café. In New York, when she and Kelly had hung out at Sant Ambroeus, it was to a backdrop of steamed milk, soprano laughter and Marc Jacobs’ ‘Daisy’. Here, the coffee was as dark as treacle, Shalimar hung in the air like chandeliers, and the conversational pitch was at tenor level.

  She resisted the urge to rest her head in her hands, even though, being the first of January, she could probably pass herself off as weary reveller rather than lovelorn émigrée.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Cassie sighed, wishing she didn’t have to. All she had done all night
was talk. Talk, talk, discuss, extrapolate and argue. And all to no avail.

  ‘He just doesn’t understand,’ she shrugged. ‘He thinks this . . . “plan”, coming to stay with you all . . . is nonsense. “It’s not how the real world works,” he said.’

  Anouk considered for a moment. ‘I suppose that’s understandable. He’s underestimated what you’ve been through. I don’t mean just in the past four months, but in the past ten years.’ She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘He doesn’t understand that when you married Gil, you were barely an adult. You’d seen nothing of the world. He, meanwhile, crosses it three times a month for work.’

  The waiter arrived with their coffees, but Anouk ignored him.

  ‘You were living in a big house, on your own most of the time, in the middle of nowhere. And then you found yourself thrown back out into the world, with no warning, no planning. You didn’t see it coming. You were on a plane to New York within hours of finding out. You mustn’t blame him for not being able to imagine all that. I can scarcely believe it myself – and I was there.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Cassie mumbled, managing a wry smile.

  ‘As far as he’s concerned, he just fell in love with a beautiful new divorcee.’

  Cassie blanched at the word. And anyway, it wasn’t true; they weren’t divorced yet. Not even close, in fact. Even though she had done the ‘right thing’ in honouring the pre-nup, they were clashing over the cause being cited in the papers. She wanted it to go through on his ‘unreasonable behaviour’ but Gil wanted ‘irreconcilable differences’, and they were both digging their heels in over it. Owning up to what he’d done to their marriage was the very least he owed her.

  ‘You were new to the city, new to the fashion industry, new to being single . . . Everything about you was fresh, unpretentious, innocent. That must have been exciting to him – you must have been totally unlike the other girls there. But you have had your heart broken,’ she reminded her. ‘Badly. And while on paper you’re free to fall in love again, in the real world, it’s going to take a lot longer than a season in New York to put you back together.’

  Cassie nodded gratefully. Her earlier concerns about staying with Anouk had been overtaken in recent weeks by concerns about their vastly different attitude towards men. Anouk was secretive to the point of paranoia about her boyfriends. No one ever met them. She just had her fun, then moved on, it seemed, so Cassie had been more than a little worried that Anouk would brush Luke off as of no consequence, just a rebound relationship, a plaything to have kept her amused in the evenings and at weekends, when in reality he had been so much more than that – she wasn’t capable of using someone in such a cavalier way.

  ‘I tried explaining all that to him – that I’m still trying to find out who I am. Do you know what he said?’

  Anouk waited.

  ‘He said I sounded like I’d been living in Los Angeles. Me!’ She shook her head. ‘I mean, when has my life ever been about navel-gazing? I’m the least self-informed person I know.’ She looked straight at Anouk, whose luxuriant hair tumbled casually about her shoulders. She was wearing a navy trench belted at the waist and a dusty-pink dotted Hermès scarf at her neck. ‘You’ve never doubted who you are, have you?’

  Anouk twitched her mouth side to side, not even able to pretend for camaraderie’s sake. ‘Non. Never.’

  Cassie sighed. ‘I wanted him to come out here and visit. I’d bought him a ticket.’

  ‘Did he take it?’

  ‘He wouldn’t. I ended up giving it to Bas. You know, I told him that these other trips – here, London – weren’t for ever. Just a few more months, and then if we were still . . . strong, happy, whatever, then I’d go back to New York at the end of the summer. Like you said, there were lots of reasons for me to stay there. Not just him.’ She shook her head, lacing her fingers together. ‘But he doesn’t believe in longdistance relationships.’

  Anouk gave a little sigh. ‘Well, I don’t think I do either, chérie, if I’m honest.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Non. Always been a disaster.’

  Cassie looked up at her. ‘Do you think I did the right thing, coming here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Anouk placed a warm hand on her wrist.

  ‘So does Bas, even though he didn’t want me to go either. He really didn’t. But Luke . . . he’s so angry with me. He’s taken my coming here as a rejection of him. All I know is that . . . I have this feeling that I’m not quite there yet, wherever “there” is. I’ve got this instinct that I must keep going.’

  ‘Well you were right to follow it, and I for one am glad you’re here. If you are supposed to be with him, it will happen,’ Anouk smiled. ‘Love always finds a way.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you believe in destiny too?’

  ‘Of course. Doesn’t everybody?’

  Cassie sighed and picked up the tiny cup, its handle so small she had to pinch it. ‘It rather seems they do. Yet again I think I might be the odd one out.’

  The apartment was half a block away. They wheeled two bags each along the pavement, coming to a stop after a minute outside a pair of solid black arched double-height gates. Anouk unlocked them with a huge old key and they stepped into a courtyard. It was paved with grey cobbles worn to a rounded shine, and a fountain encircled by a dwarf wall sat in the middle. The apartments facing this side of the courtyard were flat-faced, boasting tall, narrow windows with silk curtains lavishly draped behind the glass, and topiaried trees were spaced equally, Versailles-style, along the wrought-iron balconies that were as finely rendered as filigree.

  They walked into the building facing them at the back. It felt chilly and austere in the hallway, with no pictures or warm panelling on the walls, just a huge gilt mirror above a marble-topped console and a salmon-pink damask Louis Quinze chaise longue.

  Anouk started climbing the sweeping stone staircase. ‘No lifts here, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Although it doesn’t matter so much when there are only three étages. How many were there in Kelly’s building?’

  ‘Well, she was on the twelfth floor, but there were sixteen in total. And her building’s considered pretty low.’

  ‘Mon Dieu. Lifts must be a basic human right there.’

  ‘They are,’ Cassie smiled. ‘Although Kelly’s a committed tower-runner.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Anouk asked breathlessly, clearly unused to carrying anything bigger than a Birkin up the steps.

  ‘Nutters running up the stairs of skyscrapers and tower blocks.’

  ‘Non! What – for fun? Or for exercise?’

  ‘In Kelly’s case, both. She even does it in heels.’

  ‘I am even more amazed you are here, then. I do not know how you survived,’ she said, shaking her head and dropping the bags outside a door on the top floor. ‘Alors, we are here.’

  As with Kelly’s apartment, what went on in the communal areas had no bearing on her friends’ living quarters. In New York, the difference had been scale, but here it was taste. It was like walking into a spread for Elle Deco. The walls were lilac with over-scaled modern art canvases hanging on them, and the parquet floors were hidden beneath enormous vibrant rugs. A forest-green Roche-Bobois corner sofa ran the entire length of two walls and a purple fibre-glass moulded table sat in the middle, with stacks of art books piled high. In one corner, a glass-topped Ligne Roset table and eight chairs sat in front of the windows, overlooking the river where tourists sailed by snapping pictures of her neighbours, Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle.

  Cassie wandered through in silence as Anouk unbuttoned her coat. The kitchen was long and narrow, galley-style, with a window and Juliet balcony at the far end, and the units were matt grey, with no handles, but push-release doors and white Corian worktops. With something approaching euphoria, she clocked the kettle.

  The apartment had two bedrooms – that was a relief to note, too. Kelly’s truckle bed had quickly lost its nostalgic ‘sleepovers’ appeal, and once they’d started dating Brett and Luke . . . w
ell, it meant one of them always had to stay out.

  ‘Anouk, this place is amazing!’ she exclaimed, turning back and joining her friend at the windows. Paris was still sleeping off its hangover, even though it was nearly two p.m. The roads over on the other side of the river, the Left Bank, were quiet, with just the occasional scooter zipping past, stray lovers walking hand in hand over the bridges and limp tourists flopping back in their seats on the city tour buses. ‘Tch, you smoke too much, Nooks,’ she tutted, spying another cigarette in her hand.

  Anouk shrugged. ‘It helps me think.’

  ‘What do you need to think about?’ Cassie asked, slipping off her jacket to reveal the black ‘I heart NY’ T-shirt Bas had given her for Christmas, her black Bebe biker trousers and buckled ankle boots.

  Anouk turned to look at her. ‘You,’ she smiled.

  Cassie was surprised. ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘How to make you happy here. The job to give you, the people to make you laugh.’

  ‘I hope that’s not code for “set you up with”, Cassie warned.

  ‘No. Not if you don’t want,’ Anouk smiled, giving a little shrug. ‘Although I do know—’

  ‘Nooks!’

  ‘Fine.’ She looked her up and down. ‘You’ve really lost a lot of weight.’

  ‘I know,’ Cassie sighed. ‘Hopefully you’ll be doing something about that? Tarte Tatin for breakfast, chocolat chaud before bed . . .’

  Anouk giggled at the preposterousness of the suggestions. ‘Don’t count on it. Although you will be going straight back to wine. All those pink cocktails . . .’ She gave a little shudder.

  ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Cassie said. ‘I never did acquire a taste for them.’

  She went and stretched out on one of the sofas. The jet lag was catching up with her. ‘This is okay, isn’t it?’ she asked, worrying that she was making the place look untidy.

  ‘Sure.’ Anouk came and joined her, concertinaing herself into tiny folds on the adjoining sofa. ‘Suzy has asked for us to Skype her tonight. She’s worried about you. I think she couldn’t quite believe that you were going to make it, either. And Kelly texted me four times to check whether you had arrived yet. Ay-ay-ay.’ She waved a little hand dismissively. There was silence. ‘Cassie?’