by C. J. Duggan
As sure as the clock ticked over to one I heard the sound of elaborate deadbolts being unlocked behind the glossy black door, which then opened oh so slowly. I felt like I was about to step into a story reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. A tall, blonde girl stood in the doorway, looking sullen and beautiful. Kate hadn’t changed from school: her hair was just a bit longer and her personality as dry as a biscuit. She didn’t embrace me like an old friend would, she merely looked at me with her big doe eyes and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly; it was impossible to tell if she was really struck with any kind of emotion.
‘You must be desperate,’ she said, her eyes never dipping to my garbage bags. Instead, she looked at my tousled locks – that would be the kind of thing Kate would notice. She wasn’t being nasty; she was just being factual. There was a good reason that no one visited Kate, and it lived on the ground floor of a five-bedroom London terrace.
‘How is Joy?’ I asked, trying to seem light-hearted when referring to Kate’s nasty grandmother. The fact that her name was actually Joy, well, the irony was lost on no one.
‘She doesn’t know you’re here so you’re going to have to be quiet,’ she said, taking one of my garbage bags from me and motioning for me to follow her inside through the elegant entrance to the bottom of the staircase. I made sure to sneak up the stairs behind Kate, almost holding my breath. The house was thick with tension. Kate turned right into a huge, light-filled room that was almost a mini apartment all of its own, big enough for a lounge, bed, table: a little home away from home, or in this case, a home away from Joy.
Kate closed the door behind us softly, pausing and craning her neck as if to listen for something she might have expected to hear, but the house was silent, and only then did she seem to sag in relief.
‘She’s asleep,’ she said, turning to me with a new lightness in her expression, like she was seeing me for the first time. She placed her hands on her narrow hips, taking in my bloodshot eyes and sleep-deprived dark circles. ‘Bad week?’
‘A week I could handle – this seems to be a lifetime’s worth of poor choices.’
‘Sounds like it’ll take a few bottles of wine to unpack all of that.’
I smiled, feeling finally at ease in Kate’s upstairs hideaway. ‘You know all the right things to say.’
‘How about a hot shower while I hook you up to some wifi?’
‘Kate, you are going to make some man very happy one day.’
She laughed. ‘Well, don’t listen to Joy because according to her I don’t know how to do anything.’
The refuge in Kensington was a welcome distraction: two weeks of respite and I could feel myself forming a thicker exterior on my soul. Any time I saw a cooking show, or anything Paris affiliated, I shut it down. I kept right away from news columns, YouTube and every kind of social media. I guess I was sort of in the witness protection program, the one for the broken-hearted.
Ugh. Shut up, Claire.
Even I was sick of myself.
I sat crossed-legged on the rug, my laptop propped up on an ottoman so Sammi didn’t have to be aware that today, like most days over the past fortnight, was no-pants Monday. My hair was swept up in a messy topknot, my daggy long nightshirt kept me cosy, and my fluffy bed socks were pulled up way too high. Avoiding Kate’s frail yet feisty grandmother downstairs hadn’t been a problem because I was in full-on hibernation mode. I didn’t feel the urge to leave ever. Sometimes I caught Kate frowning at me from across the room, like last night when I cackled at Four Weddings and a Funeral, so engrossed half the popcorn I chucked into my mouth missed. It seemed that Kate was always hovering around me with a dustbuster.
‘The thing is, Sammi, I feel great. Like this is who I am supposed to be in life, ya know?’
Sammi’s face was screwed up. ‘What, living like a hobo?’ I thought for a second. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’
‘So you find that this look is working for you then?’ Sammi gave the impression she was glad to be thousands of miles away from me.
‘I have been worried about materialism for so long, and it all means nothing. You know what? There was nothing wrong with Hotel Trocadéro the way it was. At least it had substance …’
Sammi sighed. ‘Oh boy, here we go.’
‘And then you bring in the cavalry trying to toff it up and it ruins everything.’
Twenty minutes later, and I felt like Sammi wasn’t exactly invested in our conversation. ‘And then he said, “Maybe it’s for the best”.’ I made air quotes. ‘Pfft, like he was doing me a favour or something, like whatever.’ A splash of dip fell off my chip and landed on my top. ‘Oh shit,’ I said, scraping it off.
Kate plonked next to me. ‘All right, that’s it, I am calling for an intervention.’
‘Oh, hallelujah!’ cried Sammi. ‘I was just about to pretend my internet was playing up.’
I frowned, thinking back over the last few days. ‘Haven’t you been having issues with your internet?’
Sammi tried to keep a straight face. ‘Oh yeah, totally.’
‘The thing is, Claire, we love you to death, but if you don’t stop talking about Louis, I have gained permission from Sammi to euthanise you in your sleep, and don’t think I’m not capable. I have been living with my Lucifer-reincarnated grandmother – I have thought about it.’
I looked from Kate to Sammi. ‘I don’t talk about him that much.’
‘Are you fucking serious?’ Sammi blurted. ‘I feel like I’m the one who broke up with him.’
‘I guess it’s lucky that you didn’t sleep with him, otherwise it would be ten times worse,’ added Kate.
‘Um, yeah, yeah, that would be really bad, huh?’ I said, biting my lip and averting my eyes.
‘Oh no, you didn’t!’ Sammi sing-songed.
Kate threw up her hands. ‘Well, there it is, no wonder you’re a basketcase. You have been ruined for all future men. You might as well just give up now because you are never going to get over this, ever.’
My fingers traced the loose thread from my bed socks and pulled it free, probably doing more damage rather than just leaving it alone: the story of my life. I could feel my vision blur as I shook my head, a wave of sadness overtaking my denial. I started to cry.
‘I know, I know, I will never get over it. It’s just that I thought I’d found who I was in Paris, but then it all ended and I feel like a hole has been punched through my chest, and it’s hard to breathe. But if I talk about it, it kind of keeps it alive, it cements me in a time and place where I don’t have to think about me sitting here, with my stubbly, unshaven legs and questionable hygiene.’ I looked up to see Sammi’s big, sad stare. ‘I just feel lost, and there’s nothing I can do about it,’ I sobbed, losing myself to the comfort of Kate’s embrace as she wrapped her arms around me.
‘I’m so sorry, Claire.’ I heard her voice crack. ‘If you want to talk about him until you can’t talk about him any more, we’ll listen, won’t we, Sammi?’
Sammi wiped away a stray tear, quickly gaining her composure. ‘Absolutely, fire away.’
But funnily enough, now I had a captive audience, there was something in me holding back, as though I didn’t have the urge to unload, as though I thought no good would come of it, and if I was going to move on, then I needed to find a different way of working through yet another change in my life.
I sniffed. ‘Actually, I might have a shower, get with the times. Sammi, will you be around for a bit?’
‘Sure.’
‘Cool.’ I nodded. ‘Hey, and tell Mum I’m coming home.’ I smiled weakly. ‘I think it’s time.’
That’s what my head said anyway, now all I had to do was convince my heart.
Chapter Forty
In the scheme of things, a week can fly by when you’re looking at real estate.
Sammi and I were rocking it old school, talking to each other on the phone while we browsed through real estate options in Melbourne. It was kind of weird not seeing Sammi’s overly dramatic faci
al expressions, but I could still visualise them in my head clear as day.
‘What about this one, Claire? One bed flat in Richmond, not far from the MCG, nice city views.’
Everything piqued my interest until I scrolled to the price bracket. ‘Next.’ I sighed, reducing the real estate screen and opening up Facebook; maybe there was a private rental group where I could make enquiries? This time next week I would be back at home, living in Mum’s sewing room for all eternity if I didn’t get a move on.
‘God, you’re so fussy,’ said Sammi.
‘No. I’m broke,’ I corrected. It had been a while since I’d logged in to Facebook and my eyes skimmed over the page, annoyed about the layout change yet again; what was Zuckerberg up to now? There were dozens of notifications about my uncle’s political views, my auntie’s passive-aggressive memes about people who let you down in life, my younger cousin BJ’s ‘Like for an inbox’ posts, whatever that meant. There was a plethora of thumbs up and someone had even …
‘Oh my God.’ I could feel the colour drain from my face. I lowered the phone as I stared at the screen. I blinked, confused by the distant high-pitched squeaking that was coming from the receiver. Oh shit.
I juggled the phone back to my ear again, still not taking my eyes away from the screen. ‘Oh. My. God,’ I repeated.
‘What?’ Sammi snapped. ‘What are you going on about?’
I blinked a few more times, but the view was the same. ‘Louis poked me.’
‘Yeah, and I really don’t need to keep hearing about it.’
‘Not like that, you idiot, on Facebook … Louis Delarue poked me. He’s not on Facebook; he doesn’t do social media.’
‘It’s not a troll, is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Click on his name.’
I felt suddenly hot, and my hands were clammy as I scrolled the mouse up, hovering the cursor over his name. I almost wanted to close my eyes as I clicked, until his page appeared and my heart stopped.
‘It’s him; it’s really him.’
I scrolled through his page, filled with before-and-after pics of the Hotel Trocadéro, pictures of Cecile at reception, dressed in her brand-new navy blue uniform. A picture of Gaston, opening the door with a beaming smile. The kitchen crew had expanded from three to six, all lined up in smart black double-breasted chef’s jackets and tall hats. The refurbished rooms were unrecognisable; gone were the stained, threadbare carpets, tatty bed linen and mission-brown builtins. Everything was white and fresh with accents of the same blue as the uniforms and awnings.
‘Claire, what are you doing?’
‘I’m just looking.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘No harm in looking – oh shit.’ I clicked into Louis’s ‘About Me’ section and there, right before me, was something I never thought I would see. Louis was on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Blogger, Google Plus; he was linked in every way imaginable.
‘Claire?’
‘I’ll call you back,’ I said, hanging up before she had time to protest.
I took a deep breath and pushed out my chair, needing a moment to absorb what was in front of me. I reached for my mobile, tapping my Instagram app, something I hadn’t done since I broke up with Liam, because frankly there had been nothing worth putting a filter on. But as I looked at my profile, my mouth gaped with the number of notifications I had received, the majority from @Lou_Dela.
My heart raced as I swiped my finger across the screen, only to find—
‘Oh, wow!’
Shot after shot of the hotel, Noire, Louis’s Audi, of food, of Paris, so many of Paris. There were no hashtags because I seriously wondered if he even knew what they were. I laughed, wiping away a stray tear, scrolling to the top of his profile.
‘Holy shit!’
Louis had amassed 113,064 Instagram followers in less than a month. I knew it wasn’t healthy but I skimmed through every one of his social pages: Facebook page, 1,528,619 likes; Twitter, 205,060 followers. And it wasn’t just social pages – they were well-maintained social pages. Never would you see him snap a selfie and hashtag himself drinking wine smugly, that was just not his style, but as far as Instagram went he surely did have skills, and his tweets and responses to fans were also highly entertaining.
I went back to his Instagram, seeing the last photo he had tagged me in three days ago: a beautiful night shot of the Eiffel Tower in all its glittering splendour, taken from directly underneath, looking straight up through the centre of the structure. It made my heart ache, but never more so than when I read the caption of the photo. Lights will show you the way home @Claire_shorten
My chin trembled as I took in a deep breath. My head reeled from the emotions that were raging inside me. The shock, the amazement, but scariest of all – hope. My finger hovered over the screen before I pulled it away, and then back again hesitating while I thought long and hard about the ramifications of what I was about to do. Before I could talk myself out of it, my finger touched the screen, clicking on the heart.
Claire Shorten liked your photo.
Chapter Forty-One
It wasn’t raining, which didn’t really fit with my vision of how this would go when I’d planned it. In my head, I had been standing in the rain, looking up wistfully at the navy awnings of Hotel Trocadéro, dramatically screaming to the sky as lightning flashed across my face. Instead, the sun was streaming down on me and the skies had been a bright blue all day, affording me the pleasure of a good dose of Vitamin D as I strolled along the River Seine, past the quaint green wooden stalls that lined the river walk. It was times like this that I felt nothing but love for Paris, where no tainted memory could dull the sparkle; this was why I’d had to come, this was why I was here.
Having taken the early Eurostar to Paris, the mere thought of being both physically and emotionally baggageless by the day’s end was something to truly be excited over. I had to be done with this weight that was lodged in my chest. Except for the Facebook poke and Instagram tags, there had been no word from Louis or Cecile. I had even gone as far as doing the one thing I had promised myself I would never do: I googled Louis Delarue – Café de Trocadéro, to see how viral the video had gone, but I couldn’t find anything but photo stills of what took place and articles that described how a mystery woman had finally done what many had been dreaming of for years. There was also a mixture of comments from fans defending Louis and attacking me, to people defending me and attacking Louis. Five minutes of scrolling and I was done, and seriously reconsidering my need for closure.
But much to my own and even Kate’s and Sammi’s surprise, I’d known I had to come back. I had to seek closure before heading back to Melbourne. I wanted to be able to look at future travel shows on Paris and not cringe. I wanted to binge-watch MasterChef and not feel a burning contempt for anyone in a chef’s uniform.
So I stood in the sunshine outside Hotel Trocadéro, summoning the courage to set one foot in front of the other, a task made so much simpler by the fact there wasn’t a black Audi parked outside. That was something I wouldn’t have to fear; Louis was long gone. But there was one thing I had decided on. After this trip was over and I was in Melbourne again, I wouldn’t follow him on social media any more. There was just nothing healthy about it, and I knew that I would never truly heal if I didn’t sever contact.
Christ, it felt like I was on a bloody seven-step program, although admittedly staying secretly at Kate’s was pretty much what I imagined rehab to be like.
As I approached the glass door of the hotel it opened for me, and a man who was not Gaston welcomed me with his broad smile and sharp suit; he even had gloves on, very shmick.
‘Bonjour,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Hotel Trocadéro.’
‘Merci,’ I said. I was not prepared for Gaston not to be here. Not a great start for my anxiety.
‘Are you checking in, mademoiselle?’ the suited man asked.
‘Oh no, I just …’ I paused, my attention t
urning to reception, a smile spreading across my face. ‘No way!’ I said, turning to walk to the counter, and stand before Gaston, who was at the printer, tall and proud, with an unmistakable new accessory – a navy blue manager’s jacket.
Gaston hadn’t seen me, and I really wished at this point that the bell hadn’t been confiscated, so I cleared my throat.
‘Pardon, monsieur, can I please speak with the manager right away?’
Gaston turned, his eyes alight, an incredulous smile on his face as he looked at me almost as if I was some kind of mirage. He laughed, rounding the counter and crushing me in his arms.
‘Claire, what are you doing here?’
‘Look at you!’ I tugged at his jacket. ‘This is amazing.’
Gaston straightened. ‘No more dragging luggage.’
I couldn’t believe that it had been less than a month – it actually felt like years had passed – and maybe it was due to the fact the hotel itself was so different. Gaston watched me take it all in.
‘Do you want a tour?’
‘Yes, please!’
Gaston bowed. ‘Right this way.’
He showed me the refurbished guest rooms, with their new linen, towels, drapes, carpets, fresh paint and luxury products in the modernised bathrooms. It was like all the old horrors had been exorcised in all ways but one, as we headed back into the lift of death, which still managed to traumatise me, almost as much as glimpsing the number six button on the lift panel. I pushed that to the back of my mind. No good would come of it.
The lounge had also been refurbished with more classic chairs, the sofas reupholstered in navy and cream fabrics. A large plush rug lay on top of the newly installed herringbone flooring that shone beautifully under a sparkling chandelier.