by Megan Mulry
Well. Okay, then. I sit back and rest my hands on my lap, the picture of a schoolgirl ready to receive her punishment.
Aziza grips her hands together and groans. “I have a horrible temper. Pavel told me I should hold my tongue, but I cannot.”
I should have known if she could take on the likes of Pavel Durchenko, she’s someone who knows how to manage stubborn people.
“Fine. Say what you need to say,” I respond rather coolly.
Then she looks as if she might cry. “I’m so emotional with the pregnancy. I can’t stand it!” She smiles and her face softens. “I am not an overly emotional person by nature. That’s probably why Rome and I became such good friends at university in Lausanne. Stone-cold hearts, the both of us.”
I hate when she says Rome’s name. I don’t want to think too hard about why it bothers me so much.
She sighs again. “Okay. So, I won’t go on about Rome. But I hope you know that everything he did for me was . . . for me. I asked him to get engaged when things fell apart with Pavel after I told him about the baby.” She looks through the plate-glass window back into the large living room, where Pavel is now laughing hoarsely with one of his cronies. When she turns back to me, it’s all in her eyes. “I just love him so much. How does such a thing happen?”
I want to like her, I really do, but this woman is driving me bananas. I don’t want to get drawn into why she’s in love with Pavel or any of it. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
She narrows her eyes at me. “You are tougher even than Pavel, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “Look, Aziza, I don’t want to be rude. I know you’re friends with Margot and Lulu and everything. But what happened with Rome . . .” I hesitate because I’m not sure how to say it, exactly. “Well, it’s over. That’s the bottom line.”
“But what if—”
“Please.” My voice is slightly more shrill than I’d like. I take a breath and continue. “You seem like a person who respects other people’s decisions, Aziza. I’m happy for you and Pavel, I really am. I bet we’ll spend a lot of time together over the years. But it doesn’t need to be rainbows and butterflies for everyone, all right?”
I can tell she’s insulted, but I don’t really care. Who the hell is she to tell me about Rome? Fuck her.
She sits up straighter and blinks once. “Okay, then. I just wanted to apologize—”
“Accepted,” I interrupt again. “Again, not to be rude, but it’s private. And it’s over. But mostly it’s private.”
“I totally respect that. I shan’t bring Rome up again—”
Stop saying his name! I want to scream.
“As long as you know he was acting entirely on my behalf, as a gentleman, to defend my honor.”
Now not only does she want me to forgive him, but I’m supposed to elevate him to some chivalric hall of fame? I take another deep breath. “Thanks for letting me know. I really appreciate it.” I so desperately want this conversation to be over, I will say anything just to make it end. I look over my shoulder, back into the living room, and manage to catch Pavel’s eye. I widen my eyes at him, silently begging him to rescue me from emotion central, and I see him excuse himself from his conversation and head toward the porch to join us.
He comes outside and stares down at Aziza. “I told you it would be awkward and uncomfortable,” he says bluntly. “Miki doesn’t give a crap about any of that emotional bullshit. Just drop it, Azi. All right?”
“Well, all right, but—”
“Azi.” His voice is implacable.
“Fine!” She jumps up and goes to stand next to Pavel. He pulls her into a one-armed hug and kisses the top of her head. The way her eyes slide shut and she presses her cheek against his chest is almost despicably adorable. I stand up to go back inside with them.
“Sorry about that, Miki,” Pavel says.
“No need to apologize—”
“Since I’ve apparently apologized enough for all of us!” Aziza says with a laugh. We go back inside and join the others for an obscenely large and indulgent supper.
Aziza totally respects my boundaries the remainder of the weekend. She never mentions Rome again, and the rest of the people at the party turn out to be an entertaining mix of business associates and old friends of Pavel’s. Over dinner on Saturday, Pavel and Aziza announce they are officially engaged. They’ll be getting married in a private ceremony within the next few weeks. Lots of champagne and bawdy toasts follow, and I go along with the festivities as much as I can.
When Sergei arrives Sunday at noon, I practically run out to my car. Note to self: No more house parties. Ever.
Sergei takes me to the office, instead of home. I spend a few hours doing work, then book my flight to Venice. Vivian has sent pictures of the villa she’s rented on the Grand Canal, and I start to get excited about spending time with her and Isabel. I’ve been to Venice only once, and it was with my mother when I was a surly teenager. I trailed around behind her as if she were leading me to jail.
I send Isabel a text letting her know how excited I am to see her and for the two of us to hang out. She replies in about seven seconds with lots of Emojis, telling me she’s excited, too. I shut down my computer and look around the office. I picture Rome handing me that first cup of coffee and my skirt slipping and my shirt coming undone. I’m not sure how it could have gone any differently for the two of us. Crossed wires and all that. I sigh and get up from my desk and head home.
The following week, Aziza and Pavel get married in a top-secret ceremony in Cyprus; he even manages to get her recalcitrant parents to come. When vast amounts of money are involved, even Pavel can save face.
I keep all my attention on work, putting a new deal together with an Indonesian group. We are going to acquire a few thousand acres, but I also get to sit on the board of a conglomerate that is fighting deforestation in that country. I now realize this is how I should have started back in March—testing the water gradually instead of diving into the deep end of the pool with the likes of Jérôme de Villiers and Pavel Durchenko.
As the Venice Film Festival approaches, I start to feel giddy with excitement. I haven’t really allowed myself any frivolous pleasures for months, and the idea of drinking a Bellini at Harry’s Bar with Vivian while we look at beautiful people stroll by is very appealing. She’s also got passes to some of the superstar-studded receptions, so Isabel and I can join her and gawk at Michael Fassbender and Benedict Cumberbatch up close.
I’m also fortifying myself against the fact that Rome might be there and I’ll just have to be a grown-up and speak to him politely if we do meet. I’m fortifying myself with serious fashion. I’ve got one red gown in particular that is being shipped in from Lanvin. It’s a splurge, but I figure what the hell. I’m spiteful, apparently, because I want to look stunningly beautiful when Rome sees what he’s missing.
After I board the flight to Venice, I realize I’m having a bit of a panic attack. Only a bit, but still. Alexei got all doting and protective this week and wanted to make me travel with at least one bodyguard, and I refused, so here I sit in first class, and I feel a little unmoored. I relax after we take off and after a glass of champagne, and I begin to make a leisurely pass through the latest issue of Paris Match. Rookie mistake.
Rome and some young French actress are holding hands and smiling for the camera. I stare at the photo of the two of them walking into an opening at the Louvre. If I had a magnifying glass and a loupe, I couldn’t be any more obvious. The steward asks if I’d like more champagne, and I hold up my empty glass without looking at him. “Keep it coming.”
I look at the pictures a while longer and then flip the page and almost throw up. Rome and my mother are laughing like they are the oldest best friends at some cocktail party, and I want to call out to the captain to turn this plane around and take me back to Saint Petersburg immediately.
; I force myself to keep reading and learn it is actually an engagement party for my mother and Jamie. And Rome is producing Jamie’s next movie.
My stomach is in knots. I hold up the champagne glass again before the steward has to bother asking. I chug it.
Why won’t he get the hell out of my life? It was bad enough worrying about whether he was going to be at Pavel’s stupid house party a few weeks ago; there’s no way I can sit through my own mother’s wedding if Rome is going to be there, hovering. I open my tablet and send her a text.
Is Rome de Villiers going to be at your wedding?
She responds in a few minutes.
Of course not. Where are you?
I let her know I’m on the plane and I’ll see her in a few hours, then put the device back in my bag. I shut the magazine and lean back into the large seat and try to breathe evenly. I’m obviously going to have to see him at some point, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.
I have to change planes in Zurich; I pass through the airport in a fog. I end up dozing off for the one-hour final leg. I wake up when the plane touches down at Marco Polo with a jarring screech. I’m disoriented from the champagne and a rather graphic dream involving Rome in a helicopter, naked. I sit up straighter and pull my hair back into a severe ponytail. I’m off the plane and through customs quickly. My mother has sent a car and driver to pick me up.
Simone and Jamie have rented a beautiful house about thirty minutes outside the city. When I arrive, Jamie answers the door and holds his arms wide for a hug.
“You want to call me Dad?” he volleys.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
For some reason, it strikes me as hilariously funny and I hug him, despite the past few years of thinking he was a complete jackass. So what if he’s thirty-five and my mother is fifty-three? Maybe there’s some sexy synergy there. I should stop being such a judgmental bitch.
“I think I’ll stick with ‘Jamie what’s-his-name,’ ” I reply lightly when I pull away from the hug.
He smiles, a sweet, happy smile that I’ve never seen before, or never bothered to look for. “That sounds about right,” he says. “I’m glad to see you, Miki. It’s been too long.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Jamie. How is she?” I set down my bags and look meaningfully toward the sweeping staircase as I follow him into the living room. He’s set up a small bar with an ice bucket and few glasses on the sideboard.
“She’s wonderful. Want a drink? How was the flight?”
“I’d love a drink. Whiskey, please. The flight was fine. By the way, congratulations—I saw an article about Jérôme de Villiers and your production company.”
Jamie looks up at me from where his hands are putting a few ice cubes into a lowball glass. “So you know he’s producing my next documentary, and that’s cool with you?”
“Of course. I’m fine with it.” What else am I going to say?
Jamie hands me my glass and sits in the chair to my right. “His foundation contacted my production company, and I didn’t know who he was. I mean . . .” He looks into his glass and shakes the ice, then looks back up at me. Jamie’s a handsome guy, no question, with dirty-blond hair that’s very California-surfer long and dark eyes that have an intensity that somehow never feels too serious. “I mean, I knew about the Clairebeau Foundation, but I didn’t know about any of your . . . dealings with him.”
I shrug. “Look, it’s been a hectic year. With my dad and . . .” My voice falters.
Jamie is holding his glass with two hands, his forearms resting on his thighs. He’s in jeans and a dark button-down linen shirt. I see how his fingers tense on the glass at the mention of my father.
“Jamie, she loves you.”
He looks up at me. “I know you’ve disliked me for ages—”
“I saw too many jerks. I’m sorry I judged you based on all her past . . . missteps.”
His lips quirk, and he looks up when my mother swans into the living room in some Moroccan-looking white caftan thing. Her short hair is slightly messy, and she looks beautiful. I stand up and hug her. “Congratulations,” I whisper.
She looks into my eyes. “You’re happy for me? For us?” She peers over my shoulder to include Jamie.
“Of course I’m happy for you!” I exclaim.
The three of us stay at the villa while we finish our drinks. They ask about my life in Saint Petersburg, and I ask where they’re going to be living for the next year. Then we go out to dinner at my mother’s new favorite restaurant, in Rubano. As I watch her and Jamie interact, I realize what a wonderful effect he has on her—a settling patience, it seems to me. He doesn’t try to tamp her down, like some of her older boyfriends used to do, nor does he simper and hang on her every word, like some of the previous boy toys.
Over coffee, he turns to me. We’ve had a few bottles of wine, and we’re all feeling happy and relaxed. “So, what are you going to do about Rome?” Jamie asks easily.
My mother’s eyes widen at him as she takes a sip of coffee, like that subject is Off-Limits and Jamie has broken some code.
“Sorry, are we supposed to pretend he doesn’t exist?” Jamie laughs.
I smile, too. All the wine and the delicious food, and seeing my mother happy and content, makes Rome seem distant and easy to discuss. “No. We don’t have to pretend he doesn’t exist.” I pick up the teaspoon and stir my coffee. “What do you want to know?”
“Was it just a fling, or do you think about the future?” Jamie asks.
I start to see why he’s growing into an award-winning documentary filmmaker. He gets right to the point. He’s sprawling against the sleek chrome-and-leather chair with one arm slung casually across the back of my mother’s chair, and he’s just asking a straightforward question. I can answer it or not. He makes it sound like it doesn’t have to be some bloody mess.
“Both, I guess.” I put the teaspoon down and keep staring at the table. “You’ve met him.” I look up, and both my mother and Jamie nod but don’t say anything. “He’s pretty great.”
“Yes,” Simone adds, slightly breathless, as if she’s been dying to enumerate Rome’s stellar qualities. “He is quite fabulous—”
Jamie places a gentle hand on her forearm, and I want to hug him so hard. He’s not shutting her up or anything, but he totally understands how her enthusiasm might hurt me. She looks at him quickly, kisses his cheek, and then turns to me and says, “Yes, Rome is pretty great. Go on.”
“What I mean is, I’d be a total liar if I said the idea of a future with him hasn’t crossed my mind. But he’s just so . . . assertive.” I shake my head sadly and look back down at the table, dragging my fingernail in straight lines across the white tablecloth.
“He’s a pretty forceful character. I hear you.” Jamie sounds like he knows from personal experience.
I look up and see he’s smiling ironically.
“But so are you!” Simone blurts, no longer able to hold her tongue. “Who better for a man like that than a woman like you!” She extends one long, elegant hand to encompass my existence. “Beautiful. Brilliant. Stubborn as an ox.”
Always with the backhanded compliments.
“I mean that in the best way possible,” she backtracks.
“I know, Mom. Let’s move on to another topic, okay? That’s about all I can handle for the moment. If I happen to cross paths with Rome at some point this week, so be it, but I’m not going to pursue him.”
Simone looks like she wants to add something, but Jamie simply says, “Fair enough.” And that’s the end of it.
I fall asleep in the Italian countryside that night thinking my mother and Jamie are probably going to make it after all. Not that I have any idea about that sort of thing.
The next day, their wedding is exactly as Simone predicted: Small. Quiet. Beautiful. The two of them are completely at ease with one another, w
ithout any of the bickering and sniping I used to associate with my mother and her boyfriends du moment. They are nearly always together, but I never see them being annoyingly touchy-feely, either.
The wedding reception is a casual dinner party with a few of her older friends and some of Jamie’s younger friends, and it is wonderful. We all sit under a very large tree in the expansive formal gardens. A cook came with the rental, and she and my mother have become best friends, as is Simone’s habit. I want to warn the poor Italian woman that she will never hear from my mother again (while my mother promises they will see each other forever and always, as the innocent woman teaches her new best friend how to make pasta from scratch from her secret family recipe that’s been passed down for generations). The pasta is delicious and the wine is local and simple and the fourteen or so people at the table, including me, are enjoying themselves.
A young producer, George Kendall, is sitting to my left. He lives in LA, and I sort of grill him for local details. I love hearing the neighborhood updates—he also lives in the Abbot Kinney area—and I realize I’m missing it less and less, to the point where I mention I might be willing to rent out my place in Venice, or eventually sell it.
“Oh, I’d love to take a look,” George says, with a hint of something more suggestive in his tone. I think he’s kind of checking me out, and it feels fun to flirt.
“You should,” I encourage. “It’s close to the beach. Do you surf?”
“I used to. Who has time anymore?” He turns his chair slightly, giving me his full attention.
“I always made time to do it,” I say, twisting my wineglass as I remember, and I make a silent promise to go to Biarritz or even Cornwall to catch some waves here in Europe. “It’s definitely what I miss most about living there. But Saint Petersburg is pretty amazing. I feel like I’ve landed on Mars and I need to do a lot of exploring.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
“You should visit sometime.”