You Turn

by Marion Croslydon

  I have no plans to return to Paris in the near future—nor the money—and that fact doesn’t rest well with me. It’s even worse when I look at Charlie, at her pressed lips, tearful eyes, and about-to-get-really-runny nose. My grip on the straps of my cabin bag tightens and I’m pretty sure my face mirrors hers.

  “I will. Don’t worry, I will,” I answer.

  “Are you in the line or what?” A man in a sharply-tailored suit is trying to wedge himself between me and the sign marking the start of the line.

  “Chillax Max. She’s getting on too, okay?” Charlie barks and the fiery look she gives the man has him wait for his turn patiently. I shuffle us sideways though, because we are blocking his way.

  Her attention returns to me. “So this is it?” Her eyebrows pique.

  “I guess so,” I say numbly.

  “You’ll be in touch soon, won’t you?”

  “Of course, I will. And you too?” She gives me a tiny nod in affirmation. “You’ll keep an eye on Mom for me, please.” I talked to Dr. Olivier this morning and he has my contact details, but I need family on the case. Charlie is the only family I have left, the only family who matters.

  I get another tiny nod.

  I check over my shoulder and the businessman is now going through security. It’s time for me to go there too. We have been lingering on the same spot for over ten minutes.

  “Goodbye, cousin.” I sound so formal, but ‘formal’ is the dam to keep the sob-fest from pouring all over my cheeks.

  “Goodbye, cousin,” Charlie throws back. She has opted for chief-scout cheerfulness.

  I wave awkwardly at her and turn around. I take three stiff steps and freeze. I will my legs to carry me on but they refuse and take on a life of their own. I run back into Charlie’s arms, hold on to her like a Titanic survivor to her lifejacket.

  I can’t talk because of the goddamned lump stuck in my throat. My cheeks, my eyes and my nose all tingle because of the tears I’m shamelessly shedding. I’m leaving a part of my heart behind. You can fall into a friendship, just as you can fall in love. I have done exactly that with this feisty French girl. I can’t pinpoint when it happened, but it definitely has. She was my cousin and she’s now my best friend.

  “I’ll come and visit, Lenor. I will, I promise,” she whispers into my ear and I breathe in that fruity scent of hers, one that will always make me think of fierce loyalty.

  I open my mouth but only a strangled sound filters from my lips.

  Charlie pushes me away gently. Her hands cup the sides of my face and she levels her gaze at me. “From now on, I want you to listen to what your heart says. Nothing is over until you decide it is.”

  My head bobs up and down like that of a ragdoll but her words shoot aimlessly across my foggy brain. I walk backwards and keep my eyes on Charlie until I have to actually go through security. I lay my purse and jacket on the belt in front of the machine. I hear a ‘ding’ when I stride through the security gate. I step aside, part my legs, lift my arms—starfish-like—waiting to be searched by an unsmiling lady who looks at me suspiciously. I sniff and run my finger under my nose, then back to playing starfish. I let her do her job and, once she has given me the green light, I hurry away.

  I want to look back at Charlie one last time. There’s only a glass wall separating us. But I can’t. Instead, I hit the first shop and buy a two-liter bottle of Evian.

  When I check the departures screen, I find my plane is already boarding. I rush through Roissy Airport and reach the gate out of breath just as the airline hostess is making the final call. I hand her my passport and boarding pass. It’s with a sinking heart that I present that same pass to the steward inside the plane and I’m directed towards the narrow aisle of Economy. I toddle my way to my row and take my seat. I don’t want to part with my purse so I lodge it at my feet underneath the seat in front of me.

  Within the next minute, an elderly lady sits down in the seat by the aisle. She’s so out of breath I fear she’s going to pass out.

  “Are you alright, Miss?” I venture over the empty seat between us.

  She’s clasping her hands so tightly over her generous bosom that I expect her to go through a full-on coronary. “I’m fine, Sweetie. I’m all fine,” she replies.

  “Do you want me to ask the hostess for a glass of water?”

  “That’s kind, Sweetie, but I am all fine.” The heaving of her chest seems to slow down. She starts relaxing into her narrow seat. “I thought I’d never make it to the plane. Stupid cab driver. He turned up twenty minutes late and he had the audacity to be angry with me.”

  Ahh, Parisian taxi drivers. The lady has my full sympathy there. “You’ve made it now. Well done,” I congratulate her.

  She nods and proceeds to empty her handbag and fill the back pocket of the seat in front of her: cleaning wipes, hand sanitizers, breathe freshener, a tube of Advil. Maybe I should have come better prepared. I grab my bottle of mineral water and hold it close against my chest while staring blindly at the cabin crew carrying out the safety demonstrations. My seatbelt is fastened, my eyes shut, and the torrent of regrets freezes within me as I feel the engine roaring around me.

  Is that what Ilsa went through as she waited for her plane to take off in Casablanca? With her husband by her side, the husband she didn’t love anymore? Did she have to kill off that heart-deep urge to get off the plane, onto the tarmac and run back to Rick?

  Why hadn’t she? Why the hell hadn’t she? Ilsa didn’t listen to her heart and movie history was forever changed because of it.

  I straighten up and press my palm over the window, my eyes now wide open. Outside, the lights of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle are taunting me. I wonder if the lights I’ll find in L.A. will ever shine as brightly. I eye the crumpled bag at my feet, resist the need to reach for it for about two seconds, and take out my diary.

  I’ve slipped a folded photo between the cover and the first page. I open it with trembling fingers. I developed the picture yesterday while hiding back in my room as I waited for my mother to leave. The photo is a close-up of…me: my naked stomach adorned simply by the fake pearl necklace I brought with me to la Calanque.

  He took the picture and I can’t help being captivated by it. It’s as if I’m looking at myself through his eyes. The curves of my tiny breasts create warm shadows on my stomach, my skin has a smooth gleam about it, my hips merge with my waist in a hollowness that calls for his hands.

  That photo shows me how much he wanted to make love to me, how much…he loved me. Then. The tips of my fingers brush the curves, the lines, the untold and the barely there.

  The plane has taken off when I fold the picture and place it back into the purse. The lady next to me seems to have fallen asleep. But then the air hostess gently shakes her forearm. The old woman flinches and I fear again for her heart. But the hostess whispers something into her ear that makes her face break into a wide smile.

  Reassured, I rub my sore eyes and let my shoulders drop, then shuffle in the seat to find a comfier position. I lean to my right and struggle with the armrest which isn’t wide enough to support my elbow. I lean to my left and wriggle my butt lower toward the edge of the seat to create some space for my legs. It’s marginally better. Emphasis on marginally.

  I draw my arms around me and close my eyes. I summon the rhythmic sounds of the waves into my mental playlist just as I remember them from my time at la calanque.

  I fall asleep.

  Chapter 31

  ZACH

  I’ve been a stalker in the past and a stalker is what I am once again.

  I can’t tear my eyes away from the line of her neck. With the side of her face resting against the window, her neck bends in an awkward angle. All I want to do is reach for her shoulders, wrap my arms around them, and pull her against my chest. And hold her there, her head nestled under my chin. Hold her there for as long as she’ll let me.

  But I don’t move because I’m scared, so scared that every beat of my heart rip
ples up to my brain. So scared that I can’t trust my tongue to untie itself when I have to talk next. Will she let me even open that useless mouth of mine? Maybe she’ll jump down my throat and tear it apart?

  The worst that can happen is no reaction at all. All I should hope for her now is that she stops hurting. I’ve let her go before and vanished from her life. I’ll do that again, but this time there’ll be no way back. I’ll have to sever that twisted, beautiful bond of ours for good.

  But, right now, I’m onboard an Air France flight bound to Los Angeles. I have about eleven hours to state my case. Eleven hours to beg, to plea, to get on my fucking knees in the middle of the narrow aisle if I have to.

  There’s absolutely nothing I won’t do to get her to listen to me. Because there are things I have to say, things I’ve not said yet, that I should have—

  The captain starts talking, first in French then in strongly accented English. I don’t listen to a word of it. For all I know he could very well have announced we were about to land at sea. I’m not listening because, next to me, Lenor has made an almost undetectable movement. She stretches, her knees bumping against the seat in front of her, and she swears. Who’d have known Duchess would ever indulge so frequently in the F-word?

  She hunches forward, rubbing her hand over her knees. She grabs a bottle of mineral water from by her feet and takes a sip from it. Leaning against the back of her seat, she turns sideways and sees me. Her eyes widen like flying saucers. She spits water from her mouth and it soaks her T-shirt.

  “Shit!” she shouts.

  Her gaze flies over me and rolls across the cabin as if she’s desperately seeking something, someone to save her. Finally, she’s zeroing back on me and blinks.

  “Are you for real?”

  “If you’re asking whether I’ve swapped my seat in business with that lovely, if slightly hyperventilating, granny, then, yes, this is for real.”

  She gasps and shakes herself. “How did you know which flight I was on?”

  “Do you need to ask?”

  “Charlie,” she chuckles and that, I think, is better than anything I expected. Like her reporting me to the cabin crew or worse, to the air marshal.

  But her expression sobers up and she starts worrying her lower-lip. “Before you kick my ass, think of the effect on that poor lady if she had to leave the comfort of business class. It’s a long, long trip.”

  The corner of her mouth curls up slightly. “You’re being funny. What happened to your intense, broody self?”

  I shrug. “Humor is my secret coping mechanism.”

  She stares at me without another word and leans back as far as she can against her seat. Her fingers circle around the armrest, their knuckles white. “What do you want, Zachary?”

  “I want to say ‘sorry’.”

  She lifts her chin. “I thought you didn’t believe in saying ‘sorry.’”

  “I didn’t, but I had to change my mind.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I want a chance, a hope with you. For us. Because I always wanted Rick to get on that damned plane and go after his woman, even if it wasn’t the noble, decent thing to do.”

  Her gaze clouds over. She swallows and her jaw tightens. Seconds tick by and the tension between us mounts. But her shoulders drop and the grip of her hands on the armrest loosens.

  “What do you want to say sorry for?” she finally asks.

  “I’m sorry for five years ago, sorry for betraying your love and dragging it through the mud. I’m sorry for now, for not telling you the truth and taking the choice away from you.”

  “Which choice?”

  “The choice to forgive me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I can’t lie to her anymore. “Either I told you everything and ruined your relationship with Louise or I got out of your life. At least that’s how I saw it. Maybe it never really was quite so black and white.” Her eyebrows arch. “I tried to get out of your life, God knows I really tried, but I couldn’t watch you wasting yourself as I once did. So I stepped in, I tried to be just your friend and I kept on with the lies.”

  “Was that all it was? A freaking intervention?” Her voice has risen and I see her looking around to see if anyone is eavesdropping. When she next speaks, her tone is lower pitched. “You saving me from myself?”

  “Partly, yes and partly it’s me holding on to you any way I can. It was weak. It was deceitful, but I just couldn’t let you go again. I needed you to breathe and I needed you to breathe with me.”

  She flinches and I stop breathing. I won’t take another gulp of air until she says something. Anything.

  She does. “I’ve been an idiot.”

  My lungs fill again. “How so?”

  “Ziggy was right... After Josh, I’ve been so obsessed with moving on, I’ve confused forgetting with forgiving. I don’t want to forget what you did to me, what we did to each other. It’s the easy way out.”

  Lenor stretches her arm across the empty seat and laces her fingers with mine. I’ve always loved her hands. They’re long, lithe and distinguished. When they touch me, they make me believe I’m like her. A good heart. A loyal friend. For her, I want to be all that and much more. I can be. I bring her wrist to my mouth and kiss the soft skin on the underside. She doesn’t offer any resistance.

  “Zach, look at me.”

  When our eyes meet, I have to keep myself from leaping forward and kissing her lips insanely. I hold her gaze instead.

  “Zach, I choose to forgive you for what you did, for what you didn’t say, for taking that choice away from me. I forgive you.”

  I’ve never cried, not even when my mother died. But I swear that, right now, the lump welling in my throat is an upcoming sob of relief.

  Her next words cut that emotion short and turn it on its head. “But I’m leaving anyway.”

  “Leaving…” I can’t form a full sentence.

  “I’m leaving for L.A. All my life I’ve let other people’s dreams take precedence over my own. I can’t let that happen again. I’m going to do this course, I’m going to pay for it myself and after that, I’ll look for a job and make my own living without anyone’s help.”

  There’s no sob of relief from me and I must be beaming. “That’s all fine by me.”

  Lenor frowns. “Are you ready for a long-distance relationship?”

  “As long-distance as you want it to be. You can have your own bedroom or if I’m rushing too far ahead, you can do that whole house-sharing-with-strangers nonsense for a while. I’ll get a place of my own and you can stay over whenever you want to use a clean kitchen or not want to argue about what to watch on TV.”

  She takes back ownership of her hands and I can’t stand not feeling her skin anymore. “What about Paris? Le Duke?”

  “Clara and Ziggy will fight for the top position. It should buy me some time until they kill each other.”

  “You can’t do that, Zach. You’ve worked so hard for it. You can’t leave your life behind.”

  Slowly, I lean forward and my hand brushes the back of her head, my fingers bury in her hair. I pull her towards me and kiss her mouth. I don’t force my tongue between her lips. Instead I taste their sweetness. All I want is to circle her waist with my arms and pull her gently onto my lap. Now is not the time for that though, so I end the kiss and she moans. It fills my heart with an irrational amount of pride. Her eyes are now closed.

  “Lenor, look at me,” I repeat the order she addressed to me just moments ago. She stares back at me and I want her to see and hear the truth. The only truth that matters from now on. “Duchess, you are my life and it’s all in front of us.”

  I’m about to get all soppy, cute puppies, butterflies and shit, but I guess I’m saved by the bell.

  “Would you like something to drink, sir?” An airline hostess—but not the one I had spoken to earlier about the seat swap—is standing in the aisle.

  “Champagne, please!” There’s a lot to cel
ebrate after all.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t serve champagne in Economy class. We have wine.”

  Lenor chimes in. “Sparkling water. Two glasses, please.”

  We end up with two miniature cans of some nondescript sparkling water. I pour them into a couple of plastic cups and raise my glass to Lenor.

  The twinkle in her eyes lights up my heart. “Sorry, it’s not quite champagne.”

  I wink back at her. “At least we have some bubbles.”

  She’s about to touch her cup against mine when she freezes. A smile slowly brightens her face with cheekiness. Her gaze challenges mine in a way that I hope will never change and then, with a laugh, she says, “Here’s looking at you, kid!”

  She remembers.

  I clink my glass against hers and I say, at last, what I have always felt, what I have always known, “I love you too, Duchess.”

  And we start our next journey.

  Together.

  Epilogue

  ZACH

  Los Angeles ~ One year later.

  Lenor crashes and I feel her pain in my bones. I hear the rasp as she sucks in her next breath, then she rolls on her side and jumps back on to her feet. She crouches down on her heels and starts circling the prototype of alpha-maleness that is Sam Blackhawk.

  “Don’t just focus on your adversary. Keep your senses open to potential peripheral threats.”

  I roll my eyes, bring the bottle of my Becks to my lips, and take a generous gulp. I lean on the railing that borders the deck of the beach house. The sun is setting over the Pacific and surfers dot the water skimming the waves. One year on and I still feel like fresh off the boat.

  The sound of another thud rises from the beach below me. She’s spread-eagled all over the sand and the grimace twisting her beautiful face always triggers the same reaction in me. I want to dash down the steps to the beach and prove to him again that all his krav-maga bullshit doesn’t stand a chance against a very angry man defending his woman. I’ve learned one or two nasty tricks from bouncers in my time.