The Book of Second Chances

by Katherine Slee

  Please stop saying amazing. Emily closed her eyes, took two long, careful breaths. Please stop speaking altogether.

  “How do we get there?”

  Emily picked up a couple of empty dishes, found them taken from her by Antoine’s maid. Instead, she looked around for something else to busy herself with, to try to remove herself from the conversation. Not that she had been contributing much at all. It would seem as if her mouth, her tongue, had become tied into knots by Tyler’s very presence.

  Phoebe popped a strawberry in her mouth just before Emily snatched her plate away. “I guess we drive.”

  “No.” The word was out of her mouth before she’d even thought about whether or not to reply.

  “But, Emily, honey,” Phoebe went on, resting her hand on Emily’s arm and simpering up at her, “the train would take forever.”

  “I said no!” She slammed the plate back onto the table, watched it break clean in two before falling to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Antoine, then turned and marched to the end of the garden, to where a gate opened up to take her down a sandy path toward the beach.

  Tyler watched her go, seemingly oblivious to Phoebe’s exclamation about how she was only trying to help. He shrugged away her touch, then crouched down and started to pick up the broken pieces of china, not saying a word as Antoine looked over at him, then followed his friend’s granddaughter to the sea.

  “I get it,” Antoine said, walking up behind Emily, who was throwing pebbles into the waves.

  “Get what?”

  “The car. The accident.”

  Emily picked up some more stones, moved them around and around her palm, then sent them all soaring into the sea. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “No. I don’t suppose you do.” He wrapped an arm around her, gave her a kiss, breathed in the scent of lavender shampoo that Emily had been using ever since there was no one else to wear the memory. “So, did Catriona ever tell you just how rich I am?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything about you.”

  “No?” He looked hurt, and Emily felt bad for being the cause.

  “She didn’t tell me anything about any of you. Apart from Charlie.”

  “God, she was terrifying.”

  “Still is. And Gigi, who’s dead.”

  Antoine sighed, then gave a gentle shake of his head and grinned at Emily. “Well, the point is I am rich. Filthy rich. Which means I have the ways and means to get you to Rome without the need for an automobile.” He took out his phone, sent a quick message, then showed her a photograph of a private jet.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Now, I know what you’re going to say. Confined spaces and all that, which is why I’m giving you these, as a parting gift.” He took her hand, dropped into it a small silver tin on which was hand-painted a rose. “Take one about ten minutes before takeoff and it’ll be like you’re floating through the clouds.”

  Emily opened the tin, saw a half dozen little white pills staring back. It made her picture him as some sort of dysfunctional fairy godmother, loading her onto a private plane and stuffing her full of drugs.

  “Now, there is one condition.”

  Definitely a fairy godmother.

  “You have to promise me that you will come back and visit one day, very, very soon, or else I will turn up on your doorstep and never leave.”

  “I’m not sure Norfolk is exactly your kind of scene,” Emily said with half a smile, her mood somehow lifted by a man who she felt as if she had known all her life.

  “I’m old, darling. Boring is probably exactly what I need. Besides, I want to meet Richard, the man with the Dalmatian who made your grandmother believe once more in love.”

  “Richard?”

  “Ah, seems she still had some secrets left to share.”

  “Too many secrets.” The question as to why her grandmother had told Antoine about Richard, but not her, was one that would haunt Emily, at least for a little while. The idea that her grandmother could possibly think she wouldn’t want her to be happy in her final days. That perhaps Emily had somehow diminished her happiness by thinking only of herself, of how she would cope on her own.

  “And not enough time. Speaking of which, we best get you off to the airport.”

  Time, Emily thought, glancing at her watch and feeling a roll of nerves in her stomach as she once again imagined an egg timer, spilling all the remaining hours away. She tried not to think of what would happen if she couldn’t finish the puzzle before it was too late. The cottage would belong to someone new. Another family would dig up the rose beds, paint all the walls, and remove any trace of who had lived there before.

  It had happened when her parents died, strangers moving into what had once been her home, and Emily had always hated the idea of someone else being happy there, jealous that it couldn’t be her.

  “I really don’t think I can.”

  “Nonsense. If you’ve come all this way, one more little hop over the sea isn’t going to be a problem. You are stronger than you think.”

  “It’s not the plane.” Emily looked back toward the house, to where she could see Tyler hovering by the back gate, pretending to be absorbed in his phone, but every so often his head would lift in their direction.

  Antoine followed her gaze. “She paired you up for a reason.”

  He offered Emily his arm, and the two of them walked slowly up the path. Part of her wanted to stay, to hide away in Antoine’s gilded palace and do nothing but paint, to learn all of his secrets and discover more about who her grandmother used to be. But she also knew that hiding was no longer the answer. She just didn’t know if she had it in her to keep going, with him, with Tyler.

  “I suspect he’s not as bad as you fear.” Antoine tucked Emily’s hair behind her ear, exposing her scar.

  “Would you have said the same thing about Noah?”

  “Some people are beyond redemption, my darling.”

  Thousands of feet above the ground, stuck inside a metal container that was hurtling itself through the atmosphere, Emily sat and tried to remember how to breathe. Accepting you have no control is terrifying and the biggest, hardest thing anyone ever has to learn.

  “The bar-headed goose has been heard flying across Mount Makalu, which is over twenty-seven thousand feet above sea level,” Emily whispered the words to herself as her fingers flicked against the arm of her seat.

  “You okay?” Tyler watched the movement of Emily’s lips, leant forward to try to hear what it was she was muttering, but she turned her head away, lifted a tumbler of ice and whiskey to her lips, allowed herself another sip.

  The pills Antoine had given her were slow to take effect. The rapid beat of her heart, the way she couldn’t keep her toes from tapping on the carpeted floor, all of it was making her feel decidedly uneasy.

  Not to mention the very close proximity of the two lovebirds over there, so close that she could see the absence of pores, of any imperfection, on Phoebe’s face. Neither of them had even asked if she could join the search; Phoebe had simply hopped on the plane, and Emily now wished she had found the courage to stand up to Tyler, to say no.

  “One and a half hours,” she told herself, tried to ignore the small jolt of turbulence. There was just over an hour to go.

  “I’m sorry about your parents.”

  Emily looked down to see Phoebe’s hand on her thigh but didn’t quite have the strength to swat it away.

  “I had to explain,” Tyler cleared his throat as he spoke. “You know, about the car.”

  Emily narrowed her eyes, bit back the urge to throw something at him.

  “There are no rules to grieving.” Phoebe’s hand had moved up to give Emily’s arm a gentle squeeze, and she shied away. “When my grandmother died, she requested that no one talk for an entire day, so that we could all think of her in our own way.”

  Tyler stretched out one long limb, then the other, the toe of one of his boots resting against Emily’s foot a
nd she tucked it underneath her, safely out of reach.

  “Really?” he said with a yawn. “My grandad just told us all to go and get pissed at his local.”

  Phoebe punched him lightly on the arm, and he offered up a mock oh! in response. “My point is, when they’re gone, they’re gone, so why does it matter if she doesn’t go through with it? Catriona would never know.”

  “I. Would. Know.” Emily snatched Tyler’s beer from his hand, finished it in two gulps, ignoring the way he was looking at her, like she was some pup that needed to be watched with care.

  He opened up the small refrigerator in between the seats, took out another beer and popped off the lid. Emily tried not to watch his lips as they parted, tried not to watch the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

  “And it’s her home.”

  Shut up, Tyler, Emily screamed at him in her head.

  “Sounds like she could buy one hundred homes with all the money she’s set to inherit.” Phoebe kicked off her sandals, laid her legs across Tyler’s lap. “Catriona Robinson made The Sunday Times Rich List the last five years in a row. And death is always good for sales.”

  “That’s hardly the point, sweetheart,” Tyler said as he rubbed his hand up and down her thigh. “If she doesn’t complete the trial,” he went on, with a look over at Emily, “she doesn’t inherit a penny.”

  Of course, it’s money that you’re concerned with, she thought to herself.

  Emily was aware of how her foot continued to bounce up and down, that her fingers were scratching against her palms and the space in her chest continued to shrink, to make her heart feel as if it were about to explode inside of her.

  Not here. She absolutely could not have a panic attack thousands of feet above the earth.

  “But that’s just awful.” Phoebe sat a little straighter. “What happens to the money if you fail?”

  Emily sat forward, helped herself to another drink. “The bar-headed goose is thought to be the model for the Hamsa of Indian mythology.”

  “Sorry, what?” Phoebe replied.

  “I don’t care,” Emily said, and it was true. She didn’t care if she wasn’t saying the words properly. All she wanted was to drown out the sound, the nearness, of them both. Normally it would be easy, she could simply listen to music, close her eyes and block out the world, but she had forgot to put her Discman in her hand luggage because she was just a little bit nervous about getting in a lump of metal that would then fly through the sky with nothing below to catch them when they fell.

  “She does this when she’s nervous.” Tyler swigged his beer, crossed his legs so that Phoebe had to move her own.

  “The Hamsa is a translation of the Sanskrit word for ‘goose’ or ‘swan,’ or even ‘flamingo.’ Antoine loves flamingos.”

  Tyler put his hand on Emily’s glass. “I really don’t think you should have any more to drink.”

  “Push off,” she slurred, swatting his hand away. “A Hamsa is a mythical or poetical bird with knowledge. I know lots about birds. I know lots and lots about all sorts of things, but I do not have anyone to talk to them about.”

  Her tongue felt like it had doubled in size, and she knew she was lisping because Phoebe was looking at her and her scar in that special, annoyingly sympathetic way people always did when she couldn’t get the words out straight.

  “How many of those pills did she take, Tyler?”

  “Hindus believe that the Hamsa is a supreme spirit, but I can’t quite remember the rest. Oh, one more thing, in yoga it’s the breath of life.”

  “A goose is the breath of life?” Tyler said, and Phoebe tried to stifle a giggle behind her teeny-tiny hand.

  “Oh, what would you know?” Emily threw her arm out in frustration, sluicing some of her drink all over Tyler’s lap. “All you’ve done for the past six years is make rich people richer. Except you screwed up, Daddy won’t bail you out, and now you’re searching for penance by helping the weird bird girl find whatever it is her dead grandmother left behind. Which, by the way,” she said, gesturing again with her drink and emptying a little more all over his jeans, “I do not believe to be her whimsical, no magical, no…whatever. I don’t think it’s a book.”

  “You don’t?” Phoebe looked aghast, as if it were a personal slight to her existence that she wasn’t going to get what she wanted out of this little trip.

  “I most certainly do not,” Emily said and poked out her tongue.

  “Anyone hungry?” Tyler opened up the picnic basket prepared for them by Antoine’s maid.

  Emily couldn’t look at the basket directly because it made her think of how easily a creature could hide inside. A small monster with fangs and green eyes who had already eaten all of their food and was just waiting for some idiot to put their hand inside so he could bite it off.

  “I wish I had a pet,” Emily said as Tyler passed her a prosciutto and Brie sandwich. “A little monster called Samson. I would feed him banana cake.” She grinned across at Tyler. “He’s scared of bananas,”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Are too,” she continued, biting down on her baguette and making appreciative noises as the salty meat hit her taste buds. “I used to chase him around the kitchen, waving them at him. Daffodils too.”

  “I don’t like you when you’re this chatty.”

  “And yet for years, all anyone has ever wanted was to get me to talk.”

  “How ironic.” Phoebe sniffed at her own sandwich, then handed it back.

  “Isn’t it, just? All it took was my entire family to die to open the veritable floodgates.”

  Silence. An awkward shuffle of limbs as Emily continued to eat, her jaw clicking in response.

  “What’s the book about?” Tyler picked up Emily’s glass, moved it away and replaced it with a bottle of water.

  “Which one?” she said as she leant back her head, felt the weight of it sink into the soft leather upholstery. “You are going to have to be more specific, because I do not believe I am in full control of my faculties. Or facilities. One of the two.”

  Tyler stood, opened the overhead locker, and reached inside Emily’s bag. He lay the book open on the table between them to reveal a picture of a girl who worked for her father, picking olives from the nearby groves and crushing them into oil. A child with dreams as big as the heavens, but who didn’t want to disappoint her family by not carrying on their traditions.

  “It’s about her,” Emily said as she ran her fingers over her grandmother’s words. She could see it now; understood that the story was about how Catriona had left behind a whole other life. One that would have meant marriage, children, normality.

  Would such a life have crushed her like the small, green fruit in the story, or would she still have found a way to soar?

  Head bowed, Emily felt the first tears fall. She watched as they dropped onto a plain white envelope she hadn’t yet had a chance to open, thinning the paper and showing up the suggestion of words within.

  “Let me read it to you.” Tyler took the envelope from her, fingers resting on her hand a moment longer.

  Why not? Emily thought as she sank into her seat and allowed her eyes to close. She listened to the soft timbre of his voice as he read her grandmother’s words aloud. He’d already snooped through everything else, what difference would one thing more actually make?

  11 December 1965

  We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

  Oscar Wilde

  More Wilde, I know. I keep coming back to him, to his raw honesty, his “fuck you” attitude to the world. No doubt it’s because of Antoine, because of what happened between us. I probably should have stayed, but I was getting fed up of being tossed aside whenever he found someone more interesting to hang out with. Then apologizing, always apologizing, when he sobered up, said he was sorry, he couldn’t do it without me.

  I always forgave him. Because he is who he is and I owe him so much. If it weren’t for him, I woul
dn’t have been able to write “Imagination.” I’m not saying it’s some kind of literary masterpiece, but it’s a beginning. And I do think it tells a story that many women can relate to, on some level. I mean, we don’t all fall in love with someone like Sebastian, and I’ve never had those kind of feelings about Antoine (although wouldn’t it have all been so much easier if we did fancy each other?).

  Men are just so different to us. They don’t feel in the same way, or even if they do they won’t ever admit it.

  Although there are always exceptions to the rules and Gigi seems to have found one, slap bang in the middle of Italy. A man who is neither handsome, nor suave, but he is gentle and kind and he absolutely adores her. He also makes her laugh like no one else can and she does seem to be so very, very happy.

  Part of me hates her just that little bit more because of it—jealousy is such an ugly emotion—and I think she knows it, which is why she showed me the library. Over two hundred thousand ancient books and little, old me. It’s so peaceful in here, so stuffed full of history, that whenever I come inside, I can feel the beat of my heart slow, just a little.

  I have been working on something new. Gigi has read the opening chapters and told me it was good, but I need to try something more gutsy, more honest. I’m not entirely sure what she means, given how much of its main character is based on myself. I have a feeling she means Noah. But I’m not sure if I trust myself to ever put down on paper all the myriad of feelings I have toward him.

  He sent me a letter. Via Paris and then to Antoine, who kept it from me. Which is what the argument was about. As in the big argument. The kind you don’t know if you can ever come back from argument. I do understand he did it out of love, believed he was saving me from a whole heap more pain, but it wasn’t his decision to make. He was being selfish, thinking only of what he wanted me to do. I’m so fed up of other people deciding who I am, where I should go, what kind of writer I should be. What kind of life I should live and with whom.