by Alix Nichols
I turn to Jeanne. “Forty percent up front, twenty in three weeks, and the remaining forty at the end.”
“Deal,” she says. “When can you begin?”
“I’ll write up the contract tonight so you can sign tomorrow. We’ll start as soon as you’ve emptied the place out.”
On that, everyone shakes hands, René goes to his car, and I climb into Hugo’s minivan.
Have I mentioned how much I appreciate his purchasing this vehicle? A car that’s roomy enough to transport tools, building materials, and debris, yet small enough to park in Paris is a must-have in our line of business. And seeing as I’ve flunked my driving test three times, after which my instructor suggested I stop trying, Hugo’s timely acquisition has helped keep my business afloat.
Oh, to hell with euphemisms!
Can’t I just be honest with myself and admit that Hugo’s reentry into my life a year ago saved my drowning ass? It would appear I can admit it, after all.
There, I just did it.
Chapter 5
While I studied in Paris to become an architect and Hugo worked in his parents’ bakery in Nîmes, we stayed in touch via Facebook. We commented on each other’s pictures, mine taken at parties, his on hiking trips. I “liked” his three girlfriends—successive, not concurrent—and he periodically asked me if I was still single.
I replied each time that I was and that I intended to remain so.
As Hugo’s ass-saving van makes its way through dense Parisian traffic, I reflect on my “digital footprint” and decide it is as far removed from my actuality as fairy tales are from reality. The sum of my posts creates a “painted veil,” a cheerful smokescreen for my sad little soul. I may be feeling suicidal, but then I post a grinning pic from the party I went to last Saturday, and that’s the image Claire, Charles, Diane, and the rest of the world will have of my life.
I often wonder if Hugo, too, buys my put-on hedonism.
When we halt in front of my apartment block in the 14th arrondissement, there’s a vacant spot big enough for a van right across the street.
Miracles do happen.
Hugo parks the van, glancing at me as if to say, “I have to, given how improbable this was.”
“Want to come upstairs for a drink?” I ask.
It’s OK. Diane should be home, editing her digital photos and uploading them to various image banks.
“Mercé,” he says in Provençal.
He doesn’t really speak it—hardly anyone in Provence does these days—but he enjoys peppering his speech with southern words.
As I open the door, Diane cries out from the living room, “I’m heating up a pizza for dinner!”
Hugo halts on the doorstep, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Come on in,” I say.
“I don’t want to intrude on your pizza night.”
“It’s pizza night almost every night,” I say. “And we never finish it. Your help would be much appreciated.”
He nods and steps in.
Diane and Hugo give each other a hug and launch into reminiscing about our school days. Diane being only a year younger than Hugo and me, the three of us have spent a lot of recess time together.
We finish the pizza and then attack the ice-cream tub.
Diane is in good form, and the evening turns out to be so much fun that I wish I hadn’t told Fabien to meet me later tonight. Especially since our meeting won’t be a pleasant one.
Breakups never are.
“Your orthodontist did a great job with your braces,” Diane says to Hugo with an appreciative nod.
“Thank you.” The corners of his lips curl up. “You sound like a dentist.”
Diane rolls her eyes. “I could’ve been one. But luckily for me, and for everyone who’ll ever need a filling, I came to my senses after a year in med school.”
“I see.” He gives her a sympathetic look. “What made you see the light?”
She shrugs. “Boredom, I guess. It was OK in the beginning until one day, I admitted to myself I really didn’t want to spend eight hours a day, five days a week for forty-five years sticking my fingers in people’s mouths. It was Mom and Dad’s dream, not mine.”
“You’re a photographer now, aren’t you?” Hugo asks.
Diane nods.
“She’s very talented,” I say. “The problem is it’s hard to make a living as a photographer, no matter how talented you are.”
Diane clasps her hands in a prayer position. “Chloe, please! I know you worry about me but, really, you shouldn’t.”
“I don’t worry—” I begin.
She waves off my protest. “I’ll do more than art photography, I promise. I’ll immortalize weddings, baptisms, and all other wonderful celebrations that put butter on a photographer’s baguette. And I won’t abuse your hospitality for much longer.”
“You can stay as long as you want,” I say. “And you know it.”
“How are Claire and Charles doing?” Hugo asks, thankfully changing the topic.
“Mom’s OK,” Diane says. “Dad had a stroke six months ago.”
“Damn!” Hugo frowns. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Is he OK?”
By “anyone” he means me, of course.
He looks genuinely upset, even if he hasn’t seen Charles in years.
“Sort of,” Diane says. “Considering. He still can’t move his right arm, and the doctors aren’t sure he ever will.” She turns to me. “You should visit him again sometime soon. You know how much he cares for you.”
I do.
Which is precisely why I intend to stay away from Marseilles, where he’s settled now, for as long as I can. Charles and I talk on the phone from time to time. Diane, who worships her dad, keeps me up to date on every aspect of his slow recovery.
Poor Charles!
First the bankruptcy, then the divorce—and now this.
I can’t begin to imagine what it feels like to be in his shoes. A successful businessman, a family man and a pillar of the local community for two decades, he’s now back at square one. Uprooted, handicapped, and alone.
And it’s my fault.
“What the f—” Diane blurts before censoring herself. “Why in hell is it your fault?”
Crap.
I must’ve said it out loud.
“I didn’t mean it literally,” I say quickly. “It’s just a manner of speaking.”
“Ah.” Diane slowly tilts her head up. “OK, then. Because I know exactly whose fault it is, and I’m going to make him pay.”
I squint at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” She stands and flashes me a cursory smile. “A manner of speaking, as you said.”
I shake my head. Diane is such a child! At twenty-four, she’s still as reckless and immature as she was at fourteen. But she’s not fourteen anymore. She holds official documents certifying that she’s entitled to make a mess of her life.
“Did you say you live in the 20th?” she asks Hugo. “I’m headed in that direction. Will you give me a lift?”
He glances at me with an unspoken question in his eyes.
I shake my head.
Sorry, my friend, but our evening together ends now.
“I’ve got some urgent stuff to take care of before tomorrow,” I say, not bothering to sound apologetic.
He says OK and leaves with Diane.
Ten minutes later, I grab my purse and rush out into the dusk.
Chapter 6
This morning I’m very pleased with myself—and for a good reason.
Two, actually.
I’m relieved I ended my affair with Fabien, who was becoming more trouble than he was worth. As expected, the breakup was ugly. The things he called me before I left the bar were even uglier. But it’s done now, and we’ll both get over it in no time.
The second reason I’m pleased is stacked in cardboard boxes in front of me. I’ve found the perfect floor tiles. They’re hard wearing, anti-slip, and gorgeous. When laid end
-to-end, they form a fake 3-D pattern of cubes in black, gray, and white, inspired by Escher’s optical illusion art.
I crouch in the center of the room and set a dozen tiles out on the floor. They’re truly a thing of beauty. Unable to peel my eyes off them, I stare for a long moment as if mesmerized.
“Have you lost something?” Jeanne asks. “I can help you look for it.”
I turn toward her voice.
She’s a few steps behind me, looking down with concern.
“Leave her alone,” Hugo says. “Can’t you see ze boss is in the middle of something?”
I hate it when he calls me that.
“Of what?” Jeanne asks.
“A brisk nirvana,” he replies as I stand up.
Jeanne gives her brother a quizzical look.
“Also known as a beauty appreciation moment,” he explains. “But don’t worry, she won’t work herself up into a full-blown trance over these tiles.”
“Oh, good.” Jeanne’s lips quirk with amusement.
Hugo sucks on his teeth. “Mind you… I won’t put money on it.”
“ ‘Beauty appreciation moment,’ huh?” I grin at him. “Haven’t heard that one since high school.”
He grins back, his eyes full of warmth that envelops me snugly like a duvet on a winter night.
“I see,” Jeanne says. Her gaze travels from Hugo to me, and then a funny expression flashes in her eyes as though she just realized something.
I point at the tiles. “What do you think?”
“I love them,” she says without hesitation.
“Your headwaiter is of the same opinion,” Hugo says, looking pleased. “Even your gloomy chef muttered something that sounded like ‘nice’ when he stopped by earlier.”
“Hallelujah.” Jeanne hands me the bathroom catalog I gave her last night. “I’ve marked what I like.”
She takes off shortly afterward, leaving Hugo, René, and me to our work.
Come to think of it, René is the only person who didn’t say anything positive about the floor tiles. But then René isn’t a positive sort of guy.
“Murphy’s Law,” he declares, emerging from the kitchen we gutted yesterday.
I give him a half smile. “You’re referring to what, exactly?”
“The damn cold wave from Greenland. It had to reach Paris the day we dismantled the heating system.”
“Ah, that.”
He exhales a puff of condensation to substantiate his statement.
“Get another fleece,” Hugo says, hauling a huge bag of debris past us.
He’s stripped to his T-shirt, panting and a little flushed. It certainly doesn’t look like he gives a hoot about the Greenlandic cold wave.
I take in his muscular arms, linger on his broad chest and shoulders, and feast my eyes on his strong neck. The reason why this Hercules of a man doesn’t look intimidating, even to a stranger, is his open face framed by thick, rusty-brown hair.
It is my deep conviction that the Greenlandic cold wave will freeze hell over before Hugo Bonnet uses that overflowing strength of his to intentionally hurt another person.
I ogle his frame a little longer. When he’s out the main door, I turn away in shame, reminding myself he’s not my type. Hugo is too much of a Thor—too hefty and too… good. I’m Team Loki. Bad boys are better suited for the kind of relationships I do. Skinny, nervous men with sunken cheeks and sleek hair are my type.
Men like Fabien.
Not Hugo.
Repeat after me, Chloe: Hugo’s not my type. Men like Fabien are my type.
Good.
Now, where were we? Oh right, the cold.
I turn to René. “Jeanne’s fetching her portable heater.”
“Tell her not to bother.” He breathes out another puff and watches it expand into a tiny cloud. “It won’t make a difference.”
“Yes it will.”
René is right, of course, considering the size of this place and the temperature outside. But I won’t admit it.
“Besides,” I say, “the cold wave won’t last. We’re still in October.”
Hugo returns from his van and stops next to us. “We’re in for at least a week of this weather. I saw the forecast last night.”
I bunch my eyebrows. “Et tu, Brute?”
“What?” He smiles. “It’s always better to be prepared.”
My stomach knots at those words, and nausea rises to my throat.
He shouldn’t have said that.
I reach for my tote bag sitting on a lone chair by the wall and dig out a pack of cigarettes.
Hugo frowns. “I thought you’d quit.”
I arch an eyebrow at him.
When we were seventeen, a comment like that would have earned him a nasty quip. But now I just grab my jacket and march out.
Halfway through my cancer stick, I admit to myself that coming out for a smoke was a dumb idea. The cig may help a bit with the queasiness but it’s useless as a repellent for the memories crowding my head.
My foster brother, Lionel, had used the same phrase, “It’s always better to be prepared,” as his life motto. He’d say it for both important and unimportant things, jokingly and seriously, when it was warranted and when it wasn’t.
All the freaking time.
“It’s always better to be prepared,” he’d declare when he insisted I pack a Swiss Army knife for the many hiking trips Claire and Charles took us on. He’d repeat those words when he taught me how to swim and how to kick a man where it hurts most. A determined expression on his face, he’d utter them when he quizzed me before an exam.
That phrase also prefaced the heads-up he gave me about his illness, explaining that it might finish him off any time over the next ten years.
Lionel died at twenty-two, and I knew I was to blame for it.
True, he’d already had his cystic fibrosis when I entered his life. He’d had it since birth. But I’m sure he would’ve lived into his mid-thirties, like half the patients do. Maybe even into his forties, buying him enough time to achieve something and leave a legacy. Enough time to enjoy a woman’s love and perhaps even the love of a child. But he wasn’t given that extra time.
Because of me.
A few months after Lionel’s passing, I graduated high school and moved to Paris. It wasn’t an escape, regardless of what Diane said on several occasions. Quite the contrary. It was an attempt to limit the damage.
I left Nîmes seven years ago to protect the headstrong brat and her parents from my Midas touch.
Unless…
It was to protect myself from the frostbite of their sorrow.
I rub my forehead. Could Diane be on to something? Is it possible that I ran from the Petit family because I couldn’t handle their grief? Was it a flight just as much as it was a rescue?
The sound of someone approaching breaks me from my thoughts.
Hugo steps out and gives me an apologetic look. Looks like he’s figured out why I’m acting weird.
“I’ll be there in a sec.” I show him what’s left of the cigarette.
“There’s no rush, boss,” he says.
“Stop calling me boss.”
“What’s wrong with that? You are my boss right now.”
“Not really, no. We’re business partners.”
His eyes crinkle with amusement. “You want me to call you partner?”
I roll my eyes.
“I guess not.” The corners of his lips turn up. “Or would you rather I called you pichune like I used to in high school?”
Pichune. The southern word for “little one.”
It’s true, he did call me that for a while.
And I loved it.
“That’s a big leap from boss,” I say, arching an eyebrow.
“You’re right.” He nods solemnly. A little too solemnly. “It’s too familiar. We are professionals.”
I try not to smile.
“I think I’ll stick to boss,” he says. “It’s short and clear. Besides, it’s fu
nny.”
“Funny how?”
“Can’t you see it?”
I shake my head.
He points to himself. “I’m Hugo.” A pause follows, during which he screws up his face as if to say, Come on! You must see it.
But the penny won’t drop.
“I’m Hugo,” he repeats, finally taking pity on me. “You’re Boss. Together, we’re—”
“Oh, please!” I give him the hardest stare I’m capable of right now. “This is dumber than the dumb jokes you made in Madame Durand’s class.”
He smiles. “I know, but it’s funny.”
“No, it isn’t,” I say, knitting my eyebrows.
It really isn’t.
If only said eyebrows would agree and knit with a semblance of conviction!
“You’re right,” Hugo says. “It was a dumb joke.”
“Hmm.” I put out the cigarette in the outdoor ashtray.
“It won’t happen again,”—he presses his lips together, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes—“boss.”
He titters, quickly closes his mouth, and swallows. Then he tilts his head back and looks skyward, visibly struggling before cracking up in earnest.
Jesus Christ. The man doesn’t need much to be entertained, does he?
I begin to roll my eyes, but my traitorous mouth turns out to be even less cooperative than my eyebrows. It spreads into a toothy grin, and I emit a cackling noise that sounds very much like laughter.
René sticks his head out. “Which of the walls is to serve as a picture gallery?”
“The long one in the front room. Let me show you.” I turn to go inside when I catch a glimpse in my peripheral vision of someone familiar standing by the kiosk on the other side of the street.
Fabien. What the hell? I spin around to take a better look, but there’s no one by the kiosk.
Great.
I’m having hallucinations now, paired with a delusion of being followed. This is ridiculous. It would imply I’m worried about my safety and afraid of getting hurt.
But I’m not.
I have no reason to be.
I’m the Devil’s spawn, remember?
Chapter 7
“Take a few more.” Hugo nudges the sushi tray toward me. “You don’t eat enough.”