The Right Time

by Danielle Steel

  The decision was harder than she thought it would be, and after many sleepless nights, remembering her time there with her father, she decided to sell it, and called Bill to tell him. He said he thought it was the right decision, and would contact the tenants and get back to her with their offer, which he did a week later. It was a decent offer that took into account the new roof it needed, and some updates and repairs, and they wanted to put in air conditioning, which she and her father didn’t have. She accepted the offer without negotiating, and they were delighted. She agreed to a thirty-day closing, and in September, the house would no longer be hers. The thought of it was bittersweet, but it seemed right.

  The day after she accepted the offer, she got a letter from Brigid with startling news. She was getting married at the end of August to the math teacher she had been dating for six months. His name was Patrick Dylan, and Brigid said she had never been happier in her life. Alex was thrilled for her, and Brigid said that Mother MaryMeg and the sisters were coming to the wedding. The archdiocese had released her from her vows.

  She invited Alex to the wedding, which was going to be very small and intimate, at their parish church, with the reception afterward at the home of Patrick’s parents in a suburb of Boston, and his sisters were cooking the wedding lunch. But she said she understood if Alex couldn’t be there. It was short notice and a long way to come for a wedding, from London, and Alex had no plans to go home for now. She thought about it all day. She didn’t want to go back to Boston yet, but there was no way she could miss Brigid’s wedding. It was four weeks away, and she could go home for a week and catch up with everyone there, and then come back to Europe for a while.

  Alex sent Brigid an email to tell her she was coming, and then called Mother MaryMeg. She had been sure Alex would come home for the wedding since Brigid was her closest friend. Alex told her she would be in Boston for a week and all the nuns were thrilled when they heard. They were all going to Brigid’s wedding.

  —

  Alex flew into Boston five days before the wedding so she’d have time to visit with everyone. The nuns were almost as excited to see her as they were about the wedding, and they had a big celebratory dinner for Alex the night she came home. She was ecstatic to see them and it made her realize how much she’d missed them and how long she’d been gone. But she liked her life in London too, and she wasn’t ready to move back. She had her apartment in Kensington till December if she wanted it, and Sister Xavier and Sister Tommy were disappointed to hear that she was going back so soon.

  She managed to have lunch with Bert before she got busy helping Brigid with the wedding. And she dressed her friend on the big day. Brigid had found a beautiful vintage gown in a secondhand shop and it fit her perfectly. She looked at Alex with such peace and joy, she was glowing, and she was exquisite as Alex helped her put her veil on, and all the nuns and Alex cried as they watched her walk down the aisle in the small church. It had been a long, arduous journey for her, and Alex was happy she’d come to be there with her. Brigid had no family of her own, except the nuns and Patrick’s big boisterous family. And Alex suspected they would be having babies soon. At thirty-six and thirty-eight, they didn’t have time to waste.

  The reception was noisy and fun. One of Patrick’s brothers played in a band and they came. Everyone danced, the food was plentiful and good, the nuns were thrilled for her, and Patrick and Brigid looked like the two happiest people on earth, and Alex was ecstatic for them. She went back to the convent with the nuns after the bridal couple left for a two-day honeymoon at an inn on Long Island owned by someone they knew.

  Alex stayed for three days after the wedding and then, sad to leave the nuns again, she flew back to London. She was thinking of returning to Boston for good in time for Christmas, but Mother MaryMeg told her not to come home sooner than she wanted to. She was young and free and this time would never come again. As the plane touched down at Heathrow, she was glad she had gone to Brigid’s wedding. It gave one hope to see two people so much in love.

  The weather was terrible in London when Alex went back. It was gray, rainy, and gloomy, and Alex decided to go to Italy for a week, to Portofino, Sorrento, and all the way south to Capri. She had the money and the time. She asked Fiona to join her, but she couldn’t get the time off work, so Alex went alone. She was away for ten days, and had a good time. It felt odd to be in romantic places on her own, and lonely at times. But she visited all the touristic places, had brought a stack of books to read, and swam and slept a lot. And then she went back to London, to start working on an outline for a new book.

  She spent the fall holed up in her apartment working on it, and had dinner with Fiona from time to time, but otherwise she saw no one and never went out. Fiona told her Ivan was dating two girls at work, and lying to both of them, and there would be a major explosion soon, since one of them had a fiery temper and was a bitch, according to Fiona.

  “Am I glad I got out of that,” Alex said with a grin.

  “No regrets? He was hot. He still is.”

  “None,” Alex answered without hesitating for an instant.

  “Anyone else?”

  “I haven’t been out of the house, except to see you,” Alex said honestly.

  “That’s not healthy,” Fiona scolded her. “What do you do here all the time?”

  “I read…write letters…” She didn’t know how to explain why she stayed home for weeks on end, and couldn’t tell Fiona her secret either.

  “You’re too young to be a recluse.” She wasn’t. She was a writer, which was different. But no one knew. She had a whole hidden life, which filled her nights and days, to the exclusion of all else. “You’ll never meet a man if you stay home all the time,” Fiona said. But she had a suggestion. She and half a dozen other women she knew were going on a ski trip to France over Christmas. It was organized by a social club for singles that they belonged to, the fees were low, and outsiders were welcome. “Do you want to come?”

  “I’m not much of a skier.” She had gone twice in college, but hadn’t had spare time then either, to pursue sports, hobbies, or men. She was always writing. She had given up a lot, to write five books, three of them bestsellers, by the age of twenty-three. But the trip sounded like fun to her, and she liked Fiona. She had broken up with another boyfriend recently, and was looking to meet someone new. Men never lasted long with her, but the supply appeared to be plentiful, she always managed to come up with new dates.

  “None of us are good skiers either,” Fiona reassured her. “The trip is about more than snow and slopes. There are hot guys in that club and they bring friends. Maybe you’ll meet someone. And not a loser like Ivan.” His reputation at work had gotten worse with his recent escapades. He hadn’t seemed as bad a year before, and had had a certain mystique. Now he was just an obvious cheater. “He’s a sleaze,” Fiona dismissed him with a sour expression, and Alex didn’t disagree. She felt stupid for having dated him, and even more so for having lost her virginity to him. Their relationship had been all about sex and not love, despite her illusions at the time about what it might turn into. It never did. He didn’t have it in him.

  “So will you come?” Fiona pressed her about the ski trip. “They fill up pretty fast.” It was ten days in the French Alps, over Christmas and New Year, at bargain rates. It was hard to beat, except that she had said she might be back in Boston by Christmas and didn’t want to disappoint the nuns.

  “Okay,” Alex said with a grin, and a pang of guilt.

  “Thank God. If you don’t get out soon, your only date will be Father Christmas when he comes down your chimney, and he’s too old for you.” Alex laughed at her, and was excited about the trip.

  She hated to tell the nuns that she wasn’t going home for the holidays again, but she called and explained why, and they were sad but said they understood. The ski trip sounded great to them too.

  She renewed her apartment lease for another six months when it was offered to her, and extended her visa.
She was hoping to stay in London until June. By then it would be two years since she left Boston. The time just seemed to slip by, and she had peace and quiet to write here.

  She shipped all her presents to the nuns in early December, and rented ski equipment for her trip.

  The new book she had started was going well, but she had promised herself she would put it aside and leave it for ten days when she went skiing. She had a hard time doing that. Sometimes she even got up in the middle of the night to go back to work. There was no one to object and tell her not to, which was the best part of being single and not dating. She could do whatever she wanted. She couldn’t imagine how she would give that up one day, if she met a man she cared about. Her freedom was so important to her now, to pursue her writing however and whenever she wanted to. She had total control over her own time, and she loved it. And writing was still the love of her life, more than any man.

  —

  Alex left with Fiona and her friends on the trip to the Trois Vallées region in the French Alps, near Courchevel, on the twenty-second of December, and the group was as lively and fun-loving as Fiona had promised. There was a lot of drinking involved, flirting, and random sex, but it was all easygoing and no one felt compelled to do what they didn’t want. A number of the men were attracted to Alex at first, but picked up on a vibe that said she wasn’t interested, and Fiona was disappointed. She wanted Alex to meet a great guy, as much as she wanted one for herself, but Alex didn’t cooperate. She went to bed early almost every night, except New Year’s Eve, and she scribbled for hours in a notebook in her room. She was incorrigible, and she knew it.

  But on the bus on the way back, she told Fiona she had had a great time, and meant it. And Fiona had met a man she really liked on the trip. Clive was an accountant and worked for a solicitor’s firm. He had a good job, he was great looking and a good skier, and he appeared to be crazy about her. She had slept with him on New Year’s Eve, and he wanted to take her out as soon as they got back to London. He seemed promising, and Alex was happy for her.

  When she got home, she had had a letter from Brigid that was so excited it was almost incoherent. She was three months pregnant and the baby was due in June. It had happened even faster than they’d hoped, not even a month after their wedding, without even trying. She had been married for four months by then. Fast work. She would be thirty-seven when the baby was born. And she said they were hoping for a boy, or Patrick’s father would be bitterly disappointed. Alex was thrilled for her friends. Brigid was married and having a baby. All her dreams had come true. Fiona had met a new man. And she had her books. Alex didn’t feel cheated at all not to have a man in her life. She had what she wanted, the writing career she had dreamed of, beyond her wildest dreams. It seemed like a perfect way to start the new year.

  Chapter 14

  Alex finished her new book at the beginning of April, and sent it off to Bert to edit. And then she decided to take a trip to visit some cities she hadn’t gotten to yet and wanted to see before she went home in June.

  She went to Madrid and Barcelona, Munich and Berlin, and Prague because she had heard the city was so beautiful, and she wasn’t disappointed. She had become an expert at traveling alone by then. She stayed in good hotels because she could afford them with the money she was making from her writing. She ate early in respectable, moderate restaurants where she felt safe, or ordered room service, and in each city, she saw all the museums, churches, and tourist attractions she had planned to. And her last stop was Paris, because she wanted to go back one more time before she left Europe.

  She spent May packing and buying small gifts for the nuns, and had dinner with Fiona several times, with her new boyfriend. She was still seeing Clive, the accountant she had met on the ski trip, and it was starting to look serious. They were both twenty-seven and he couldn’t do enough for her. She was in love, they both were.

  Alex was boxing up some of her papers one night when Rose called her. It was three in the afternoon in New York, and eight at night in London, and Alex was feeling a little wistful about leaving. And although she hadn’t met the man of her dreams, which hadn’t been high on her agenda anyway, she was sad to be leaving London, and her travels around Europe. Her last trip had been the best one so far.

  “We’ve had a very interesting offer today,” she said to Alex on the phone, “from a very important production company in L.A. They want to buy Darkness for a movie.” It was her second book and first big bestseller, and one of her most popular titles. “They already have a screenwriter, and they have a number of stars in mind that they’re negotiating with. The director is a big name. This could be a fabulous opportunity for you, and some nice money. And it never hurts the books. There’s only one hitch, but I think we can work it out.”

  “What’s that?” Alex was shocked as she listened. She hadn’t thought a lot about movies of her work, she was too busy writing the books.

  “They want Alexander Green on set, to correct the scripts and work with the screenwriter and keep the movie true to the book, or as close as possible.”

  “Well, that’s the end of that. I can’t do that,” Alex said, disappointed for a minute.

  “I’ve been thinking about it all day. Green is a famous recluse by now. We could set you up as his assistant, say he’s in a house somewhere in L.A., and you could go back and forth with the scripts, make the corrections at night, and bring them back fresh from the pen of the famously invisible author in the morning. It’s convoluted but it could work, if you’re willing to sit in L.A. on a movie set for four or five months. It’s all going to be shot in a studio and on locations in L.A.”

  “Even the African scenes?” There were several jungle scenes in the book.

  “Apparently. They don’t want to spend the money to go on location in Africa, and have their stars getting eaten by a boa constrictor.” She laughed as Alex listened. “What do you think? Should I pursue it or turn them down?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to get found out and blow everything else. We’ve put too much into keeping it secret. I don’t want to risk someone discovering the truth.”

  “Let me talk to the producer and get a feel for it. If they’re too pushy, we can turn them down. If they want Alexander Green badly enough, they’ll cooperate with us on our terms. I won’t risk exposing you, Alex, I promise.” Rose had been Alex’s strongest ally, and Alex loved and admired her. She was a fantastic woman, and had become a great friend. She had handled the publishers flawlessly when they told them about her, so she trusted her to deal with the movie people as well. “I’ll keep you posted. When are you coming back?”

  “In ten days.”

  “I probably won’t know anything by then, but we should hear pretty soon after that. They’ve already got the money for it in the bank, are close to signing the actors, and they want to start shooting in September, if they get the stars they want. So we’ll probably know in June, or beginning of July at the latest.” Alex thanked her and they hung up, and she spent the next few days in a daze, wondering if she should do it, and if it would work out. It sounded dangerous to her, in terms of keeping her identity secret, but very exciting. And she hadn’t heard from Rose by the time she left.

  She had dinner with Fiona on her last night. Her bags were packed, her briefcase was crammed full, and she had a tote bag with proofs to read on the plane. And she was carrying her latest manuscript too. The apartment was neat, and she was sadder than ever to be leaving London.

  She had a nice dinner with Fiona and Clive at the Shed at Notting Hill Gate, and the two young women cried when they left each other, promising to write and stay in touch. Fiona told her to go back to Boston and find a boyfriend before she turned into an old maid, which made Alex laugh through her tears. She didn’t say anything to her about the possible movie deal because she couldn’t. She could tell Brigid about it when she saw her, and the nuns, and Bert of course, but no one else. Her real life was totally unknown to Fiona, who thought that she
lived on the modest inheritance her father had left her, didn’t have to work, and was a very lucky girl. That night at dinner, Clive hinted that they might be getting married, and Alex would have to come back for the wedding. He thought Alex was a great girl, even if she was a little quiet, and shy, but pretty and bright and a nice person. Fiona had told him what she knew of her story, and he said that probably living with nuns in a convent for seven years had made her act like one, and all she needed was for the right man to come along. Fiona thought so too.

  —

  Alex checked her bags at Heathrow the next day, carried her overstuffed hand luggage, and boarded the plane to Boston, feeling like she was leaving home again, but excited to see the nuns too. The two years in Europe after college had been the beginning of her adult life, although she hadn’t changed physically. She still looked years younger than she was and could have passed for a teenager in ballet flats and jeans at twenty-four.

  She didn’t expect it, but Sister Xavier and Sister Tommy were at the airport to meet her, as a surprise when she came through customs. They held her tight when they hugged her and both nuns cried and so did Alex. She’d seen them at Brigid’s wedding ten months earlier, but that was a long time too.