by Lucy Hepburn
“I’m not doing that!” Reggie argued. “I’m just coming back to put things right. Plead with you if I have to. Tell you how sorry I am and present my butt for kicking.”
Molly smiled. “There’s a whole lot of putting right to do, though, isn’t there? A whole lot of butt to be kicked.”
“I know. But I hope you’ll let me try.”
“Job not work out, then?”
There was a slight pause, and when he replied it sounded as though he was putting on his best impression of his normal voice.
“Oh, the job’s great, but…”
“Truth time,” Molly whispered.
“Okay, truth time. I want both. I want this and I want you. This will still be here in a week, a month, whatever; the guys here are keeping a slot for me. But you won’t wait, will you?”
Molly could feel her skin prickling with embarrassment.
“Not after me bailing out on you in Paris. You may not think it now but you could find someone else at any moment—some jerk friend of Francesco’s could be waiting to pounce at Caitlin’s wedding.”
“Unlikely,” Molly said noncommittally, suddenly feeling very, very tired. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him that, in a manner of speaking, someone had ‘pounced’ already. And that she’d been more than happy to be pounced upon.
“Nothing sexier than a chick who’s acting not interested,” Reggie said, though Molly suspected he was talking more for his own benefit than for hers.
“So, you’re not coming back for good, then?”
“You’re kidding!” Reggie sounded incredulous. “Come on, Mol, we’ve talked for years about heading off and hitting the big time!”
“You’ve talked, and I’ve listened.”
He lowered his voice. “This is where it’s at, baby!”
“For you, sure, but where does that leave me?”
“Right by my side. I need you, Molly. You’re the one vital thing I forgot to pack. It’s like, as soon as the plane took off from Paris two days ago, I have literally not had my feet on the ground since. I need you to keep me grounded.”
She looked around at the guests checking in. She didn’t feel grounded. What about her? “Thanks,” she said dully.
“And you’re gorgeous, and I miss your smile.”
“Better,” she admitted.
“So keep a piece of wedding cake for me? Save the last dance?”
“I’m confused,” Molly said after a pause. “How long are you coming back for exactly?”
“Long as it takes to persuade you to come to L.A. with me.”
Molly took a deep breath. This was all too much information to be taking in in a hotel reception in Bologna.
“I’ve got a plan,” said Reggie on a roll. “I was going to wait till I saw you…”
“Go on,” Molly urged, getting to her feet.
“We get ourselves a place, and you set yourself up as a designer. With the contacts I’ll be making on the celebrity circuit, you’ll soon be designing Oscar dresses for the hottest movie stars on the planet!”
“Reggie, be serious!”
“I am serious, babe! They love the English out here!”
“They do?” Despite her cagey reply, she knew he was right. Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, and anything worn by Kate Middleton…
“You need to have more confidence in your abilities; you need a bit of good old American ‘can-do’ attitude! You’ll never make it big back home!”
“Thanks,” she said.
“Come on, that’s not how I meant it—this is why I wanted to discuss it face to face. What I mean is, you’ll get further, faster, with me in LA.”
And that was it, wasn’t it? He was presenting his plan to her like it was the answer to all her problems. What he didn’t realize was that she didn’t think she had any problems.
“Oh, Reggie.” Molly sat back down again, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t want to get anywhere fast. I’m serious about this and want to take my time.”
“But I’ve seen your stuff—it’s amazing!”
“And it could be so much more—I’ve got so much more, technically, to learn first.”
“What’s technical about wrapping a bit of silk round Scarlett Johansson?”
They used to joke like this. Reggie would dig her in the ribs and tell her there were ten-year-old girls in the Philippines already doing the sort of work she was trying to learn to do. Molly would tell him she took better pictures on her phone than he took on all of his expensive camera equipment put together. Back in their previous, ordinary lives.
“Okay,” he sighed. “We take it slow. You get out here, get yourself a job as a gopher with one of the celebrity designers, and take it from there.” He cleared his throat. “Then, I thought, that maybe we should get married.”
So that’s why he’d told the receptionist he was her fiancé.
Molly shook her head again. He didn’t get it. “This is your dream, Reggie. It’s not mine.”
“Thought you wanted to be rich and successful?”
She could hear the irritation in his voice. It made her sad, but it also underlined the fact that her mind was made up.
“I want to make a living, sure. And I want success. But not in the same way you do. I want to design beautiful dresses. Clever, quality garments made from sustainable, perfect fabric—every piece a work of art in its own right. I’m not interested in fame. I’m not interested in celebrities. I want quality and longevity, I want perfection…and Reggie, I’ve said all that to you many times before and still you’re bringing it all down to fame and fortune.”
He said nothing. Molly could hear the bing-bong from a tannoy somewhere behind him, followed by a final call for some flight or other.
“You still there?” she whispered.
“Still here,” he replied.
“Reggie?”
A sigh. “Yes?”
She could hear acceptance in his voice already. And with it came the realization. “You did the right thing in Paris.”
As soon as she said it, she felt a strange sensation of finality. And, to her surprise, relief.
“Ah, Molly…”
“We want different things, Reggie.”
“But we could try to make it work…” It sounded like his last throw of the dice, and it didn’t seem to have much conviction behind it.
“No, we couldn’t. Go return your ticket. Stay where you are and knock ‘em dead with your wonderful work.”
She could hear him gulp down the phone. “But I miss you.” His voice had changed.
Despite herself, she smiled. “I miss you too,” she told him. “Just…just keep in touch with me, will you? Tell me all your successes, which magazines to buy…how you’re doing. That’s what hurt the most in Paris, not knowing if I’d hear from you again.”
“I know,” he said after a while.
“I’m right, Reggie. Go chase your dream. I’m going to stay and chase mine.”
“Guess you’re right.”
“I believe I am.”
“I’m going to miss you, Mol.”
“I’m…” she hesitated. “I’m going to miss you too.”
“Tell Caitlin all the things I would’ve told her if I’d been there,” he said, his voice cracking.
“I will. Bye Reggie. And good luck, okay? You are a wonderful photographer and a great guy.”
“You too,” he gulped and hung up.
Molly smiled through her tears. She knew what he meant. Reggie was great, but he was gone. And only now that she had said goodbye to him did she know that was the way it should be.
The receptionist nodded disapprovingly at her as she called out her thanks and replaced the phone. She walked back through to the bar where the Sambuca bottle still sat on the counter, the glasses replaced with clean ones.
It was impossible to know how she felt. Perhaps she was a little drunk, her senses dulled by alcohol, str
ess, and exhaustion. She looked around the empty bar and suddenly felt overwhelmed with the urge to sleep.
After all, she thought, as she turned and headed for the stairs Simon had disappeared up only a matter of minutes ago, it’s not every day you lose not one, but two men in your life.
She’d need a lot more than a good night’s sleep to fix that… but it was a start.
Chapter Twenty
Hours until wedding: 7
Kilometers to wedding: 159
Her mum wasn’t picking up her phone.
Molly yawned, stretched, and checked her watch again. How could she have slept so soundly after the night she’d just had?
She dialed her mother’s room again and flopped back onto her pillow as she waited for her to pick up. She had to know to be ready in under an hour if they were to get to Venice in reasonable time for Pascal to fit the dress on Caitlin before her 3 p.m. wedding.
Molly had grown fond of Pascal over the past two days. His old-fashioned politeness, along with his sweet insecurities had charmed her and taught her that first impressions were precisely that. A starting point.
Still no reply from her mum. She was probably in the bath.
The events of the night before were beginning to come back to her in an unwelcome rush. Reggie, Simon, Simon, Reggie…
Reggie first. She was glad he had phoned last night. Their conversation seemed, in the cold light of the morning, a fitting ending to their four years together, far better than the hurt and confusion of Paris. That was probably part of the reason why she had slept so well—closure.
And as for Simon? She groaned aloud. Simon and their near-kiss…oh, she’d wanted that kiss so badly! That bloody phone call! She wanted to feel his lips on hers, to press herself against his lean, firm body, feel the warmth of his skin.
“Argggggh!” She punched the pillow.
Calm down, calm down. She took a deep breath.
But then again, she was exhausted, emotional, and probably tipsy from the Sambuca, and Simon had been there. Perhaps she’d just got caught up in the moment? She’d just learned that he was both available and interested, and it felt like such a long time since anyone had shown her any tenderness…
Why was she kidding herself? She really, really liked Simon. And she had so wanted that kiss.
She heaved herself out of bed with a sigh. Maybe getting it on with Simon would have been a really bad idea, she told herself. There was every chance he was just like Reggie deep down, with his glamorous movie stars and hunger for fame and recognition. Film festivals! She’d have just been allowing history to repeat itself, wouldn’t she?
She crossed the overheated room to the bathroom and began to run a bath, pondering all the while what she would say to Simon by way of apology when she saw him again. Then, returning to her bedside, she flicked the television on just so that she would have some background noise for company.
Idly, she flicked through the channels, hoping for something unchallenging and in English.
She almost fainted with shock when, arriving at a news channel, a handsome and very familiar face filled the screen.
Was that Simon?
It was. He was being interviewed in a London television studio. His hair was shorter and his skin was more suntanned, but two things were constant. One—his rugged face with its kind eyes and strong jaw were enough to make Molly’s heart flip. And two—he was wearing Yvonne’s jumper!
Molly practically collapsed onto the bed, eyes fixed on the screen.
“I’d traveled out to Cambodia to see for myself the conditions in those clothing factories,” Simon was saying. “‘Sweatshop’ seemed such a lazy word. I wanted to actually spend proper time there and get my own impressions about clothing manufacturing in places like those.”
The screen cut to a clip from Simon’s documentary. It showed a huge warehouse where, as far as the eye could see, women sat hunched over sewing machines, their faces expressionless, their hands moving deftly as they sewed pile upon pile of t-shirts festooned with well-known sporting logos.
“Working hours are long and punishing. The women are only allowed a short break every four hours. It’s stiflingly hot, and the air is full of dust, dirt, and cloth fibers. The pay is barely subsistence level. I got to know one woman, who agreed to let me film her story.”
Molly gasped, as the camera zoomed in on the gentle face of an elderly lady who sat and sewed in the middle of the warehouse.
“Is that her?” the interviewer asked.
Molly watched, entranced, as Simon’s voiceover explained what was going on, in the dismal factory scenes unfolding on the screen in front of her.
“Yup. This is Yvonne. She’s a sixty-three year old widow; she has worked in factories like this all her life. Her eyesight is poor, she suffers pain from chronic arthritis in her joints, and the pay she receives is barely enough to support herself.
Molly clapped a hand over her mouth. So this was Yvonne! This poor, frail lady, whose sweet, lined face told of a lifetime of hardship and struggle. To think Molly had believed her to be some sort of glamorous superstar… a rival! Her cheeks burned with shame.
“Yvonne’s not stupid. She’s educated, she could have gone to college—her ambition was to be an interpreter. But her parents died and she had to work to support her brothers and sisters. She has been sewing t-shirts in factories ever since.”
The factory was shabby; the noise from the machinery unbelievable. Stern-looking men patrolled the aisles between the ranks of machinists. They might as well be carrying whips, they looked so menacing.
Molly rushed to turn the taps off just before water began sloshing over the top of the bath, then dived back through to the TV screen.
“…taken a terrible toll on her health.”
“Could you help her?” the interviewer asked Simon.
“I did my best. I flew her to Europe for a specialist opinion.”
Molly had tears in her eyes. She tensed for what he had to say next. He and Yvonne were sitting cross-legged on the ground outside the factory building, and Yvonne was speaking to Simon through a translator. Then the scene cut to Simon and Yvonne stepping off a plane, a hospital building, Yvonne lying, tiny and helpless on a bed surrounded by machines.
“She was diagnosed with lung cancer. The consultants were in no doubt that the conditions in the factory aggravated or possibly even caused her disease…”
The program cut to the interviewer wishing Simon luck for when the documentary premiered at the Venice Film Festival, saying she hoped it touched the hearts and minds of all who saw it the way it had touched hers.
Dumbfounded, Molly stumbled through to the bathroom and pulled out the bath plug. She was too shocked to contemplate soaking in a bubble bath right now. Instead, she threw herself down onto her bed to think.
It was such a lot to absorb. So, Simon had witnessed terrible conditions in that awful clothing factory and seen the toll it had taken on the woman who had since become his dear friend.
No wonder he hated the fashion business! That awful place—those awful men! He probably thought everyone in the industry was corrupt and unfeeling—or, at the very least, that the entire industry prospered on the sweat of people like Yvonne.
And yet he still put his hand in his pocket and offered his own money to try to help Pascal fulfil his dream of owning the Worth gown. He had worked so hard—and given away his watch—to try and make sure the wedding gown got to Caitlin in time.
And he wasn’t a fame hungry movie-maker.
He’s a hero, she thought before a glance at her watch made her gasp—they’d need all their time. She leapt to her feet, grabbed her phone, and dialed Simon’s number.
She’d keep this call brief, just make sure he was up and still talking to her, but then she’d try and snatch a moment with him on his own before they all piled back into the little car. There, she’d apologize. She’d explain about Reggie calling her his fiancée—sh
e’d tell him how she’d seen him on TV talking about his documentary, how it had made her cry, and how she hoped he didn’t hate her too much, and how much she cared about him, and the rest would be up to chance.
Hi this is Simon Foss, leave a message and I’ll get back to you, cheers…
Voicemail! Molly groaned in exasperation.
“Simon?” Her voice sounded quivery. “Are you there? We…we need to get going…okay, I’ll try and find you, bye…”
She hung up. She suddenly had a bad feeling. So she dressed and packed quickly, and was just giving her room a final check when, at last, her phone rang.
But it wasn’t Simon or her mum—it was Pascal. And he wasn’t happy.
“Molly! It is an emergency, you must come to reception!”
“Pascal? What’s going on? Pascal?” she shouted down the line, but he had hung up.
She ran into the corridor and, her suitcase bumping behind her, stumbled down the three flights of stairs to the reception area where Pascal was perched on his beautiful Chevalier suitcase, looking like a puppy who had just been kicked.
“Are you okay?” Molly gasped.
“No!” Pascal barked back. “Simon has taken the car! He is gone!”
“What?” Molly’s heart plummeted. “When?”
“A little while ago. He came into my room and asked for the combination of the hotel car park gate and took the keys!”
A wave of fury suddenly burst through Molly as Pascal’s words sank in. Simon’s revenge for what he heard last night! He’d taken the car and left them stranded to teach her a lesson!
“I…I didn’t know what was going on, I should have asked him to explain, but there wasn’t time!”
Molly wasn’t really listening; her brain was frantically processing the consequences of Simon’s escape.
Okay, well, he wasn’t a complete snake, he must’ve known that they could easily get a bus or train to Venice from somewhere the size of Bologna—it was just…so infuriating!
“Pascal,” Molly said, putting her hands on his shoulders, “we are bigger than this. We’ll find mum, jump on the next train, and put Simon out of our minds, okay? Let’s not think too badly of him—he probably panicked.”