by Glynis Astie
I was relieved it was over. I was sure my parents were very far from being used to the idea of my having a fiancé, but at least they knew about it now. I beamed at Louis.
“Are you ready to call your parents?”
“Well, it will have to wait until tomorrow. I am sure they are in bed by now.”
I gasped. “I’m sorry, Louis! We should have called them first.” I had totally forgotten about the nine hour time difference. I felt awful.
He put his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t worry, Syd. I will call them tomorrow morning.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my head in his chest. “I’m sorry. I was so worried about telling my parents, I didn’t think about yours.”
He sighed. “Mon coeur, it is fine. Do not worry so much!” He ran his hands down my back. “You know, I can think of a way for you to make it up to me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? And what might that be?”
He grinned. “Let me take you to the bedroom and show you...” He took my hand and led me towards one of the most perfect afternoons my life.
Chapter Twenty-One
Charlie and Zoe were categorically shocked when I called that afternoon to tell them I was engaged. They had a barrage of questions which I answered in painstaking detail. I felt quite badly about leaving them in the dark about the proposal and thought they deserved to know everything there was to know about Louis and our remarkable experience so far. Once they had extracted every last piece of information, they made me promise to let them have time alone with us when we visited in November. Charlie took his big brother responsibilities very seriously and I loved him all the more for it.
After I hung up with them, I thought about how crazy this whole situation must seem to an outsider. I could only imagine what my friends were going to think. A few of them would be thrilled by the romance of it all and be delighted for me. The majority of them were probably going to have a summit to discuss all their opinions followed by an intervention for the sake of my mental health. They would think I had finally lost it. Or, jump on the most obvious bandwagon and think Louis needed a green card and I was desperate to get married. I sighed. There was nothing I could do. People were going to think what they were going to think.
My night was filled with fitful sleep. Now that my family knew about our engagement, I was free to worry about what Louis’ family would think. From everything he had said, they would be happy for him. I wondered how much of what he had told me had been the truth and how much had been at least partial fiction to make me feel better. For better or worse, he would call them in the morning and we would deal with the results then. I hoped they wouldn’t freak out that he was marrying an American. We don’t have the best reputation in France - well, most of Europe. And perhaps a few other places. Dating an American is one thing, but MARRYING an American is a whole other ballgame. (Totally unintentional.)
Louis called his parents before we left for work the next morning. As I have said before, my knowledge of French is not great, but he was smiling a lot, so I figured things were going well. He put me on the phone with his parents towards the end of the call and they sounded very excited. Of course, they could have been cheerfully telling me to go screw myself and I would have had no idea. I had no choice but to go with Louis’ reaction. He was happy, so I was happy.
I left for work feeling a lot better. My family had been told and appeared to be on board. Louis’ parents had been told, appeared to be on board and had started the massive phone tree to notify the entire family. Since his family was huge and loved to gossip, all of France should be aware by this evening. I still felt a little unsure of his family’s opinion, but I had to accept the fact that I wouldn’t be able to verify anything for myself. If there were any negative comments, Louis would filter them for me to protect my feelings. He knew me too well. I took a moment to mull it over and decided to hope for the best.
When I arrived at my office, I wondered how I was going to concentrate on work after my eventful weekend. As I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer, I realized I was going to have to tell my boss and my coworkers about the engagement today. They were probably going to notice the rock on my left hand. I didn’t have to tell them it was a costume ring right away...
I quickly skimmed through my emails, answered the urgent ones and checked my voicemails. The third one was from Maya. It was a demand, not a request, to have lunch with her today. She was eager for the details of my proposal and was quite put out that I hadn’t found time yesterday to call her and fill her in. Maya had a knack for bringing me out of a worry spiral. Just the thought of seeing her made me smile.
After answering all my voicemails, I decided to call Maya at work. As I reached for the receiver, the phone rang.
“Sydney Bennett, how may I help you?”
“It’s about time. Where are we going for lunch?”
I laughed. This woman literally had no patience. “Good morning to you too, Maya.”
I knew she was rolling her eyes at me. “There’s no time for pleasantries, my dear. I have a meeting in two minutes.”
“Got it. How about the brewery?”
“That works. Meet you there at noon?”
“Sounds good. See you then.”
I spent the rest of the morning trying to get work done as the news of my engagement spread across the company. My boss was the first one I told. We were having our usual Monday morning rundown of projects for the week, when she saw my ring, grabbed my hand and started squealing. She must have asked me dozens of questions in the span of three minutes. Naturally, everyone in the vicinity came by to see what the commotion was and the news traveled like wildfire. I love the people I work with and was flattered by their interest in my life, but I felt completely on the spot. As expected, the level of shock was fairly high - many employees had no idea I was even dating someone. I closed my mind off to the inevitable gossip, since nothing makes a better story than a possible scandal (read: shotgun wedding) in the Human Resources Department.
I pulled up to the brewery at exactly noon. I felt a chill, knowing Maya was preparing for one of her famous interrogations. My dad had NOTHING on her. And he was trained by the army! Where in the world did Maya get her skills?
I walked into the restaurant and noticed she was already waiting at a table near the bar. I could tell by the look on her face she was primed and ready. I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders and walked over to her.
“Hey, Syd! Are you ready?” She smiled knowingly at me.
“Give me a minute to sit down, stalker.” I laughed. It was too bad it was a workday; a glass of wine would be really helpful right now.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m excited! You’re lucky I’m as interested in your life as I am. And don’t forget that if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t HAVE a fiancé.”
I smirked. “Are you going to hold this detail over me for the rest of my life?”
She thought about it. “Yes, that’s my current plan. Now stop stalling!!! Tell me all the gory details.”
I launched into a very detailed description of the night I proposed to Louis. This took a good forty-five minutes to explain, which, fortunately for me, left only ten minutes for her questions, since we both had to get back to work.
“Did I give you enough detail, my friend?” I feigned exhaustion.
“You did pretty well. But I do have a few questions.” Her eyes danced with anticipation.
I groaned inwardly. Here it comes.
“How was the sex that night? It must have been pretty awesome, right?”
I sighed. “Yes, Maya, it was awesome. But as I have told you before, it always is with Louis. He’s...amazing.” I had to redirect my thoughts to something else quickly or I wasn’t going to get any work done for the rest of the day.
She smirked. “You’re one lucky woman. I hope you appreciate your good fortune.”
“I certainly do.” I paused. “Now that I’ve spilled many, many
details about a very private night, I think you owe me some information. What exactly happened between you and Jean?”
The smile on her face vanished immediately. “I have no information to share with you about Jean.”
I regarded her with my poker face (or at least my attempt at one.) “Really? Nothing at all.”
Her face remained impassive. “Nothing at all.”
I leveled my gaze at her. “You’re hiding something from me, Maya. Something big. I’m going to find out what it is, whether you want me to or not.”
“Is that a challenge?” She scoffed. “Because you’re a horrendous detective. You can’t even figure out who the murderer is on CSI, when it’s so totally obvious...”
“Alright!” That wasn’t true. Was it? I had figured it out lots of times - with a little help. No matter. I would crack this. “So I guess you have nothing to worry about.”
She eyed me calmly. “I guess not.”
I was intrigued. What in the world went on between the two of them? Maya was never secretive about ANYTHING. In fact, I was always asking her to share less information. I would have to enlist Louis’ help. Since Maya wasn’t forthcoming, I was going to have to try to extract the information from Jean.
“What are you plotting, Sydney Bennett?”
I smiled devilishly. “I guess you’ll have to wait to find out.”
She finished signing the check (She had insisted on taking me out to celebrate my engagement.) and got up from the table. “I’m quaking in my boots.”
As we walked away from the table, I was even more determined to find out what she was hiding. Maya was going to learn what it was like to have her friends sticking their noses into her business - well intentioned or not.
Over the next few days, I worked my way through telling my friends about the engagement. As expected, there was quite a bit of shock - especially given this was the first that many of them had heard of Louis. (It’s hard to keep in touch with people across different time zones, work schedules and phases of life. Even more so when you’re spending all your time with an amazing Frenchman.) I patiently told an abbreviated story of our whirlwind romance and yes, of my proposal. Everyone gave me their best wishes and said they couldn’t wait to meet Louis.
I have no doubt there were a flurry of phone calls between the different cliques of my friends in order to surmise the circumstances for such a quick engagement. Was it actually a whirlwind romance? Was I pregnant? Was he in need of a green card? Did we have some kind of business arrangement or was I simply naive?
Before you ask, yes, these people are actually my friends. I can certainly understand their concern. I’m sure I would wonder if I had received the same phone call from one of them. The only difference is that my thoughts would definitely have gone toward the romantic explanation. As much as I would have liked it to be true, I wasn’t sure all of theirs took this direction.
My roommates were completely shocked, but very happy for me. Jess shrieked and threw her arms around me. She had developed quite a relationship with Louis’ voicemail messages, as she found the sound of his voice to be “exceedingly alluring.” Maggie was speechless, but quickly recovered and offered her services as a wedding planner. (Did I forget to mention she had started a rather lucrative side business as a wedding planner?) I thanked her profusely as I had no idea where to start. After all the giddiness had died down, I let them know I would be moving in with Louis and offered to pay rent until they found a new roommate. Luckily for me, Jess already had someone in mind. Louis and I had to start saving immediately if we had any hope of paying for this wedding. I knew my parents would want to contribute something, but I had no idea of the amount and had absolutely no idea how much the wedding would cost.
It suddenly dawned on me that Louis and I hadn’t discussed any details of what kind of wedding we wanted. I, of course, had been thinking about this day since I was five years old. I hadn’t planned every detail, which is surprising given my personality, but I had a good idea of what I wanted. A beautiful outdoor wedding, overlooking the ocean, maybe one hundred people or so...with a dj and a chocolate wedding cake. Slow down, Sydney! First you need to pack your stuff and move in with Louis. I thought it was pretty important to make sure we were indeed perfect for each other before we attempted to plan the perfect wedding. No pressure or anything...
Chapter Twenty-Two
Miraculously, it had taken me only two evenings to pack up all my things and then two additional evenings to move them into our new apartment. I suppose it shouldn’t have been so surprising since I hadn’t accumulated much stuff since the wonder threesome acquired most of my furnishings. By Friday evening, I was happily installed in my new home. While I was excited about the new direction my life had taken, I was still nervous about living with Louis. I gratefully remembered the many times he had told me he could handle my neuroses, but saying this and actually living it are two completely different things. I resolved to do my best to keep the crazy in check. And who knows? Maybe living with Louis would cause some of his confidence to rub off on me.
Our first weekend of officially living together was heaven. We went out to dinner, spent lazy mornings in bed and took long walks through town, stopping occasionally to browse in bookstores and have coffee. Not to mention the many amazing hours we spent in our bedroom. I felt totally at peace. I started to think living with Louis was going to be easier than I thought. Maybe I was I finally learning to relax and accept that nothing was going to go horribly wrong.
Unfortunately, the bubble of our domestic bliss burst with a resounding crack on Monday morning. Louis and I had spent a particularly satisfying thirty minutes in the shower before work and I was still floating on cloud nine when he called me at work just after ten.
“Sydney Bennett, how may I help you?” I heard a huge sigh on the other end of the phone, but no dialogue to go with it. Did I have another obscene caller on my hands? I had one last year who was extremely persistent. He kept calling me to talk about the insurance coverage for his penis enlargement operation. And no, he didn’t work for my company. I finally had to have my extension changed. As I wondered what new horror awaited me, I heard a familiar voice.
“Mon coeur, I am afraid I have some bad news.”
Fear struck me as I imagined every possible disaster he could throw my way. He was only kidding when he accepted my proposal! He received a phone call from the love of his life and was moving back to France! He was having a sex change operation and was pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming Louisa! (Not entirely farfetched given my relationship history, right?) When I mentioned the crazy I was trying to protect Louis from, this was what I meant.
“Syd? Are you there?”
I shook my head in a vain attempt to clear all the nonsense. “Yes, I’m here. I’m sorry! It’s been a busy morning. Is everything alright?”
“Yes and no. I just got out of a meeting with my manager. I have to go back to France.”
Oh shit! I’m actually not crazy. He’s moving back to France!!! My eyes started darting around the room as though I would find some type of helpful information hiding somewhere. Perhaps under my desk? If nothing else I could hide there for a while...
“Syd, rein yourself in. I am not moving back to France for good. I have to go back for two weeks to assist with a project which I used to manage. I wrote the code for the program and the new project manager just got specs from the client for an update.” He sighed again. “They only want me in the same time zone.”
I let out a sigh of relief and giggled. “You know me too well.”
He laughed with me. “Yes, I do. And I am hoping one day soon, you will learn to trust me.
“Louis! I do trust you.” Right? At least I think I do. “I need to learn to stop being insane.”
“You are not insane. You have just been burned before. It is understandable that you are a little...cautious.”
I smiled. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”
“You are we
ll worth it, mon coeur.” He paused. “Now, back to the discussion of my trip. I am afraid I will have to leave for Paris rather soon.”
“When do you have to leave?”
“My flight is tomorrow evening, but I have meetings all day, so I will have to leave for the airport directly from the office.”
I felt my stomach drop. We just got engaged and he has to leave for two weeks! This really sucks. “Well, I can’t say I’m happy about it, but you have to go. We’ll have a wonderful time together tonight to help us last through our weeks apart.”
“I am sorry, Syd. I hate to leave you.” He sounded totally dejected.
It was my turn to be the positive one in the relationship. “We survived the last two week trip, right?”
He chuckled. “Barely.”
“Well, at least you’ll get to see your family. You’ll have time to go down south on the weekends, right?” Something good had to come of this for someone. His mom, for one, will be thrilled.
“I hope so. My mother would be pretty upset if I didn’t. Plus my cousins have been after me to come visit so they can take me clubbing.”
“Sounds like fun.” Hmmm....I didn’t like the sound of that. Too many hot, drunk French women hanging all over MY fiancé.
“Not really. I am over the clubbing scene. I think I have seen enough over the past seven years.”
I laughed. “No kidding! Especially working in that sex club.” After the stories he had told me I had a much greater awareness of the extent of, um, sexual experimentation in the world. I know, I sound completely closed-minded, but from everything you’ve heard so far, you know I’m not a total prude.
“I did see some crazy stuff. You know I would much rather be alone with you. But, it will make my cousins happy and I miss spending time with them.”
“I can’t wait to meet them.” They seemed pretty adventurous. Monique worked for the tourist service office in her hometown and her favorite activity was bungee jumping. In fact, she wouldn’t date a man if he wouldn’t go on a jump with her. She felt that a man must have a truly courageous spirit in order to be able to handle a relationship with her. Sophie was an accountant by day and a club dancer by night. She was exceedingly well networked and had a lively personality, so the club paid her both to dance and to provide unofficial publicity. I hoped we would be able to get them to come visit us. Louis would have a great time showing them around.