by Hazel Parker
As I walked toward the elevator, my phone rang. I hated that I was so eager to see if it might have been Pierre, but no, it was just my bitching brother, Brett.
“What,” I said coldly.
“Wow, in heels again all day today—”
“I don’t want to fucking hear it, Brett,” I said. “This is not the time to be making smartass remarks.”
Brett must have picked up on something in my voice because he didn’t even say anything about that.
“Are you OK?”
If Brett asked that question with as much genuineness as he had, the answer was always no. The only thing was “no” did not suffice in explaining how I felt.
“You will never fucking ask me about this trip ever again,” I said. “I will give a report to Grandpa when I get home. But as far as you and the other two guys go, this trip never fucking happened. Understood?”
I could hear Brett gulping on the other end.
“Yeah, but what—”
“Someday, I’ll tell you,” I said before hanging up.
But at this point, that “someday” was as likely as Pierre “someday” returning to me.
There was no hope either would actually happen. And if it did, it was probably going to be the ugliest scene in my entire life.
Chapter 1: Layla
Present Day
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.”
I shook out of my slumber, having taken a few pills just before the flight from San Francisco to Paris so I wouldn’t have to contemplate the meaning of this flight. I looked over groggily to the first-class flight attendant, who seemed to have arrived at the moment she heard me stirring from my sleep. I held up a finger, asking for a couple of minutes to shake myself from my sleep.
“We will be descending into Paris, France in about one hour.”
Oh, Paris. Even when I sleep to try to forget you, you always have a way of coming back.
I slipped on my Louboutin heels, stretched out my arms—but not too much, I didn’t want to overstretch my dress—and leaned over to the empty seat next to me to grab my bag. On the one hand, it was hard to wake up in a better situation than this, on a first-class flight, landing in Paris, well-off enough to afford the luxuries I wanted, and going in for work to continue the cycle.
On the other hand, all of those external indicators of success sure did a piss poor job of getting rid of the anxiety I always felt returning to Paris, France.
I knew what the odds were of running into my worst nightmare. I knew that in a city with a population of over two million people, the chances that I would see him were obscenely low. I knew that in the five years since, I had never once seen him.
But I knew he was somewhere out there.
I knew he was still in the industry.
And I just knew that if I saw him…
Well, what I wanted to say I’d do to him and what I knew I would actually do were two completely opposite things.
“Would you like a drink, ma’am?”
I groggily looked up at the flight attendant. Apparently, the minute I had requested had gone by a whole lot faster than I had thought it had.
“Umm.”
It sure would have been nice to be drunk the whole time I was in Paris. It would make things a lot more fun and make me feel—or at least appear to feel—a lot more confident and loose in myself. But with the time difference and the three days of work ahead of me, I had to be the professional I considered myself to be.
“No, thank you,” I said with a smile.
“Very good, ma’am.”
The flight attendant excused herself. Just like many conversations that I overprepared myself for—which were pretty much all of them that didn’t involve Ferrari family members—it had turned out to be nothing.
I looked out the window. By now, I felt like I had taken this trip to France so often that I could identify individual parts of the country. There was Nantes that we were flying over now, a historical city in France I had never really given myself the time to visit and explore. There were fields between it and Paris, fields that I had at times fantasized about retiring to, away from the craziness of the wine industry to the constant travel.
And there, there in the distance, was Paris, France. My home away from home. My second office.
The place of the most upsetting day of my life.
Just seeing it come into view, with the rising Eiffel Tower and the modern downtown, was enough to provoke a roiling stomach. If all went well, I’d be in, I’d do my job, and I’d get out. If the worst-case scenario happened—which a part of me felt like it was bound to do sooner rather than later—then, well, who knew what would happen?
If I saw him…
If I talked to him…
If I got near him…
“Ma’am?”
The flight attendant came back to me. With a weak smile, I nodded to her.
“I think I will take that drink after all.”
* * *
After we landed at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, I took a cab ride down to my hotel, the Hotel Plaza Athenee. It was a downgrade from my days at the La Reserve Paris Hotel and Spa, a place where I had a personal butler, room service that provided food better than some U.S. steakhouses, and massages and facials on an almost daily basis. But this was also a place where I felt I had some freedom, freedom of the mind to not think about what had happened all those years ago.
I walked into the lobby and smiled upon the realization that I had no associations, no memories of this place. I had never had a drink at the hotel bar here, I had never had sex in one of the hotel rooms, and I had never had a conversation with a stranger anywhere here. And if the weekend went well, I would maybe do one of those things at most, but most definitely not all three.
“Good afternoon, madam,” the front desk said. “May I have your name, please?”
“Layla Ferrari,” I said.
It was strange what things allowed me to speak with the certainty of a state figure and what things caused me to turtle up and just go with whatever was said. In casual conversation like this? No problem. In business conversation about wine? Not only was it no problem, I could control the flow and even manipulate the other person if I felt justified by their crude behavior.
But make things romantic? Make things personal? Make things deep?
That was the fast track to getting me to drink some of my own wine.
“Ah, Miss Ferrari, welcome. You will be in room three-one-one-eight.”
Not even close to five years ago. Perfect.
“This here is a packet that includes the Wi-Fi password, as well as breakfast that you can order as room service. If you would sign here…”
I signed on their tablet with ease, received their keys, and thanked them as I headed for the elevator. Two men joined me, both of whom looked me up and down and nodded to me when they entered. I just stared straight ahead, too exhausted and feeling a little too in familiar territory to even want to be polite.
“First time in France?” one of them said in a French accent.
I sighed and didn’t say a word as the elevator went up past the second floor. It came to a halt on the third.
“If only,” I said.
With that, I took my bags and sped up my gait, trying to get away from anyone who might want a second of my time. I followed the directions to room 3118, pulled out the key card, and shoved it open with a combination of my hand and shoulder. I dropped my bag off at the front, found the bed, collapsed into it, and closed my eyes.
I was out before I had even begun to recall memories.
* * *
When I awoke, the sun had set, and the nightlife in Paris had just started picking up.
Outside, revelers laughed, shouted, and occasionally even sung in drunken early celebration. I looked at the clock; it was just barely after ten p.m. On a Wednesday? On a Wednesday. I supposed that I was near a more raucous part of town, for I could not remember Paris being quite so
alive on a weekday.
At first, I gave absolutely no consideration to the idea of going out. People always thought that because I appeared fearless in speech and that I worked in the wine industry, I must enjoy going out and hanging with the revelers, but for someone into wine like I was, I was awfully anti-Bacchanalian.
But then I realized I would have to get up. I was hungry as could be. I knew there were some restaurants across the street that were still open, and who knew? Maybe along the way, I’d get a drink. That was a far cry from joining the partygoers, but it wasn’t necessarily out of the question.
I got up and headed to the bathroom, but when I saw the shower, I paused. It was the same shower stall design as the one I had stepped into five years ago.
The one in which I had instantly lost the one connection in my life that had enthralled me, taken over me, made me feel so alive and so...sexual.
But now, I no longer had that. I no longer had what Nick and Brett had managed to achieve. Although I didn’t feel the pressure to have that like they did, for I was only twenty-eight years old at this point, this was the age Nick had gotten married. Brett had gotten so much shit when he turned thirty that he just arranged a marriage somehow, though that had worked out far more favorably than I think any of us would have predicted. And on top of that, ever since Grandma had passed away, Grandpa had become ornerier and more demanding of us grandkids.
“Raise that kid right!” he’d yell at Nick and Brett a lot, which was insane considering their two girls were two years old, not twelve. “Find yourself a gentleman!” he’d say when we passed each other at holidays.
Leo, somehow, got off the hook, but I figured that was just because Grandpa had given up on ever thinking Leo would turn into anything. I had not, but I fully recognized I was probably the only family member who felt Leo needed less scolding and shaming and more support.
It was just too bad that in order to achieve this, to get what Brett and Nick had, I’d probably have to slow my life down. I’d probably have to honestly confront what happened five years ago. And then I’d have to go through that time, face the pain, and find a way to process it.
Hard. Fucking. No.
I knew I’d just have to accept the presence of this shower stall, so I swallowed, nodded to it, and did what I had to do. I threw on a coat for the cool outdoors, headed outside the room, and headed for the elevators. I always thought of elevators as those last moments of peace or those last moments of chaos before emerging on the other side; there was something about that ten to fifteen seconds of silent solitude that allowed you to steel yourself for what awaited.
Sure enough, when I got downstairs, I passed by a bar that was now full of men in business attire, women in either cocktail dresses or business attire, and well-dressed bartenders throwing back drinks. If there was ever a reason for me not to grab a drink, this was it.
I made my way to the entrance of the hotel, stepped outside, and found a nearby drug store that had some grocery items. I grabbed a microwavable dinner—I was not normally this plain, but after a trans-continental flight to my last favorite place, I did not hold myself to any sort of standard—and headed back for the hotel. I started walking back to the elevators.
And I saw him.
It had to be him.
It was only from the back, but I recognized that slim figure anywhere. Just enough of the profile was visible to see that facial hair…
No way, though, right? Like, really, it couldn’t actually be...him.
But what if it was? What if he was staying here? What if he was in the area for…?
“Excuse me,” someone said, brushing past me.
The bump on my back was enough to shake me out of my stir, and I headed back to the elevators. But I stole one more glance. He—the man, I wanted to tell myself, but it was surely him—still had his back to me.
Pierre Perocheau.
I pleaded for it not to be true. I just wanted these next three days to go by seamlessly.
And in the deepest corners of my mind, in places that I barely acknowledged as existing, I thought that if it was true, I hoped that we could find a way to reignite everything that we had once had.
Chapter 2: Pierre
Celebrate my fortieth birthday in Paris during Fashion Week just before going to Las Vegas for business.
It had quite the ring to it, did it not?
What could be better for Pierre Perocheau than to take his presence from Nantes to Paris at arguably the busiest, most exciting time of the year for the celebration of a time in my life that would mark the end of my youth and the beginning of my wise years?
In terms of what the world might think? Perhaps nothing. This, I could not argue with.
But as for what I wanted personally?
Well, unlike wine, the liver did not age well with time. What I could have done fifteen, ten, even five years ago, I could not do now without heavy consequences, consequences that were getting a little old and mundane. That was certainly a far cry from declaring that I should no longer consume any alcohol and live the life of a monk, but the days of Pierre walking into a conference, going toe to toe with the salesmen, charming a lovely lady, and then waking up and doing it for three days straight were over.
If I had ever truly wanted those days to be a thing, anyway.
And, alas, that was the second key point for what I wanted personally. Many a man would have sought what I had. I did not believe too much in false modesty; I knew that I had good looks and that American women swooned for the French accent like perhaps no other. But if many a man had known why I had to charm American women…
My phone rang, providing me a much-needed reprieve from the thoughts dancing in my head. I looked down and shook my head. The caller ID said “Antoine” but it might as well have said “twenty-five-year-old Pierre.”
“Yes?” I said.
“Where are you?” Antoine said, music audible in the background. “The parties at Fashion Week have already started and, as far as I can tell, they are not waiting for you to arrive.”
I chuckled as I grabbed my wallet.
“You are in such a rush to get me to arrive, and yet it is only Wednesday, dear Antoine,” I said. “We will have plenty of time to celebrate. Remember, I do not leave for Las Vegas until Sunday.”
“Perhaps so, but you only turn forty years old once, and after this, you become an old fart who would rather sniff his alcohol than consume.”
I didn’t chuckle this time so much as I laughed from my belly. I loved a good joke at my expense; I appreciated when a friend would not hesitate to cut me down.
“It is not as if I will die on Sunday, replaced by a gray-haired hermit,” I said. “Come now, Antoine. Surely you know me better than that.”
Actually, he does not.
No one knows me like they think they do.
But better to be thought of as fun and mysterious than morbid and brooding.
“Perhaps so, but a man who parties at thirty-nine is living out the last of his glory years. A man who parties at forty is someone who cannot let go of the past.”
I said nothing, feeling a little stung at how on the nose that was. But I would never let Antoine—nor anyone else—know that.
“In any case, when was the last time we saw each other?” he said. “I feel like it has been eons since we saw each other.”
“Oh, do not give in to such hyperbole,” I said. “I was there last year, though I will admit that I have not stayed in Paris for any length of time since about five years ago.”
Since…
“Well, five years is about four years and three-hundred-and-sixty-four days too long, if you ask me,” Antoine said. “Let me know when you arrive. You are on your way, yes?”
“Of course,” I said, stepping outside to the waiting limo. “ You would think that I would be at home, watching television by myself?”
“When you turn forty, who knows?” Antoine said.
Again, I cracked a hard laugh.
I hung up shortly after and got in the backseat of my limo. I had to admit to feeling a certain sort of odd cocktail of emotions, from excitement to anxiety to ridiculousness at the whole thing. Did I really think the source of much of my brooding over the last few years would make a return? Certainly, Paris Fashion Week brought people from all corners of the globe, but we were not talking about an event right outside her doorstep.
In any case, she would not come to an event like tonight. She may have acted the part of a tough, straightforward American woman, but I knew better. I had seen in her what I had seen in myself.
Perhaps not the same story and the same past that had led her to become as she had, but certainly the same insecurity, fear, and quiet yearning that only a trained eye could see.
* * *
Within a couple of hours, it was like my world had gone from the quiet recluse of my home to the excess exterior of a nightclub. Antoine, two of our other friends, and I “sat” at a private table—I say “sat” because only one of us actually sat. The other three Frenchmen were doing their part to woo women, to dance, and to do whatever they could to increase their chances of going home with a woman tonight.
I preferred to keep to myself and let the scene come to me.
And to be frank, while I had my personal reasons for doing so, I could not pretend that this strategy was one of self-sabotage, for it always worked miraculously.
Invariably, as Antoine and our two friends would try to charm the women, one of them—almost without fail the most beautiful—would ask why I was sitting in the back, legs folded, a glass in my hand, quietly sipping and enjoying the scene. Antoine, perhaps not wanting to lose her to me, would make some joke about how I was an old man, but it never worked. Sooner or later, the girl would be by me, and my recluse nature and standoff approach worked.
But it was not a “chess” strategy. It was honestly just what I preferred to do.
As we had not reached that point in the night, though, I just looked out over the crowd. It was, almost certainly, a crowd of nothing but American girls. It was easy to tell who came from across the Atlantic and who did not by the strange duality of how they were more expressive dancing, yet also a little bit slower to warm up sexually. One needed to only see how they kept to themselves in groups of at least four to understand this.