Find Me in Paris

Chapter 2

Two

CAMILLE

Two missed calls from Isabelle. In one day. Meaning that Camille would have to get back to her, tonight if possible. Only right now it was half an hour past their usual dinnertime, she’d had a morning phone meeting with her editor that ran straight through lunch, and now her stomach was making more noise than the song playing on the radio.

And she still had to cook. And she’d meant to go to the store on the way home but now she was running so late that to make another stop would only make the evening more harried and cause her to become even more hungry.

Camille swore under her breath as she hit the third red light in a row, eliciting a tsk of disapproval from the back seat.

“How come you’re allowed to swear but I’m not?” Flora questioned for not the first time.

Camille kept her eyes on the road when it was safe to turn. It had started to rain and her windshield wipers were distracting.

“Because I’m an adult,” Camille replied, even though most days she didn’t feel like one. Most days, she felt at best like a teenager bumbling through life without much of a plan, dealing with the fallout of the ones she bothered to make. On days like today, when everything seemed to go wrong and she was tired and cranky and oh so hungry, she felt not much older than the daughter who, from one glance in the rearview mirror, made it clear from her expression that she wasn’t buying the excuse, either.

“Dad doesn’t swear,” Flora pointed out.

“That’s because your father is perfect,” Camille said without the faintest bit of resentment or sarcasm. Rupert was perfect. Tall, handsome, an excellent cook, and an even better father as it turned out. He was kind to animals, kind to all. He was a thoughtful gift-giver and he never forgot an important event or date. He had a killer sense of humor, too. And an even better smile, one that curled at the corners of his lips and formed little lines around the deep-set brown eyes that Flora had inherited.

It was a shame that she’d never married him. Well, not really. But sometimes, usually after a glass or two of wine, friends would point out all of Rupert’s qualities and ask her why she was still single when the perfect man was right in front of her.

What they didn’t understand was that singlehood suited her just as much as her arrangement with Rupert. She couldn’t explain it but it worked quite well. Rupert was her best friend, just as he’d been all through college, save for the night of their graduation, which they’d both agreed had been a mistake, but not a huge one because it had brought them the perfect child. One whom they co-parented with joy and mutual support.

Really, what more could she want?

“Speaking of your dad,” Camille went on. “Why don’t you call him and put him on speaker for me? He’s meeting us at the house and I want to let him know we’re running late.”

They tried to eat together as often as possible, if only so that Flora always had a chance to see both of her parents each day. Oh, friends raised their eyebrows at this and told Camille that she’d never, ever meet someone once he caught wind of this arrangement until she pointed out that it didn’t stop Rupert from meeting other women, and then their looks turned to ones of pity.

Camille sighed as Flora happily took out the shiny new phone that she’d received for her twelfth birthday—apparently, years after all the other kids at school had access to one. It was one of the many things that Camille and Rupert agreed upon, yet another small relief compared to the endless differences in opinions that her friends complained about having with their spouses. Yet another reminder that her path was the right one, even if others might not see it that way.

“I’m just pulling up.” Rupert’s voice filled the car after Flora greeted him and transferred him to speaker.

“And I’m afraid we’re at least ten minutes out,” Camille all but shouted.

“Mu-um.” Flora dragged out the word. “I told you, you can speak at a normal volume. He can hear you.”

“Oh, right.” There she went again. Showing her age. Who knew that thirty-four could feel so old and young at the same time?

“I can hear you,” Rupert agreed. “And I can go ahead and get dinner started. I swung by the store on my way over. I saw you were low on staples yesterday.”

Camille could have wept with gratitude. Instead, she said, “Rupert, that would be wonderful. What would I do without you?”

“Luckily, you’ll never have to wonder.” As usual, Rupert’s voice was full of warmth. “So, does a little fettucine sound good to you ladies?”

“It sounds like a taste of heaven,” Camille said.

“Mum.” Flora groaned. “Must everything be so dramatic?”

Camille pulled to a stop at another red light and turned to raise an ironic eyebrow at her rather dramatic preteen. The little smile Flora gave her in response showed that her point was noted.

“Drive safe. I’ll see you soon,” Rupert said.

“See you soon,” Camille said before Flora disconnected the call.

And suddenly, the entire day felt much better, indeed.

Dinner was, as always when Rupert cooked, delicious. Camille sighed as she sat back in her chair and sipped her wine. Flora had run upstairs to her bedroom to work on her homework, and the kitchen was quiet without her endless chatter about the happenings at school.

Rupert gave her a lazy smile across the farmhouse table that Camille had bought at a rummage sale and carefully restored when she was still in her early twenties and money was tight. Even though her career as a book illustrator had come with more success than she’d ever expected and could easily afford her a new table, she was comfortable with the one she had, scratches and all. It was a reminder of her early days of motherhood, but it was also a reminder that some things were constant.

Some people, too , she thought, warming under Rupert’s presence.

“I ate too much,” Camille told him. “I’m going to put on weight and it will be all your fault.”

“Ah, and then you’ll never find a man and that will be my fault, too?” His dark eyes glimmered.

“Of course it will be your fault. Just like it’s your fault that I haven’t had a date in…” She started to do the math and then stopped when she saw his raised eyebrow.

“About as long as it’s been since I’ve had one?”

Camille did feel bad about what happened with Janine, who did have a problem with Rupert spending so much time here, not that Camille had admitted that to any of her friends, who would be sure to just give knowing nods. But she knew that Rupert didn’t blame her for the breakup any more than he would be willing to sacrifice the cozy, albeit unconventional, little family they’d created since Flora had arrived.

“No one understands what we have,” Camille concluded.

Rupert drained the rest of his wineglass. “Sometimes I don’t even understand it myself.”

Camille frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

Rupert hesitated and then shook his head. He pushed his chair back and started collecting the plates. “Nothing. I just mean, well, it’s strange, isn’t it? We’re best friends. We talk all the time. See each other even more than that. And we’re raising a child together.”

“It’s rather perfect, isn’t it?” Camille mused, but Rupert stood silently at the sink, his back to her, until she grew worried. It was the first time there had ever been a seed of doubt—well, on his end. She’d had plenty over the years, ones that she kept fiercely to herself until they subsided, and they always did. The Christmas mornings when they were all laughing and opening their gifts. The birthday parties when Rupert carried a big cake into the garden and Flora blew out all her candles and they squeezed together for a family photo wearing lopsided party hats. The vacations they took every summer to Spain because it wasn’t like Camille was ever going to step foot in France again.

It was all so wonderful that it was sometimes tempting not to wonder if there could be something more.

But every time these thoughts took hold, Camille reminded herself of what she already had.

And what she stood to lose.

“Rup?” she prompted, swirling the wine in her glass as she eyed him. A knot had formed in her stomach, and she didn’t like the way it felt any more than she liked where this conversation was headed. “What we have is special. We both know it. We always say how lucky we are when we see all those other couples bickering while their kids sulk miserably.”

He nodded because, like her, he’d been one of those kids, but still he kept his back to her. “What we have is special.”

She carried the remaining plates to the counter and stood beside him, stealing a glance at his noble profile as he began to scrub at the saucepot with a little more force than usual.

“Are we having our first argument?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light and playful. Her stomach felt a little funny while she waited for his reply. It was a feeling that she didn’t typically associate with Rupert of all people. Usually, when she felt anxious or worried it was Rupert who had a way of making all those uncomfortable sensations go away.

The tension in Rupert’s face was replaced by a smile that had the calming effect she had been waiting for.

“Don’t be crazy. Us? We don’t argue.”

“No,” she said a little breathlessly. She busied herself by loading the dishwasher. “We don’t. And I like it that way. I like everything about this relationship.”

“It’s just…”

Camille’s eyes widened as she slid another plate into the rack. She was grateful she wasn’t facing him right now or she might not be able to stop herself from making up an excuse and fleeing the kitchen.

“Yes?” she squeaked.

“Do you ever think we’re playing it too…safe?”

Ah. A question she could answer, and with conviction.

She gave him a long, hard stare, but she was smiling, because she knew that this time, like the time that Rupert was miserable in his banking job and needed a little push to start on a more fulfilling career path in personal finance, which he had done quite successfully thanks to his excellent people skills, it was she who needed to reassure him.

“Rupert,” she said calmly and surely. “Safe is good. You and I both know that. Look at what we grew up with! Chaos, that’s what.”

Rupert’s father had been an alcoholic, his mother a classic enabler. And her own family. Well! She had been the only girl in her class to have a father disappear overnight to start a new family in the States, and then to have to leave Paris under a shroud of shame and confusion.

“And look at what we’re giving our daughter! Two happy, healthy parents who laugh and actually enjoy each other’s company and always look forward to seeing one another. Parents who agree on, well, everything.”

Everything except, she was beginning to fear by the doubt that persisted in his eyes, the status of their relationship.

“You never wonder what might have been if we’d tried to have a go at a real relationship?” Rupert asked, squinting at her

Of course she had! She questioned it even before they’d conceived Flora, after their daughter was born, and every year that followed. But she’d never actually entertained the idea. To do so would be foolish. Careless, really.

She had Flora to think about. And giving her the stability that she’d never had growing up.

“We do have a real relationship,” she told Rupert. The best one she’d ever had. The only one she’d ever had, because he was the only man in her life who she’d kept around—and who’d stayed.

“I meant something more,” Rupert said patiently.

“And what if we did?” she asked. It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but Rupert’s eyes widened with alarming interest. Quickly, she stood a little straighter. “I’ll tell you what would happen. Suddenly, you’d feel trapped, living here, in this little cottage instead of your sleek flat. Cooking dinner for us would no longer feel special, it would become thankless.”

“You’d never be thankless,” he said softly. Then, his mouth curved into a hint of a smile. “The way I cook? Impossible.”

She swatted him with a dish towel.

“Things would change, that’s all I’m saying.” And she’d had enough change for one lifetime. “You’d grow bored of me. I’d stop making you laugh. We’d have laundry lists of resentments, and we’d start arguing over stupid things like the temperature of the thermostat. And we could never undo it.”

Oh, they could, she knew. Legally speaking. But the damage would be far deeper than dividing assets.

“Just so you know,” Rupert said softly as he went back to scrubbing the pot. “I would never be able to resent you. You’re basically my favorite person in the entire world.”

“Besides Flora,” Camille pointed out, meeting his eye.

“Well, that goes without saying,” Rupert replied.

As so many things between them did. They understood each other. They supported each other. They stood by each other. For better and worse.

Camille let her gaze drift and then cleared her throat. She felt the need to change the subject—and quickly. “My sister called. Twice.”

“Twice in one day?” Rupert frowned and handed her the pot to dry. “That’s not like her.”

“No,” Camille agreed. “I hope that nothing is wrong.”

“You can go call her if you’d like. I’ll finish up here,” Rupert said.

Camille hesitated, sensing that there was still something unspoken between them, only this time, something that ran the risk of being misunderstood.

She opened her mouth and then closed it again. “Okay. I think I will.”

She took her cell phone from the pocket of her cardigan and went into the living room, where she curled up in the armchair in front of the roaring fire, one that Rupert had started before they’d gotten home. It was nice, she admitted, coming home to find the lights on, the kitchen smelling of roasted tomatoes and garlic, and a warm fire to dry out the rain that had fallen on their shoulders in the dash from the car.

And it was nice to sit here, knowing that her daughter was upstairs and that Rupert was just one room away in the kitchen, humming one of those tunes from some nineties rock band, because, like her, at least according to Flora, he was rooted in the past.

But Camille was rooted in a different kind of past. The kind of past that she didn’t want to repeat.

With a sigh, she called Isabelle, hoping that nothing was wrong. It was usually Camille who was calling her older sister with updates about their mother, who lived in London and rarely went outside the city limits, even to visit her only grandchild.

“Isabelle?” she said when her sister answered. “I saw you called. Is everything okay?”

“Of course!” Isabelle replied, but there was something tense in her voice. “I was just calling to invite you to my gallery opening!”

Camille couldn’t have been more shocked than if Isabelle had announced that their parents were getting back together.

Isabelle lived in Paris. And Isabelle knew exactly how Camille felt about that place. Did she seriously expect Camille to go there?

“Now before you say no,” Isabelle said hurriedly, “I know how you feel about Paris. And I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important to me. This is going to be a very big show and…well, it doesn’t look like Hugh is going to make it.”

Ah, Hugh. He was always traveling. Camille often wondered how Isabelle felt about that, but she rarely complained.

Until now.

“That’s disappointing,” Camille hedged.

“It is,” Isabelle said matter-of-factly. “He’s been out of town more and more. He was supposed to come back from Tokyo today but now…I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

Camille frowned. Was there more that her sister wasn’t telling her? They were close, but they’d been closer as children. Distance and phases of life had inevitably led to them growing apart a bit. Isabelle was a jet-setter, and now she was focused on her gallery. She didn’t understand what it was like to center one’s life around a child any more than Camille could understand how on earth Isabelle could not only live in Paris but love it!

“Is this the artist you told me about last time we talked?” Camille vaguely remembered something about an up-and-coming painter, one that dozens of galleries were wining and dining. It had left her feeling unsettled the next time she sat down at her desk and stared at her own illustrations, daring to imagine for one fleeting moment what it would feel like to not just explore her work but be honored for it, before she reminded herself that she’d purposefully chosen a more stable path. One where her focus could be on her daughter.

“It is!” Isabelle sounded so overjoyed that Camille was momentarily ashamed because she’d only been half listening while baking brownies with Flora for a school event.

“It really means a lot to you,” Camille commented, thinking of the countless times that Isabelle had come straight to her side when something important happened in her life. But those were big, life-changing events, like Flora’s birth, or later, yes, her birthday parties. But Flora only turned eight or nine once in her life. Whereas the gallery…

It was all Isabelle had, Camille reminded herself, because that’s what Rupert always told her when Camille vented to him about her sister. While she couldn’t personally understand it, she knew that she should support her sister and the things that were important to her.

“I know how you feel about Paris,” Isabelle said gently. “But it’s been years, Camille. Decades. It would feel different to you now. We could have some proper sister time, lounge at sidewalk tables, and catch up over wine and cheese and chocolate. Or shop. Of course, I do have a fair bit of work to do. And I know you have Flora.”

Flora was now back in the kitchen with Rupert. From the short distance, Camille could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. They were talking about their plans for the weekend, when Flora stayed at his apartment, even though Camille usually ended up staying, too, in the guest room, because, well, like Rupert had said, he was her favorite person in the entire world. Other than Flora.

“When is the opening?” she blurted before she could think of a better plan.

“You mean you’ll come?” Isabelle sounded startled.

Camille glanced back into the kitchen while Isabelle gave her the details, smiling when Rupert gave Flora a little twirl on the floor that sent her into a fit of giggles but then feeling her stomach twist when he caught her eye and gave her one of his warm, slow smiles.

She’d go to Paris. Of all places. She would go. It would be good to see Isabelle. Good to support her.

And maybe some distance would be good. For all of them.