Never Say Never

Chapter 5

O ona went out riding the day after she’d been fired, and for a long walk in the afternoon at the time when she was usually working. She was trying to clear her head. She felt dazed, as though she’d been in an accident and had a concussion. She went to bed without dinner again that night, which was her usual reaction to catastrophe or major stress. She couldn’t eat.

In a moment of panic the following day, she called Nancy Green, a headhunter she knew in New York who specialized in publishing, and said she was thinking of making a change, and the headhunter was candid with her.

“We’ve had a lot of calls this week from Hargrove editors. There’s a bloodbath happening there. They seem to be keeping the S and B editors and letting a lot of the Hargrove editors go.” Oona finally admitted that she was one of them and that her imprint was being shut down.

“I’m sad to hear it,” Nancy Green said. “I love that imprint. The problem is that it’s not commercially viable. You need to get into commercial fiction to stay with the times. You’re young enough to do that, Oona. It’s kind of like being a Shakespearean actor. It’s wonderful experience, but it’s not where the world is today. When you come back to New York, you’ll need to be ready to move on to the commercial world. It’s an adjustment, and you’ve got time to get ready for it. No one is hiring right now. You need to ride out the pandemic and come back ready to jump into the shark tank with everyone else.” It sounded hideous to Oona and like an apt description of what she had to look forward to. She got a headache thinking about it.

Her safe little world had been shattered, far from all the aggressive competition she would have to deal with now when she went back. But publishing was all she knew, and she had to grow with it. She dreaded going back now more than ever. It wasn’t just about an empty apartment, it was about an empty life and no career. She felt like her life was over at forty-seven. Another twenty-five years wasted and down the tubes, while the parade of the employed marched past her and passed her by, just like Charles and Roberto. And she knew she had to say something to her children about getting fired.

It took her another week to do that, while she tried to heal from the blow she’d been dealt. She told Meghan in an email, and tried to sound upbeat, which she could do better in email than by phone. She called Will and told him. He was sympathetic and tried to bolster her spirits, and she let him think he had. But she was very down, and didn’t want to speak to anyone. She was in deep mourning for her lost job.

She had four messages from Gail, which she hadn’t answered yet. Clearly, she had heard the news, and Oona didn’t feel ready to talk to her. She sent her a text and promised to call soon. Gail left her alone after that, until Oona reached out to her. Gail knew that Oona disappeared when times were bad, hiding deep in the forest until she felt ready to face the world again. This was a hard blow, and it had been a hard six months for her. But she was smart and talented, and Gail knew she would be fine. But Oona didn’t know that yet. There was life after Hargrove Publishing, after Charles Webster, and after the pandemic. She just had to get there, and fight to rise from the ashes, which was easier said than done.

The long walks on the property helped, and so did driving through the countryside in the little battered car she had rented. She didn’t want to see people or talk to anyone. She needed to be alone to digest what had happened. Her children were alive and healthy, and she knew Charles wouldn’t let her starve. She had money saved and invested. Even Oona knew that her life wasn’t as over as she feared, but it felt awful. All the yardsticks she had used to measure her success in life had been broken and thrown away. Her marriage and her job. She’d been downsized. She looked at herself in the mirror one morning and hated what she saw. She looked beaten. It had been a week since she had been fired. She told herself to get over it and get a life. No one had died. She didn’t have a terminal illness. She didn’t have Covid. And if she had to join the sharks in the pool of commercial fiction, so be it. She couldn’t let getting fired devour her. She hadn’t lost an arm or a leg. She had lost a job.

She drove into the village to buy groceries, took a different route home, and came across a lake she had never seen before. She got out and decided to walk around it, and when she had, she sat on the narrow rim of sand in the May sunshine and felt its warmth on her face, and could sense herself slowly coming back to life again. She lay back on the sand and looked up at the sky, and there were giant white balls of fluffy clouds in a cameo blue sky, and she could see them moving. She knew the clouds in her sky would move too, and she had to move with them. Maybe she’d find a better job, one she liked as much or more. She had been comfortable and complacent for years where she was, now she had to reach out and stretch and find something else. Somewhere in her misery, she had turned a corner. There had been enough loss in her life in the past six months, and now she had to get back on her feet again.

She stood up to leave and heard whimpering from a cluster of bushes nearby. She turned toward the sound, and thought she had imagined it, and then she heard it again. The sound was louder the second time. It sounded like a cat, or maybe a bird, some small animal in the bushes. She walked toward them and pushed the branches apart, hoping that some wild creature didn’t jump out and bite her, and she found herself looking into a little white face with a round black nose, and sad eyes looking up at her as it whimpered again. It was a little dog with floppy ears and curly hair just long enough to get tangled up in the branches at the base, and it was held fast and couldn’t free itself. She knelt down next to it, still holding the branches back. It was a small white dog covered in dirt with pleading eyes.

“How did you get yourself in this mess?” she asked the little face, and it whimpered again. She wished she had something to cut him loose with, but she didn’t. She took her car keys out of her pocket, and worked on severing the tangles of fur that were caught in the branches and keeping the little dog prisoner. It took her nearly an hour and she finally freed the little dog, and it limped out of the bushes, and climbed into her lap as though to thank her. There were bald patches where it had fought to free itself, and Oona held it for a minute as it licked her face. She could see it was a female and she had an injured paw.

Oona stood looking at her. “Now what do we do?” she asked her. There was no way she could leave her there. She was injured, lost, and possibly abandoned, and probably hungry. She was panting and probably thirsty too. There was no way of knowing how long she’d been trapped in the bushes. Oona picked her up and walked to the car, as the little ball of tangled fluff wagged her tail and barked at her. Oona smiled. “You’re welcome. You can come home with me for now, and maybe we can find your owner.” She laid the little dog down on the passenger seat, and as soon as she got into the car the little dog climbed into Oona’s lap and lay there until they got to the house, and then Oona carried her inside. Marie had already left for the day. Oona took her into the kitchen, and set down a bowl of water for her, and she drank half of it, while Oona cut up little bits of chicken from her dinner the night before and set it down in another bowl. The little dog was ravenous and ate it all, and wagged her tail at Oona when she finished. She was small and a mixture of some kind, and she was filthy and looked pathetic with her bald patches where her fur had been torn away by the branches as she must have fought to free herself.

Oona filled the sink with warm water, gently put her in it, and carefully examined the paw. She had a cut on it, but it didn’t look too deep, and Oona discovered as she washed her that she was snow-white when she was clean. She rinsed her and dried her with a towel, and set her back down on the floor, where the little dog finished the water and limped around the kitchen wagging her tail. Oona carried her out to the garden so she could do what she needed to, and she seemed very well behaved, and then Oona carried her back into the house. She wanted to take her to a vet to see if she had a chip with an owner’s address. She was very sweet and wasn’t afraid of Oona, so she guessed she must have been well treated by her owners. She was probably someone’s beloved pet. Oona had no idea where to find a vet until Marie came back the next day and could tell her, and the little dog followed her out of the kitchen and into the study where she’d been working every day until she lost her job. She told herself that the last thing she needed now was a dog, but she had no idea what to do with her, and she would have to keep her until she could take her to the vet the next day and maybe someone had been looking for her and would claim her. “Just for tonight,” she said to her, and the dog wagged her tail as though she agreed. She tilted her head when Oona talked to her, and she was adorable.

Oona carried her upstairs to her bedroom, and the little ball of patchy white fur jumped into a comfortable chair, curled up and went to sleep, as Oona smiled at her. She had a feeling that the dog was an omen of some kind, but she wasn’t sure of what. New beginnings, maybe, or recovery, or healing, or just the dose of love that they both needed, for a night anyway. She didn’t intend to keep her and hoped to find her owner.

She fed her again at dinnertime, and the dog ate everything. Oona took her outside and she did what she was supposed to do again. She appeared to be housebroken, and Oona made a bed for her of a soft blanket that was lying on a chair in her bedroom and the dog curled up in it, after licking Oona’s hand, and went to sleep, and slept soundly until morning, when Oona took her downstairs to the kitchen to feed her, then outside. When Marie saw the dog, she made a fuss over her. Oona explained to her that she needed to find a vet, and Marie wrote down the name of one nearby, just beyond the villages, and drew a little map of how to get there. Oona took the dog there after breakfast.

Miraculously, the vet spoke enough English that Oona could explain to him how she had found her, and she showed him the cut on her paw. He bandaged her and checked her and said she was about a year old. She had no microchip, but she had been neutered, and she was definitely housebroken and had made no mistakes. She was clearly someone’s pet that had gotten lost or had been abandoned, and without a chip or a collar with tags on it, there was no way to find the owner.

“You’ve never seen her before?” Oona asked him and he shook his head. And there were no photos of lost dogs in his waiting room that looked like her.

“Some people come from far away to that lake,” he said. “Perhaps they forgot her, or she was trapped in the bush and they couldn’t find her when they go away. I think she is yours now. She loves you,” he said, smiling, as the little ball of white fluff with the black button nose licked his hand.

“I’m here for the confinement, but I’m going back to New York,” she said.

“You will need a shot for the rage, to go to America with her.”

“Rabies?” Oona asked, not sure about rage, and guessing, and he laughed.

“Yes. I give her a shot now, and a paper you can show.” He gave the dog a shot, and then handed her back to her new owner. Oona still wasn’t sure what to do with her, but she’d had her shot now, and he gave her a chip before they left, and used his address to identify her if she got lost again. Oona wondered if Marie would want her. She wanted to find her a home before she left. She was such a loving little dog, she deserved a good home, and she was clean and white now. But Oona couldn’t see herself taking a dog back to New York.

They were back at the house an hour later and Oona asked Marie if she wanted to keep her. She had no known owner. Marie said she had two big dogs at home and couldn’t take her. Oona sat in the chair in the library, stroking her, and she fell asleep as Oona thought of a name for her. The name of the mistress for whom the house had been built. Florence. Flo. Oona set her gently down in the chair, and Florence lay there snoring softly, as Oona put all her work papers in a stack to send back to Hargrove. She was going to send them to Gail to return them, since the office was closed.

It was the end of a chapter in her life. It had been six months of chapter endings, and it was time for new beginnings. Maybe Florence was a sign of those new beginnings. If so, she had made a ragtag entry into Oona’s life, filthy, injured, bedraggled, abandoned, but ready for a new life and to start over. Maybe she was a sign after all. All she wanted was to follow Oona around and love her, and maybe she was just what Oona needed, someone to love and to love her. There were worse fates for a curly-haired little white dog. She had gotten lucky when Oona heard her and saved her. Her fur would grow back and her paw would heal, just like Oona’s wounded heart. Maybe it wasn’t an accident that she had found her, Oona wondered, perhaps it was meant to be, and Florence was an omen of good things to come, for both of them. Florence seemed pleased with the arrangement as she lay on her back with all four paws in the air, snoring softly.

After a week of mourning her lost job, three days after Oona had found Florence trapped in the bushes, the President declared France deconfined. Freedom! The outer borders of Schengen Europe remained closed to outsiders, but all the countries within those borders, and France in particular, were open to each other again. The Schengen borders were like an invisible boundary that encircled all the countries in Europe. People could cross from one European country freely into another, but the outer borders required a passport to enter or exit Europe. So for the moment, foreigners like Americans outside the borders could not enter Europe, but anyone in Europe could travel from one European country to another.

After two months of lockdown, stores could open, people could return to work, children could go back to school, businesses could function, and restaurants with outdoor terraces followed rapidly. Deconfinement had come in two months. There was a feeling of celebration, and people’s moods lifted. It reminded Oona of scenes of the liberation of Paris during World War II, in photos she had seen. People were happy and felt alive again. It was mid-May, and the countryside was in full bloom, as were the gardens of La Belle Florence, which were even prettier than Oona could have guessed in February.

Oona called the car service a few days later and was driven to Paris to go shopping and enjoy the bustle of the city. People smiled at each other in the street, some wearing masks, not all. For months, they had been told they didn’t need them, and now they did. But not everyone followed the new rule.

She had lunch at an outdoor café and sat basking in the sun at the end of the meal. She even went to a dog shop and bought a collar and leash for Florence and some toys and sweaters, and two beds, for her bedroom and the kitchen. She had left Florence at home with Marie. She came back at seven o’clock that night, with the car full of shopping bags from her forays in Paris. And she had even bought a big straw hat to wear in the garden. Florence loved her toys when Oona put them on the floor for her. She didn’t mind the pink collar Oona had bought her, though she was less enchanted with the sweaters, which fit perfectly. Her fur had already started to grow back. Oona had had a wonderful day in Paris. On the way home, she was thinking about when she should leave. But by then the United States was not doing as well as France, and it still seemed unsafe to return to New York, and she had no reason to go back now. No kids, no man, no job. There didn’t seem to be much point to it, and La Belle Florence had never looked better in all its early summer glory with vivid colored flowers in the garden. It seemed like the right place to be for now.

Two days later, she was buying groceries at Mme. Bertheaud’s and had a car full of food and other purchases to take home, when she decided to stop for coffee at a café in the village. It was so exciting to see people again, and everything in motion. Oona loved it and couldn’t get enough of it. Even the sleepy village of Milly-la-Forêt had come alive again, and everyone was in a good mood. There was the illusion that Covid was over, which was not the case, but the number of new daily cases was low enough to make it possible to end the lockdown for now, unless it got worse again.

She sat down at a table partially shaded by an umbrella, turned her face to the sun after her first sip of coffee, and heard a mellifluous voice of a man chatting to the waitress behind her. She recognized it as an accent from somewhere in the Caribbean, although she wasn’t sure precisely where. She glanced over at them talking, and the man looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. She had the distinct impression that she had seen him somewhere, and he would have been difficult to forget. He had dark shining skin, a brilliant smile of perfect white teeth, expressive dark eyes, and his hair was done in what looked like corks standing out all over his head. The hairstyle suited him, and he looked animated and laughed as he talked to the waitress in fluent French. He was tall and powerfully built. He was a strikingly beautiful man one wouldn’t soon forget, and it was a pleasure just looking at him. Oona finished her coffee, and the waitress managed to tear herself away to give Oona her check. The man with the Caribbean accent was wearing a crisp snow-white shirt with a stand-up collar and perfectly pressed jeans, as he glanced at Oona and cast his dazzling smile at her. He had laughter in his eyes and spoke to her in English from where he was sitting.

“I’m sorry to be rude, but I can’t help but ask, are you the American who’s living at La Belle Florence?” he asked her, and she nodded with a shy smile. He had a way of commanding one’s attention without trying to. He was easy to talk to, with a warm, engaging manner, and a deep, almost musical voice. There was something oddly familiar about his voice, as though she’d heard it before.

“I am,” she admitted.

“I’ve read so much about that house and the woman who inspired it. I’m in love with it. Is it as beautiful as they say?” he asked her. “I’ve even studied drawings of it and the original plans. I am fascinated by a woman who inspired so much love that someone built it for her, with care for every detail. The flowers in the moldings on the walls are of her favorite flowers,” he told her.

“Are you an architect?”

He smiled his breathtaking smile at the question and shook his head. He looked easygoing, at ease, and exuded an air of happiness.

“No, I just love old houses. I’m staying at the Chateau Bertigny for a year. I was planning to use it as a base, and I just spent two months in lockdown there. It’s nice to be out again, isn’t it?” he said. He was at the café for the same reason Oona was, the sheer joy of seeing people again.

Oona smiled back at him. “Mme. Bertheaud in the grocery store told me an American was living there. You don’t sound American.” She laughed.

“I’m not. I’m from Tobago, a small island off Trinidad— that’s where my family lives now, in Port of Spain, the capital. And you?”

“New York.”

“There’s nowhere like Tobago,” he said proudly. “If you speak English here, they think you’re American—they can’t discern the difference in our accents. I live in L.A. though, and London before that.” She could hear just a touch of British in his island accent, which was quite pronounced, despite Mme. Bertheaud’s interpretation of it as American. He continued to look familiar to Oona, and she still had no idea where she’d seen him, after talking to him. Or maybe he just seemed familiar because he was so friendly.

“If it wouldn’t be too inconvenient, I would love to see La Belle Florence one day. I’ve studied every detail of it. I hope the owners haven’t spoiled it. I wonder if the tunnels and secret passages that led to the old chateau before it burned are still there.”

“I don’t know.” She smiled as she stood up. “I wouldn’t want to get stuck in them if they are. But you’re welcome to come out and take a look whenever you want.”

“Thank you, I’d love that,” he said warmly but politely. He wasn’t fresh or overly familiar. “I’ll take you up on it if you don’t mind. Would tomorrow work for you?” he asked her. “I can do it another day if you prefer.” He was quick to accept her offer.

“Tomorrow is fine.” Now that she wasn’t working, she had nothing on her calendar, no Zoom meetings or conference calls. No FaceTime or Skype. She was painting in her free time. And he seemed to have spare time too. They had all lived with nothing but time for the past two months in the isolation of confinement. “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” she said shyly. Neither of them had volunteered their names. They left the café at the same time, and he got on his bicycle while she got into her car. He was even taller than she had guessed when he was sitting, with broad shoulders, a small waist, and long legs. He waved as he took off at a good speed. He was a beautiful man, and she was still thinking of him when she suddenly realized who he was as she drove home. It hit her like a lightning bolt and she laughed out loud. She felt like an idiot. But she hadn’t expected to meet him in the little village in France.

“Oh my God,” she said, laughing at herself. She had no idea why she hadn’t recognized him, since he always wore his hair in the same unusual style. He was Ashley Rowe, a famous actor, one of the biggest in Hollywood. She couldn’t wait to tell Meghan she had met him. All Oona could remember was that he had come from England after starring in a hit police series, and had been making major movies and series in L.A. ever since. She just hadn’t expected to see him in Milly-la-Forêt. She could envision him easily at the chateau where he was staying. It was the one that Mme. Bertheaud said belonged to the big British movie producer, who never used it anymore and lent it to friends, which made total sense now that she knew who he was.

Florence was waiting for Oona when she got home and was thrilled to see her. She did a little dance around Oona. She took her out to play in the garden, where she chased squirrels and birds, and enjoyed it thoroughly. She dashed into the flower beds, and Oona scolded her and took her out, and she looked up at Oona adoringly.

Oona wondered if Ashley Rowe would come the next day or if he would forget and have something better to do. It seemed incredible that in that small, quiet village, she had met a major movie star, and there was no one but Florence to tell about it. She could hardly wait to tell Meghan the next time she called.