Never Say Never

Chapter 7

A shley and Oona fell into an easy rhythm through all of June, alternating lunches at her house, with dinners at the chateau.

He had the better kitchen, with enormous spaces, excellent appliances, and tools he used well.

He made them some fabulous meals, of Caribbean and French cooking.

It was fun to see what he would cook next.

He had bought some Indian and Asian cookbooks, and was learning to prepare their delicacies too.

He was an excellent chef, along with his other talents.

He enjoyed cooking for her.

Ashley planted a vegetable garden for Oona, as he had promised, and she loved watching the things that he had planted grow.

They lay at her pool sometimes, relaxing, and then he’d make lunch for them, or they played tennis in the late afternoon at the chateau.

They were evenly matched at some things, and she loved playing tennis with him.

She’d never had a friendship like this with a man, even in college and before she was married.

They laughed and they played cards—they both loved to play poker.

She had no need to compete with him.

She beat him at cards, and he excelled at athletics.

They went running together. They visited chateaux and monuments and museums. He had a passion for history. They went riding together. He had learned to ride for one of his movies and loved it. Sometimes they walked through the woods in comfortable silence, enjoying the small animals they saw, and listening to the birds. Life at La Belle Florence was peaceful.

The Covid numbers had improved, although they’d both heard that people were being too relaxed in the south of France, partying and crowding onto the beaches, not wearing masks.

They all desperately needed to forget the stress of the life they had lived for the past six months.

They had been vigilant night and day, determined to survive the damage and anxiety of the pandemic, transforming fear to courage.

There was a constant drumbeat of stress in the distance, like a war.

It was impossible to ignore it.

Experiencing it together day by day brought Ashley and Oona closer.

They knew each other well now.

They were conscious of their differences and respectful of them.

And in the isolation they lived in, color didn’t matter to them or the people around them.

He was a major star, which gave him carte blanche in real life.

They were aware that they got a free pass that others didn’t because of who he was, and he was gracious to everyone they encountered.

He handled every situation with patience, intelligence, poise, and grace.

And Oona was aware that being his friend was an honor and a privilege, which she respected. He was a person of principles. They both were.

Oona had talked to Gail in New York about her friendship with Ashley Rowe.

All the employees of the newly enlarged Hargrove Publishing—combined with Shipsted and Breck, dangerously close to a monopoly now—were still working remotely from home, as was Will at Google.

Giant corporations were functioning by Zoom and similar applications online.

Better summer weather had boosted spirits everywhere and was also causing the Covid figures to rise, as people went out more and socialized, which continued to cause the virus to spread.

But people were a little more lighthearted than they had been in the winter months, hibernating in isolation, and in many cases unable to see their loved ones.

The pandemic was taking a heavy toll, particularly on the young and the elderly, who were sequestered more than other age groups.

Divorce, child abuse, domestic violence, and suicide were on the rise, and statistically alarming.

The U.S. was one of the hardest hit countries, with fragmented authority between mayors, governors, and health officials, all contradicting each other. No two cities, states, or counties had the same rules, with a broad range of protocols, from no acknowledgment of the virus at all to total lockdown. The virus was having a field day.

Gail acknowledged to Oona that she was sick and tired of being stuck in her apartment, on Zoom meetings all day to keep her department running.

The anticipated firings had taken place, and hundreds of employees of both merged houses had been let go.

Many hadn’t been replaced and the newly formed company was operating with a smaller staff than they intended to employ in future.

It was brutally hard to train new people, particularly those in first-time jobs, on screen and at a distance.

Everything was harder than it had been “before.”

And the first available vaccines were still months away.

It wasn’t an easy situation for anyone.

And Ashley and Oona were not exempt from the stress and restrictions in Milly-la-Forêt, the surroundings were just prettier.

Gail was stunned and impressed by Oona’s friendship with a major Hollywood star who was everyone’s idol and publicly acknowledged as a wonderful human being by all who knew him.

“Some people have all the luck,”

Gail growled at her, as Oona sat on her terrace overlooking the exquisitely manicured garden at the end of her day, while Gail was eating a sandwich and yogurt during her lunch break.

Gail was wearing an old Chanel jacket she had bought at a resale shop years before, with frayed denim shorts and furry bedroom slippers, because all anyone could see on Zoom was the serious black Chanel jacket, worthy of a department head of HSB—Hargrove, Shipsted and Breck.

No one could see the shorts or the fluffy slippers.

Oona could see that Gail’s hair had grown almost to her shoulders and had gone gray.

She said she hadn’t had a decent haircut since February.

The hairdresser she loved had moved home to New Hampshire, and the salon Gail always went to was closed.

She wasn’t unique in her complaints.

“I can’t believe it,”

Gail commented.

“You get stuck in France in what looks like Cinderella’s castle,”—Oona had shown her parts of La Belle Florence on FaceTime, including the vegetable garden Ashley had planted for her, from which she ate every day—“your new best friend is one of the best-looking actors in America, and you pal around every day, visiting yard sales and chateaux and playing cards with him at night after he cooks a three-star dinner for you, and the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in months is that the guy where I buy my bagels gave me free cream cheese yesterday, and a free bagel last week.

There are no movie stars at my house,”

she said glumly, and then she smiled at her friend on their computer screens, “but I’m happy for you.

You deserve it.

What happens to the friendship after the pandemic, if we all live long enough to see the end?”

she asked Oona.

“He goes back to his life between London and L.A.

making movies and series, and I go back to mine in New York and look for a job as an editor.

I hope we’ll see each other when he comes through New York on location or for a premiere of one of his movies.

I have to admit, I’ll miss him.

It’s nice having a friend here, it makes the whole thing bearable,”

she said with a sigh.

“So why can’t that continue after?”

Gail asked bluntly.

“Because we don’t live in the same city and I’m not his girlfriend.”

“Why not? You’re a beautiful woman.

You’re smart, you’re fun, you’re well educated.

You get along with everyone.

You’re a nice person.”

“For one thing, I’m married,”

Oona said.

Gail interrupted her immediately.

“To a man who is probably taking tango lessons with his boyfriend in Buenos Aires.

You’re not ‘married’ in the true sense of the word.

Only legally.”

“Ashley and I don’t have that kind of relationship.

We’re pals, as it should be.

I’m eight years older than he is.”

“And you don’t look it,”

Gail said stubbornly.

“He has a very glamorous life, I don’t.

He has dated the hottest young actresses in Hollywood.”

“So what.

He’ll outgrow them.

He won’t outgrow you.

Is color an issue?”

Gail asked Oona directly.

She had wondered about it before and hadn’t asked her.

Oona answered her thoughtfully.

“Not for us.

I never think about it, and I don’t think he does either.

But others might, or probably would,”

Oona said seriously.

“Ashley isn’t angry.

He’s a happy, well-balanced person.

He had a wonderful childhood and loves his family.

That makes a difference.”

“Your kids?”

Gail was curious.

Neither woman had ever had an interracial relationship before.

It didn’t happen much or at all in Oona’s bourgeois Park Avenue social circles, and it had never happened in Gail’s either when she was younger.

She’d gone out with a Black attorney for a while, and once a Black author, but it still didn’t happen to her often.

“No, my kids wouldn’t care.

Meghan would be thrilled—she has a huge crush on him.

Kids of that generation don’t see color.

It all looks the same to them.

I don’t know about his kids, they’re very young.

He’s dated other white women.

I just think generally in public people react to it.

There is still a huge issue with racism in the States. No one seems to care that much about it here. Famous Black Americans have been moving to France since the forties and fifties. It’s not about that for us. The public loves Ashley—even here, everyone recognizes him. It’s just that relationships of any color are complicated. He had a bad marriage, I’m about to have a bad divorce. We started out as friends, and we’re comfortable with it. I think the age difference is a bigger deal. He doesn’t need to drag some old bag around. That’s how people would see it.”

“That’s crap.

You’re forty-seven, not ninety-two, and you don’t look your age.

You look the same age as he does.

Is he upset about your age?”

Gail didn’t like the sound of that.

“It’s not an issue since we’re only friends.

He’s much too polite to mention it.

And as friends, I could be ninety and it wouldn’t matter.

It’s fine like this.”

“Eight years is nothing, for God’s sake,”

Gail said, frustrated.

“Men fall in love with women ten and twenty years older, just as women do.

It’s who you are and how you feel, what you believe in, and share.

I never heard you sound like this about Charles.

And just because he screwed you over, you can’t decide that you’re too old for someone to love you.

You’re still young, Oona.

Don’t waste it.”

“I’m not.

We have a fantastic time together, and we get along incredibly well.

Whatever the difference in how we grew up, we see things the same way.”

“Do you know how rare that is?”

Gail insisted.

She wanted her friend to be happy, and not miss the chance, by limiting it to friendship.

She was convinced that there was more there, and Oona was refusing to see it or open the door to it.

It sounded to her like Ashley was in love with her.

“I know it is.

He’s amazing, but he’ll be going back to L.A.

after all this, and I’ll be back in New York.

And he’s a big star everywhere.

I’m nobody.”

“Your kids aren’t here anymore, your husband is in love with a guy in Argentina, you’re not at Hargrove anymore.

What are you coming back to New York for?”

Gail’s argument was a good one.

“To see you of course! And look for another job in publishing.”

“Why? This place has been miserable since the merger.

And all the big houses are the same.

They lose their humanity when they get this big.

It’s not fun anymore.

They don’t care who works here, or even who they publish.

We’re just numbers to them, and part of the bottom line.

I’ve been here as long as you were, and sometimes I wonder if they even know who I am,”

Gail said, sounding forlorn.

“Publishing is all I know,”

Oona said.

She’d been thinking about it a lot herself.

Whenever she knew she was going back, she was going to call the headhunters again, to set up interviews for her, but they would undoubtedly complain that she had no experience with commercial fiction, and there was a limited market for debut literary fiction.

They would want her to go out and find new authors of commercial fiction to groom for bestsellers.

She wasn’t sure she had the right instincts for it.

“Maybe you should write a book.

Have you ever thought of that?”

“I don’t know that I have the talent.

I doubt it.

I’ve been painting lately—I started in the confinement—but Picasso I’m not.

To be honest, I’m not sure who I am anymore, or what I should be doing.

I obviously blew it as a wife, now I’ve lost my job.

All the markers I relied on to define my identity have disappeared.

Even my kids don’t need me anymore.”

“In a way, that must be very liberating.

You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be, a wife, a hands-on mother, a publisher in a category that’s fairly limited in readership in a market that is ruled by big bestsellers and greedy publishers.

Maybe you should do something completely different.

Do you even want to come back to New York, and if so, why? As well as closing some doors, which I’ll admit is painful, maybe this can open some doors too.

And that includes your next relationship.

Why not be with a younger man, or a movie star, or whoever makes you happy and excites you and inspires you.

And the same about your job.

For the first time in years, you have a totally clean slate. Maybe that’s what you need to look at, and figure out what you want to write on it. Don’t limit yourself by the past or what other people think. Screw them. Figure out what you want. You’ve earned it, Oona. The good thing about being our age is that you’ve paid your dues. So now you get to pick, the man, the place, the job, whatever you want.”

What Gail said was inspiring.

Oona could always count on Gail for that.

Gail looked at her watch then.

“Shit, I have a Zoom meeting in ten minutes.

Finance committee, to assess what my department will make this year.

That’s all they care about now.

Ever since the merger.

Be happy you’re not here. I would trade places with you in a hot minute.”

“Thank you,”

Oona said with a warm smile.

“I think I needed to hear that.

I guess I do have some options.”

“Go get ’em.

We’ll celebrate with a bagel when you get back.

The cream cheese is on me.”

Oona laughed.

Ashley was going to make a mushroom soufflé at the chateau that night, from an Alain Ducasse recipe he had found online.

He had even taught Oona to make a few things herself, and she’d enjoyed it.

She had mastered the art of Hollandaise sauce.

He had a fail-safe recipe he had shared with her, to go with the asparagus from his garden.

They were wholesome pastimes they both enjoyed, like so many things they did together.

But she still thought Gail was crazy to assume they had a future together as a couple.

Oona was sure it hadn’t even crossed Ashley’s mind, or hers. She cherished him as a friend and respected him profoundly. It was an honor to be close to him, and a privilege. She didn’t want to screw it up with a romance that wouldn’t last and had no future. He would go back to dating his famous movie stars when he went back to L.A. But in the meantime, she loved what they shared, and didn’t expect more from him, nor did he expect anything more of her, she was sure of it.

She arrived at the chateau at eight o’clock, as she always did.

There was no light on in the kitchen, which was unusual.

He was supposed to be putting together the ingredients for the soufflé.

She called out his name and he answered from upstairs where his suite was.

She walked up the stairs, until she saw his bedroom.

The door was open, there was a small suitcase on the bed and he was packing.

He looked up when she reached the doorway, and saw that he was worried.

He was moving fast, throwing things into the bag, socks, underwear, a pair of loafers. He was wearing sneakers, jeans, a white shirt, and a dark blue linen blazer.

“Are you going somewhere?”

she asked him.

It was obvious he was.

He talked to her as he continued to pack.

“I got a call from Claire’s sister an hour ago.

Claire is sick.

With Covid.

She got sick five days ago.

Alana said something to me about it a few days ago.

She wasn’t too bad then.

Alana asked me if I thought she’d go to the hospital, and I said I didn’t think so, so now she’ll think I’m a liar, as well as an absentee dad.

I haven’t seen them in three months because of the quarantine, which was very strict. You had to isolate for two weeks on arrival. They just changed the regulations literally days ago, so I won’t have to now, fortunately, just have a negative Covid test. The kids’ mother had scarlet fever as a child, and she has a heart murmur. She has a pacemaker, and somewhat fragile health, so she’s in the high-risk category. She tested positive a few days ago, and she’s sick now. It sounds like she got bad pretty fast. She had trouble breathing last night, and they took her to the hospital this morning. Apparently, she’s not doing well—they’re talking about intubating her. They won’t let anyone see her at the hospital, so I can’t see her, but the kids are very upset. I’m going to see them. They’re both in quarantine too, having been in contact with their mother.”

He looked deadly serious for a moment.

“I should be there in case anything happens.

I hope she’ll be all right.

I want to see the kids.

I’ll be careful and wear a mask with them of course.

They tested negative, and they’ll have to be tested again.

They haven’t been with her since she developed symptoms, but she was contagious before that.

Hopefully they’ll be okay.”

Oona looked at him for a moment.

He was distracted and obviously upset.

He had put ten pairs of socks into his rolling bag, while she watched him, and didn’t hesitate with her next question.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

she asked.

It was an honest offer.

He smiled a small, wintry smile and shook his head.

“Thank you.

There’s nothing you can do, but I appreciate it.”

“I can wait at a hotel, so I’m there if you need me.”

He stopped what he was doing and looked at her more seriously.

“Thank you, Oona.

You can’t.

If you come with me, you can’t get back into France with an American passport.

I have a visa for France the studio got me, for the series I was supposed to be making.

It’s a long-term visa for famous people in creative fields called a ‘Talent Passport,’ and I have a British passport as well as my American one.

With just an American passport, you can’t get back in here once you leave, while the borders are closed.

But I appreciate the offer.

I’ll call and let you know what’s happening,”

he promised, and then he looked apologetic, and gave her a hug.

“Will you take a rain check for the soufflé?”

he asked her, and she smiled, worried about him and his children.

They were young, and what if they lost their mother? She hoped they wouldn’t.

She remembered how deeply shaken she had been at eighteen when her mother died.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you to cancel dinner.

I’ve been rushing like a madman since Claire’s sister called.

The kids are very upset.”

It was a terrible wake-up call as to how dangerous the virus was.

Oona was sorry she couldn’t go with him, just to be in the area, even if she couldn’t see him, but she didn’t want to get locked out of France.

They went down to the kitchen then, and he carried his rolling bag.

He glanced at his watch.

“I have a car coming in half an hour.

I’m staying at Claire’s.

You can reach me on my cell.

Normally, her boyfriend is there, but he’s going back to his own place so I can be with my kids.

He’s a decent chap and he loves her.

They’ve been together for four or five years now. They got together fairly soon after we separated. He’s good to my kids, and to her, and very civil to me.”

Ashley made himself a quick sandwich and had finished it by the time the car arrived.

Oona walked him to the car, and he gave her a hug and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

He’d never done that before and she was surprised.

He was touched that she had offered to go with him.

“Be good while I’m gone.

I’ll call you,”

he promised when the car came, and she waved as they pulled away and drove across the drawbridge.

There was still a moat around the chateau that had been there since it was built in the sixteenth century.

Chateau Bertigny had once been a fortress, which protected its inhabitants during sieges by their enemies.

When Ashley had left, Oona got back in her car and drove back to La Belle Florence, and she felt a sudden void the moment he was gone.

It was so comforting to always know he was nearby.

She hoped that everything would go well in London and his ex-wife would be okay.

She spent a quiet evening with the dog, watching one of her favorite shows, and went to sleep early.

Ashley texted her when he arrived in London.

She sent him her good thoughts again.

And she had another message from him when she woke up in the morning.

He said only that nothing had changed.

She worked on one of her paintings while he was away and called Will.

He and Heather were working remotely, and they sounded fine.

Talking to Will made Oona miss them more.

She hadn’t heard from Meghan for a few days, but she knew that she was busy.

She missed Ashley but she didn’t want to call him and intrude if it was a bad time and he was with the kids.

He called her late that night when they were asleep and reported that their mother wasn’t doing well and was in the ICU.

He said she was having a lot of trouble breathing, and they were going to intubate her if she didn’t improve, which didn’t sound good to Oona.

She worked on the painting some more to pass the time, and was thinking about Ashley and his children when she went to bed that night.

She had no news when she woke up in the morning, and walked to the vegetable garden he had planted, to get some things for lunch.

She called him late that afternoon, which was an hour earlier for him in London, but he didn’t pick up, so she sent him a text instead, hoping that things were going well.

She was worried when she went to bed that night with no news.

In the morning she read a text from him that she had feared.

Claire’s heart had given out early that morning, and she had died of cardiac arrest.

She was a year younger than Ashley and had died of Covid.

Ashley said he would call Oona when he could.

His children were devastated.

Oona had a heavy heart all day when she thought about them. It brought her own mother’s death back vividly. She could easily imagine how distraught they felt, and they were much younger than she had been when her mother died.

She knew Ashley would be deeply saddened too. The marriage hadn’t worked, but she was the mother of his children, and he had loved her once, and he always said that she was a good mother and a good person.

It was terrible news, and Claire was the first person Oona knew at close range who had died of Covid. She was another tragic statistic in the world crisis that was continuing to unfold.

Oona didn’t hear from Ashley for two days and could well imagine he had his hands full with his kids and Claire’s grieving family. They were only allowed to have ten people at the funeral, and as soon as it was over, he called her and sounded very subdued.

“Are you okay?”

she asked him in a somber tone.

“More or less.”

He sounded terrible.

“I’m so sorry, that’s so awful.”

“It attacked her heart.

They tried to bring her back but they couldn’t.”

He sounded desperately sad, for Claire, and his children.

“How are the kids doing?”

“Simon is doing better than Alana, but I’m not sure he fully gets it yet.

The family is just destroyed.

I’m bringing the children back to France with me tomorrow.

I can get them in on my visa at their age.

They need a change of scene, and I want them with me.

We’re flying private.

I don’t want to take any risks with them.”

“Do you need me to get anything ready for them? I don’t want to intrude.

I’ll just leave whatever you need at Bertigny, so it’s there when you arrive.

Are there any foods they like?”

It touched him that she wanted to comfort his children.

Alana was heartbroken to have lost her mother, and that she never got to say goodbye.

Simon looked dazed and had wet his bed the night before.

Ashley knew how much they would need him now, and he was glad he wasn’t working, and could spend all his time with them.

“I can’t think of anything they’d want to eat.

I’ll make them pizza or something.

This is going to be so tough for them.”

“I know,”

Oona said sympathetically.

“I went through it, and I was older than they are.

Let me know if you think of anything I can do.”

“I called the housekeeper and told her what room to get ready for Alana.

I’ll have Simon sleep with me.

He’s prone to nightmares anyway, and this won’t help.”

Even Ashley had a hard time believing that Claire was gone.

He kept getting flashbacks of their wedding, of when she was pregnant, of when Alana and Simon were born.

So many scenes crowded into his mind.

He had known Claire since he was eighteen and she was seventeen, when they went to school together after he first arrived in London.

Their marriage hadn’t been a success, but he had loved her as a sister and a friend and a special person in his life, and he knew he always would.

There were tears in his eyes when he hung up with Oona, and he was glad he had her to return to in Milly-la-Forêt.

When the children were feeling a little less shell-shocked, he wanted to introduce them to Oona, just as a friend, and he was counting on her excellent motherly advice.

He considered her an authority on the subject—since she was so attentive to her own children, he was sure she would be good with his.

He was grateful that she was a mature person, and not some twenty-two-year-old starlet obsessed with herself and unable to relate to his kids.

Oona was just who they needed to help them.

He sent her a text immediately, thanking her for her help, and he signed it “love, Ash,”

which was a first for him.

She interpreted it as a gesture of friendship, despite everything Gail had said, guessing that he was in love with her.

Oona still didn’t think so, but that wasn’t important right now.

All that mattered to her and Ashley was comforting Alana and Simon, and giving them all the love and nurturing they needed.

She fell asleep thinking of them that night, and of their mother, and Ashley.

Her heart went out to all of them.

When she woke up in the morning, her pillow was wet with tears.

For the first time in a long time, she had been crying for her mother, and theirs too.