Chapter 9
I n spite of Oona’s reservations and fears for the future, she and Ashley and his children were together almost every day.
He didn’t force the issue or crowd her, but he was ever present, and their relationship continued to deepen.
She grew more and more attached to his children, and they depended on her in the ways they had their mother.
She was a loving female presence in their lives, not trying in any way to replace their mother, but adding a female voice and abilities to their daily lives, with tenderness and discretion.
Simon loved to cuddle on her lap, and Alana turned to her for all the details Ashley couldn’t master and didn’t try.
Questions about hair and clothes, fashion and styles appropriate for Alana that she was eager to try.
It was an easy role for Oona, and she loved spending time with them.
At the beginning of September, they went to the south of France for a few days, for a change of scene, but Ashley and Oona rapidly agreed that it was too crowded and too risky for the virus, and they went back to Milly-la-Forêt earlier than planned.
Simon and Alana had grown up in England more than they had in L.A., and Ashley’s roots and attachment to the Caribbean were strong.
It made her realize as she spent time with them that there were subtle differences in how they viewed racial issues.
They hadn’t grown up with the oppression that had existed in America for years, and the many issues which were still unresolved.
Neither Simon nor Alana had ever suffered feelings of discrimination in the schools they went to.
Their father had had a happy childhood in Tobago, while their mother had been a little more political, more about feminism than about race, and her long-term boyfriend after Ashley was white, so neither Ashley nor his children made a big issue about Oona being white, nor even thought about it.
But being with them made Oona examine her own experiences, growing up in New York.
She realized that there had in fact been taboos, but they had been unspoken, never expressed.
The taboos were not entirely racial, they were social as well.
She had been expected to marry a man from a similar background, but no one had ever openly said he had to be white.
It was just assumed he would be if he was from her own social milieu.
It was important to her mother that Oona marry a man who had had a good education at a top-notch prep school and college, and she was expected to do the same academically, and apply to the best schools. In Oona’s day, staying within the same social and academic boundaries and going to the best universities eliminated, in most cases, men from what was considered “the lower classes,”
and she had stayed within the range of what was expected of her, without exploring options further afield.
She had been neither political nor rebellious growing up, so she had followed the unspoken rules without giving it any further thought.
Charles had graduated from Yale, so he was considered by her mother to be an appropriate choice.
But underlying those familiar boundaries were the taboos that no one in polite circles voiced, and Oona had paid no attention to them and was unaware of their existence, or at least she didn’t spend time thinking about it.
She was expected to have a good job when she graduated from college, and she had, and so had Charles in advertising.
Race had never entered into it.
And no one ever told her not to date or fall in love with a Black man.
Those words were never said.
The subject hadn’t even come up.
One or two of the girls she knew later had married men of a different race, but it had never shocked her or caused comment among her friends.
She was friends with people of other races at work.
Her own children had never crossed the racial lines in their dating life, but she had never told them not to, nor had Charles, and they had friends of all races.
She and Charles had left it up to them.
Charles and Oona were liberal in their thinking, but not political about it.
What they had conveyed to their children was about human values, not racial ones. Oona had no idea how they would react to Ashley if they knew she was in love with him.
Meghan asked about him from time to time because she knew they were friends, but Oona couldn’t imagine them objecting to him, and would have been surprised if they did.
Crossing racial lines had never happened in their family, but there was no reason why it shouldn’t, or why it would cause them distress.
Particularly because he was famous, Ashley fell into a whole other category, as being highly desirable, not someone anyone would object to.
Will was still struggling with the idea that his father was gay, although Meghan seemed to have accepted it.
It was more about the shock value and surprise at this late date in their father’s life than any prejudice about homosexuality, which they didn’t have.
Oona couldn’t imagine them caring that Ashley and his children were Black.
Oona’s main concern was about how different their lives were, and all the inevitable baggage that fame brought with it, and attention from the press, more than about anything to do with race.
It simply didn’t matter to her, and she didn’t care what color Ashley was.
But she still couldn’t envision herself fitting into the highly public life of a celebrity who had to zealously protect his privacy, and who until now had dated women much younger, more beautiful, and more glamorous than she was.
But hearts were unruly and didn’t play by the rules or stick to social distinctions.
Charles had discovered that when he fell in love with a man, and now Oona was discovering it too.
Ashley was deeply embedded in her heart, no matter how much she feared a future with him, and not being up to it, or enough for him.
People recognized Ashley everywhere they went.
His children were used to it, but Oona wasn’t, and it still startled her when people stopped them for autographs and he graciously signed them, no matter how inconvenient.
He was always pleasant and polite, and gracious to his fans.
When they got back to her house and the chateau after their brief trip to the south of France, it felt good to be private again and swim in her pool where, more than once, Ashley touched her, when the children weren’t watching, or he hoped they weren’t.
The longer she held back, the more he wanted her, and he confronted her about it one night at the chateau when the children were asleep upstairs, and he kissed her with all the pent-up passion he felt for her.
“You’re driving me insane,”
he whispered to her after he kissed her, pressing her against him, and she didn’t stop him.
“I’m trying to be sensible,”
she said in a hoarse voice, “so we don’t do something we’ll both regret.”
“Trust me, I won’t regret it.
I’m a grown-up,” he said.
“If we make love, it will change everything, and there’s no turning back,”
although even then, people changed their minds, but not as easily once they’d crossed that line.
“That’s what I’m hoping,”
he said, and she smiled.
“You’ll regret it as soon as you get back to L.A.
and your real life.”
She was afraid he would forget her then, or realize she wasn’t enough for him.
She wasn’t young, excessively beautiful, or famous, or even successful in her own career.
She didn’t even have a job now.
“There’s nothing real about my life in L.A.
You’re real, and I love you.
I can’t believe I’m saying that, and feeling it for a woman I haven’t made love to.”
“I’m trying to protect us both,”
she said earnestly.
“No, you’re not.
You’re scared, of getting hurt, and of shocking your kids.
Maybe because I’m younger, or I’m Black.
You have a right to a life, Oona.”
“That’s what their father did.
He told them he has a right to happiness.
We all do, but not at their expense.”
“They’re adults, they have a right to make their own mistakes.
And we’re not a mistake.
I’ve known for four months that this is right, and I’m willing to wait until you figure it out too.”
“This isn’t a real situation.
We’re living some kind of war against an unseen enemy, fighting for our lives every day.
Your children just lost their mother.
Mine have lost their father, or the father they knew.
You or I could die any day, like their mother did.
How can you build a life on shifting sands in the middle of all that?”
“Because we’re the only stable thing we’ve got, and they’ve got.
This isn’t some crazy summer romance, it’s the real deal.
You’re the most stable, sane human being I’ve ever met, and I have my feet on the ground too.
I’m a poor boy from Tobago who got lucky, and if it all goes away, we’ll go to Trinidad, or someplace like it, and live simply.
I’m not afraid of that, and I don’t think you are either.
I won’t be famous forever.”
“You might be.”
She smiled at him, sure he would be.
He was exceptional in every way, and immensely talented.
And humble.
“And I might not.
But we could be forever, we could grow old together.”
It was what she had thought about Charles, and it wasn’t true.
What could she trust now? But he was right, she was afraid that if she reached out to him, he would vanish in thin air, and she would be alone again, with a broken heart, worse than when Charles left her.
She had never loved Charles as she did Ash, even without having made love.
She didn’t need to have sex with him to know she loved him, although she dreamt of him at night.
A few days after they got back from the south of France, in early September, he got a call from his agent in L.A.
The series in England had definitely been canceled, and they wanted him for a series in L.A., with all the necessary precautions for Covid.
His agent said he had to take it, it was an opportunity that would never come again, with a star-studded cast, and Ashley was going to be one of the stars.
Another actor had been given the role and had just dropped out for health reasons.
The producers were desperate for Ash, and they were offering him a fortune for the part.
And realistically, as he said to Oona, he needed the money.
He couldn’t stay out of work forever.
He had to go back.
He slept on it, and accepted it the next day.
He had to be back in L.A.
in a week, in order to quarantine for two weeks before they started preproduction. The money for the production was already set and in place, and his part was the last left to fill. They’d had trouble finding the right actor for it and Ashley was the perfect fit.
He told Oona after he called his agent and accepted the role.
He didn’t want to leave France, but he had no choice.
It was a job he had to take.
“Will you come to see us in L.A.
when you come back to the States?”
he asked her.
She nodded but didn’t look sure.
Ashley was worried.
He didn’t want to lose her now, but he had to work.
“I have to find a job too,”
she reminded him, but the headhunters were telling her that there were none like the job she’d had, and houses like hers had gone out of style, which was why Hargrove had closed her imprint.
Purely highbrow literary work just wasn’t financially viable.
She’d have to take a pay cut and start at the bottom in commercial fiction, which was discouraging.
She had decided to file for divorce when she went back.
Charles had been in Argentina for eight months by then, and the marriage was over for Oona.
She realized now that it had been over years before he left her, and she had to face it.
Charles knew it too, although she hadn’t told him about the divorce yet.
Oona was at the chateau for dinner with Ashley and the kids the night he had accepted the starring role in the series they would be shooting in L.A.
He was serious and quiet at dinner.
It had been a big decision for him, although it was an amazing part.
He didn’t feel ready to leave his safe little world in France at the chateau, and more than anything he didn’t want to leave Oona.
Simon and Alana had begun to calm down after their mother’s death.
They were still sad about it, and always would be, but the stability of the life he was providing for them with Oona’s help had had a positive effect on them.
Simon was no longer having nightmares, and Alana had gotten very attached to Oona, and now he had to uproot them again.
Both children looked shocked when he told them they were leaving in a week.
“Is Oona coming with us?”
Alana asked him, and she and Ashley exchanged a look before he answered.
“Not right away,”
he answered, and Oona stepped in.
“I’m going to stay here for a while and see how things are going in the States.
And you’re all going to be busy in L.A.”
“I don’t want to go to school there,”
Simon said, scowling at his father, and then he turned a pleading look to Oona.
“I want you to come,”
he said to her.
“I’ll come and visit you when I get back, but I need to do some things here.”
In truth, there was nothing she needed to do there, but she had nothing to do in New York, and she was happier in France, although it wouldn’t be the same without them.
They had formed their own little family unit all summer.
She didn’t want Ashley to leave either, but she understood how important the part was for his career, better than the children did.
“Will we have a babysitter?”
Alana asked her father, and he nodded.
“I’m going to be working, and I can’t leave you alone.
They have some very complicated setup for Covid on the set, with revolving schedules and the cast working on different shifts.
If I understand it correctly, we’ll be working two weeks on and one week off, with testing and some kind of short quarantine in between.
It’s going to cost them a fortune in extra time the way they’re doing it, but they don’t want anyone in the cast or crew to get sick.”
Alana had made a face as soon as he had said he was hiring a sitter.
“We want Oona, not a babysitter,”
Simon said, and stopped eating his dinner.
“Oona will come and see us when she can, and we’ll be together,”
he tried to reassure them.
“Yeah, when you’re not working or in quarantine,”
Alana said with a glum look.
They went upstairs to their rooms afterward, and Ashley and Oona stayed at the table to talk about his plans again.
“We’re all going to miss you,”
he said, as sad as his children to be leaving her.
“It was bound to happen,”
Oona said.
He had been there for six months, and the entertainment industry was trying to get things rolling again.
He’d been offered a fabulous part in the series.
“Do you have any idea when you’ll come back to the States?”
he asked her.
Until that day, neither of them had felt ready to leave.
The Covid numbers of new cases were still high all over the U.S., and it still seemed safer in France.
“I’ll start working on it.
I want to see some headhunters, and I need to see my lawyer for the divorce.
I haven’t told Charles I’ve made the decision yet.
I haven’t heard from him since July, and I want to tell him before his lawyer gets served with papers.”
It seemed only fair, although he hadn’t been fair with her.
Oona wanted to do it right and not start a war with him.
“And then you’ll come to L.A.?”
He was pressing her, dreading leaving her, particularly with nothing set between them.
She fully expected him to come to his senses when he left and forget her.
“I’ll stop and see Will on the way.
I talked to Meghan the other day, and she wants to stay in Kenya for her full term, until February.
The numbers were very low in Africa, so she’s safer there than anywhere else, although I hate not seeing her for all this time.
She’s thinking of signing up for another year, but I want her to come home for a visit before she does.
It’s been too long.”
Ashley had hoped he’d have more time with Oona before they had to leave.
He was so happy with her and so were his kids.
They had lost their mother and he didn’t want them to lose Oona too.
And she was cognizant of it as well.
She didn’t want to lose Ashley and the children either.
And as long as they were together, she didn’t have to make any big decisions.
Now everything was going to change.
“It won’t be the same here without you,”
she said softly, and he reached across the table and held her hand.
They hadn’t come to any conclusions about the relationship.
He was still trying to convince her that it could work, even long-term.
And so far she had refused to commit.
It was hard to trust love again, particularly with the challenges they would face.
They sat in his garden that night, holding hands, talking about his plans.
The cast he would be working with was dazzling, and it underlined what she had said about his being a star.
They were some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
A number of them were film actors who had never done TV before.
It was going to be a star-studded production, and he would be one of the biggest stars of all.
“They won’t even let me bring the kids on the set because of Covid.
I’m going to be away from them a lot with the rolling schedule and quarantine.
If someone gets sick, they don’t want to lose the whole cast, so we’ll have alternating groups.
It’s going to make the shooting schedule a nightmare.
But you can call me whenever you want.”
As he said it, Oona felt an ache in her heart.
She suddenly realized how painful it would be not to see him every day, or the children, not to have meals with them, or go on adventures, or to brocantes with Ashley.
In spite of the menace of the virus, they had been extremely close for four months, and had a very comfortable, cozy life together.
There would be no more visits to historical chateaux with them, no more long nighttime conversations with Ashley.
She was thinking of all the things she would miss without them, and turned to look at Ashley with a lump in her throat.
“This is really hard,”
she said in a choked voice, as he held her hand and nodded.
This was exactly what she had wanted to avoid.
She hadn’t wanted to get too attached to them, and to him, and she had anyway.
It had snuck up on all four of them.
Whether legitimate or not, they had formed a family unit and were deeply attached to each other.
Oona and Ashley both knew it, and it was too late now to detach.
He just wanted to enjoy these final days together before he and the children left.
It was too late now to dissolve the bonds painlessly.
They would each lose a piece of their heart to the others when they left.
A major piece in the case of Ashley and Oona.
Her plan not to get too deeply involved with them hadn’t worked. She had forgotten all the rules of detachment herself. She had maintained no boundaries with the kids, and even fewer with him. He would have given anything to have her go to L.A. with them, but he knew how adamant she was, and how afraid. And there was no time left to prove to her it could work.
“We’ll just have to make the best of it,”
he said as they sat in the garden chairs, and he leaned over and kissed her.
They kissed a lot these days, but had gone no further, for fear of where it would lead.
Oona didn’t trust either of them to keep things in check.
They wanted each other too desperately to listen to reason, and their hearts won the argument that night, faced with the reality of Ashley leaving in a week.
They quietly went upstairs to the unused bedrooms on an upper floor, and she followed him willingly.
They opened one of the rooms and locked the door behind them, and she undressed him as he undressed her, in the heat of passion and the fear of loss.
Their clothes fell in a heap on the floor, their bodies entwined as he had wanted for months, and all her caution and objections disappeared in the moment as love took over.
They were both breathless and clung to each other afterward.
And then he looked down at her, worried.
“Oh my God, Oona, I’m sorry, are you angry at me?”
She smiled and shook her head, lying back against the pillows, loving him as never before.
“I love you, Ash.
I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.
I’ve wanted you from the beginning.
Maybe that’s why I was afraid to let it happen, I knew that once I did, you’d own me forever.
It was stupid of me to wait so long, knowing how much I love you.”
“You’re not sorry?”
He looked at her with relief and sat on the bed next to her.
“No, I’m not,”
she said, and kissed him passionately, and he pulled away and smiled.
“Then let’s do it again,”
he said, laughing, and began making love to her for the second time, and they forgot everything but each other.
They stayed upstairs in their secret bedroom for a long time, talking and whispering, and kissing and discovering each other’s bodies, and afterward they took a shower and dressed and went back downstairs feeling closer than ever before.
An important barrier had been crossed.
“I wish you could spend the night,”
he whispered to her when he walked her to the front hall full of ancestral portraits.
They had been together for hours, making up for lost time.
“Simon’s in my bed,”
he said regretfully.
He would have loved to spend the night with her.
“It was wonderful...perfect...”
she said, and put a fingertip on his lips to silence him, and then kissed him again.
She was everything he had dreamt of and more.
She had a beautiful body, and more than that she was a wonderful person and he loved her.
And she knew for certain that she loved him.
It was what he had wanted to happen for months and what she was so afraid of.
Now that he was leaving, she wanted to face her fears, and commit herself to him fully before they parted.
She was wearing the jeans and pink sweater she had arrived in.
She had no makeup on, and her red hair was loose down her back nearly to her waist.
She put her pink ballet flats on and he walked her to her car.
He would have driven her home, but he couldn’t leave the children.
It had been an unforgettable night.
They could hear the birds chirping just before the dawn.
“Thank you,”
he whispered to her, and kissed her, leaning through the car window.
“I’ll come for breakfast tomorrow, as soon as the housekeeper gets here.”
She nodded and started the car, waving as she drove across the drawbridge over the moat, and then she was gone, and he walked back into the chateau, with a smile on his face and a bright light in his heart.