Chapter Ten #2
Benoit stood as well, then he gestured for me to go first. As I passed him, he said softly, “You can think about it.”
“Oui,” I whispered. Think about it. Ha. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That was the problem.
Once the typewriter was installed in my room, I spent the rest of the morning typing up all the notes I had on the opening night.
I had a few follow-up questions, which I’d have to sort out, maybe later that night.
But I had a good start. I needed to be careful and solid on this one.
I had to prove myself and my capabilities to my editor.
It was not in my favor that Paquin was leaving.
Vartre was Benoit’s editor. If she left the paper to follow Paquin, she’d not necessarily get a say in her successor.
But she could put Benoit in a better position to step up, and whoever made the decision would surely choose their own man over the woman whose biggest supporter was now working somewhere else.
It was getting so hard to tell anymore how things would work out, and all the striving that had sustained me for so long had started to feel a little pointless.
Like the thing I’d been striving for no longer existed, at least not in the way I’d thought it would.
Instead of meeting Benoit and Apolline downstairs for lunch, I went out for a walk.
I needed to get out of my own head. The sun was high and bright, and the street wasn’t empty, but it was far from a bustling Paris street.
I walked toward the Grand H?tel, which was the axis of several streets that jutted away from the coast and fanned out, like spokes on a wheel.
It was an odd choice of focal point for a town; more common choices were a church or a government building or a castle.
But for a vacation town, perhaps a hotel made perfect sense.
When I came again to the women’s boutique with the swimwear display in the front window, I stopped.
I had almost forgotten about the bathing suits.
I could swim, but I’d never had specialized clothing like this.
The bathing suit in the middle was navy blue silk with a wide white collar.
The skirt and shorts were trimmed in white ruffles.
It was the one, of the three bathing suits, that I could picture Nadine choosing. I needed to try it on.
Inside the shop smelled like lemon furniture polish, and a smiling attendant greeted me right away.
“Is the bathing suit in the window ready to wear?”
“The one in the middle?”
“Oui.”
“It is. Would you like to try it on?”
“Oui. Merci.”
“I saw you looking at it.” The clerk, a fashionably dressed woman in her thirties, eyed me from head to toe, gauging my size, surely. She exuded professional competence. She probably sold bathing suits to women from Paris just like me all day long.
She showed me to a fitting room, which was equipped with a full-length mirror.
I tried to avoid impulse purchases, especially things that wouldn’t be useful longterm.
I had never needed a bathing suit in Paris before, and I wasn’t sure I ever would.
But it seemed like a shame to come to the beach without one.
The women on the beach in their bathing suits looked so free and at ease.
They weren’t here for work, obviously. They were on vacation.
But I wanted a little slice of that for myself.
I wanted to wear something skimpy and sit by the ocean in the sand.
I wanted to swim in the water and feel the sun on my bare skin.
God help me, but as I removed my skirt and blouse, my treacherous brain imagined what Benoit might think of me in a bathing suit.
That kiss had been a revelation. And he seemed to feel the same way about it.
He was right: the chemistry between us was undeniable.
But was it a positive chemistry or a corrosive, destructive one?
It surely had to be the second. Sleeping with that man, my nemesis, would be a terrible idea.
It would wreck my career. And if he was as thrilling as my imaginings, then my brain would surely be damaged.
I’d probably want to marry him and have his children.
The skirt fell to my hips and the shorts underneath landed at the bottom of my plump thigh, leaving so much bare skin.
I did prefer to be covered, but as I considered myself in the mirror, it seemed I didn’t mind showing some leg either.
While I was there in the shop, I bought two skirts that were split into what were essentially billowy trousers.
Gray, of course, to match everything else.
When I got home to my bicycle, these garments would, I was sure, change my life, even if I never wore the bathing suit again.
Unlike Benoit. He would not change my life.
I would not allow it. And so I spent the next two days avoiding all situations that could result in us being alone.
I set off with Apolline every morning after breakfast. I begged off with her every night after dinner.
A handful of times I caught his questioning glances, but I hoped my actions spoke the words I didn’t say.
I didn’t want to have a sexual relationship with him, but strangely I couldn’t completely eliminate the opportunity either.
We did work well together, though. The three of us established a bit of a routine.
Breakfast meetings in the morning. Phone calls to the office from the front desk.
Then working in our respective rooms—or in Apolline’s case, out and about with her sketches and camera.
We helped each other with ideas and collaborated on stories.
There was no animosity or romance. Pure professionalism.
It was incredible. But oddly not enough.
We usually had dinner together in the hotel—me, Benoit, and Apolline—at the end of the day.
At least when we weren’t otherwise engaged in reporting.
But covering culture outside of Paris was quite different.
There were no salons to attend and fewer main events.
The artists were local rather than national.
And for the first time in a long time, it felt like I was making discoveries.
No one in Paris had seen the local painter’s seascapes or read the local writer’s novels.
A few of my pieces had been more touristy dispatches geared towards interested travelers.
Or aspirational travelers, as the case often was.
And I liked exploring. I liked the discovery of talking to the curator of the local gallery and the producer at the theater, capturing their passion and what they had to offer. It was fun.
One night at dinner, we were sitting at what was shaping up to be our usual table, finishing our coffee, when Apolline asked Benoit about his time in Vietnam.
“The country is different in every possible way from France, from anywhere in Europe.” He spoke with enthusiasm and reverence.
“With deep jungles that go on for kilometers and underwater crop fields that they waded through to farm. It was amazing. The food, the flavors—it was unlike anything I’d ever eaten. ”
“Oh, that does sound fascinating. I’ve only been as far as London.
” Apolline had grown quite fond of Benoit over those few days.
She gazed at him like a proud mother and patted his hand when he showed his deep goodness, which he did often.
He was a good man. Interesting, curious.
He liked to get Apolline talking, and she flourished under the attention.
And I enjoyed both of their stories. I liked hearing about their lives.
Even his. He won everyone over. It was like magic. The most wonderful man in the world.
Even though he’d won me over as well, I still hadn’t crossed that last line into his bed. And, I suppose, because I hadn’t given him explicit permission to, he stopped flirting with me.
I’d noticed immediately. Not only noticed, but I’d obsessed over its absence. No sultry glances. No double entendres. No nudges or raised eyebrows. No fooling around at all. He treated me respectfully and with cool detachment.
I tried to think about other things—about what I should write to Charlotte, about how things were going at home, about work.
I kept busy with my own research and writing.
It had gone quite well. But he was never far from my mind.
Even knowing it was a terrible idea, a small part of me reconsidered whether or not professionalism could be put off temporarily.
I was powerless against him it seemed. Whatever energy existed between us had morphed into a complete infatuation. At least for me. With him on his best behavior, it was hard to know what he was hiding from me in his ridiculously handsome head.