Chapter Sixteen #2
“No. In fact, I told him quite the opposite because I was being so foolish about everything. And now I don’t know how to undo the whole mess.” Ending things had been all my idea. But it had been a terrible idea. In all matters dealing with that man, I had been a fool from the word go.
“Have you written to him?” Diane asked. “I’ve been writing to Guillaume every day in hopes that he’ll forgive me. He’s still at the beach with his family. Cabourg—the same place you went, Vanessa. His family goes every year.”
“Oh,” I said to acknowledge the coincidence. Diane was exactly the kind of person I could imagine spending a summer at Cabourg. “But I’m still coming around to the idea of being in love. I didn’t think it was possible, to be honest.”
“Oh, Vanessa,” Nadine said. “You’re not that cynical.”
“I really might have been.” My face crumpled, and I swallowed hard to fight back the tears. So many tears. Where did they all come from?
“Oh, honey,” Madame said soothingly.
“Do you think that losing your virginity to someone can make you feel unreasonably attached to the person?” I pushed out the words between sobs like I was begging for them to be true.
Madame’s gaze swung heavenward, and she put a hand over her heart. I wouldn’t normally bring this sort of subject up at dinner. But my feelings had become an unruly force within me.
“But you haven’t mentioned him in days. I thought you were doing so well,” Nadine said.
“Just keeping it to myself.”
“I had no idea.”
“I was trying so hard. I really was. But today Apolline came by, that’s the illustrator who went to Cabourg with us. She brought me a few pictures she took with her camera while we were there.”
“Can we see the pictures?” Diane asked.
“Yes, we need to see the pictures.”
“After dinner, maybe?” I said.
“No, I think we need to see them now,” Nadine insisted.
“I would like to see them too,” Madame said.
It took a beat for me to realize they really meant now. I ran upstairs and came back a minute later with the envelope. I passed it to Nadine first. And while she opened it and flipped through the pictures, I refilled my wine glass.
“Oh, dear. You two are adorable, Vanessa.” Nadine looked at the top picture—the one of us on the bench—and then passed it to Catherine, who was sitting next to her.
The second was the picture of Benoit and me coming out of the ocean.
Nadine gasped. “God, look at this. This is your bathing suit? You have to let me try it on.”
After a close look, she passed that one on and came to the third, the portrait. “Ooh la la. He’s handsome, isn’t he?”
“Don’t I know it,” I said.
“Oh, let me see that one,” Diane said with her hand out. Nadine passed it to her, and the pictures made their way around the table to everyone.
“So what now?” Nadine said. “You’re having second thoughts about wanting to forget?”
“You could say that.” I took a drink of wine. “I just don’t know what to do?”
“Be more specific,” Catherine said. “You don’t know what to do about what, exactly?”
“I’m in love with him, even though I don’t want to be. And I’m so confused that I’m not even sure why I don’t want to be in love with him anymore. Then if I am in love with him, what should I do? He probably hates me.”
Nadine held up the picture of him looking at me from across the bench. “This man doesn’t hate you. Anyone who looks at you like this will at least be willing to hear you out.”
“So I should talk to him.”
“Yes. There is no one else you should be talking to about all of this but him. Tell him how you feel. Tell him how complicated it all is. See what he says.”
“But how should I approach him to say all of this?”
“Writing is not enough, especially if he’s here in Paris,” Diane said.
“You know where he works,” Nadine offered.
“No. I can’t go back to the newspaper office. I left there in a huff that I don’t want to undo.”
“It’s not exactly a professional conversation.”
“Should I go to his house? It’s not far.”
“You know where he lives?” Nadine asked. Her brown eyes were bright with ideas.
“I do.” It was strange having everyone’s attention at the table, having them all talking about me and my problems. I preferred to be the quiet observer, and the dinner was supposed to be about Catherine.
But this time I didn’t brush it off or even want them to talk about anything else.
And it reinforced what Sister Clothilde had said about having people around us who make us stronger.
I did feel stronger being there with all those women trying to help me.
“What if you show up and he’s not there?”
“His family will be there. I met them.”
“Maybe it should be more romantic?” Catherine said. “More meaningful than knocking on the door.”
“There’s nothing more romantic than a straightforward, well-intended call during appropriate hours,” Madame chimed in.
“You’re right. But I left it quite poorly with him.” For Madame’s sake, I didn’t say that he said I’d used him. “When it comes to him, I’ve been wrong about so much already.”
Hating him had been my decision from the start.
I made him my enemy when all he had really wanted was to get closer.
All of my reasons for doing so had fallen away.
And before, when he told me he wanted to still see me, I didn’t think that’s what I would want.
I thought I would come back to Paris and be my same self.
But I was not the same at all. I was completely different.
And this new version of myself was very unhappy with the previous version’s decisions. Again.
“Something bigger, then, to make more of a statement,” Diane said dreamily. “Oh! Like an ad in the paper pronouncing your affection.”
“Maybe start small.”
“I still think a visit is the best approach,” Madame said. She stood and picked up a handful of dishes to take them downstairs. “I’ve got an early start, mademoiselles.”
Cook and Claire followed her out to start cleaning up.
“We’ll all bring down our plates,” Nadine said as they filed out.
Diane turned to me. “So what will you do?”
“I think Madame is right. I should go to his house.” I needed to jump on my bike and go to him. I needed to tell him how I felt.
“Will you go now?” Diane asked.
“I don’t think you should go now,” Catherine said, eyeing her sister. “It’s been over a week, hasn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Then it would be a little dramatic to go rushing over so late.”
“She’s right,” Diane relented. “First thing in the morning, you should go to his house.”
“I agree,” Nadine said. She rose and started stacking her plates to carry down. “And ask him on a date. Then that can be over-the-top romantic.”
“So what should the date be?” I stood too.
“Oh, that part will be easy,” Nadine said, dismissively.
“Oui!” Diane clapped. “This is Paris!”