Chapter 25
It started with a missed phone call.
“I am so sorry,” Laurent said as soon as I picked up. He sounded frazzled. I listened sympathetically as he recounted the disagreement he’d had with the owners over changes to the menu.
“Don’t worry. I know you’ve been so busy,” I reassured him.
The next week he was over an hour late for two of our calls. Another he completely cancelled because he was so busy.
We’ll talk extra long tomorrow, he texted.
And we did, although it was only about work. His work. Before Laurent had moved to Berlin, he and I had made lists of places for him to visit in the city: parks, museums, coffee shops…
“This is your home now, and you should explore it,” I’d told him.
But Laurent had time for nothing beyond the restaurant.
It was the owners. They were being impossible, he told me. They were grinding the staff to the bone, always wanting more with less. Laurent’s best sous chef quit abruptly one day from the stress. Laurent redoubled his efforts to make up for the loss.
Now, when I talked to him, Laurent sounded joyless and half dead. He had no time to think up innovative recipes, not to mention that every idea he suggested was shot down. His hours were spent making the same fussy, uninspired dishes that had been on the restaurant’s menu for decades.
“They’re trying to get me to replicate the exact cooking style of chefs I’ve ever met,” Laurent said during one phone call. “Any change I make, down to the garnish, gets criticized. I think I’ve already made schnitzel a thousand times.”
“As long as you’re not mixing lavender with it. This might be divine schnitzel intervention,” I said. He didn’t even bother faking laughter at the joke.
All our conversations had become like this: me listening while Laurent miserably recounted his workplace slights, day, after day, after day.
“Can I tell you about the passion fruit tart I made for Luc’s birthday? The filling was tricky but—”
“Margot, can it wait until tomorrow?” Laurent sounded utterly spent.
“Oh. Of course.”
But the next day Laurent pleaded exhaustion and again cancelled our call.
Just as long as you aren’t sleeping in the restaurant, I texted back. I added a winking emoji, but really I was terrified.
Don’t forget about me, I wanted to text him. Don’t forget what you promised. You said you wouldn’t go back down that path. You chose me. You can’t leave me alone.
I felt Laurent slipping away from me, bit by bit.
Our calls were reduced to every other day, and even then, Laurent missed plenty of them.
When we did talk, it was always about the restaurant.
How the restaurant was doing, Laurent’s plans for it, how Laurent’s plans were being thwarted, why he was certain a breakthrough was going to happen any day now.
“Just hang in there,” he told me. I did my best. But then he had to cancel his next visit back to Paris. I’d coordinated my schedule around his and ended up spending the three days he was supposed to visit alone and depressed. Sabine’s voice kept creeping into my thoughts: Get used to this feeling.
I hated her for the growing truth of those words. Even worse, I was afraid I was starting to hate Laurent, too.
Exactly one month before the gala, I visited Laurent in Berlin. It’d taken a fair amount of finagling and begging to again get several days off, but it was worth it. As soon as Laurent and I reunited, everything would be alright. We’d talk through our problems, get back on the right track.
That morning, we spoke on the phone.
“I can’t pick you up at the station,” he told me, sounding exhausted. “I have to go into work now to confirm orders from our suppliers.”
“That’s OK,” I said, keeping my voice cheerful. “I’ll just meet you at your apartment.”
Laurent had pan bagnat sandwiches wrapped and waiting for me in the fridge when I arrived, but they did little to improve the several hours I spent alone in his apartment, contemplating the empty walls and shelves.
“At least you’re living your best life,” I told Minerva as I read through Laurent’s minute instructions for how to prepare her lunch of chicken livers and sweet potatoes. She stared fiercely at me until I set the completed meal in front of her, then set to work devouring it.
As soon as he got home, Laurent rushed to take me in his arms. “Mon amour, I’m so happy to see you,” he breathed into my hair. “Thank you for being patient with me.”
Seeing him again, touching him again, was enough to dispel most of my bad mood.
We tumbled into bed, and I drank in the sight of Laurent’s taut, tanned body.
He’d lost a bit of weight in the weeks since we’d last seen each other.
He was still as attractive and eager as he’d always been, but there were differences in our lovemaking now: His hipbones were sharper when they pressed against mine as he moved in and out of me.
His breath came in ragged gasps from the start, and I worried it was genuine tiredness that made him sound that way, and not just a building orgasm.
When he ran a hand down the soft, sensitive skin of my inner thigh, I could feel new calluses on his fingertips.
In the moment, they only increased the pleasurable sensation, but later I wondered how hard he’d been working to tear up his hands so much.
Afterward, we lay together in a tangle of sheets, cool spring air wafting over us through the open window.
“It’s still early,” I said, glancing at my phone. “Want to get an aperitif then walk around Viktoriapark? I read it has great views.”
Laurent tensed. “We can grab a drink,” he said slowly, “but then I have to head to the restaurant. They need me for the dinner shift tonight.”
“Laurent.” My voice broke over his name. “You were supposed to have today off. I made my schedule work with yours, I came here on the train, I sat alone in your apartment for hours, I fed your cat. Now you’re telling me you’re leaving to go to work?”
Laurent scrubbed a hand over his face. For the first time since I’d met him, he had several days of stubble growing across his cheeks.
“I know. I’m sorry, but I only just found out this morning that one of Berlin’s biggest papers is sending a journalist over tonight to review the restaurant. I have to be there.”
He reached for my hand beneath the sheets. “You know I wouldn’t do this if I could possibly avoid it.”
I teetered on the brink of saying it: assuring Laurent that everything was fine, that of course this was beyond his control, and I’d find some way to occupy myself until he had time for me. But my anger was growing stronger than my patience.
“What about the rest of the time I’m here?” I asked. “Will you have to be at work then, too?” He looked away, and something hardened inside me.
“Laurent, I didn’t get into a relationship to keep feeling lonely. You’ve had this job for, what? Two months? And you’re already breaking your promise. You’re already falling back into the habits you swore you had given up.”
“No—” I said, speaking over him when he tried to interrupt.
“I don’t want to hear another excuse. I don’t want to hear another apology.
They’ve stopped meaning anything to me. Every week, sometimes every day, there’s another reason you can’t make time for me.
You’re already missing the gala. Tell me Laurent, where do I fall on your list of priorities?
Because for me, you’re at the top. The absolute top. Can you say the same?”
“Margot.” I recoiled at the irritation in his voice. “You’re being unfair. We both knew this would be hard. We both knew I’d be busy. I’m doing my absolute best here, stretching myself in every direction, and you’re not giving me any credit.”
“No,” I said furiously. “You’re not turning this back on me.
This isn’t because I’m not understanding enough.
I’m not going to grin and bear it like I’ve always done or…
or try to look for a silver lining or focus on the positive.
This is not fair to me. You made a promise.
We set boundaries, and you’re blowing right past them. ”
I suddenly couldn’t stand another moment of being in bed with this man. Tearing back the sheets, I reached for my shirt and jeans. Once dressed, I looked at Laurent again. He looked absolutely exhausted.
“What do you want me to do, Margot?”
“Choose me!” I cried. “Show me I matter.” Tears streaked down my face. “Don’t leave me alone.”
Laurent crossed his arms and looked away.
“You know you matter more to me than anything. But that doesn’t mean I can give up everything else.
” His voice was tight and clipped, exactly the way it had been the night we’d met.
“I know the timing is bad, but this is one evening. Just let me work this dinner, then we’ll be back to spending time together. ”
“Until the next time.”
Laurent looked at me, then glanced at his bed stand.
His phone was there, and I knew he was checking the time, checking to make sure that he wouldn’t be late for work.
The knowledge that even now—in the middle of our worst fight—he still couldn’t stop thinking about work, sent anger coursing through me.
Laurent looked away, his gaze focused on some empty corner of his apartment.
He wasn’t reacting enough. I wanted him to hurt as much as he’d hurt me. “If Noelle was still sick, would you abandon her now? Leave her alone all over again?” The words spilled out before I could decide if I’d regret them.
Laurent flinched, his face flushing, then going pale with barely suppressed anger. Finally, I was getting somewhere. He turned away and spoke through a tightly clenched jaw. “Of course not.”
“So it’s just me you’re abandoning?”
Laurent whipped back around. “At least I’m going after my dream! You have one setback and you give yours up forever.”
The force of his words, and the ugliness of them, hit me like a blow.
“I’m sorry you see my mother’s death as just a ‘setback.’” I was trying to sound wronged and angry, someone to be feared, but my voice was too choked with tears to sound anything other than pathetic.
Laurent’s hard expression wavered. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I felt empty inside, like a dried-out husk. I glanced at the clock. “You don’t want to be late for work.”
Laurent turned, then turned back to me. For a second, something flickered across his face, and I thought I’d gotten through to him, chiseled my way through his icy walls and cruel words to get to the real Laurent.
This was just an argument; this wasn’t the end for us.
This was the man I wanted to be with forever, who proved that I was good enough.
But then the hardness came back into Laurent’s face, and he again turned away from me.
Without another word he got dressed, grabbed his bag, and was out the door. I made no move to stop him.
Alone in Laurent’s miserable, stark apartment, I crawled back into bed and dissolved into tears.
After some time, I felt something soft brush against me. Opening my puffy eyes, I saw Minerva sitting on the edge of the bed. She regarded me as coolly as ever, but when I hesitatingly took her in my arms, she didn’t protest. She only lay a fuzzy paw against my face.
I lay in Laurent’s bed, cuddling his scruffy cat, until I cried myself out. This couldn’t be happening. The one good thing in my life couldn’t be falling apart.
But it was. I lay in bed for another miserable hour, working through what I needed to do.
When Laurent returned, well after midnight, we regarded each other for several long moments. I broke the silence.
“I’m sorry for what I said earlier about Noelle.”
Laurent looked so miserable. “I’m sorry for what I said, too. It wasn’t fair for me to compare our situations.”
“Laurent,” I began, and I saw him tense against my words. “I can’t do this.” It hurt so badly to say it out loud. “You know I love you, but I can’t be in a relationship where I’m continually being let down.”
Laurent was staring at the ground. “I’m sorry you feel that I’m letting you down.” His voice contained absolutely no emotion. He looked like a man defeated.
“What if you…” my voice failed. I cleared my throat and tried again. “What if you cut back your time at the restaurant? Like you planned originally.”
Laurent shook his head, his gaze still on the ground. “I can’t pull back now,” he whispered. “It’ll ruin my career. They’ll fire me straight off, and I need a good recommendation from them if I ever want to get another chef position. I’d be dooming myself to a lifetime of office jobs.”
“And being with me isn’t enough to convince you to quit?”
For just a moment, he raised his eyes to mine, then he was back to staring at the ground. “It isn’t like that. You and I could make it work. It’s just hard right now. You’re the one making me choose.”
I spoke softly. “You once chose me. Before all this.”
Laurent didn’t even bother looking at me.
So that was it then. I had no ideas left, nothing to pull out of my back pocket that would turn things around and save this relationship.
“I booked the overnight train back to Paris,” I said, my voice as flat as his. “I should probably leave now.”
Finally, Laurent lifted his head. His eyes were nearly as red as I’m sure mine were.
“I’m sorry I failed you.”
I was still overwhelmed with hurt and anger, but Laurent looked so sad standing in his doorway. I crossed the distance between us, wrapped my arms around him, and breathed in the scent of the kitchens he’d brought home. Then I deliberately stepped away and grabbed my bags.
“I’m going to call a taxi.”
We stood together in his doorway, not speaking or touching, for the few minutes it took for the taxi to arrive. When it did, I looked at Laurent a final time.
What do you say when your world is crashing down around you?
“Bonne chance, Laurent,” I whispered.
He took a step closer and placed a gentle hand on my waist. For a wild moment, I thought he would kiss me, and we’d be caught up in a passionate embrace and throw away all our worries about the future, and his job, and managing this relationship, just to keep this happiness we’d found.
But all he did was lean close and place a soft kiss on my cheekbone.
Then he opened the door, and I stepped out into the night.