Chapter 26 #2
“No, not at all. They’re back to thinking about their meal.
” That was true. It was amazing how quickly people put an unusual incident out of their mind when a new plate of food was set in front of them.
And I knew the entire staff would be working double time to make sure the next courses went out as quickly as possible.
Austin sniffed, and I nudged a box of tissues toward him. “Why do you think she said no?” His voice cracked on the word “no,” and my heart cracked a little more for him.
I sank to the ground across from Austin, suddenly exhausted. Work had let me forget my own misery temporarily, but now it hit me full-force.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Sometimes things that have every reason to work out just don’t.”
“I probably should have talked about us getting married before proposing,” Austin said in a small, sad voice.
I wholeheartedly agreed, although I certainly wasn’t going to compound his sadness by saying so.
Austin pulled out a tissue and blew his nose. “She’s the only girlfriend I’ve ever had. I didn’t really have anything to compare us to, but I thought we were doing well.”
I wanted to tell him that excuses were unnecessary. I was too deep in my own relationship implosion to judge anyone.
A tear trickled down Austin’s face. “Do you—” he paused as his voice wavered. “Do you think I can get her back?”
I sighed. That was the million-euro question.
How many people had asked it throughout history, I wondered?
How many miserable people, feeling that there was nothing left in this world if one particular person wasn’t in it with them, had repeated that hopeless, useless question?
Millions, probably. Millions of miserable people.
And two of them sat in Le Jules Verne’s staff room right at this very moment, utterly defeated.
I had no answer for Austin, but he didn’t seem to expect one. We sat in silence for a while, Austin fiddling with the ring box and me wondering what Laurent was doing.
“Um, Miss?” Austin’s voice yanked me back to the present. I looked at him. “What do I do now?”
“I’ll take you out through the kitchens; none of the other guests will see you leaving.”
“But…” Austin’s voice trailed off, and my heart went out to him again.
I knew what he wanted. He wanted a game plan, a surefire way to win Jackie back so that, a year from now, they would look at each other across the altar and see this evening as an amusing misunderstanding, a minor blip in a loving and lifelong relationship.
“I can pack up the final course; if you’re still hungry.”
“I still need to pay,” Austin began, but I waved him to silence.
“On the house.” Le Jules Verne would probably comp the meal themselves, and if they didn’t, I’d cover it. There was no way I was going to make this man pay for the worst dinner of his life.
Austin stood up, then faltered again. “We’re staying in the same hotel room. We still have two days left of the trip,” he said helplessly.
Alright, time for a plan.
“The first thing is to get another room,” I told Austin, “Even just a bed in a hostel. Text Jackie that you want to give her space, and she can have the hotel room to herself. Then ask if there’s a time tonight you can get your things from the room without bothering her.
Who knows, maybe she’ll want to talk things out.
But if not, get your seat on the plane moved before check-in.
A transatlantic flight is not the time to try to repair a relationship. ”
Austin nodded, looking overwhelmed. “What if she doesn’t want to see me at all? I mean…she ran out of the restaurant. How am I going to spend two days alone in Paris?”
I smiled, despite everything. “That I can help with.” I pulled my notebook from my pocket. “Now, what do you like to do?”
Several minutes later, I sent Austin off, a written itinerary in his pocket, and a box containing two chocolate mousses in his hands.
He’d taken the food, although I couldn’t imagine he’d actually want to eat the mousses, given the memory associated with them.
But who knows? Maybe Jackie was waiting back in the hotel room for him, appalled by her mistake, and the ring would be on her finger at the end of the night.
I didn’t feel optimistic about it, though.
But, to be fair, I wasn’t feeling optimistic about anything these days.
***
That evening, I sat in my window seat and stared dully outside.
I’d loved this view since the first time I’d walked into this apartment.
To me, it captured the very essence of Paris: the ornate buildings, the allées of graceful plane trees, the beautiful people walking to and fro, and the Eiffel Tower, unmistakable in the distance.
For five years I’d lived here, this place I’d fled to after my mother’s death and my failure at pastry school.
That was thousands of sunrises, thousands of dusks, thousands of evenings spent looking out the window.
For the first time, its view didn’t enchant me.
I sighed, the sound cutting through my silent apartment. “I can’t keep going on like this.”