Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“The thing is,” Melanie said, “I don’t want to.
We’ve grown apart, haven’t we? The things that connected us at the beginning, they’re not there anymore, and now you’ve cut through the last piece of thread holding us together—the thread of our trust. Your affair was the wake-up call I needed, and even though you hurt me deeply, there’s a little part of me that’s grateful to you, too, because I never would have had the courage to leave otherwise. ”
“Please, Melanie,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Think of what you’re doing.”
“Actually, for the first time in twenty years, I know exactly what I’m doing.” Slowly, she pulled away from him. “Goodbye, Gilles.”
And with that, she turned and walked away, leaving him in his front row seat, staring after her, as up onstage, Jackson sang about a love story coming to an end.
Backstage, Henry sat in the greenroom with his head in his hands, trying to get ahold of himself.
Celeste had recognized him, he was sure of it.
She had known the lyrics to “City of Light,” if only for a moment.
That meant she was still in there, just as he’d known she was.
And he was also fairly certain that it meant she still loved him, just as he loved her.
But then he’d watched as she’d disappeared again, the light in her eyes going out.
He had tried calling Jean-Luc as soon as he’d walked offstage, his concern growing as the call went straight to voicemail. She’s okay, Jean-Luc had texted him a moment later. I’m taking her home. I’m sorry.
Melanie appeared in the doorway then, looking at him with concern. “You okay, Grandpa Henry?” she asked softly.
He nodded, beckoning her closer. When she sat beside him, he put his arm around her and pulled her into a hug. “You’re leaving Gilles,” he said—a statement, not a question.
“I’m leaving Gilles,” she repeated, sounding almost as if she didn’t believe it herself as she pulled away from him, shaking her head in astonishment. “I’m leaving Gilles.”
“I’m so proud of you, Melanie,” he said softly. “You finally asked yourself what was right for you.”
“I think maybe that’s what I should have been doing all along,” she said. She put a hand on his arm. “She remembered you, you know. Celeste.”
“I know.” Her grandfather smiled sadly. “I think she just became overwhelmed.”
“But you reached her. For a moment.”
“I did. And that means there’s still a piece of her that knows me.”
“So what will you do now?”
“I’ll stay. As long as Celeste is here, I will be, too.”
“Well, as it turns out, I have a brand-new opening for a roommate, if you’re interested.”
Henry smiled. “Are you certain, Melanie? I don’t want to impose.”
“Grandpa Henry, nothing would make me happier. Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Can you tell me about falling in love with Celeste? I want to hear all your stories, because I need to believe that kind of love is possible. I need to believe that it might be out there for me, too.”
“It is, my dear,” Henry said. “And it would be my pleasure to tell you my stories. If we don’t believe in great love, we’ll never find it.”
“I want to believe,” she said.
“And you shall, my sweet Melanie,” he said, pulling her back into a hug. “You shall.”
Six miles away, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, George and Lou strolled through the Champ de Mars, holding hands, and no one—not a single person—looked askance at them.
They were in their seventies. One was Black and one was white. They’d been soldiers together in Vietnam. All of these might have been reasons that this love could never have been.
But they were here, in Paris, the most romantic city in the world, and it was possible to believe in magic and possibility and the idea that they could finally spend the rest of their lives simply being themselves.
Cliff and Diane hadn’t even batted an eye when they’d met up for dinner the previous evening.
In fact, the two lovebirds had been so caught up in their own flirtation that they’d hardly listened as Lou had explained, haltingly, how he’d loved George for fifty years but hadn’t known how to say it, and George had said he’d felt a connection the moment they’d met, in basic training, all those years before.
“Well, then, it’s about time you admitted it to each other,” Cliff had said with a shrug. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” George had said, glancing at Lou. “I do.”
Now, as he looked at Lou, he had a terrible thought.
Could this have been their lives all along if they’d been honest with themselves sooner?
If they’d lived in a world where falling in love with another man—and a man of another race, at that—wouldn’t have made them outliers?
If they hadn’t found wives to marry so that they could mold themselves into the sort of men they’d thought the world expected them to be?
“It was different for us,” Lou said, reading George’s mind, as he had done so many times over the years. “We came from a different generation. It wasn’t just us that had to get here. It was society, too.”
George nodded. Lou was right. Still, he wished he’d had more courage. More self-awareness. More of a sense that love came in more colors and shades and forms than he could have imagined. “The world is changing,” he said.
Lou reached over and gave him a peck on his cheek. “And love is love,” he said.
“Love is love,” George repeated, and he knew, in the depths of his soul, that it wasn’t that he and Lou had finally found it. Their love had been there all along. It was just a matter of opening their hearts wide enough that they could finally see what was inside.
Kayla held tight to Nadim’s hand as they made their way through the illuminated darkness of the Champ de Mars.
They passed a couple of older men holding hands as they walked in the other direction, and Kayla felt a surge of hope.
If men of that generation had found a way to go against the tide, maybe there was a way forward for her and Nadim.
She didn’t even know if he was attracted to her or if he was just being kind.
She loved the way he looked at her and the way he listened to her, and if he was open to being more than friends with her one day, she’d feel like the luckiest woman in the world.
“My parents loved you,” Nadim said, smiling down at her as they strolled.
Her heart zinged. She had expected, when he spontaneously invited her home to dinner after their stroll through the Jardin des Plantes, that his family might tolerate her politely, but that she wouldn’t really be welcome.
But they had surprised her, asking her all sorts of questions about life in the States and how long she thought she’d stay in France, and how she liked her job at the assisted-living facility.
She’d even told them the story of Celeste Didier and Henry McGee, and they’d seemed as invested as she was in finding out what had happened at the Jackson Quick concert on the other side of town tonight.
“I loved them all, too,” she replied, feeling emotional. Her own father had questioned her very right to be here, but these people who were strangers to her—who worshipped differently, whose lives were very different from hers—had accepted her without question.
After dinner, buoyed by her newfound sense of belonging, she had stepped outside for a few minutes to call her father.
He hadn’t picked up, but she’d left a voicemail.
“Like I said earlier this week, I’m here because I want to know you,” she said quickly before she could lose her courage.
“I hope you feel the same. I’m your daughter, and I want you to be someone I care about, and if that isn’t enough for you, then maybe I’ve made a mistake in thinking we could have a relationship.
At the end of the day, we’re all human beings, and we have to accept one another for who we are.
I do hope you can accept me—and accept that I’m staying.
But if you can’t, well, I honestly think that’s your loss.
I’m proud to be an American living in Paris. ”
She’d felt lighter after that—and then, because it was the right thing to do, she had followed up with a call to her mom. “You were right about my father,” she said. “But I’m still glad I came, Mom. I’m planning to stay for a while.”
“I just want you to be happy, honey,” her mom had said in reply, and Kayla had nodded, glancing through the window into the Haddad family kitchen, where Nadim was laughing at something his mother had said.
“I am, Mom,” Kayla said. “I really am.”
But later, as she and Nadim walked toward the Eiffel Tower, she felt a surge of uncertainty. “Can I ask you a question?” she said.
“Anything.”
“I guess… I’m just wondering what this is between us. You and me. Am I just a girl who needed rescuing? Or am I something else to you?” It was too much to ask, but her emotions were raw, and she didn’t have anything to lose by being honest. “Because I like you, Nadim. I like you a lot.”
Nadim looked amused. “I like you, too, Kayla.”
“But I mean… I like like you,” she said, possibly digging her hole deeper.
He laughed. “I like like you, too.”
“You do?”
“You’re the first girl I’ve ever taken to the mosque,” he said quietly. “And you didn’t think I made a habit of picking girls up along the river and bringing them home to my family, did you?”
Kayla blushed. “I didn’t know what to think. I thought maybe you just liked me as a friend.”
“I think all relationships should start with friendship, don’t you agree?” Nadim asked. “But to be clear, Kayla, if you were just a friend, I don’t think I’d want to kiss you as badly as I do right now.”
Her heart skipped. “You want to kiss me?”