Chapter 25 #2
Julie nodded. She guessed she didn’t look too fresh herself, but nothing but a full night of sleep was going to help with that, and thankfully the cameras wouldn’t be on her.
Besides, she could really use the time to work.
She sat back on the couch, opened her laptop and picked up where she left off.
There were no emergencies needing her attention yet, which she was grateful for.
She sent off a few emails, informing the vendors that might need to know about the camera crew, and tweaked a few points on her timeline, then flicked through the tabs on her giant master spreadsheet to make sure there was nothing she’d forgotten.
Wedding organisation was still going smoothly, despite a few setbacks and Julie was satisfied for the moment.
She leaned back on the couch, careful not to fall asleep again.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out quickly.
Had she been to early in declaring this moment emergency-free?
It was from Zoe.
Julie blinked. Her throat was suddenly dry.
She looked around and could overhear Zoe somewhere in the kitchen, hidden behind the dividers that they set up yesterday.
Julie jumped as the couch cushion moved underneath her.
Yasmine had returned, not a hair out of place, and sunk down on the other end of the sofa.
Luckily, she seemed to be engrossed with her own phone and didn’t notice Julie’s sudden jumpiness.
Julie swiped at the screen and opened the message.
“Can we talk today?”
Another text came in. “About last night?”
Julie couldn’t repress a smile. As if she could have forgotten about what happened the night before. She typed back.
“I would like that. When and where?”
A few seconds and her phone buzzed again.
“3:30 pm in the garden shed?”
“Perfect. See you later.”
Julie stared at the screen for a few seconds more. Maybe she and Zoe really could pick up where they’d left off ten years ago? She felt immediately bad for letting herself hope. At the same time, they were acknowledging what had happened between them, which was a huge step up from the last time.
Suddenly the doorbell rang and Yasmine jumped up, immediately abandoning whatever she’d been doing on her phone.
“They’re here!” She squealed as she ran to the front door, and Julie was pleased to see that in spite of everything, Adam’s arrival could still inspire this kind of excitement in her best friend.
Yasmine opened the door to a tall man with a close-cropped haircut and a carefully groomed beard, holding an enormous bouquet of flowers.
Yasmine squealed again at the sight of them.
“ C’est pour la femme de ma vie!” The man exclaimed. The flowers had a little note with a big “SORRY” printed on it.
Yasmine took the flowers and jumped into his arms. They kissed for what seemed like a million years to Julie.
She was pleased that Yasmine was so excited about the flowers, but couldn’t help but cynically feel that it was an odd gift to bring when the house was stuffed to the brim with them already.
Still, she tried to not be a downer and gave Adam a friendly wave when he finally put his fiancée down.
“Julie! You did all this?” He gestured at the various decorations around the house. “It looks amazing. Come here.” Adam stepped forward and took Julie into an unexpected hug. “Thank you so much for everything. And let me introduce our film crew!”
He stepped inside to reveal a man with dark curly hair and a small blonde woman with a pointy nose standing in the entrance. The man was holding a camera and the blonde woman some sort of audio equipment. Julie heard Yasmine gasp beside her.
“David?” Yasmine said, sounding shocked. “Is that you?”
“Hi Yas. It’s been a while.” The man rubbed his neck.
“Yes I-” Yasmine took a breath. “It’s good to see you!”
Julie knew Yasmine well enough to know that she was uncomfortable with something. What was David’s deal? Did she need to keep an eye on him? She shook his hand.
“Hi, I’m Julie, the event planner for the wedding.”
He shook her hand energetically. “Hi, I’m David - as you might have guessed - and this is…”
“Camille.” The blonde woman introduced herself without a smile or handshake before she stepped into the house and started looking around. “I guess this has enough natural lighting for us to work in. It would’ve been better to get the rest of the team there, but this’ll have to do.”
Camille’s accent was pure Parisian, and Julie groaned inwardly. Stereotypes about Parisian snobbery weren’t always accurate, but Julie had never met anyone in media who didn’t live up to them.
“Oh Camille, you’re always so negative! I’m sure it’s going to be amazing.” Adam was taking pictures of the decoration with his smartphone.
“Well, my suggestion had been to do the interviews at your loft in Paris, but you wanted us to film the wedding, so here we are in the Belgian countryside, and I am not going to complain.”
“Are you sure you’re going to survive without complaining?” David laughed.
Camille rolled her eyes. “I want to see the yard.”
“Yes, we’ll show you.” Yasmine seemed to have recovered some composure, and took the lead.
The small group wandered into the garden. Julie did her best not to peek at Zoe as they passed the kitchen.
“There we go.” Camille seemed more pleased. “Good natural light. The tent looks alright too, even though it’s a bit rustic. We can do the interview segments here later.” She stepped under the tent and looked up. “Could we maybe put a spotlight here and do it under the tent?”
Julie winced at the suggestion, and Yasmine nodded at her, encouraging her to speak up.
“I wouldn’t,” Julie said. “We’d have to take down some of the floral arrangements to make space, and it would be almost impossible to take them down and put them up afterwards without damaging them.”
“I see.” Camille tapped her chin. “ Oh et puis merde , we’ll do it in the open in the yard. That’ll give Adam that rugged countryman feel. People will love it.”
“I will try to do my best Clint Eastwood impression for you.” Adam joked.
Camille smiled - for the first time since she entered the house. “That’s settled, then. David, do you need anything else?”
“I’ll just look for some good camera angles, but I can do it by myself. We’ll be for sure ready to shoot by this afternoon.”
“Great, we can be back at the hotel for dinner .” Camille put an exaggerated sarcastic emphasis on the last word.
Julie was sure Camille was waiting for someone to ask about the hotel menu so that she could complain about Belgian food. Fortunately, nobody fell into the trap.
“OK Dave, I’ll leave you be. I’ll go with Adam to go over the questions.” She put a hand on Adam’s shoulder and led him inside the house.
Good. That meant that Julie didn’t have to spend more time with Camille.
She turned to talk to Yasmine and was surprised to find that she wasn’t there any more.
She scanned the yard and spotted her in the middle of the garden with David, and they were both laughing.
Yasmine waved to Julie when she saw that she was looking.
“David, this is my best friend and bridesmaid Julie.” She was still laughing. “Julie, this is David. He used to work with us but then left to do something more important.”
“By ‘more important’ she means that I left for a bigger contract in France.”
“That is absolutely more important. Don’t waste your talent on Belgian public television.”
“Don’t you ever think that French public television is better.”
They both fell into laughter again. Julie laughed along, not really grasping what was so hilarious.
She felt like there was some private joke going on that she wasn’t aware of.
Her own laughter died away after a moment, but David and Yas kept setting each other off again.
She smiled at them in bemusement for a moment, then excused herself to go back inside.
Yasmine just nodded between giggles and turned back to David.
Julie walked back inside the house. She could hear Camille and Adam on the sofa, deep in discussion.
As Julie strolled by, she could see that Camille was scribbling something in her Moleskine notebook. Because of course she was.
Having nothing better to do, Julie wandered around the open space of the main floor of the house for a bit.
She knew Zoe was hidden somewhere behind the white wall panels which were movable to give more space for the catering team to walk in and out.
Everything was remarkably closed off, giving an impression that this was an extra room in the house.
Julie walked towards an opening between two panels - serving as an entrance to the area - and poked her head inside.
Zoe was in an intense conversation with one of the chefs.
She carelessly tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and Julie wished she could keep that vision engraved forever in her mind.
Zoe was at her most beautiful when she didn’t realise how pretty she was.
Zoe turned around and met Julie’s gaze. She licked her lips for a second then turned to talk to the chef again. Her cheeks were slightly rosy.
It was enough for Julie who decided to move away before she became more of a distraction to Zoe.
Julie looked at the clock on her phone. The florist would arrive soon with more exotic trees, but until then she wasn’t really needed anywhere.
She sat down on the stairs and reread Claire’s message, before she started typing.
“I don’t know! It just happened. There’s been a weird tension between us since I arrived here.
Then yesterday, we were talking in my room and we kissed. ”
Julie saw that Claire was immediately typing an answer back.
“This is so crazy! What about her fiancé? Wasn’t she supposed to get married to a hot famous guy?”
Julie groaned. Claire’s definition of ‘helpful ’ was very special but she wasn’t wrong.
As excited as she was by what had happened last night, Zoe was still engaged to Tom and all of this was very unfair to him.
Julie felt bad for the guy, but was also flooded by an immense wave of jealousy.
She had to settle for secret late-night kisses while he got to wake up next to Zoe every morning for the rest of his life.
Still, what they were doing was wrong. She couldn’t even imagine how guilty Zoe must be feeling right now, yet she was able to act like everything was fine.
“Is everything alright?” Julie looked up to see Sarah standing above her on the staircase.
“Oh, fine, yes,” Julie answered distractedly as she looked Sarah up and down. Her long dark hair was tied up and she was wearing… A swimsuit? “There’s a swimming pool?”
“Yasmine didn’t tell you? It’s in an entirely different part of the villa.”
“Oh. I guess that’s where that door next to the entrance leads to.” Julie hadn’t really thought about it. She’d been way too involved with the wedding and Zoe.
“You should come with us, I feel like you’ve been working your ass off for the past few days.”
Julie grimaced. “I wish I could… but the florist is coming back soon.” And also she had a secret rendez-vous with Zoe in the garden shed.
“My cousin is really overworking you, isn’t she? Ah well, you know where to find us! We got Zoe to prepare some margaritas for us but she couldn’t come swimming either. She said something about a meeting.”
Julie’s heartbeat went faster. The fact that everybody was none the wiser about whatever was going on between Zoe and her made everything a notch more thrilling.
But after the wedding, the magic would disappear and all that would be left was confronting the aftermath.
She had to be firm with Zoe and tell her that nothing else could happen, for their own sake.
“I see. I’ll catch up with you guys later then.”
“Sure thing.” Sarah walked away.