One Summer In Paris

“You have to tell her, Grace.”

“I was hoping it might all get fixed and I wouldn’t have to.”

“He’s had an affair with another woman. Would you fix it if you could?”

“I don’t know.” It was a question she’d never thought she’d have to ask herself.

“You can’t, Grace. You’d never be able to trust him again. You need to boot him out. That’s what I’d do if Todd ever had an affair.”

Grace’s head spun. This was an aspect she hadn’t considered—that everyone around her would have an opinion. Whatever she did, she’d be the focus of gossip and judgment and she knew from experience that people tended to think that their way was the only way.

“I need to go.”

“Tell him how much he has hurt you. Tell him how you’re feeling.”

She didn’t want to be told what to do.

The fact that she felt the need to get away from Monica made her feel lonelier than she ever had in her life before. “If I cause him stress and then he dies, it’s my fault.”

Guilt. Blame. Responsibility.

An ugly sludge of emotions churned inside her, the same ones she’d felt when her parents had died. She knew you didn’t have to be directly involved to feel responsible. She’d had to live with those feelings, and David was the only one who knew.

David, who was no longer there for her.

David, who would now share secrets with someone else.

Losing that particular intimacy was the most painful thing of all.

A steady stream of people flowed through the revolving door at the entrance to the hospital, and Grace watched, wondering what their stories were. Were they visitors? Patients?

After he collapsed in the restaurant, David had been taken to the nearest hospital and rushed straight to surgery to have a procedure on his coronary artery. Or was it arteries? She couldn’t remember. Grace had sat on a cold, hard chair in a drafty corridor, feeling as if someone had lifted her out of her comfortable life and dropped her in a prison cell.

At some point during the night the doctor had found her, but his words had flowed past Grace like a river rushing over rocks. She’d heard blockage and a few other technical words that had meant nothing to her. She’d tried to pay attention, but her mind had refused to focus for more than a few minutes before wandering back to the fact that David wanted a divorce.

“David should tell Sophie,” Monica said. “He’s the one having the affair.”

Grace forced herself to move. “I’ll deal with that part later. He could be discharged tomorrow.”

“So soon? Please tell me you’re not thinking of taking him home.”

Grace paused with her hand on the door. “I don’t know. I’m taking this minute by minute.”

“Do you think he’ll want to stay—”

“—with her? I don’t know that, either. But if he wants to come home, I don’t see that I have much choice.”

“Of course you have a choice!” Monica exploded with rage and then subsided. “What can I do? I feel helpless.”

“You are helping.” In fact, she wasn’t helping, but that wasn’t Monica’s fault. There was nothing anyone could do. “Thanks for the ride.”

Grace slid out of the car and walked slowly into the hospital. It was the loneliest walk of her life.

Monica was right. They needed to tell Sophie. They couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Hi, Mrs. Porter.” The nurse in charge of the cardiac care ward greeted her from the desk. Grace had virtually lived at the hospital for the past few days. It was hardly surprising that they all knew her.

“Hi, Sally. How is he today?”

“Doing better. Dr. Morton saw him this morning, and she promised to drop by and talk to you both once you arrived. I’ll let her know you’re here.” She reached for the phone, and Grace walked into David’s room.

His eyes were closed, his skin pale but even a heart attack didn’t stop him being handsome.

She remembered what he’d said about feeling as if the best days of his life were behind him. The memory was like a sharp stab. What he’d really been saying was that there was nothing left to look forward to. The life with her wasn’t enough for him.

Forcing herself forward, she walked to the chair next to his bed.

David opened his eyes. “Grace.”

She put her bag on the floor. “How are you feeling?”

“Terrible. I guess you’re thinking it’s just punishment. They put in a stent, did they tell you?”

Had they? Maybe. She hoped he didn’t ask her any other questions, but fortunately at that moment Dr. Morton walked in. Elizabeth Morton had a daughter in Grace’s class, so they knew each other from school events.

“Hi, Grace. How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks.” As well as can be expected for a woman who has just been dumped by her husband of twenty-five years. Did Dr. Morton know? How far had word spread? Grace tried to remember who had been in the restaurant that night.

“I’m the patient.” David made a feeble attempt at a joke. “You’re supposed to be asking me how I am.”

Was it her imagination, or did Dr. Morton’s smile cool slightly as she looked at him?

Oh God, Grace thought. She knows.

The thought of female solidarity should have cheered her, but it didn’t. She hated the thought of people gossiping about her. It was so personal. Humiliating.

Everyone would be wondering why David Porter had chosen to leave his wife. They’d be looking at her and speculating. Did she nag? Was she bad in bed?

Maybe they all thought she was boring, too.

She could feel droplets of confidence evaporating like water in sunlight.

“You can go home tomorrow.” Dr. Morton flipped through the notes. She was clinical. Efficient. “We’ll send you a date for a follow-up.” She gave some general advice and then added, “This is a question I find some patients are embarrassed to ask, so I always give the answer anyway. Sex.” Her face was expressionless, but Grace knew she’d never be able to meet her at the school gates without remembering this conversation.

She didn’t want Dr. Morton to talk about sex, but it seemed her wishes no longer counted for anything.

Grace gripped the edge of the chair until the plastic dug into her hands.

“You should take it easy for the next month.” Dr. Morton went on to elaborate, and Grace tried to shut it out.

She emerged from her trance to hear Dr. Morton saying, “After that, you’re good to go.”

Grace felt her anger rise. He was good to go, but what about her?

David squirmed. “Thank you.”

“Don’t look so gloomy. People recover well from this and go on to live good lives.” The doctor outlined plans for his discharge, and then left the room with a final nod toward Grace.

“No sex for a month,” Grace said. “I guess that’s going to be tough on whoever it is you’re sleeping with.”

She saw the shock in David’s eyes and then the spreading color in his cheeks.

“You’re angry. I understand.”

“You understand? You can’t do this and still get to be the nice guy, David. This wasn’t an accident, or some random thing that happened to us that you regret. You chose this path. You knew what this would do to us. To me. But you did it anyway.”

Because he’d wanted it.

It wasn’t the first time someone hadn’t loved her enough to fight temptation.

Feelings she’d worked hard to subdue swirled to life inside her.

“I didn’t plan it, Grace. I was unhappy, and she was there and—Well, it just happened.”

It was the worst thing he could have said to her.

“What happened to self-control, David?”

He shifted in the bed. “You don’t have to tell me how important self-control is to you. I already know.”

“But I didn’t know how unimportant it was to you.”

“Grace—”

“You didn’t tell me you were unhappy. You didn’t give us a chance.” The more she thought about it, the more she realized she wasn’t just angry, she was furious. It was almost a relief. Anger was fuel, and easier to handle than grief and confusion.

“Everything you say is true, and I feel terrible.”

“I feel terrible, too. The difference is that you deserve to feel terrible, and I don’t.” She stopped. He looked so pale she was afraid he might be having another heart attack.

How could she care so much about his welfare, when he’d given no thought to hers?

It seemed that love defied logic.

“Grace—”

“Do you know what it’s like to be in love with someone, and to assume they feel the same way, and then to discover that it was all fake? It makes you question everything.” She heard the catch in her own voice. “All those memories we made together, I’m wondering how many of them were real.”

“They were real. They are real.”

“What’s real is that at some point you started feeling differently and you didn’t share that with me. I made a chicken salad with low calorie dressing.” She unloaded the bag and slapped the containers on the table next to the bed.

“You’ve had a few messages. Rick from the golf club called. He sent you his best wishes.”

“Right.”

He hadn’t even mentioned the fact that she’d resuscitated him. Not that she wanted thanks exactly, but a small amount of praise for keeping a cool head in an emergency and saving his life might have been nice.

Thanks, Grace. It was kind of you to bring me back to life after I said you were boring. Glad you didn’t exercise the option to leave me to die.

He watched her cautiously. “Did Stephen call?”

“Yes. He sends his best wishes and told you not to rush back to work. Lissa said she’d call around with a few things from your office. You left your bag there, and your laptop.”

“That’s kind of her.”

“Yes.” Grace was fond of Lissa. She’d been a few years ahead of Sophie in school and Grace had taught her French and Spanish. Lissa had struggled academically after her father walked out, and Grace had been delighted when she’d graduated high school and David had given her a job at the newspaper as a junior reporter. It was good to see her doing well.

She wondered if Stephen and Lissa knew about the affair.

“We need to talk to Sophie.”

There was alarm and panic on his face. “I’m dreading that part. Do you think it would be better coming from you?”

“You said you were tired of me doing everything, so no, this is one thing you can do yourself. And you’re the one who has given up on our marriage, so you’re in a better position than I am to explain it to our daughter. Do it tonight, when she comes to visit. She needs to know we love her and that your decision has nothing to do with her.”

“Tonight?” He lost more color. “I’m not feeling great, Grace.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want her finding out from someone else.”

“No one else knows.”

“You’re a journalist, David. You of all people should know how hard it is to hide information.”

He gave her a long, meaningful look and in the end she was the one to look away.

Damn him.

Grace curled and uncurled her fingers. Damn him for choosing this moment to remind her of the information he’d kept hidden. To remind her what she owed him.

“No one knows,” he said. “We’ve been careful.”

“Careful?” She imagined him creeping around. “Were you sneaking into motel rooms and paying cash? Did you use condoms?”

His cheeks turned dark red. “That’s a personal question.”

“I’m your wife!”

“Yes, I used condoms. I’m not stupid.”

Maybe not stupid, but thoughtless and careless with her feelings and their marriage? Definitely. She wanted to take a shower and scrub herself all over.

“Did you at any point think about me?”

He looked exhausted. “I thought about you all the time, Grace.”

“Even while you were having sex with another woman? That’s not a compliment.” She took a deep breath. “What’s her name?”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Grace—”

“Tell me! You owe me that much.”

He looked away. Licked his lips. “It’s Lissa.”

“Lissa?” She stared at him and then felt a rush of relief. She didn’t know a Lissa. It wasn’t someone she knew personally or was going to bump into. “Where does she live?”

David turned his head, and his eyes were tired and sad. “You know where Lissa lives.”

“I don’t. The only Lissa I know is—” She stopped. “Wait. You don’t mean—Lissa? Our Lissa?”

“Who else?”

“Oh God.” Grace’s legs suddenly refused to do their job and she sank onto the chair. “She’s like a daughter to us. To me,” she corrected herself. “Obviously to you she’s something different.”

Grace remembered the day Lissa had graduated from high school. After all the support Grace had given her, it felt like a double betrayal.

“She’s a child!”

“She’s twenty-three. Not a child.”

She couldn’t absorb it. She hadn’t thought things could get worse, but this was so much worse.

Sick, she stood up and almost stumbled over the chair. She had to get away. “You need to find somewhere to go when you’re discharged. I don’t want you home.”

“Where am I going to go?”

“I don’t know. Where were you thinking that you’d go? Or were you planning on putting Lissa in our spare bedroom? One big happy family, is that it?”

He looked ill. “I’ll find a hotel.”

“Why? She doesn’t want you in sickness? Only in health?” Grace snatched up her bag. “I’ll drop Sophie here later. You can tell her the good news.”

“It would be better to do this together. We need to keep this civilized.”

“I don’t feel civilized, David. And as for telling Sophie—you’re sleeping with someone she considers a friend. You’re on your own with that one.”

She walked out of the room, managed to smile at the nurses at the desk and then dipped into the stairwell. Everyone else seemed to have taken the elevator and the echo of her footsteps somehow emphasized her loneliness. She made it as far as the first floor before control left her. She sank onto the bottom stair, sobbing.

Lissa? Lissa?

Grace thought about Lissa’s beaming smile and the way her ponytail swung when she walked. She wore jeans that looked as if they’d been painted on her, and tops that showed off her lush, full breasts.

It was so sordid. What would Lissa’s parents say? Grace was on a charity committee with her mother. She’d never be able to look her in the eye again.

How could David do this to her? To them? They were a unit. A family. And he’d torn that apart.

She was so lost in a world of misery and memories it was a moment before she heard the sound of footsteps and realized someone was coming down the stairs toward her.

She stood up quickly, brushed her hand over her face and walked down the last flight of stairs.

Sophie would be home from school soon. Grace needed to be there to make her something to eat, and to support her when her father blew up her life.

Audrey

“How did your exams go, Audrey, dear?”

Audrey adjusted the temperature of the water and directed the spray so that it ran over the hair and not near the eyes. If there was such a thing as an exam in hair washing, she’d ace it.

“They weren’t great, Mrs. Bishop.” She’d started working in the salon for a few hours on a Saturday when she was thirteen. She’d done it to give herself an excuse to leave the house and had been surprised by how much she enjoyed it. The best part was chatting with customers, and they were startlingly honest with her. After five years, many of them felt like family. “The thing I hate most is when you come out of the exam and the other kids are all talking about what they wrote for each question and you know you totally messed it up. Is that temperature right for you?”

“It’s perfect, dear. And I’m sure you didn’t mess it up.”

Audrey was sure she had. She knew for sure she’d gotten at least two of the questions muddled up on that last paper. She’d got confused between discuss and define.

Whichever way you looked at it, exams sucked but at least they were done now.

She pumped shampoo into her palm and started lathering Mrs. Bishop’s hair. The woman’s hair was thin on top, so Audrey was very gentle. “I’m not going to do a second shampoo, Mrs. Bishop, because your hair is a bit dry. I’m going to use a moisturizing treatment if that’s okay.”

“Whatever you think, pet. You’re the expert.”

“How is Pogo?” Audrey struggled with facts when they were in a textbook, but she had no trouble remembering the smallest detail of people’s lives. She knew all about their pets, their kids and their illnesses. Pogo was Mrs. Bishop’s Labrador, and the love of her life. “What did the vet say about the lump?”

“It was nothing serious, thank goodness. A cyst. He removed it.”

“That’s good. You must be relieved.” Audrey rinsed carefully.

“What will you do now your exams are over? Will you work here full-time this summer? We’re all hoping you do.”

It was tempting. Audrey loved the people and she enjoyed the work. For some of the women who came to the salon, their ten minutes at the basin with Audrey was the only time they relaxed during the week. Her high point had been when customers started asking for her because her scalp massage was so good.

No one had ever said Audrey was good at anything before.

But staying at the salon would mean living at home, and Audrey couldn’t wait to leave.

“I’m going traveling.”

She sprayed the treatment onto Mrs. Bishop’s hair and massaged gently.

“Oh, that’s bliss, dear. You always use just the right amount of pressure. You should do a massage course.”

Audrey used her fingertips on Mrs. Bishop’s forehead. “The clients would probably all be dirty old men.”

Mrs. Bishop tutted. “I don’t mean that kind of massage. I mean real massage. For stressed people. There are plenty of those around.”

“Yeah, I should probably start with myself.”

“You’d be fantastic. You could do makeup, too.” Philippa Wyatt, who came in every six weeks to have her color done, joined in the conversation from her chair in front of the mirror. Her hair had been segmented and was currently wrapped in tinfoil. She looked like a chicken about to be roasted.

“How are the preparations going for the wedding, Mrs. Wyatt?”

“My daughter changes her mind every five minutes. One minute the cake is going to be fruit, and the next it’s sponge.”

“I love sponge.” Audrey finished the head massage and rinsed off the product. She wrapped Alice Bishop’s head in a warm towel, changed her gown and guided her back to the basin.

“Thank you, dear.” The woman pressed a note into Audrey’s hand.

“That’s too much! You don’t have to—”

“I want to. It’s my way of saying thank you.” She sat down in the chair, and Audrey pushed the note into her pocket and stuck her head around the staff room door.

“Ellen? Mrs. Bishop is ready for you.”

Ellen owned the hair salon. There was a lot Audrey liked about her, not least the fact that she didn’t make Audrey split her tips. You earned it, you keep it, she always said.

“Right.” Ellen was finishing a cup of coffee. “Want to grab lunch together later? Milly can cover for us.”

“I thought I’d go for a quick walk. I need to clear my head after all those exams.”

It was a half-truth. The other half of the truth was that the fridge had been empty again and Audrey hadn’t realized until it was too late. Her mother, in a drunken state, had thrown everything away claiming it was “off.”

It wouldn’t hurt not to eat for a day, but she didn’t want to draw attention to it.

An hour later she grabbed her bag and took a walk to the local park.

It was teeming with people enjoying the sunshine. Some sat on benches, others sprawled on the grass, shirtsleeves rolled back.

Several were eating lunch. Huge slabs of crusty bread, fresh ham, packets of crisps, chocolate bars.

Audrey’s stomach growled.

Had anyone ever been mugged for a sandwich? There was a first time for everything. She could grab it and run. A whole new definition for fast food.

Maybe she should use the tip Mrs. Bishop had given her to buy food, but she was saving everything she earned to put toward her escape fund.

Trying to ignore the food around her, she pulled out her phone and carried on her search for summer jobs in Paris.

That morning she’d narrowed it down to two.

A family who lived in Montmartre wanted an English-speaking au pair with childcare experience. Audrey had never looked after children, but she’d looked after her mother and she figured that more than qualified her for the job although she still had to work out how to convince a potential employer of that without revealing more than she wanted to.

She lifted her head and stared across the park. There was a faint hum in the distance and she could see someone cutting the grass. It was June and the air was sweet with the scent of flowers.

In the distance she could see the running track. Audrey used it sometimes. She liked running. Maybe it was because it felt as if she was getting away from her life.

She imagined herself wandering around Paris in the summer sunshine with two adorable children in tow. Or they might be two annoying children. Either way, the life she could see ahead of her was so much more appealing than the one she was living now.

No more wondering what state the house would be in when she arrived home.

No more worrying about her mother. That would be Ron’s job.

Audrey felt dizzy at the thought of handing over responsibility and being liberated from it all.

The man on the grass closest to her put his half-eaten cheese sandwich down.

Not reaching out to grab it required more willpower than Audrey knew she had.

She slipped her feet out of her shoes and turned back to her phone.

A dental surgery needed someone to answer the phones and book appointments. True, Audrey didn’t speak French but there would be advantages to not understanding the inner workings of dentistry.

She was about to close the app when a photograph caught her eye.

She lifted the phone closer and peered at the text.

A bookshop on the Left Bank was looking for someone to help out part-time during the summer.

Audrey let out a snort of laughter. Working in a book-shop? If a worse job existed, she couldn’t think of it. She hated books. She hated reading.

She was about to scroll past the job when something caught her eye.

Did that say accommodation included? Yes, it did.

Audrey stared at her phone. That side of things had been worrying her. How was she going to find somewhere to live when she didn’t speak French, didn’t know Paris and had limited funds?

Her pulse raced forward, taking her imagination with it.

A job with accommodation would solve all her problems. Still, a bookshop? She saw now that it was a used bookshop. Did that mean it was full of books people had given away? That was a concept she could get behind.

What sort of person would they be looking for?

Someone brainy and serious. Audrey was neither of those things, but she could fake it if necessary. She was used to presenting a fake self to the world. She’d tie her hair back. Maybe buy a pair of glasses to make herself look more intelligent. Try not to talk too much or crack jokes. That way she’d be less likely to reveal her real self.

“Hey! Audie!” Meena appeared in front of her. “I was wondering if you’d be here.”

Meena worked at the supermarket in the high street and sometimes they managed to coincide their lunch break.

“You’re late.”

“I was being verbally abused by a customer who couldn’t find his favorite brand of canned tomatoes.”

Audrey didn’t see how a can of tomatoes could be the cause of friction, but she did know people got all revved up about different things. “Tomato rage.”