Cognac & Couture (The Passport Series Book 2) (7 page)

In the end, we decided the most breathtaking moments proved
to be the result of shoe malfunctions. After the designer took her bow and the
music came to a stop, Marian made a sputtering sound before saying, “Jaysus, that
was awful. The collection, I mean. I thought the one girl was going to take a
fall.” Her shoe was unbuckled. “And what feck! Loo roll, stuck to someone’s
shoe. On the fecking runway?” She went on to mock every last decision the
designer had made. She was brutal.

I keeled over in laughter at her diatribe. Even Hillary, who
was usually the model of decorum, burst out laughing.

“Maybe we just don’t know enough about fashion,” I said as
we walked out. “On to the next!”

After a long day of dashing to and
fro and transforming from consummate employee to longtime friend, I was
exhausted. Thankfully, I’d had the sense to hire my favorite caterer, whom I
called out to the second I walked through my front door.
“
Bonjour
, Aurélie!
How
are things going?”

She quickly appeared, wiping her
hands on a towel. “Bonjour. Come and see.” S
he led
me into the kitchen. “All is prepared. I opened a few
bottles of wine. The white wine is in the refrigerator. The red is covered with
a towel, so dust doesn’t get inside the bottles.” She waved her hand in the
direction of the makeshift buffet and pointed out the beautifully presented
dishes of roasted vegetables drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh
herbs. The scent of the rosemary chicken filled the apartment. “There is yogurt
and fresh fruit in the refrigerator for dessert.”

“Thank you!” I called as she
bustled back into the kitchen.

While she finished up, I changed
my clothes. I heard a gabfest in the hall and realized the girls must have
arrived while I dallied. I returned to the kitchen and saw that
Aurélie
had poured everyone a glass of wine. She passed me a glass
of red and reminded me,
“I will be back
tomorrow morning around ten to pick up everything.”

“
Merci beaucoup
.” By the
time I returned to the living room, everyone had kicked off their shoes and was
lounging on the couches.

“I love what you’ve done with the
place.” Marian pointed to the partially removed wallpaper.

“You like it? I’m thinking of
adding it to all the walls. I’m thinking, ‘Très Shabby Chic.’ Anyone hungry?”
The four of them raised their hands. “I’ll get Charlotte’s. The rest of you
fend for yourself.”

I handed Charlotte small portions
of everything. “Just as you requested—nothing too salty, spicy, fatty, or sour.
Or with garlic. That’s virtually impossible, you know,” I teased.

Though
Aurélie
had set an elegant table, w
e crushed
together on the couches, immediately returning to our pattern of lounging and
eating.

While eating dessert, I casually brought up Sébastien.
“Tiziana, it’s so nice that you were able to meet up with Sébastien!”

She looked up, smiling as she chewed.

“He seems like a nice guy,” I continued. I tried asking a
few other basic questions and netted the same results: the bobbing of her head.

It was after she swallowed a few more bites that she relented.
“He is quite lovely. I think he’s captured your attention!”

I felt myself flush, which was all that needed to happen to
confirm her suspicions. Then I had to tell them all how we met. Tiziana praised
us both “Your eyes
are
remarkable. He has good taste!”

“And fecking hot!” Marian interjected enthusiastically. I grinned
at her and winked, letting her know we shared that assessment.

Hillary asked the salient questions. “What does she need to
know about him? Strange predilections? Attractive but emotionally unavailable?
Gay? You did say you introduced him to several women and he wasn’t interested
in any.”

From Tiziana’s frown, I could tell that Hillary’s line of
questioning was all wrong. “No, he isn’t gay, doesn’t have any strange behaviors…
that I know of. His past is a little tragic, that’s all.”

She had our complete attention at that revelation. We stared
at her, waiting for her to share his story. She topped our glasses off then
stared at the ceiling—a clear sign she was organizing her thoughts. “He has a
daughter named Chantal, who must be about twenty now. I met her a few times
when she was just a little girl. His wife, Gisella, died in a car crash. I
think Chantal was two years old, so about eighteen years ago. By the time I met
him, he was ready to date, so I introduced him to some friends. He never went out
on more than a few dates with anyone. I always felt sad for him and the little
girl.” She wore a sad expression.

My heart seized. I feared it would cease beating.
Oh my
god. I spilled my guts to him on Saturday night. No wonder he was so patient.
While I wrapped my brain around this, I heard Tiziana release a melancholy
sigh.

Marian got us back on track. “Enough of that. Let’s
celebrate being together and Charlotte’s enormous baby.”

Fuck! What if he thinks Tiziana knows? What if he talks
to her about the similarity of our tragedies?

The group returned to the world of frivolity and ease. I
felt myself teeter between the past and present. A warm hand pulled me
decisively to the present. I looked to see Hillary’s resting on mine. She had
said something.

“Sorry, what?”

“Are you all right?” Her look of concern made me flinch.
After all this time, was tonight the night to pour my secrets out? I looked at
my watch and saw that it was late already. Looking back at her, I answered,
“Just tired.” I’d tell them another time.

“Bella, that is not true.” Tiziana reached over and
collected a tear rolling down my cheek.

I hadn’t felt it. So lost in thought, I hadn’t realized I
was crying. “Oh!” I dabbed at my eyes, quickly excusing myself. In the
bathroom, tears fell fast and hard. I cried for Sébastien, I cried for me and
Mikkel, I cried for the little girl whose mother had died.

Sudden banging on the door made me jump. “Kathleen, get out
here,” Marian pressured me.

“Just a minute.” My voice sounded wobbly.
Shit!
I
felt panicked.
How can I escape this?

When I returned to the living room, they quit talking. All
eyes were on me. I took my seat, and Hillary promptly returned her grip on my
hand. “Talk to us,” she implored.

“I feel sad for Sébastien. It’s hard losing someone you
love.” I bit my lip, hoping they would leave it at that.

“And…?” Marian pushed me for more, not knowing what I had
kept to myself.

I slumped as I spoke. “It’s a long story and it’s late.
Maybe we should just talk about Stella McCartney or something. What did you
think of—?”

Their heads swiveled one to the other, seeking guidance,
looking concerned. Tiziana spoke gently. “Bella, you don’t have to tell us, but
you must know that if something has happened, you can confide in us.”

I nodded, the lump in my throat preventing me from talking.
I took a few stabs at it. “It was a long time ago…” and “I didn’t tell you, and
now…” and “after all these years…”
after all these years, my secret, born
from the desire to protect myself, is going to be revealed, and I feel bad for
so many reasons.

***

Where to
begin was elusive. My thoughts scattered as I tried to determine what to tell
them, how to explain Mikkel to them. Trying to condense one person, one epic
summer, one uncontainable love, a tragic death into a few sentences was
incredibly difficult.

“I’m trying to figure out where to
start,” I told them eventually. My eyes scoured the room, lighting upon a prism
cast by a crystal lamp.
The beginning, I guess.
“It was the summer
before my last year in graduate school, and I knew I didn’t want to move back
to Seattle, so I took a summer job there so that I could spend time with my
mom, see old friends.” As I spoke, memories of my friend Kimberly’s party
flitted through my mind. “I met a guy from Denmark, Mikkel, at a friend’s party
and then ran into him a few days later.”

***

What
was I thinking?
I threw myself down on the
grass and felt every muscle in my body ache from exhaustion. I had spent the
last two hours windsurfing on Lake Union, and while there had only been a light
breeze, it had been strenuous enough that I had either worked hard or fallen
off my board and then had to haul myself out of the water. I was going to feel
every muscle in my body tomorrow.

After resting, I tackled my board.
I was almost finished rinsing it when I heard, “Hello. We met the other night.
I’m Mikkel. Do you need some help with that?” he offered in a friendly,
slightly accented voice, his blue eyes squinting as he smiled in the late
afternoon sun.

Wow!
He was impossible to forget: tall, well built, gorgeous,
and he had a sexy voice. We had met a few nights ago at a party, where the
music was loud; many party-goers were drunk or dancing or both. A handful of us
had fled to the outdoors to talk, only to be interrupted when the cops arrived
and shut the party down. All I’d been able to do was smile and say, “Bye, it
was nice to meet you.”

Grinning, I said, “I remember you!”
I looked around, and, while it was a busy marine industrial area, there wasn’t
much here to draw a sightseer’s attention. I frankly observed, “If you don’t
mind my saying so, it seems a bit odd for us to run into each other, unless of
course you were windsurfing as well.”

He looked me straight in the eye
and without hesitation told me, “Kimberly wouldn’t give me your number, so she
called your house. Your mother told her where you were.” He pointed across the
street, where Kimberly was sitting in her car, watching us with a huge smile
painted across her face.

“So, do you want some help?” he
asked again.

I was smitten. Immediately. I
liked his candor, his confidence. Everything about him left me feeling tingly
all over. I gave Kimberly a thumbs up and said, “That’d be great. Thanks.” My
assessment that he was strong was confirmed a few minutes later, when he hefted
the board easily. He looked at me questioningly. I pointed to my ancient Subaru
station wagon with a roof rack, and he walked toward it. From behind, I
appreciated his long, tanned legs that poked out the bottom of dark green board
shorts. His faded blue T-shirt, barely holding together, emphasized his broad
shoulders. What little I could see, I liked very much.

When he returned, I had finished
rinsing down the sail, boom, and mast. I breathed in the smell of suntan lotion
as he squatted down next to me. His sun-streaked blond hair needed trimming,
and the one dimple deeply rooted in his right cheek begged for a kiss. As we
gathered everything up, I thanked him for the help. “You saved me a ton of
time.”

“Then how about a beer?”

“How about the Northlake Tavern?
It’s just down the road. You could follow me.”

“Or I could ride with you, and
then you could bring me back to my car.”

I openly sized him up, taking in
everything from the ends of his hair to the tips of his long toes. “Six foot
three, about two hundred pounds, big feet, strong hands. I’ll take you out with
the boom, if you try anything funny.”

Chuckling, he stated, “Eighty-six
kilos.”

“I’ll warn you, the pizza is
terrible, but the beer is good. If you’re hungry, we should go somewhere else.”

“I wonder what you mean by ‘good
beer.’ I haven’t had any yet.”

“Well then, the pizza is terrible,
the beer might be, too, but the bar is nearby, and I have to go to the bathroom.”

Squinting into the sun again, he
smiled and pronounced the plan, “Perfect…”

And the rest of the summer had
been perfect.

***

I felt a
smile tug at the corners of my mouth as I remembered his gorgeous face. He was
so cocky, so funny, and, in the end,
so
perfect for me. “He was a summer
intern at Microsoft, from Denmark. He worked hard, played hard. We traveled
quite a bit together. It was incredible to see life through his eyes.

“I knew with absolute certainty
that what we felt was real. We had a plan. When the summer ended, he would
return to Denmark to finish his degree. I would return to England to finish
mine. Then, after graduating, we would get jobs and live happily ever after.
But…” I could feel the lump forming again, so I gulped down my glass of wine,
waiting until I was more numb. “After three magical months, he boarded a plane
and flew home. After several days, when he hadn’t called, I worked up the
courage to call him.” I remembered dialing his number with unsteady fingers.

“I was so excited. I explained who
I was to whoever answered the phone. Then…” My face crumpled in pain, and I
found myself in Hillary’s arms, crying like it had all happened yesterday.

“Bella…” Tiziana’s consoling voice
wobbled.

It was too hard, but now that we
had gotten this far, what was a little more pain? A little more disclosure?
“His funeral had been that day. He died in a car crash. He’d been out with some
friends, drinking.” With the words spoken, I felt utterly exposed and raw. “I
don’t remember much about the days that followed, just flashes here and there.
My mother repeating over and over, ‘You’ll be okay.’” My voice took on a very
matter-of-fact tone. “He died instantly. I took comfort in the fact that he
hadn’t lingered in pain, hadn’t been afraid.”

The memory of my mother rocking me
as she said, “I don’t know if this helps, but Mikkel told them he loved you. He
was excited for them to meet you. It was real. It was real, Kathy. It might not
seem like it now, but one day, remembering him will be beautiful.” It had
comforted me, and, over the years, I had lost myself in those words and dreamt
of the possibilities—wondering what life with him would have been like.

When I came to all but the end of
my story, I could barely breathe from the tension that had built up in my
chest. I took several deep breaths, trying to relax. “When I returned to
school, I was shattered, but you were all so happy, and I wanted,
I needed
,
to be happy. So I borrowed your happiness. I went about creating a life that
was livable. I didn’t know how to tell you what had happened, as time passed. I
couldn’t speak the words or explain how part of me had faded away with his
death—some kind of innocence.”