One Paris Summer (Blink) (34 page)

My sobs broke loose. “No!”

“I’m so sorry, Sophie.” Dad’s voice broke once again.

“Daddy.” I walked around the coffee table, lunged for him, and wrapped my arms around his neck, heaving sobs. For fifteen years, he had been the one to make everything okay. He had been the one to hold me when I woke up in darkness, fresh from a nightmare. He had been my rock of reassurance when I was scared, and I’d never been more scared than I was right now. “She can’t die, Daddy. I can’t lose her too.”

Dad started to cry. “I’m so sorry, Sophie. I’m so sorry.” I knew he wasn’t just talking about Jenna.

Once I had settled down a bit, Eva knelt in front of me. “Would you like to change your clothes? Maybe get into your pajamas? Jenna’s parents said they would keep us updated. We plan to stay up and wait for their call.”

“You too?” I asked surprised. “You don’t even know her.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “She’s special to you. That makes her important.” She grabbed my arm and stood. “Come. Camille has laid some pajamas out on your bed.”

“She did?” I asked in surprise.

“She’s worried about you.”

I had serious doubts about that, but I didn’t have the brain capacity to work through it.

Camille was sitting on her bed when I entered the room, looking uncertain. Sure enough, there was a pair of pajamas folded on the bed.

I changed in front of her, not caring if she saw me naked. It struck me that this was another way living here had changed me, but I was too numb to give it much thought.

After I washed my face and took down my hair, I found Dad, Eva, and Eric in the living room. Dad lifted his arm, and I started to cry all over again.

Eva threw a soft blanket over me and curled up on the opposite sofa. Eric sat beside her, on the other end, his eyes red.

“You’re staying up too?” I asked.

He just nodded in answer.

Eva turned on the TV and put in a DVD—
Father of the Bride
. It had been Dad’s and my favorite movie to watch together back home.

He’d bought it for me.

I snuggled against Dad, his arm around me, his hand stroking my hair. The familiarity helped soothe me, and I was actually dozing a bit when Dad’s phone rang.

He jerked upright, pulling his arm free so he could grab his phone off the side table. “Ron, how is she?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbow on his knee and his forehead on his palm. “I see.” My heart leapt into my throat as he listened intently. “Uh huh . . . Okay . . . Keep me updated . . . Yeah, I’ll tell Sophie. Let me know if we can do anything.”

“Is she okay?” I asked, trying to hold back my tears.

Eric was leaning forward, waiting with an anxious look on his face. Eva had grabbed his hand, and he was holding it tight.

“She’s out of surgery. They had to remove her ruptured spleen and she had some other injuries, like a punctured lung, but she’s going to be okay.”

My tears broke free, and Dad pulled me close and kissed the top of my head. “She’s going to be okay.”

Eva spoke softly in French, and Dad nodded before she said in English, “We should all try to get some sleep.”

Dad and Eric stood, but I lay down on the sofa. “I want to stay out here.”

Eva nodded her approval, then straightened the blanket over me. “Try to get some sleep,
mon petit chou
.”

She started to walk away but I called after her. “Eva.”

She squatted next to me, and tears of gratitude filled my eyes. Had she gone through a vigil like this after her husband’s accident? Had she been forced to relive the trauma? It made my heart hurt to think about it.

“Thank you . . . for everything. I’m sorry I was so awful when I first came.”

A soft smile lifted her mouth. “Shh . . .” She smoothed back my hair and wiped a tear rolling down my cheek. “I understood.”

I sat up and sniffed. “If my dad had to remarry, I’m so glad it was you.” I gave her a smile. “I love you.”

Her chin quivered and she sucked in her bottom lip as she sat down next to me, then wrapped her arms around me. “Sophie,
ma cocotte
. I love you too.” She kissed my cheek and then stood. “Go to sleep without worry. Jenna will be fine.”

I lay back down and closed my eyes, but there were so many emotions washing through me I had trouble sleeping. I was dozing when I heard murmurs in the doorway.

“What if it was her, Eva?” my dad said. He was leaning into the doorframe. “I don’t know what I’d do.”

Eva was standing next to him, rubbing his arm. “Sophie is fine, but she needs you, William. Being away from you is different for her than it is for Eric. Let her audition. She might make the program, and then you can see her all the time.”

“We don’t even know if she’ll get in. I would hate to see her put herself out there only to get hurt. This is Paris, Eva. The center of culture. The best of the best go to music school here.”

She laughed softly. “I am aware this is
Paris
”—she said it the French way, leaving off the
S
—“but she is very good. Have you heard her play since she’s come?”

“She might be good, but is she Paris good?”

“Madeline says she’s close. But she needs more practice time. You have to give it to her.”

He released a sigh. “I don’t know.”

“William.” She sounded insistent. “You can’t hold her back because of your regrets. She has to make her own choices.”

“She’s a kid, Eva. She’s too young to make this kind of decision.”

“She’s no longer a child. And if you keep her from her dream, she will resent you for it. If nothing else, give her the freedom to practice as much as she needs.”

“Fine. She can practice, but I still don’t think she should audition.” He walked away, but Eva watched me for several seconds before going to bed.

I’d already guessed that my father didn’t want me to audition, so why was it so hard to hear him say it?

Maybe because I worried he didn’t want me here at all.

I HAD A
massive headache the next morning, but an ibuprofen and a quick shower helped me feel better. When I went to gather my music, I was surprised to find a note from my father.

Practice for as long as you want.

It was what I wanted, yet his words from the night before still hurt. I stuffed the music and my laptop into my bag, then picked up the key Mathieu had given me.

The key to my heart.

Mathieu had been right. I had my music. I didn’t need my father’s approval. But as I walked to Mathieu’s apartment half an hour earlier than usual, I realized something else was more important right now. I needed to go home to Charleston. Jenna was lying in a hospital bed on the other side of the world, and she needed me.

I sent Dad a text saying I needed to go home to Jenna, and he texted back to say we’d talk about it later that night. Ten hours wasn’t going to make a difference. Mom and her boyfriend were on a weekend ocean cruise and inaccessible until Sunday night. There was no way Dad would let me go home to an empty house.

In the meantime, I planned to play my heart out on the piano.

I worried I might have problems getting inside the building, but all the doors opened without a hitch. I felt like a trespasser going into the empty apartment, but I sat down at the piano and began to play straightaway.

I was lost in the music, as always, but forced myself to concentrate on the technical side of the sonata. Anything less than perfection would be unacceptable if I wanted to succeed.

If I was even still here to audition.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been playing when my phone rang, but I was in the middle of my Rachmaninoff piece. My stomach clenched when I saw it was Jenna’s mother’s phone.

“Mrs. D, how is she?”

“It’s me,” Jenna said, her voice sounding weak and far away.

“Oh! Jenna! Are you okay?” I shook my head. “Of course you’re not okay. How are you?” I stood and began to pace.

“Calm down, Soph. Breathe.”

“How can I calm down when you almost died?”

“I didn’t almost die . . . Mom, stop. She’s already freaked out. Okay, I get it,” she said, sounding frustrated. She sounded loopy too, and I wondered how much pain medication she was hopped up on. “Everyone’s freaking out about how I almost died, but how do you think
I
feel? No more talk about me almost dying, got it?”

“Got it,” I said, and Jenna’s mother’s answer echoed mine on the other end of the line.

“I’m calling to let you know I’m okay, although I hear I look like a patchwork quilt, which totally sucks since I got this really cute bikini on sale last week . . . Yes, Mom, it covers my butt . . . Mom! I almost died. I think saying the word
butt
is the least of my worries. Especially since I’ll never wear it or any other bikini again.”

“Why? Because of your scar?” I asked. “It’s a war wound. Wear it proudly.”

“Yeah,” she said, but her voice was weaker.

“You need some rest, Jenna. Why don’t you call me later, and you can tell me about all of the cute doctors in the hospital.”

“I have to tell you something first.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t think I can come on Sunday.”

My heart sank. I had guessed as much, of course. “I had a feeling you might have to cancel. I think they frown on bringing IV poles on planes. It’s hard to get them through the metal detectors in security. Which is why I think I should come home.”

“
What?
Why?”

“Because you need me.”

“But what about the cute French boy? What about your audition?”

“Who cares about the audition? Who would want to go to school with a bunch of fussy French people?”

“
You
,” she said softly. “Music is your dream.”

Oh, she knew me so well. “Jenna, I can’t stay here knowing you’re in a hospital bed, hooked up to all kinds of tubes and wires, coming in and out of consciousness with no one there to give you a fair and accurate assessment of the hotness of all the doctors, interns, male nurses, and other hospital personnel that come in and out of your room.”

“Ow!” she shouted. “Stop making me laugh. It hurts. And like you would ever do such a thing. That’s what
I
would do.”

“Exactly. So being a good friend, I need to cover for you.”

“You can’t come home, Soph. You have to stay there and audition. You have to stay with your cute French boy and fall in love and one day make beautiful French-American babies.”

A big part of me hoped to do exactly that. But I couldn’t. “You need me, Jen.”

“Please, please, please don’t come home for me. I want you to stay. Especially since I can’t come on Sunday. If you get into your fancy school, then I can come and stay the entire summer next year and find my own French boy.”

“Jenna . . .”

“Stay where you are for now, Sophie. We’ll talk about this later when my head’s not so fuzzy.”

The front door to the apartment opened, and Mathieu walked in, worry on his face.

“Get some rest and get well, okay? We’ll go shopping for some midriff tops to show off your scars.”

“Only if you get one too . . .” Her voice drifted off.

Mathieu walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around my front, pulling me against his chest.

“Jenna?” I asked after a couple of seconds.

“She fell asleep,” her mother said in a hushed tone. “She insisted on calling you even though she’s as high as a kite on drugs. But I thought you’d like to hear her voice and know she’s really okay.” Her voice broke.

“She really did almost die, didn’t she?” I asked, my tears returning.

“Let’s just say it was very close.” She promised to keep me updated and then hung up.

I snuggled my head against Mathieu’s chest. His arms cinched tighter around my waist.

“I heard about your friend.”

I craned my neck to look back at him. “How did you find out?”

“Thomas. Since Jenna can’t come, Camille wants Dane to stay.”

“What? No!” I spun around to face him. “He
has
to go home.”

He studied me. “Why?”

“Because he’s the world’s biggest jerk and I want him gone.”

He brushed several strands of hair from my forehead. “Then you better talk to your father, because Camille is pressuring her mother, and I think she’s winning.”

Something on his face caught my attention. “You want him gone too.”

“Yes. I don’t like how he looks at you.”

I leaned back. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you not see it? When you walked out last night, he couldn’t take his eyes off you. And it wasn’t the first time.”

I shuddered. “All the more reason for him to go. Camille will flip her lid if she sees him doing that. I’m already on her bad side.”

He glanced at the music spread all over the piano and my laptop arranged on a chair I’d pulled over from the kitchen. “I’m surprised you’re still here. I didn’t think I’d get to see you.”

“Why? What time is it?”

“It’s after four.”

“It’s
that
late?” But I guessed it didn’t matter now that Dad had lifted my practice restrictions. Besides, I needed all the practice time I could get. “I better go. I haven’t even had lunch.”