Page 72 of Thirty Days in Paris

‘And this.’ He held up the envelope. ‘This is good. You must finish it. You must write more.’

And then he was gone.

She walked over to her bed and fell onto it, staring at the ceiling. How did life move so fast sometimes? She had no idea what to think, or what Olivier really felt. Anger at what had happened, yes, but what about now? She was very confused. What did she mean to him now? Something? Nothing? A little? A lot?

Her phone rang. She barely had the strength to pick it up. She looked at the screen. Nathalie.

‘Hey. What’s going on?’

She didn’t have the energy to tell her friend about Olivier’s visit. She couldn’t find the words to explain her confusion. Besides, she didn’t want it to overshadow the email from Molly. She didn’t want to get Nathalie’s hopes up too much, but at the same time she wanted to galvanise her.

‘I have good news,’ Juliet told her. ‘Don’t get too excited, because as you said to me the other night, the show’s not over till the fat lady sings …’

Juliet wore her green dress for dinner with Olivier, knowing that deep down, when she had bought it, this was the occasion she’d had in mind.

The restaurant, Robert et Louise, was on the Rue Vieille du Temple, not so far away from the café where they had first met, and Juliet wondered if Olivier had chosen it on purpose because of that. Its front was painted burgundy, with red gingham curtains inside the windows, old-school Paris, cosy and welcoming. Inside, it felt like walking into someone’s home, from the mosaics on the floor to the beams on the ceiling and the stone walls covered in pictures and photographs and ancient copper pots. On an open inglenook fire, slabs of steak were grilling, making her mouth water. Most of the tables were already full.

Juliet peered through the crowds as a smiling waiter approached her, and she pointed to Olivier, sitting towards the back. He led her to the table and pulled out her chair as Olivier stood up to greet her.

He was wearing a linen shirt the colour of the Provencal sky in summer. As their cheeks brushed, she felt a little shock. They drew apart and their eyes met. They had both felt it.

They perused the menu for a few minutes, relieved to have something to focus on as the waiter brought them Kirs à la mûre.

‘We could share the côte de boeuf?’ suggested Olivier.

Juliet could see one at the neighbouring table – a side of beef cooked on the open fire and served on a wooden board.

‘Why not?’ she said.

‘And maybe the assiette de crudités to start?’

She was relieved to have the decision-making taken away, for she was finding it hard to concentrate. She was finding it hard to be interested in food at all. ‘Yes.’ She put her menu down.

‘So, what happened,’ asked Olivier, ‘after you left?’

‘I went home,’ said Juliet. ‘My father came to fetch me from the ferry. My parents couldn’t have been kinder. They knew something was wrong, but I didn’t tell them what happened. I just lay on my bed for two months. All through Christmas. I didn’t even eat Christmas dinner.’

Olivier reached out his hand and took hers. ‘Me neither.’

Juliet sat for a moment enjoying the warmth of his fingers. Was he reaching out to comfort her, or something more? She looked up to meet his gaze. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

‘Eventually, my mum intervened. I think it took a lot of courage, but she took control of the situation.’ Juliet remembered her mum coming into her room.

‘You can’t carry on like this forever,’ she’d said. ‘I’d have you here until the end of time quite happily, but you’ve got too much to offer the world. And you can’t let whatever happened in Paris stop you. Your dad’s going to get you a ticket to London. You’re to go and find a job, and start living the life you always wanted. You need to get your spark back, my girl.’

Juliet’s eyes welled up at the memory of her mum’s kindness, and her bravery, for she knew she feared the streets of London almost as much as the streets of Paris.

‘Hey.’ Olivier put his hand up to wipe away the tear that had fallen onto her cheek.

She laughed, shakily. ‘Sorry. I miss them, that’s all. When you’re twenty, you don’t understand how much they love you and how much they fear for you. You just find them annoying, and that’s so unfair.’

Olivier nodded. ‘So you went to London?’

‘Yes. And it was your notebook that got me my job. All the things I had scribbled down while I was there. I typed them up into an article. A kind of funny article about being an English au pair in Paris. It was terrible. A real jumble of ramblings about bookshops and cafés and the importance of red lipstick. But it got me through the door.’

‘I am very proud of the little notebook.’

‘I’m still using it,’ she admitted. ‘I brought it with me on this trip.’

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