Page 53 of Summer After Summer

“Doubtful.”

“How stressful.”

She pours water into her glass. “How so?”

“What does he do when actual French people come in here?”

“Welcome to my French restaurant, folks,” she says in a broad American accent.

I throw back my head and laugh, and God it feels good. I can’t remember the last time I did that, which is the saddest thing I’ve thought of in a long time.

“You okay?” Ash asks.

“Trying to be.”

She picks up her menu. “So, am I forgiven?”

Her face is half hidden, but I can guess at her expression. “Are you really sorry?”

The menu drops. There are tears in her eyes. “I’ve never been sorrier for anything in my life.” She extends her hand and I take it. Her fingers are cold.

“You didn’t reach out,” I say.

“And you didn’t either.”

“Was it my job to do that?”

“No. It was mine. But I was so ashamed. And then when things seemed to work out with Wes … I thought it was better to leave it.”

That’s what I’d thought too, all those times I almost called her. Better to leave well enough alone. “I get it.”

“You know, I kept thinking I’d run into you in the city. Or out here. I thought—we’ll run into each other, and then it will all be okay. Neither of us has to climb down off our high horse that way.”

“But we didn’t.”

“I was always looking for you, though. For a while there were a couple of strawberry blondes in my neighborhood who thought I was stalking them.”

I smile. “And I never came here.”

“I know.”

“So you have been stalking me?”

“I’ve been hoping that things would work out. That’s why I came the other night. To finally face the music.”

I let her hand go. “And instead, all there was, was Fred.”

Her cheeks are tinged pink. “I didn’t talk to him.”

“It’s okay if you do.”

“No, Olivia, it’s not. I said it earlier and I mean it. I know from the outside—the car, the table here, whatever ridiculous bottle of wine I just ordered—I know it looks like I’m that same shallow girl who interfered in your life for I-don’t-even-fucking-know-what reason. But I’m not. Having kids changed me. Dave too. And I want you to know that I get it if you can’t forgive me. But I really wish you would.”

There are tears in both our eyes now. The chatter around us, the tinkling of glasses and silverware, other people’s laughter and lives fade away. It’s just us, Ash and Olivia, the team we used to be every summer, the team I thought we’d be for life.

I open my mouth to say the words, but Claude is there at my elbow, holding a bottle and presenting it on his arm.

“Madames, I have this wonderful bottle for you, oui oui. You will love it so much.”

---