Page 29 of The Holiday

"Jacinda. I'm well. And you?" Dexter holds his phone between his shoulder and ear as he unbuttons his shirt with both hands. There are sounds coming from the bathroom, bangs and shuffles, and Dexter stops unbuttoning his shirt.

"I'm good," Jacinda says cheerily. "Just calling to check in and make sure that your hotel room is to your liking, and to let you know that we have a cocktail meet-and-greet set for this evening at seven o'clock. It's in the bar of your hotel, so all you have to do is show up!" She laughs, but it sounds slightly forced.

Dexter's shoulders fall; he isn't really in a meet-and-greet mood, but the book needs to be promoted, and he knows that a big part of the success of any book tour is the author being warm, chatty, and accessible.

"Right," he says, keeping his eye on the bathroom door as he waits for it to open. "Thank you, Jacinda. I'll be there."

After Dexter ends the call, he picks up the menu next to his hotel phone and peruses the room service options. If he's going to make it through the evening, he'll need food. Thecroque monsieursounds reasonably good, as does a hot, strong coffee. It's been drizzling all afternoon, and he's chilled to the bone. Coffee would be a solid choice.

Finally, the bathroom door swings open and Dexter looks over calmly, not wanting to startle the woman walking out the door.

"Oh! Monsieur!" she says, a hand flying to her heart. "I am so sorry." The accent--thick, Parisian--is charming, and Dexter smiles disarmingly.

"Not a problem. I didn't realize you were still in here, or I would have waited."

The woman blushes slightly and tucks a rag into the handheld caddy she carries. "I will go. Please call housekeeping if you need anything else." With a bowed head, she leaves the room and closes the door so quietly that Dexter almost doesn't hear it click shut.

Absent the hotel maid, his room is silent. Dexter feels a sense of loneliness deep in his bones as he looks around at his single suitcase; his coat, hanging alone on a hanger in the open closet; the queen-sized bed he'll sleep in alone. He sits on the bed slowly, sinking into the thick duvet, the soft mattress. The Four Seasons is a perfect place to stay, and he's more than comfortable there, but there will nevernotbe a part of him that wants to share every single thing he does, sees, eats, thinks, and says, with Ruby.

Kicking off his shoes, Dexter swings his legs around and stretches out on the bed, lacing his fingers together over his chest and closing his eyes. Maybe a short nap will help take the edge off. Maybe a nap and acroque monsieurand a pot of coffee. Maybe the television on to cut the silence. Maybe a blanket over his feet to warm them. Maybe...maybe...maybe. Maybe the only thing that could ever bring comfort to him again is Ruby.

And that is not a possibility at all.

* * *

"Thank you all so much for being here," Dexter says, clasping his hands together. He's put a sport coat over his button up shirt, not even bothering to iron the shirt after his nap. What does he care if he's a bit rumpled? It's not like he's a fashion icon--he's a writer, for god's sake. "I wanted to share this first peek at my latest book with you, and to say thank you so much for your support all these years. I've never gotten anything but a warm welcome in Paris, and in fact, I have just...really wonderful memories of being here with my late wife on our book tour for the biography we wrote together." Dexter takes a moment to let the emotion that rises in him at the words "my late wife" start to dissipate before going on. "But now I'm here to talk aboutMy First Lady, My Last Love, and I hope that you all get the chance to appreciate Ruby through this book."

Dexter is holding up a hardback copy of the book, and everyone around him is clutching flutes of champagne. Seeing their expectant faces is hard; he would have loved to be standing here with Ruby at his side, sharing a book that he'd written about--well, about anything else other than the loss of his wife. But instead, he's here, unshaven, hair nap-flattened, jittery from jet lag and coffee. Someone puts a glass of champagne in his hand and he knocks it back gratefully.

"Dexter!" a man in a forest green suede jacket approaches, arms open. It's Theo Harris, one of Dexter's oldest friends, his former roommate at Oxford, and a fellow journalist of some renown.

This, Dexter finds, is what almost pushes him to tears. He nearly falls into Theo's arms, hugging his old friend so tightly and for so long that Theo finally laughs good-naturedly, slapping him on the back a few times.

“I’m so glad you’re in Paris," Dexter says, feeling the raspiness in his own voice.

“Me too. I wasn’t sure it would work out, mate, but the stars aligned!" Theo has always been a good-looking man: dark hair and goatee; lean and fit; dressed in something bespoke and expensive. He's wearing a gray cashmere turtleneck beneath the suede coat, and a pair of slim-cut jeans. "How are you?" Theo looks at Dexter intently. "Oh," he says, smile fading as he takes in his old friend’s appearance. "You're not good."

Without another word, Theo steers Dexter through the crowd and into a hallway as everyone sips champagne and waits politely for Dexter to circulate.

Standing in the dark-floored hallway with warm light spilling from the wall sconces, Theo puts a strong hand on Dexter's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, brother," he says, his eyes like melted chocolate as he looks at Dex. "I know how much you loved her, man. And cancer...I'm just so sorry. Her mother had it too, yeah?"

Dexter nods, not quite meeting Theo's eye. "She did. But Ruby's was ovarian; fast-moving, no hope of a cure by the time they found it. We had about a year together after she got sick."

Theo shakes his head. He himself has just finally settled down at the age of fifty-three, and his wife is currently pregnant with their first child. "I can't even imagine."

Dexter looks right at him, forcing a smile for his friend. "And I hope you never have to imagine it, much less live through it, buddy. But I got to be with Ruby for almost twenty years. She would have been seventy the spring after she died."

They look at one another meaningfully for a long beat. A lot has happened since Dexter met Ruby, since they wrote a book together, since they fell in love, since they embarked upon a life together. They got nearly two decades of travel. For twenty years, Ruby read everything that Dexter wrote, and they enjoyed their life on Shipwreck Key, on Christmas Key, and occasionally in New York, where they'd go for weeks at a time to soak in the city’s energy. It was a better life than Dexter ever could have imagined, and it was all possible because he and Ruby had decided to ignore the fact that fifteen years separated them from one another, or that being together meant that Dexter would never be a father.

And now here he is, facing down his mid-fifties as a widower, all alone. Sure, it had been a thought in the back of his mind all along that things could go this way, but he'd kept it there as much as he could. Thinking about "what ifs" and "maybes" and all the worst case scenarios never did anyone any good, so he'd jumped headfirst into a life with Ruby Hudson, and he'd loved every minute of that life.

"You two really had it all," Theo says, hand still clasped on Dexter's shoulder. "I read the book from cover to cover last night, and it was amazing, Dex."

Dexter smiles grimly, giving a single nod to hide the tears that spring to his eyes. "Thanks, man," he says. "I appreciate that."

"And what a journey, right? Both living it and writing it?"

Again, Dexter nods with a close-lipped smile. "Yes," he agrees. "Both living itandwriting it."

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