Page 50 of The Holiday

I’d stopped eating at that point, listening to this story with a half-smile on my face as I imagined the scenario.

“So we get down to the water’s edge, and I don’t know why I felt inclined to do this, but I fell to one knee intentionally, clutching my chest. I think I just wanted to see Ruby’s face, so I really played it up. I moaned, I fell onto the sand, and let me tell you, she lost it. I felt terrible.”

“Cobb,” Marigold said, looking angry. “I cannot believe you did that. I cannot. If I would have known—Ruby never said a word. I’m so mad at you.”

Funnily enough, she did look mad, and I worried that Cobb would be hearing about this stunt for months to come.

“Oh, Goldie,” he said, shrugging off her words. “It was a long time ago, love. And it turned out well—my joke landed—because Ruby fell to her knees in a panic, ready to shake me back to life or give me some sort of resuscitation if necessary. She was wailing, calling my name, and I opened one eye to find that she’d bought the act, lock, stock and barrel.”

“I’m so disappointed in you, Cobb Hartley,” Marigold said, frowning. “Ruby was one of my closest friends!”

“And so she remained!” He tore off another hunk of bread and went on merrily. “As soon as she caught wind of the fact that I’d tricked her, she got angry and started yelling at me. ‘Cobb Hartley,’” he said in a womanly voice that was meant to imitate Ruby’s. “‘How dare you do this? I was sick with worry!’ And she thumped me a good one on the shoulder. Just hauled back and whacked me, she did!”

“Good,” Marigold said.

“But then the look on her face was even more priceless, because she realized she’d just taken a swing at a man with a heart condition!” He laughed, clearly imagining the whole scene again as if reliving it afresh. “As soon as that shock passed, she got the giggles. She stretched out next to me and we laughed like schoolchildren. The sun was so warm on us, and I laid there thinking how surreal it was that the First Lady was in the sand next to me, wiping away tears of laughter.” He was quiet for a long moment, his food forgotten. “I thought it was quite sporting of her not to be mad at me, and we stayed there for a while, soaking up the sun. If memory serves, we even laid on our backs and made sand angels, and then she took me home and we shook all the sand off of us before Marigold could find out that the prisoner had escaped for a bit of respite.”

Marigold was still shaking her head, but she looked less angry. “I can’t believe neither of you ever told me that story,” she said.

“It was our little thing. Our inside joke.” Cobb reached for the jug of water and refilled his glass. I noticed he’d been abstaining from the wine, and honestly, he looked as clear-eyed and healthy as he’d been when I first met him. It was impressive to see him taking care of himself at this point, and it was also really wonderful to see the way he and Marigold still looked at one another, especially given the fact that they’d married, had a son, spent years apart, and then reconfirmed their bond by getting together again in their fifties. I’d always loved them both as individuals, and I truly loved them as a couple.

“I guess friends do need a good inside joke,” Marigold acquiesced. “And Ruby had a glorious sense of humor for jokes, and more importantly, she had a sense of humor about life. I saw her laugh her way through things that other people might have crumbled under, and I always admired that so much.”

I shook my head, disbelieving. “I’ve really gotten the chance to be with her again as I’ve spoken to everyone—thank you so much for having me,” I said, feeling emotional. “It’s really enlightening to hear stories about your favorite person once they're gone, but it also makes you feel…less alone. I know she’s gone and that she’s never coming back, but talking to everyone has made it feel like I could walk into the next room and find her sitting there, smiling at me. It means so much.”

Marigold reached over and laced her fingers through mine there on the table, and Cobb grinned as he ate another bite of bread.

“Our pleasure, Dex,” he said. “Truly. That lady was one of the finest birds I ever knew. And, I can assure you, I’ve known more than a few birds.”

Cobb winked at me again, and Marigold let go of my hand to whack him lightly on the shoulder, just as Ruby must have done all those years ago on the beach.

Yours, Mine, Ours

Certainly Jack Hudson belonged to Ruby—at least by law—but as his journals and writings had shown us the summer we spent poring over them on Shipwreck Key, his heart had belonged (mostly) to Etienne Boucher.

I felt anxious about seeing her again in Paris, but I knew I needed to close that loop. It wasn’t Etienne herself who made me nervous, but more the idea that I was unsure about whether or not Ruby would want me to be seeing her. For all the obvious reasons, her feelings about Etienne had been incredibly complicated, but I’d always felt that she’d handled the entire situation with aplomb. No one on the planet could have been more gracious or classy about the fact that her husband had carried on a long love affair with a woman in another country, and it would have been nearly impossible for most people to have buried their own anger in order to be kind to the little boy Jack had fathered. But Ruby had done it, and even in our most private, quiet moments, I never heard her rail about the injustice. And I never once heard her say a bad word about Julien, Jack’s son. I just don’t think she had that kind of vitriol flowing through her veins.

But Etienne was the flip-side of Ruby’s coin. Where Ruby was fair and blonde and all-American, Etienne was dark-haired and gamine and French in so many ways. For all of Ruby’s ease and her ability to talk to anyone, Etienne was mysterious, her personality slightly unknowable. In comparing the two women, I sometimes wondered if Jack justified having both relationships at once because the two women were so completely different that loving them both made him feel like two different men, depending on who he was with at the time.

But when I walked down to the lobby of the hotel that day at noon, I saw Julien, not Etienne, waiting for me. He was tall and lanky, with a shock of dark hair that spilled over his forehead, a studiously unshaven look, and piercing blue eyes, just like his father’s.

“Dexter,” he said, stepping up to greet me with an outstretched hand. It felt very American, the way he looked me in the eye as we shook hands, the way he gave a sharp nod and a guarded smile. “I hope you aren’t disappointed to find me here.”

“Is your mother okay?” I asked, puzzled by this turn of events. Etienne and I had talked more than once about this meeting, and I’d fully expected to find her there in the lobby.

“She is…” Julien paused. “She is done with this.”

“This?”

“All of this. She asked me to come and talk to you, and to tell you that she wishes you well and the best of luck on your book, but she’s no longer interested in talking about Ruby.”

I took a moment to process this. Something must have happened to make her change her mind, but I didn’t have time to ponder it now, as Julien was standing there in front of me.

“I was thinking that you could come to my house,” Julien said. “My wife is making a big lunch for us, and I’d like for you to meet my son.”

I quickly shifted gears mentally. This was a different type of opportunity, and I didn’t want to waste it. “I’d really love that, Julien. Thank you.”

We raced through the city streets in a blue 1970s Karmann Ghia, taking exits and turns on the freeway as Julien made small talk about American football (which he loved), and current American politics (which mystified him).

---