“He’s not my lover. We just met yesterday on the beach,” I rushed to explain. There was a faint smell of cinnamon in here, mingling with the aroma of coffee in the pot under the window that had small pink flowers climbing over the screen.

  “Oh, so you weren’t in his bed?” The pain in his voice was clear even though our connection wasn’t.

  I closed my eyes and prayed to my God, his son, and the Virgin. “I was but we didn’t do anything. There was wine and pot, I don’t think I touched the pot, but I drank lots of wine because I was sick with loneliness because you’ve shoved me to the bottom of your fucking list!”

  A loud crackle of static roared into my ear, making me wince. “…is my fault? You go get plastered and crawl into this asshole’s bed, and it’s on me?”

  “We didn’t do anything. I was sick…all over him and me. He put me to bed to sleep it off. I locked him out. That’s it, and yeah, kind of, it is your fault because if you’d give me five fucking minutes of your precious fucking time I wouldn’t even be here in France, I’d be with you having crumpets and tea!” Oh man, this was not going how I wanted it to go. I’d so wanted to explain to him that I only wanted someone to hold me and love me. I wanted him to hold me. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight. I just want to see you. It’s been so long…”

  I shuffled out of the kitchen back into the living room, aching from head to toe, heart breaking into small tiny bits.

  “We were going to meet up in New York.” Were. He said were as in past tense. Was he not going to come then? “I scraped up money to buy a ticket to fly to the US just to be with you.”

  “How does that feel?” I snapped, my agony and pain speaking for me it seemed. “I did that too but then you had to make your hajj right now, and hang out with your cousins in Belgrade, so I got shoved into like a number five spot on the list of important things to you.”

  The yellow and orange birds all quieted, no song to help lift the mood, just wary black eyes as the steady winds ripped up through the streets below, ringing chimes and whistling through wrought-iron gates.

  “…this to me, Dane. I’ve explained how important this trip is to me, for my father’s memory. So you sully that by flinging it in my face as if it was some fucking lark? What the hell has happened to you? You’re not acting like the man I fell in love with last summer.”

  “I’m not acting like that man? How would you know? We’ve not seen each other since October, Khalid, and that is all on you!” I stared out at the city below and for a small fraction of a second wondered if leaping off the balcony would ease the pain of what was, no doubt, going to happen to me and Khalid today. “You could have made so many other choices, but you put everyone and everything ahead of me. Ahead of us!”

  “At least I never fucked another man. You did that. You turned to someone else.”

  “We didn’t do anything! And even if we had it would have been because you made me!” The birds chittered uneasily, moving to the far ends of their perches.

  “Right, I made you fuck some other guy. Fine then, you know what. If you’re so unhappy with me and us, then why don’t we just call this over and done with?”

  My legs folded like a bad poker hand. Down I went, my ass on my heels, tropical French breezes tickling my face, my soul cracked into two halves that would never be whole again.

  “Maybe we should. I’m tired of being with a man who won’t give me as much time as he gives a ghost.” As soon as that dribbled out of me I wished I could take it back. But as with most things we say in anger, there was no drawing those words back. I would have to live with my choice just as Khalid would.

  The line went dead. I’d probably never know if Khalid had severed the call or if shitty cell service had done it to us, but he was gone and only a low crackle whispered in my ear. I kind of fell in on myself, clutching my Blackberry to the side of my head, pressing the phone into my ear so hard it hurt and then reeling back and forth until I went to my side, knees up to my chest, phone dancing away from me across the cool Italian marble floor. There was no stopping the tears, or the inevitable knowledge that René would appear in a flutter of silky robes and tight yellow curls, to scoop me up off the floor and guide me back to his bed.

  I laid in that big purple bed for days, weeping and lost in grief, grasping the peace symbol that hung around my neck. The fourth day after the end, I rolled to the left sometime during the day—darkness and light meant little to me during those endless hours of self-recriminations and guilt mongering—and saw the sun rising. The man in bed next door made a harsh, breathy sound that traveled through the open doors of the villa every night. It was a snore, although if you asked him, René would swear that he never snored. That would be far too gauche.

  I sat up, threw the covers off, and went out to the patio, naked, eager to feel something warm touching my skin. That brilliant French sunrise soaked into me through my skin, seeping into the dank place where my soul resided. It lit up the dark corners. I knelt down beside the statue of Athena and stared up at her beauty. Then, as the first touch of wind moved over my sweaty back, I tugged on the necklace Khalid had given me. The chain snapped easily, a few of the delicate links sliding down my spine. I pressed the pendant between my palms and cried for a little bit then I draped the necklace over the hound at the goddess of the hunts sandaled feet. I sat there, cheeks drying from the calming, ever-present winds, as a new day was born.

  It took me years to leave Èze, the yellow villa, and the man who called it home…

  Chapter Fourteen

  Summer 2018

  “Monsieur Forrester, avez-vous besoin d’autres choses avec que je ne parte?”

  I glanced up from the cubes in my whiskey. Madame Pent stood in the doorway, sad eyes not on me but on the flames leaping and dancing in the fireplace.

  “No, thank you, I don’t need anything else, feel free to go. Make sure the front door is locked behind you when you leave.”

  The tiny little woman in the drab blue dress took a tentative step into my den/office, her sight still on the smoldering remains of the charred picture album resting amongst the glowing embers behind the ornate fireplace screen.

  “Désolé de vous déranger, mais…

  “Ask what you wish.” Rain pattered against the panes, reminding me yet again that even though it was in the mid-sixties, rain and divorce chilled a man’s feet and heart. “In English please? My brother and his wife will be arriving next month, and we need to fall back into speaking it, so they can understand what the hell we’re saying.”

  She nodded her gray head. “Yes, I am sorry for not remembering to say things in American.” I nodded and tried to smile. I’d fallen into speaking French and had only done so for years, slipping into English now only when talking to Mom and James. “Monsieur…Mr. Forrester, I am worried for you.”

  “Don’t worry over me.” I threw my feet up onto an old leather hassock I’d found in an eclectic store in Nice four years ago. René had hated it the moment I’d spied it, which meant that I had to have it. Seems I should have seen the warning signs that very moment. A loving husband didn’t generally buy things just to piss off his spouse, did he? Maybe I’d just turned into a bitter gay bastard. “This has been in the works for over a year. We’re both better off going our own way.”

  She pressed her lips together, clearly not buying the line of shit I was feeding her. “As you say, Mr. Forrester. If you should change your mind, just call. I can send Monique up to sit with you. Perhaps go over your latest manuscript for the proofing?”

  I smiled at her, a genuine smile. She and her daughter were probably the only friends I had in France now. Most of our couple friends had stayed with René after the split, which was only fair. They’d been his friends long before they’d been mine. Leaving them was easy. Hell, even leaving him had been as well once the shock of discovering he’d found a new younger pup to fuss over wore off. It was nights like this, when it was just me in this old Parisian townhouse, that I wondered if I had ever truly loved René or had he just been a stunning way of easing myself over the loss of Khalid. While I had cared for my ex-husband greatly, and would always be grateful for his expertise in navigating society, his ability to sell me and my books, and the multitude of carnal things he had taught me over the years, there had been something missing from our relationship…

  “Monsieur?”

  “Yes, sorry. I was woolgathering. No, tell Monique to stay indoors. It’s ugly out. We’ll work on proofing tomorrow after my walk.”

  “As you wish. Please, call if you need anything. Anything at all.” She paused briefly. “I think you chose well, even if it did not work out.”

  “Thank you. I’ll call if I need anything, now go on home before it gets any uglier.”

  She backed out of the study, closing the door after her, and I sat there, listening, until I caught the creak of my old red front door. Then I got up, went to the small bar by the mullioned window, and grabbed the bottle of Vulson Old Rhino, and returned to my leathery author chair in front of the crackling fire. One leg crossed over the other, I drank, and I thought. I thought, and I drank. Choosing well. That comment amused me. If I had really picked a proper man to marry, would I be sitting here now, in my quaint little house in Montmartre, recently divorced, getting plastered on damn good French whiskey?

  Had I even chosen René, or had he chosen me? I wagered it was the second. In all honesty, the only man I had chosen had been Khalid Novak.

  I had chosen well. A sardonic laugh broke free. Sometimes I amused myself. As if I had ever had any choice about falling in love with Khalid. Foolish mortal. No, it was only hubris speaking now. One of many faults we humans had, conceit was. There had been no choice because that would mean there had been a conscious decision to select this man over all the others. As if I had been able to cherry-pick Khalid. I shook my head as I sipped my whiskey and watched the fire consume my wedding album.

  No, there had been no decision making on my part, the gods had chosen for me. Choice indicates you have an option. An alternative. There had been no option not to fall for him the first time I had seen him. Alternative? No, no alternative or picking from one possibility. There had always only ever been him. There would always only ever be him. This was how deities got off, you know. Moving human one into human two’s life, letting them love and laugh and fuck and reach the heights of rapture and then yank them apart and cast them to the winds with peals of laughter. Gods were fucking miserable creatures who played twisted games.

  Our lives are not our own, not really. How could they be? If a man were truly in custody of his existence wouldn’t he pick the easiest, least painful path through his days? Yes. Yes, he would. I would have found a way to avoid the bad break-up and broken marriage. If man were truly in command of his destiny, I would have never let Khalid go back to Great Britain without me.

  Khalid.

  There had never been a day that passed when a thought of him didn’t float through my head. Ten years. What had become of him? Where had he gone after college? Why had I let him drift from me? Was he still in the UK? Or had he left his mother to live his own life? Why had I let him go?

  I glanced at the cubes in my whiskey, a nice, dull fuzz slowing my brain.

  “Questions you have, answers you must seek,” I said aloud in my best Yoda speak.

  That made me snicker. The sizzle of photographs kissing open flames wiped the giggles from me and replaced them with the dull ache of a man who, while sad that he had failed in something so important as marriage, was not truly awash in agony as he should be. Telling, to say the least.

  Dane, you’re drunk. Go home. I am home. Oh yeah, well, have another then. Thanks, I think I will.

  I tipped up my tumbler, drained the whiskey, and poured myself more. Morning was going to be grisly. I welcomed it.

  ***

  Four weeks later, after spending an insurmountable span of time indoors going over proofs of my French translations with Monique, I was bordering on losing what remained of my senses. I had exactly two weeks left to wrap up putting my English book into French so that I could meet my previously announced release date for my latest science fiction novel The Black Side of the Stars, Black Star Series #2.

  This is the madness of an American author who works for a French publisher that demands your work be in French even though your American brain writes in English. My mind jumped continually when I was writing from English to French and then back again and so my books were a horrid mish-mosh that my editor Ruth, a lovely and usually placid woman, had declared unfit for her eyes until everything was in one language or the other.

  “Peek one, Dane!” she would bark at me over a light lunch or some evening reading in one of many intimate book stores in Paris. “Zis jumping back and forth makes my ‘ead spin.”

  So, I now had Monique Pent to help me fix the mess. And it took weeks because we had to go line by line, trying to decipher what the living fuck it was I was saying, and then get everything into French. I hated this part of the process. Just let me write. That was all I wanted. But no, editing and proofing and all that other horseshit came along with the author moniker.

  We had one chapter left on Black Side to go, but I’d begged off, citing a need to get out of my little house before I went mad. Monique smiled in her surreal way and bid me a good day. She was such a pretty young woman, slim with dark hair and kittenish green eyes. If I were straight and she was older than sixteen…

  Given I was free for the day, I made my way to the Marché aux puces. It was something that I tried to attend every month if at all possible. When René and I had been together, we’d come into Paris several times a year for business and to flea market. He hated going, saying it was too crowded with rude Americans. When I’d point out that he’d married a rude American, he’d sniff and sashay off in a huff, leaving me to poke around for hours while he was probably fucking around with strange pups.

  “Begone ex-husband,” I mumbled to myself, lifting my face to the warm Parisian sun. I closed my eyes, inhaled, and basked in the scents and sounds of the maze of small shops that lined skinny little stone streets. Fresh bread baking reached me first, making my stomach rumble as I made a mental note to stop at Fleurs de Cerisier, a corner eatery, built with gray stones and wide windows, that served artisan wood-fired French pizzas topped with fresh vegetables and goat cheese, and to drink, a beautiful cherry-berry Barbera wine.

  Soon I was immersed in shopping, haggling over a scarf for my mother or a small wicker table for James, who would be arriving soon. I really did need to find something for him and Gloria. It was just figuring out what I wanted to get them. Mom was coming over for Christmas. Dad would stay home, sulk, and go to church to pray that his gay son who lived in Paris—of all places—and had divorced his husband because you know those gays are not suited for lasting relationships, would someday find his way back into the good graces of God. Not likely. But he could pray, and I could pretend it didn’t hurt. Whatever. He’d had his year. Hell, he’d had ten and he’d shown no sign of even trying to reconcile or understand. He chose his religion. I chose to leave mine.

  A tall fat man with a thick mustache began waving a hand covered with gold and silver necklaces at me, trying to pull me out of myself. I paused in front of his little shop and then followed him inside the cramped jewelry stall. He walked in reverse, telling me that I would look good in this watch or wearing that tie clip.

  I smiled and nodded, hands clasped behind my back, gaze roaming the obviously cheaply imported bangles and earrings. He followed me, mouthing off in steady French about his goods, promising me a good price. I nodded at him and turned to leave, having had quite my fill of jewelry during my seven years of wedded bliss. Never had I seen a man own as much jewelry as my ex did. It was an obsession much like his need to cling to younger men to try to maintain his youth. Pity he was so worried about aging that he failed to see the beauty of it on him. Those fine lines around his mouth and eyes added to his—or any man’s appeal—in my opinion.

  As I was exiting the stall, my sight touched on several retro pieces crammed into a small display case. My heart tripped over itself. I stepped to the tiny glass box and deftly opened the lid, lifting a peace sign on a sturdy silver chain out from among several other necklaces that were also supposedly from that era. It caught a thin beam of sun as I held it aloft.

  Whatever the shopkeeper was saying—something about classic jewelry and eight hundred Euros to own it—I let slide into my head then wither because I was no longer in France. I was back in the Pocono Mountains, waking up and spying on Khalid as he prayed. A shudder of lost love and desire rippled through me.

  Khalid.

  “I’ll give you fifty euros for this,” I murmured, my eyes caressing the pendant flicking shafts of brilliant silver around the stall. There was a small bidding war, with a shopkeeper who instantly knew English quite well. In the end, I paid two hundred euros for it, knowing full well it would probably turn my neck green the first time I wore it. The shopkeeper was pleased, jovial even, and wrapped the old necklace in a swatch of old red flannel.

  “Merci,” I said then left the stall, the ridiculously overpriced peace sign in my front pocket. All through lunch I could feel the weight of the pendant on my thigh, warming my flesh as if I’d pocketed a chunk of lava. Belly filled with pizza and two glasses of wine, I made my way home, taking the metro lines as I detested driving in Paris.

  Once I was safely ensconced in my little home, the only home that I had ever owned outright as René had owned the villa in Èze, as well as another home in Languedoc, which we called the “farmhouse” but was, in actuality, a country estate passed to him from his grandfather. This damp house was all mine, and I was growing very fond of her, even if rain did seep through the mullioned windows in the spare bedroom if the wind blew hard.