She walked up to the cash register and bought the book, wishing her trip hadn’t come down to this moment.
But it had. Oh, it had. It came down to comfort in the form of a book about gardening.
She was the butt of her own joke, only nothing felt funny. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt good.
* * *
“You’re closed?” he asked the man in French.
“For lunch. Yes,” the man replied.
“But I just want to buy that blue perfume bottle,” Jack said, pointing through the window of the shop to the back wall.
“We will be open again in two hours,” the man said, tucking a newspaper under his arm, and taking a step away from the door.
“Can you just sell me that blue bottle now? I’ll be fast.”
The man shook his head. “No. I am meeting my wife for lunch. I have lunch with her every Saturday. Rain or shine.”
Jack placed his palms together. Suddenly, it felt vitally important to get her the perfume bottle NOW. “I’ll pay you double. S’il vous plait.”
The man clapped him on the arm. “You can come back later. I will sell it to you then. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will regret it more if I miss lunch with my wife.”
The man turned and walked down the covered arcade and out into the Paris afternoon, that word trailing behind him like the last notes of a song fading out on the radio.
Regret.
This man would regret being late to lunch with his wife. And he’d chosen her over a business transaction.
Jack stumbled into the wall with the realization. It was simple. It was so goddamn simple. He’d let this regret define him. He’d dressed himself in it every day. He’d come to rely on it, like a fucking crutch. He needed to be that man walking away, content with the knowledge that he’d regret not seeing his wife for lunch.
Like a cloud rolling away to reveal the sun, Jack knew instantly what he’d regret more. Not telling Michelle everything in his heart. Every single thing he felt for her. Because it was no longer muddled. It was no longer messy. It was as clear as the closed sign on the door. It was as defined as the sapphire-blue bottle he wanted to buy for her. It was as easy as having lunch with your wife on a Saturday.
Distance and muting weren’t the solution. They were the essence of the problem. Already, in a few short hours of her being gone, he missed her so much it was driving him mad. Insane with longing. Desperate with the need to see her. If he couldn’t get his act together and just tell her how he felt—regardless of the risks, real or imagined—he’d lose her for good.
He couldn’t chance that.
He didn’t need an elaborate plan or a complicated strategy. He needed to speak from the heart. The thing he was most afraid of doing. His biggest fear was speaking the full truth about his feelings. But he’d lose her for sure if he didn’t do more than try. Trying was for other men. Trying was not remotely sufficient any more. He needed to do.
Fully, completely, without reservation.
He grabbed his phone from his pocket and called Michelle. She answered on the third ring.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“I’m standing in the doorway of the perfume shop, and I need to see you. I need to talk to you. I need to tell you exactly what I should have told you the last time I was here. I need to tell you in a thousand ways,” he said, because that’s all that mattered. He needed to submerge himself in the words, to drown out all the other things he hadn’t said. To start now, and start over, and start better. To stop being so damn terrified of love.
There was silence. Only silence for what felt like an eternity, and in that span of time he simply had to wait for her.
“You do?” she asked carefully.
“I do. Where are you? Are you in your favorite part of Paris that’s not in Paris?”
He was rewarded with a small laugh. “I’m predictable.”
He shook his head. “No. I just listened. To everything. Will you be there in an hour?”
“If you’re coming, yes,” she said, and he swore he could see her smiling. He knew he was.
“I am. I’m coming for you.”
He doubled back to the hotel, calling the concierge along the way to request a car service stat, and then slid into the backseat of a black sedan that shot him straight out of Paris and along the road to Giverny. Nearly an hour later, the driver pulled up to the gardens, and Jack paid him.
“Do you need a ride back to Paris, sir?”
“Yes, but I don’t know when.”
“I’m going off-duty, but please call this number and we will send someone for you,” the driver said, and handed him a card. Jack slipped it into his back pocket, thanked the man, and bought his ticket to the gardens. He walked through Monet’s one-time house, then crossed into the lush landscape that had inspired the painter. In all his time here in Europe, he’d never made it to these gardens. It was a true paradise, an escape from city life, and he understood why this land had inspired so many works of art.
He scanned for her across the flowerbeds, a sea of petals in every color. A central alley was covered by iron arches, roses climbing over the metal. Weeping willows brushed the green ground with their branches. He walked the perimeter, eyes peeled the whole time, and then the Japanese bridge came into view, its green wood slats rising over the lily pond. The most beautiful sight in all the gardens was this bridge, but in his mind it barely compared to her. She was resting her elbows on the bridge, reading a book. He picked up his pace, walking across a path edged by orange and red and gold bursts of petals, then reached the bridge. She looked up when she heard footfalls.