obscene proposals she chose not to take up. As for Alpha75, he was occasionally contacted by men asking if he was free that night and up for real-life action or just a chat. Romance found a way through the murky new world of electronic connections.
Fanny had been sucked into a bittersweet ‘relationship’ which revolved around seeing her loved one for a quickie a few times a month. She wished she could find the courage to end it with Édouard the next time she saw him, but she knew she didn’t have it in her. This was not the first time she had felt so unsure, both of the situation and herself. If nothing changed between them, it could carry on like this for years.
She could find nothing to write in her pink notebook, so Fanny put the lid back on her pen and dozed off. Two hours later, she opened her eyes. She would soon be in Paris and the rain was lashing against the window. She sighed, remembering she had not brought an umbrella, when her gaze fell on a black hat on the luggage rack. She looked around. There were only five passengers left on this late train, all of them sitting a good distance away from her. The felt hat could not belong to any of them. Fanny stood up as the train braked, took down the hat and put it on. She looked at her reflection in the darkened window. The hat suited her, and it would be just the thing to keep the rain off her hair.
The black felt brim acted like a visor, compressing the space around her and marking out a distinct horizon. In Batignolles, a man did a double take as he passed her. What kind of image was she projecting, walking along in the moonlight in her denim mini-skirt, high heels, silver jacket and black hat? That of a hip eighties girl, young, free and sexy, perhaps a little bit forward … She stopped to look at herself in a mirror in the window of a boutique.
The hat gave her jaw line a new air of distinction; she had put her hair up in a bun to help keep it in place. Perhaps she should always wear it up like this and put on a man’s black felt hat every time she went out. Donning the new accessory had made her feel somehow powerful; it had the same effect as the designer clothes she so rarely treated herself to. Take her Saint Laurent skirt and Rykiel heels, for example. All she had to do was put on the YSL skirt and she immediately felt more attractive. The same went for the shoes, which had cost her almost a quarter of a month’s salary: as soon as she slipped them on and did up the little straps, she felt taller, straighter and more significant. She walked completely differently, strutting along with confidence, and only she knew it was down to the hidden powers of the Rykiel shoes.
The rain had stopped and Fanny took off the hat. She noticed two letters embossed in gold on the leather band running round the inside of the hat: F.M. Could fate really have meant the hat for her? Here were Fanny Marquant’s own initials.
‘Well, then … I’m not letting go of you, my friend, no way’, she murmured, stroking the hat.
Then she tied her hair up, put the hat back on and set off down the road with an even more determined stride.
The Batignolles district was deserted but for a few indistinct figures far off in the distance, disappearing into the shadows of apartment blocks. The hotel was not far from here and Édouard would be waiting for her in their room. He would be watching TV or else lying on the bed reading Le Monde.
As she walked through the lobby, she passed the receptionist. He nodded at her with a knowing smile. Fanny could not stand the man, who knew all the ins and outs of her love life. With his leering smile and creepy nod, she could imagine him roaming the corridors after dark, listening out for the sighs of lovers forced to meet at this crappy hotel. She began climbing the stairs, dragging her case after her, convinced he was looking at her legs. Second floor, room 26.
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