and relax into the afternoon. I wondered if that might change if we lived together. The thought of Lilou wreaking havoc inside my pristine apartment, where everything was just so, was enough to make me rue my choice not to say no to her – but how could I? Parisian apartments were expensive, and I knew she couldn’t keep up paying for hers for any length of time. I calmed myself, promising there’d be rules she’d have to adhere to. She would be on her best behavior surely?
We ordered our meals, and the waiter filled our wineglasses. I sat back feeling my limbs loosen with the first sip of crisp white wine.
“As I was saying,” she said, giving her hair a customary flick, “I know my match-making choices haven’t been ideal but this Didier…” She pretended to pull her collar out as if she was hot, and waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Whoa! Seriously, you have to meet him.”
I clucked my tongue like my maman would do when Lilou was being too Lilou. “No thank you. Your choices have been downright hideous.” I gave her a withering stare. “A magician? A sixty-year-old count? You might think I’m mature but I’m only twenty-eight for God’s sake. I don’t think we need to reach for the fringes of society just yet. And certainly not a man old enough to be my papa!”
She leaned forward and whispered, “Some women find silver foxes very attractive, I’ll have you know.”
It was like speaking another language with Lilou. “Silver foxes?”
“Oui,” she said. “Silver foxes, you know, a man with a sprinkling of gray, a little mature but a whole lot of sex appeal.” She slapped her hand on the table and let out a roar of delight.
“Hush, Lilou. Mon Dieu!” All eyes were cast toward us.
“What?” She blew out her cheeks. “You can’t nurse a broken heart forever. Six months is enough grieving time, too much time for a man like him. You need to have a passionate affair!”
I shriveled in my seat, hoping no one could understand her fast-talking sentences. “I’m not grieving –” I scoffed “– far from it. I don’t have time for it, that’s all.” Lilou knew the intimate details about Joshua because the petit espion had found my diary and read every single word. If not for that she’d know zero, because who would tell the world a horror story like that? “And if I did have time for a relationship, I wouldn’t reserve it for the type of men you’re suggesting. A silver fox, I mean…?”
Laughter burbled from her. “You said you wanted someone extraordinary! Gray is the new black, non?”
I arched a brow. “I don’t think so, Lilou.” Really, she was so adamant about the most ridiculous things.
Tugging her dress down as she sat back in her chair, she said, “Sister of mine, I hate to say it, but you are only twenty-eight. Not eighty-eight. Why can’t you have a little fun while you’re waiting for Mr. Right? Even Madame Dupont beds more men than you do, and she is almost eighty.”
Madame Dupont took Lilou into her confidence when it came to matters of the boudoir. Lilou was a good secret keeper when she wanted to be, and Madame Dupont trusted her. They recognized something in one another: a spark of similarity, of lives lived the same, only half a century apart.
I struggled not to roll my eyes at Lilou’s disappointed expression. “For some of us, it’s not all about sex you know. There’s more to intimacy than that.”
She sighed. “What do you want – flowers, chocolates? A sonnet or two? Your name written in the sky?” She pretended to yawn as if she was bored. “A cookie-cutter romance? No, Anouk, no. You need to dust off your lingerie, and throw yourself at the first available debonair man, and let nature take its course. High octane, a helluva lot of adventure, and boom, you’ll never remember what’s-his-name.”
It was impossible not to laugh. Dust off my lingerie? “Thanks for your input, Lilou, but I don’t think that’s very sage advice. Throw myself at just anyone as if I’ve been sex starved or something! What’s the rush? What if Monsieur First Available is a raving sociopath? He could be married, or a misfit, or a gambler. What if he had a hairy back? A passion for flat-pack furniture?” I suppressed a giggle at Lilou’s darkening expression. “What’s wrong with taking time to get to know someone and then later expressing love with little gifts, especially a poem?”
“It’s just so last century.” She raised her hands up. “And let’s be real, can we? You’re not going to meet anyone stuck at work or holed up in your apartment, are you? I can see your tombstone already.” She gazed over my shoulder, and scrunched her face up as if she was crying, with a faux sob she said, “Here lies Anouk LaRue. Born. Worked. Died. She leaves behind her beloved little antique shop, who’ll miss her dearly.” For effect she buried her face in her hands and faux wept, once again drawing attention from curious onlookers. If only they knew.
“There’s nothing wrong with the amount I work. It’s called,” I enunciated slowly, “being responsible. Setting myself up for the future. A man would complicate all of that. When the time is right, I’ll date again, but at the moment, the thought makes me want to scream. I just simply do not have a minute of the day left to worry about another person. You make it seem like we need men to survive! We don’t!”
She took her hands from her face. “No time? You spend an age reading the newspaper. You play around on your laptop every evening! How much time do you need for love? Joshua was a nasty excuse for a boyfriend – I get that. Pure evil, and enough to break the steeliest of hearts, but so what? That was a million years ago, and it’s time to forget it. If you hide away it means he’s still winning. We don’t need men? We don’t need wine either, but how much sweeter is life with it?”
I shook my head. She didn’t understand, and she never would. Lilou was a free spirit, and so utterly different to me. Yet here she was suggesting I missed love, but it just wasn’t an issue for me. The thought of another man in my life was enough to make me recoil in horror. I just couldn’t envisage it. Didn’t need it. Didn’t miss it. I’d choose the wine option any day.
“Lingerie aside, Lilou, it really is more complicated than that and you know it. I have to work doubly, even triply hard after Joshua sold the piano from under me. My savings were tied up in that piece, and without any help from the gendarmes, what could I do, except to scramble to sell antiques at a discount so my business wouldn’t go bust. I’m still trying to get my finances stabilized and replenish the stock. And if that’s what love does to you, forget it.”
Even after all this time the memory of Joshua and what he’d done still stung. I was a fool to have believed a word that poured from his honeyed mouth. Every single sentence that fell from his lips, I listened to rapt. So exotic with his American accent and bright-eyed gaze. His declarations of love seemed so sincere and took me to a place I’d never been before.
“I don’t have time to sift through their lies.” I swished another mouthful of wine, glad for its numbing properties.
“Not all men lie,” she said giving me a pointed look.
I scoffed. “And how do you know that? Your longest relationship has been three weeks, Lilou.”
She shot me a glare. Joshua had taken a selection of antiques from the secret room, including a very rare piano, very expensive piano, promising me they were off to good homes, people he’d known forever. Payment to follow. The sale would fund our ‘grand plan’.
And the buyers were French
