A ROMANCE IN CANNES

Chapter 17

I love spring. Especially because of the days that are getting longer. I find that the evenings have a special atmosphere: a taste of summer, full of promise. In Cannes, this feeling was accentuated by the omnipresent sea. Seeing the last light of day on the waves almost produces the feeling of being on vacation. But not this evening. I didn’t stroll the streets to play tourist, I was on my way to the restaurant where Georges had made a reservation. I had to meet him in the heart of the Carré d'Or, the district known for its many restaurants and bars.

I was late. I had left work later than expected and had hesitated for a long time when it came time to get dressed. What is the dress code for going to dinner with your ex? An ex you haven’t seen in years after he cut your heart out? I had decided that it was necessary to be sexy, but not too much, just to say: look at what you let pass without, however, giving him false ideas. But finding the dress that perfectly matched this message wasn’t easy.

So, I spread several on my bed, which I tried in turn. They all had one flaw: too short, too low-cut, too plain, too sad… I ended up settling on a great classic: the little black dress. In the end, half an hour was lost choosing an outfit. I’d finished the makeup in five minutes, seeing the clock ticking, and fled my apartment, resulting in a huge mess behind me. So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

While I was waiting for the elevator, I came face to face with Victor, who was going up to his place. I hadn’t seen him since his mother’s leaving party. Besides, after my conversation with Georges, I didn’t meet him again. We exchanged a few pleasantries, then I apologised, telling him that I was expected. He hadn’t asked me any questions and had wished me a good evening before I disappeared into the elevator.

The restaurant in sight, I pushed open the door to enter. I was disappointed that Georges wasn’t on the terrace. The air outside was mild and I would have liked to enjoy it again.

Contrary to what I might have thought, the place was quite laid back. No greeter standing to attention at the entrance, the restaurant looked more like a bistro. When he saw me, Georges got up. He was seated at a small table to the side. I approach and he kisses me to greet me.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered in my ear, prolonging our closeness a little longer than necessary.

I could feel his breath against my neck. This, coupled with his gravelly voice, which I had always had a soft spot for, sent shivers down my spine.

He stepped aside to pull my chair back, like a perfect gentleman. The evening had barely started and it was already a mess in my head. This meeting was a bad idea for a lot of reasons. But it was also necessary. We hadn’t really had time to talk since I was in Cannes, and I kept dodging this conversation. At least, that was what I told myself as I got ready to go. I knew that my love life, or rather my lack of love life, was partly due to the way my relationship with him ended. It took me a long time to mourn it, and it was only many years later that I understood that if I carefully avoided attaching myself to a man, it would be so as not to suffer again.

“Your hair looks good on you like that,” he says, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Uh, thank you.”

By reflex, I smoothed my hair. When we were together, my hair went down to the small of my back. I had cut it off shortly after he left; some would have something to analyse or say about that.

We contented ourselves with light discussions for a while. But, when the server finished taking our orders, Georges attacked a more personal subject:

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“You mean, here, tonight?” I replied without thinking too much.

“No, here in Cannes.”

I completely understood where he was coming from but preferred to pretend not.

“I’m very happy to work at the Palace. The job is interesting, the team is nice, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot of stuff.”

Georges gave a small smile which indicated that he knew very well what I was doing. I wanted to stay on the topic of work.

“I was sure you were the right person for this position.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t see how you could know. It’s not like you still know me.”

This last sentence made his smirk disappear.

“When we worked together, you were already very good at what you did.”

“It was ages ago. And you say that now, almost ten years later, but I don’t remember hearing it back then.”

“What do you mean by that?” he said, frowning.

“You know very well.”

He remained silent for a moment. This is when the waiter arrives with our dishes. I then plunged my fork into my linguine, just to avoid his gaze. However, I saw out of the corner of my eye that he hadn’t moved towards his plate.

“Danielle, I’ve always had a lot of respect for your career. That’s why I understood your decision eight years ago.”

I dropped my fork, which bounced noisily off the corner of my plate.

“My decision? Was it my decision that you left? Maybe it was I who pushed you to accept a position on the other side of the world?”

“It may not have been your decision that I left, but it was yours to stay.”

“Do you think I decided to stay? You never asked me to follow you! How many times have I waited for you to ask me that famous question? Tens! Each time, I hope you will ask me to go with you. I spent months waiting for a phone call begging me to join you!”

I was furious and had completely lost my appetite. I was aware that a few tables around us were glancing over, but I didn’t care.

“You wouldn’t have left, you had a good job, you were about to be promoted and there was your family. You would never have left them.”

“Oh, yes? And I didn’t leave them now?”

“It’s not the same. You were younger, you needed them.”

“If you had asked me to follow you, I would have done it for you. But that’s the difference between you and me. I loved you madly, but you, not enough.”

When I said the last words, Georges’s dark eyes flashed. He slammed his fist on the table, knocking some cutlery out of the way.

“Damn! But you don’t understand that if I never asked you to follow me, it was precisely because I loved you!”

I was astonished by this statement, tempted to analyse what he meant by it. He keeps on:

“Danielle, it has been the hardest choice I’ve had to deal with knowing that I was leaving you behind. But if I never asked you to follow me, it’s because I knew it wasn’t the right time for you. If you had followed me, you would have been angry with me for taking you away from your family, for having sacrificed your life for me. I didn’t want us to become one of those couples who hate each other because one of them prevented the other from pursuing their dream. That’s also why I didn’t stay. If I had chosen you, I couldn’t have had the career I dreamed of. And it would have weighed on us sooner or later.”

“See, that’s the difference between you and me. My dream was you, yours was your career.”

“You say that now, but deep down you know I’m right. If I left, it’s certainly not because I didn’t love you.”

I let out a mocking snort and fixed my attention on the rest of the room.

“Danielle, look at me.”

I refuse to comply, so he grabs my hand on the table. I turned my head then and saw his imploring gaze.

“After I left, I was miserable for months. I missed you very much. I drowned in work trying to forget, but it didn’t work. If you knew how many times I wanted to pick up the phone just to hear the sound of your voice…”

“And why have you never done it? I was also miserable.”

I was struggling to hold back my tears.

“Because I was sure it wouldn’t be good for you or me,” he answered in a soft voice.

His thumb caressed my hand.

“Danielle, I haven’t gone a day without thinking about you. I kept wondering what you were up to. I wanted to call you, search the Internet to see if I could find out about you. But I was also afraid of what I might find. Sometimes I imagined that maybe you had gotten married, that you had children, and that thought alone made me want to throw my fist into a wall.”

“As you can see, there’s no husband or children. My life hasn’t changed much in eight years, unlike yours,” I said bitterly, withdrawing my hand from his grip.

“I don’t agree. I’ve been watching you since you arrived, and you were right when you told me in that meeting room that you had changed. You have become stronger, more confident, you know what you want.”

“That’s what happens when an asshole tells you he loves you and dumps you overnight. It builds your character.”

Instead of feeling offended by this response, he smiled.

“You don’t believe in fate.”

It was not a question, but an affirmation.

“I do,” he continued. “So when I saw your name on the list of candidates for the position of general housekeeper, I saw it as a sign of fate.”

“The sign that I was finally going to be able to put my fist in your face?”

He’s laughing.

“No, the sign that we were finally going to have a second chance.”

I was about to protest, but he motioned for me to be quiet.

“Danielle, I’m not asking you anything. I just want to be your friend, try to put an end to the hurt we’ve experienced. I know it won’t be easy, but I want us to be able to look at each other like two people who care about each other, and not like you’re going to stab me in the back at the first opportunity.”

“You’re the one who lives surrounded by knives,” I replied.

He pretended not to have heard my answer.

“Do you think we can become friends?”

I watched him for a moment, he seemed sincere. And I have to admit that I was eager for this tension between us to disappear. Especially since we have to meet almost every day at work, which is why I nodded:

“We can become friends.”

“Good. Let’s toast friendship, then.”

We raised our glasses to crash them together. Then we brought them to our lips to take a sip of the succulent Bordeaux that Georges had selected.

After that, the conversation was lighter. Georges told me about the four years he had spent preparing for the blue-white-red collar awarded to only the best chefs. He talks about it with fervour. He had always loved his job and, despite the years, his passion didn’t seem to have waned. I didn't tell him that, unlike him, in the first years, I had entered his name more than once into my search engine. I had spied on his f*******: page without success. He wasn’t the type to post his life on social networks. And when I had finally managed to avoid this unhealthy game, his name had come back to my ears involuntarily. I’ll always remember the day when, listening to the radio while cooking, the host announced the name of the winner of the most prestigious prize in cooking. My knife had slipped from my hands, I had also made a nasty gash. Which I found ironic later, once my tears had dried. Hurt by the very tool that made him famous now.

The ambience of the restaurant had changed, there was a band singing now, and a few couples moved more or less gracefully on an improvised dance floor. The music was happy and I felt my legs itch. I’ve always loved to party but, unfortunately, since I was in Cannes, I hadn’t really had the chance.

“Come! We’re going to dance!” I said, getting up when the group had just started singing one of my favourite songs.

He looked at me, amused, but didn’t hesitate to join me. Georges had always been an excellent dancer and I saw, from our first steps on the dance floor, that he had lost nothing on that side. I let myself be carried away by the rhythm of the music, raising my arms and jumping; my enthusiasm made him laugh out loud. I’ve always loved putting on a show, but above all without taking myself seriously. I’m the type of girl who’s ready to go crazy on the dance floor if it would make my friends laugh.

I closed my eyes, lulled by the rhythm and, when I opened them again, Georges was facing me. His gaze hit me head-on. It wasn’t that of a friend, it was that of a man who had other ideas in mind. I felt shivers run through my whole body. He had always had this hold on me. This is when the song changes to a slower one. Without giving me time to think, Georges walked up to me and took me in his arms. I put my hands on his shoulders and was disturbed to see how familiar the gesture felt. It was as if I had done it just yesterday. One of his flattened palms was between my shoulder blades, and the other in the small of my back. A friend could have held me that way, but he certainly would have left more distance. Now, I almost had my face against his chest. He also smelled divinely good. I was a little intoxicated by the alcohol and I just wanted to lay my head on his chest. The little lucidity I had left prevented me, however. When the song ended, I pulled away from him and I felt that he was not happy with this gesture.

“I’m working tomorrow, I have to go, it’s already late.”

I had to put some distance between us.

“Let me walk you home.”

I hesitated for a moment, was it a good idea? But in a way, I didn’t want to have to wait for an Uber, so I accepted his offer.

The journey was made in comfortable silence, I watched him on the sly. The years had drawn a few lines out of the corners of his eyes, but his appearance hadn’t changed much. He had a little more square shoulders perhaps, but he had never been weak either. He parked at the bottom of my house and when I was about to say goodbye to him in the car, he said:

“I’ll walk you to your door.”

“It’s not necessary, no one is going to attack me in the hallway.”

“Danielle, please let me do it right.”

“Could you have become a gentleman?” I quipped.

An arrogant smile formed on his lips as he opened the door. I also got out of the car. We took the elevator and arrived at my door, I turned to him to say goodbye. It was out of the question for me to bring him in.

“Thank you, Georges, I had a good evening.”

I actually meant it. Even if I had some apprehensions about going, I had to admit that it at least allowed us to have a real discussion.

“I too had a good evening.”

I approach to place a peck on his cheek, taking a whiff of his very special scent. As I was about to step back, he grabbed my arm.

“Danielle, I’m glad we’re friends. But, you know, sometimes friends develop feelings that are much deeper than they should be. Know that, for me, the door will always be open for something more. So, if you were to change your mind, I would like you to tell me about it.”

Shocked, I don’t answer. He places a kiss on my forehead, releases my arm and turns to descend the stairwell. It took me a moment to finally move from where he had left me and open my door.