Turning Point(75)

    “I’m not sure if I could have done it either,” he admitted to her. “Old habits die hard. I thought I could too. My wife and I don’t have enough life in our marriage to revive it, and I don’t think either of us wants that. But the way we live works for us. We’re used to it.” It was the most honest he had been with her, and with himself, since the beginning. She had given him time to think in the past two weeks, and he had come to his own conclusions. Their flame had burned too hot, and they both might have been wounded in the end. “Take care of yourself, Stephanie. You can always call me if I can help you in any way.”

“Thank you.” They walked back to the others then, and joined the merriment over dinner.

Wendy hosted the dinner on Thursday night, and they were all leaving on Saturday. They spent their last day doing final errands and shopping for friends. Valérie, Marie-Laure, and Wendy had met Stephanie’s children by then. And Ryan was back to his old bouncy self by the time they left.



* * *



—

    Stephanie, Bill, Tom, and Wendy met them at the airport before their flight. It was a beautiful spring morning. Wendy and Bill were going to lie by her pool afterward. It was an emotional farewell. Tom didn’t know how he would survive without Valérie for the next three months, except that he was looking for apartments and she had given him a list of all her requirements, a decent bathroom, lots of closets, a garden, at least one fireplace, high ceilings, and a view.

They all hugged and kissed, even Stephanie and Gabriel, and they both got tearful for a minute, thinking of what might have been. “We would have been wonderful together,” he whispered, but she was no longer so sure. Valérie had a good point, he hadn’t been willing to give up his job for her, and expected it of her. But it didn’t matter anymore.

Their four French friends went through security waving and blowing kisses. Paul said he had fallen in love eleven times in four weeks, which was a record for him, and Valérie texted Tom while he stood there, his heart aching to see her go. He read the text, “Look under your bed,” and laughed as he touched his heart and waved again.

And then they were gone, and the others went back to their cars and drove home. Andy and Stephanie were going to the beach with the boys, and she was on duty at the hospital that night. It was her first day back at work. She made no apology for it. She had learned that lesson now.

When he got home, Tom looked under his bed, as Valérie’s text message had said, and all her underwear was there, the lacy thongs with matching bras, the garters. She had left it all for him in one place, and he sat there and laughed holding it. It was going to be a long three months without her, but they had good times in store.



* * *



—

    Marie-Laure and Valérie sat together on the flight. They talked about everything that had happened, the changes they’d been through in the past two and a half months since they’d met their American friends. Valérie’s life had changed the most of all since she was moving to California. Paul was going back to Africa. Stephanie and Andy had come full circle but were in a better place. Tom had reformed. Bill had opened up and come alive again, and Wendy had shed a man who had wasted six years of her life, and would have wasted the rest if she’d let him. None of them were untouched. Even Gabriel was going back to his old life, but by choice not default. The only one whose life hadn’t changed was Marie-Laure. “The office won’t be the same without you,” she said to Valérie.

“Yes, it will, it’ll be better. You’ll get some new young thing who’ll come up with a bunch of bright ideas and get everyone scurrying in all directions and shake things up. That’s what we all need. It’s what we did for each other.” Marie-Laure nodded, thinking about it, and a little while later, she fell asleep.

The flight attendant woke her when they were about to land at Charles de Gaulle, to tell her that her official police escort was waiting for her.

“Good Lord, are we having threats again? Welcome back to France,” she grumbled to Valérie. “They’ve sent the police for me for protection. God knows what’s going on now.” They came to get Marie-Laure when they landed, and escorted her off first. As she looked up, expecting to see uniformed police officers or CRS with machine guns waiting to accompany her through the airport, instead she saw Bruno in his captain’s uniform standing there.

    “What are you doing here?” she said to him with a smile.

“I thought you deserved a police escort for your triumphant return. You were gone a long time. It’s about time you came home. We need you here.” She smiled as she listened to him, and looked up into his smiling face with the lines around his eyes.

He walked her into the terminal ahead of the others. He picked up her bag from the conveyor belt and walked it to his police car outside and turned on the flashing lights, but not the sirens.

“I missed you,” he said, looking faintly embarrassed to have admitted it. “When are we having dinner?”

“Tonight? I have to pick up my boys tomorrow.” He was pleased. He would have her to himself for tonight at least. And after that, who knew what would happen, what madness might turn their lives upside down.

She was smiling as they drove into the city, darting through traffic, blue lights flashing, and she laughed.