I had plans to meet Richard at eleven o’clock at the hotel in St Germaine des Pres, my old stomping ground, and I wanted to make a good impression on anyone I might meet who was close with my Frenchman. Candy had packed my bag but she had done well. I chose a thick cable knit oatmeal turtleneck sweater with exaggerated braiding and an inky black pencil skirt that I paired with wicked high heeled black leather boots Cosima had bought me as an early Christmas present.
As if sensing my thoughts, my phone rang just as I finished brushing out my curls and stepping into the footwear. My sister’s name flashed across the screen.
“Bambina,” Cosima shouted when I answered. “Where are you? There is a sale at Barney’s and when I was walking by the other day, I saw this amazing eggplant dress that would be incredible on you. I don’t care what you are doing, drop it and come shopping with me.”
I smiled into the phone. “I would love that but I’m actually out of town at the moment.”
There was a long silence that I felt physically like Cosima had run into the wall of my words and was reeling.
“Out of town,” she echoed softly.
“Yes.”
I bit my lips as I grabbed my purse and heavy jacket before leaving the hotel room. As much as I wanted to focus entirely on my potentially devastating phone call with my sister, I didn’t want to be late to meet Richard.
“Okay,” Cosima said finally, still soft spoken. “Do you want to tell me where you are or who you are with?”
“I can… But I’m not sure you want to know.”
Another long pause. My heart was beating in my throat. I always suspected that Cosima knew about Sinclair and me but this conversation was proving it. I just didn’t know what she thought of it and it wasn’t exactly something that I wanted to get into over the phone when we were across the Atlantic from each other.
“Oh Gigi,” she sighed. “Please take care of yourself, okay?”
“I am, Cosi. For the first time maybe ever.”
I waited for her censure, for a reprimand at the very least.
Instead, I got another gusty sigh and when she spoke again, her voice was tender as a caress. “You are a beautiful woman worthy of epic love. I’ve always wanted that for you. But love is hard, the epic kind the hardest.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.” Not for the first time, I wondered what horrors my sister’s young life had held.
“I am. When you get back from ‘out of town’ I will tell you a little bit about it and you can tell me a little bit about your vacation,” she said.
It was both a threat and a promise.
I had better be ready to divulge everything to her when I returned.
Strangely, the thought comforted me. If she wasn’t screaming at me for my adulterous ways now, I had hope that she would be at least mildly supportive of Sin and me when I finally told her the whole truth.
She further confirmed this by saying, “I will tell the family that you took a brief vacation. Say hi to him for me and take care, bambina.”
Before I could respond, she hung up.
I stared at the dark phone screen as I stood in the underground waiting for the metro to take me to the hotel. There were so many subtle layers to our short conversation that I was still processing them when I arrived at the site of what would be a Dogwood International Hotel.
It was set close to the narrow sidewalk that was characteristic of the neighborhood but there were beautiful wrought iron gates and green plants lining the walkway up to the white stone façade. Sinclair had told me that they weren’t building a new hotel so much as transforming two adjacent classic French homes into one building. The small space between the two edifices was breached by a new glass and wrought iron atrium that housed the lobby. I stepped through one of the double sets of tall black wooden doors into the marble foyer and gasped at the beauty I found there.
Drop clothes and building supplies still littered the white veined marble floors and the huge multi-faceted windows were grimy with drywall dust but I could already tell that the space would be extraordinary and utterly Parisian.
“I was going to ask what you thought but I can tell by the beautiful expression on your face that you like it,” Richard boomed as he strode towards me from the left side of the building.
He was wearing a dusty denim button up and blue jeans, decked out in a Canadian tuxedo that he somehow pulled off. I laughed as he embraced me in his strong arms, enjoying his scent of stone and fresh sweat.