Wanderlust

by Lauren Blakely

“Okay, let’s talk,” I say, since I signed a one-year contract, and I haven’t even hit the three-month mark yet.

  “First, we love your work.”

  My heart is a stone. It sinks heavily in my chest. That’s the professional equivalent of it’s not you, it’s me. “Thank you.” I tense, waiting for the shoe to drop.

  She neatly tucks her blonde strands behind her ears. “And you’ve been absolutely amazing at L’Artisan. So much I don’t want to see you go.”

  “I don’t want to go,” I say cautiously, as worry threads deeper into me.

  She sighs heavily. “It pains me to do this, but I wanted to let you know the company will be making an offer to take you back to the United States.”

  My brain goes haywire. Lights and buttons and noises whir in a cacophony. This isn’t in the script. This isn’t what comes next. It’s completely out of left field. “I don’t understand.”

  “The parent company loves your work here, and they’ve been reading the progress reports I’ve sent.” She flashes a rueful smile. “Perhaps that was my mistake. To let them know how very talented you are. Now, it seems there’s been an opening in the Austin office, and they’re going to offer it to you.”

  That’s everything I wanted several months ago. I blink, trying to process this unexpected news. “They are? To run the fragrance lab?”

  She shakes her head. “No. To run the perfume lab.”

  My eyes widen. Everything around me slows to a crawl. The waiters walk sluggishly. Noise ceases, and the moment closes in on itself. That was my dream job forever. I swallow past the shock and try to restart the motor. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. That’s the plan. There have been some changes at the corporate office, and they’re putting together an offer for you. You’ll likely have it on your desk on Monday morning. You have to know I’d love to keep you here if there were some way, but I don’t know that we can compete with their offer. We’re the same company, yes, but we operate somewhat autonomously as a French division, as you know. We don’t yet have a perfume lab.”

  “And they do,” I say, with something like wonder in my voice. I know that lab. I’ve stood outside the door. Gazed inside. Hoped and prayed and longed to lead it. I wouldn’t just be a fragrance chemist. I’d be a perfume composer. That would be passion meeting work in the most wonderful coupling. My heart dares to speed up at the prospect of crafting what I love for my job.

  I adore creating scents.

  But I’m in love with perfume.

  She raises her glass of water and takes a drink. “They have a great lab, and it seems when I wrote the report about your new formulation in progress, they were so impressed they wanted to take you from me.”

  Her lips curve into a frown. Then quickly, they quirk up in the most wistful congratulatory smile I’ve ever seen. She’s letting me go, if I want to. She’s giving me permission to go home.

  But where is my home now?

  On the walk home, I text my sister.

  Joy: What would you do?

  * * *

  Allison: Don’t make me choose!!!

  * * *

  Joy: But you helped me decide to go to France!

  * * *

  Allison: No, you already knew you wanted to go. I just confirmed what you wanted and gave you my support.

  * * *

  Joy: Stop being reasonable and logical. What should I do? Tell me!!!

  * * *

  Allison: You know I want to see you. You know I want you home. I’m not unbiased here. You can’t ask me to decide.

  * * *

  Joy: I miss you.

  * * *

  Allison: I miss you.

  * * *

  Joy: But I love Paris.

  * * *

  Allison: There’s that.

  * * *

  Joy: But honestly, will it be too sad for me to stay?

  * * *

  Allison: I don’t know. I’d like to say it’ll only be sad if you let it be that way.

  * * *

  Joy: But on the other hand, will I regret it if I don’t take this chance?

  * * *

  Allison: Or will you regret it if you do?

  * * *

  Joy: OH MY GOD, THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS HARDER.

  * * *

  Allison: Look at it this way—you are free to make this choice for YOU. Only for you. Not out of guilt, not out of obligation, not for a man, not for love, even. But for yourself. Do what your gut tells you.

  * * *

  Joy: My gut is quiet.

  * * *

  Allison: It’ll speak soon enough.

  * * *

  Joy: But what if it just says it wants a croissant?

  * * *

  Allison: Then that’s your answer. :)

  But truthfully, the answer is I don’t know.

  Griffin’s jaw drops. “Wow. That’s tremendous, and totally unexpected.”

  “I know, right?” I say, as I flop down on the chaise on my terrace, the stars winking faintly above us.

  “Are you going to take it?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I love it here so much. But the chance to run a perfume lab? That’s a dream come true.”

  He nods thoughtfully, as if he’s trying to convince himself. “Yeah, it would be amazing,” he says, but the words come out funny, as if he’s not sure how to say them.

  “It would be amazing,” I repeat, because that’s simply a fact.

  “When will you decide?” He takes my hand in his and rubs his thumb over my palm.

  “Supposedly, I’ll have the offer in a few more days.”

  Another nod. He swallows this time. Exhales. Scrubs a hand over his jaw. “That’s . . .”

  But he doesn’t finish.

  I squeeze his hand. “What would you do if you were me?”

  I can ask him freely now since there’s no pressure, no expectation. It’s not as if we’re going to be together when I make this choice. I can make this decision for me, and only me, as my sister said. I can choose my career without losing myself. I can rewrite the mistakes of my past.

  “When would they want you back?” he asks, and the question comes out rough, as if there’s gravel in his throat.

  “Probably in a month, Marisol said.” I furrow my brow. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely. Just, wow. This is wow,” he says, tapping his fingers against his skull then spreading them wide open, as if this is blowing his mind. Maybe it is. “You’d move back home.”

  Home.

  That word echoes between us. For a while it felt like home was here with him. But we’re a vacation. We’re an escape. He’s not my home because he’s leaving, and I may as well take off now, too. How fitting that we came together in Paris like a chemical reaction. We combusted, and now we’re repelling. We’re shooting away from our epicenter, both of us, drifting farther apart. Maybe it was meant to be this way.

  Home isn’t him and me.

  It’s elsewhere.

  I squeeze his hand, asking again, “What would you do?”

  “If it’s your dream come true, you should go for it,” he says, his voice thick, almost as if it’s clogged with emotion. “I don’t want to hold you back.”

  I tilt my head to the side, curiosity gripping me. “How would you hold me back? You won’t even be here.”

  He winces and looks away.

  “You won’t be here, right?” I ask, pressing. For a split second, my heart leaps. Has he changed his mind? Is he staying? I wait patiently for an answer.

  His eyes shine with sadness, and I try to read their meaning. But they’re a language that won’t translate for me.

  So, I go first. Taking a tentative step. “If you were here, it would be different.”

  He closes his eyes and gathers me close.

  28

  Griffin

  * * *

  “I know,” I say as I wrap her in my arms and press a kiss to her lips.

  I can’t risk speaking m
ore. I can’t say what I want to say. Because I can’t let her make this choice for me. That goes against everything she needs in life. Everything I said I’d do. I told her I wouldn’t hold her back. She doesn’t want me to hold her back.

  She wants to be free to make her own choices.

  There’s no asking her to stay.

  There’s no asking her to go with me for a few weeks.

  There’s no putting off the trip so we can steal a few more months.

  There’s only a “down the road.”

  When we pull apart, I offer that. “Maybe we can see each other in Texas someday.”

  “Yeah, maybe we can.” She smiles faintly.

  Sometimes, I suppose life insists we stick to Plan A.

  Perhaps we were always inevitable—inevitably drawn together and inevitably thrust apart.

  I can’t ask her to stay in case I come back sooner. I can’t ask her to have a go of things when I’m done. That’s like asking her to live an unscented life.

  Later, after another bittersweet coming together, I finish what I started.

  With a few minutes to spare, I confirm the ticket once and for all. There is no Plan B.

  We play a game on the train to Giverny on Saturday morning. I pretend I don’t speak French at all. Joy has to do all the talking for us. She buys the tickets at the Saint-Lazare station. She gives them to the conductor and asks where the seats are. She inquires when we will arrive.

  On the train, she buys two bottles of water, and she asks the woman across the aisle if she knows the time.

  It’s simple stuff, but she does it all.

  “You might not even need this language anymore,” I say with a smile, even though I find it immeasurably sad that she’s learning French only to go home to a place where she won’t need it.

  “I’ll find an enclave of French speakers in Austin,” she says, and if that doesn’t make it clear she’s leaning toward returning to America, I don’t know what does.

  “So you’re going back to the United States?” I ask as the train rattles into the station, nearly an hour from Paris.

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine a chance like this coming along again.”

  “That’s the thing about chances. When they come your way, you need to take them.”

  She raises her bottle of water in a toast. My plastic bottle smacks against hers, making a dull echo.

  Yes, it seems she’s going back to the States.

  We were always a moment in time.

  And if I’ve learned anything from carrying this list with me for the last year—if I’ve learned anything about why I carry it—it’s to make the most of every single moment. “Hey, Joy. What do you say we focus only on good things this weekend?”

  “Only happy talk.”

  “Deal?”

  “I’d say you’ve got a deal.”

  29

  Joy

  * * *

  June is flamboyant.

  This month is such a show-off, sashaying around with its warm breezes and lush flowers that blaze with red, cherry, and ruby petals. I snap photo upon photo of the kaleidoscope of flowers in Monet’s garden. It’s a pinwheel of colors. It’s a painting. It’s lushness come to life.

  No wonder the artist drew such inspiration here.

  “Once you see these gardens it’s no surprise that he painted so many variations of them,” I say as we wander past flowerbeds that do their best impression of emeralds, garnets, and sapphires.

  “It makes you wonder how he painted anything else at all,” Griffin says.

  He points to the forest-green bridge, curling over a shimmering pond. Water lilies float on the surface, bobbing aimlessly as they luxuriate in the afternoon rays. “Where would you take it?”

  “I’m not picky. I’d take it wherever it went. I’d like to see London at some point. Amsterdam, too. Tokyo sounds like fun. Everywhere. But I might also take it right back to the Jean-Paul Hévin chocolate shop in Paris. Or, wait.” I snap my fingers. “I’d go to the market to buy walnuts and bread. I might even take it to Montmartre sometime and wander through the hilly streets.” I stop in front of an archway lined with pink roses. “Where would you take the bridge?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Don’t ask a ridiculous question.”

  I furrow my brow. “Why is that ridiculous?”

  He dots a kiss on my forehead. “I’d take it to see you, obviously.” My skin warms, but I can’t linger in the sentiment because he tugs on my hand. “Come on, we don’t want to miss anything.”

  As we wander through extravagant foliage, making sure we don’t miss a single petal, I ask him to tell me more about his parents. He talks about the new movie kick his mother is on, the efforts his dad makes to cook, and how they’ve mentioned recently they want to visit Iceland. Was the travel bug passed on to him from his parents, I ask? It’s entirely possible, he says, and as he describes the trips he and his brother planned, something snags in my brain, like a moment of déjà vu. I’m not sure what it is, or how to place it, but my mind is desperately trying to latch on to something.

  He seems to sense it, tilting his head. “You went quiet. What’s on your mind?”

  “Something feels eerily familiar about what you said. I can’t figure it out, though.”

  “It’ll come to you at three in the morning. That’s when all the unsolved riddles are answered.”

  As we stroll under a weeping willow, the conversation shifts again to another level of happy talk. “What makes you happiest?”

  His answers come swiftly. “Running. Eating ice cream. Kissing you.” He drops his voice to a whisper and moves his mouth near my ear. “Fucking you.” I blush, and he raises his voice, continuing. “Hanging out with friends. Laughing. Finding something unexpected. What about you?”

  “My sister. Shoes. Bright colors. Rain on cobbled streets. Kissing you in the rain on cobbled streets,” I say, and his quick smile in response thrills me. “Endless gorgeous views. Lazy conversations that seem to meander nowhere, but let you truly know someone. And pretty, luxurious, decadent scents, but you know that.”

  “I do, and I know, too, that someday you’ll be accepting an award for your creations.”

  I give him a look as if he’s crazy.

  “You will,” he says, with cool confidence. “And you’ll even accept it in French. I can see it so clearly.”

  I roll my eyes, even though, inside, my heart is springing, loving the idea.

  “You’re going to be at the top of your field. I believe that. You’re going to be the best at what you do. You’ll make some amazing new concoction. It’ll be splashed all over magazines and necks and wrists, and it’ll be this new infatuation that everyone wants.”

  “You’re crazy.” But I can’t stop grinning.

  “Someday, it’ll happen.”

  I whip my head in the direction of a delicious smell. I’d know it anywhere. A flower, slinking its way unexpectedly around the weeping willow. “This is my favorite. Honeysuckle.”

  He leans in close and murmurs his appreciation. “This smells like desire.”

  “It does?”

  He nods and brings his mouth to my neck, kissing my throat. “Completely.”

  And that’s when I know what my concoction is missing. It’s right under my nose.

  My favorite.

  When he pulls away, I tell him, “I came to Monet’s garden to explore, and now I’m reminded of what I love.”

  “Me, too.”

  The room is dark. Moonlight filters through the open window, the curtains fluttering.

  There are a million things that could be said, and yet there’s nothing more to say. Nothing more to talk about. He runs his thumb over my bottom lip, then presses his mouth to mine. Every move tells me he’s memorizing me, lingering in one of our last kisses.

  It takes my breath away. It makes my knees weak.

  This kiss is the reason kissing was invented. This kiss is the sky breaking open. It’s why we run through
the airport to stop a plane.

  Why we run, run, run to stop a lover from leaving.

  For this.

  This kind of intimacy. This kind of need.

  It’s the reason we tell stories of how memories make us feel.

  We separate, and he rakes his gaze over me from head to toe, as if he’s photographing every curve, every dip and valley. Running his hands from my shoulders down my bare arms to my waist, he’s imprinting the feel of me.

  I’m his, and I’m not his at the same damn time. For tonight, for a few more nights only, I belong to him.

  He strips me naked, and I take off all his clothes.

  But we don’t make love like two sad sacks. We make love the way we always have. Standing up, on all fours, bent over the bed.

  We do it rough. We do it hard. We don’t cry in sorrow. I only cry out when he makes me come again and again.

  Then, when there’s barely anything left in me? That’s when he spreads me out on the bed and enters me slowly and luxuriously, hiking up my knees, going deeper, so much deeper than before.

  “Please,” I moan. I don’t even know what I’m asking for. But I keep asking. “Please, please, please.”

  “Anything,” he says. “I’ll give you anything.”

  “You.” It’s a feather of a word.