The Book of Second Chances

by Katherine Slee

  Emily pointed at the name on the dedication. “I know her,” she said quietly, the face of her grandmother’s friend swimming into her mind as her gaze fell onto a white envelope that was tucked inside the book’s cover. They had met, at the funeral, when Madeleine had cried on her shoulder and told Emily how much Catriona was loved. But she had said nothing of the puzzle, the task her grandmother had set, even though she must have known.

  The envelope was identical to the one Tyler had given her on the train. An envelope that, no doubt, contained another diary entry from her grandmother’s past. Another clue, another insight into whatever message it was Emily was supposed to be grasping hold of but felt as if she was simply flailing about in the dark, completely ignorant of why she was being sent to Paris, to a woman she had only spoken to once.

  “Why this book?” Tyler picked it up, turned it over as if seeking out a clue, and Emily frowned at the question. “I mean, why would Aunt Cat choose this book, if it’s not set in Paris?” he said, peering closer at the front cover, looking from the depiction of Ophelia to Emily and pausing. “What’s the connection? The first book actually has Hatchards in it, it’s where Ophelia first finds the magical atlas, but this one’s set on a ranch in California, so why aren’t we going there?”

  “Because it’s not real.”

  None of it was real. Catriona had made up stories as a way of showing Emily the world. It was her way of teaching Emily about life, about fear, about everything she thought her granddaughter needed to know.

  “I get that, but surely there’s a connection between the books, other than the obvious fact it’s all about Ophelia? There has to be. Otherwise it’s all so random.”

  Nothing was ever random as far as Catriona Robinson was concerned. Each plot point, each detail in every book was meticulously planned before she ever started writing the actual story. Which meant the quest, the treasure trail, would have been planned just as meticulously. Nothing would be left to chance. There was a meaning behind each and every clue. Each and every book had been chosen for its own, specific purpose.

  “Google,” she said, pointing to Tyler’s phone.

  “You want me to Google the significance of why she chose these two books?” he asked with a frown. “Emily, all that’s going to come up is a whole heap of photographs of you looking scared while stood in the middle of a bookshop.”

  Emily snatched his phone away, opened up the Internet and tapped in the name of a painting that hung in the Louvre, behind what some would consider the most famous portrait of them all.

  She showed the picture of Marriage at Cana to Tyler.

  “I don’t get it,” he said, then waited as Emily began to type something on his phone, looked closer to read out the words that contained her explanation. “This is the painting that hangs on the wall opposite the Mona Lisa,” he read. “It depicts the first miracle of Jesus, when he turned water into wine. It’s a masterpiece, but no one ever goes into that room to look at it.”

  She couldn’t stop watching him as he spoke, at the way one of his bottom teeth stuck out, just a fraction.

  “Grandma took me there once,” he went on. “Then decided to put it in her story.”

  He was looking at her, waiting for her to say something, but her mind was struggling to remember what it was they were talking about.

  “Look,” Emily said out loud as she shifted a little away from Tyler, then flicked through the book they had discovered in Hatchards, to the very last page of the story. She pointed to a picture of the girls standing in an art gallery filled with abstract paintings. In the corner was a tiny, cartoonesque replica of the Mona Lisa.

  “Everything we added was for a reason.” Emily began to type again, trying not to register the warmth of his breath on her neck as he read. “Just as with every other book, there is a list at the very back, asking the readers to find each and every item that is of importance. This book isn’t just about a girl in a wheelchair named Ophelia getting to ride a horse, it’s about teaching children not to follow the crowd.”

  Her grandmother always told her not to care what other people thought. Emily looked away as she felt the weight of Tyler’s eyes on her again. She tried not to imagine his mind working through all the possible reasons someone would need to teach their grandchild such a lesson.

  Emily wondered if he would connect the dots, realize the book was written shortly after she went back to school, when most of her physical scars were healed. It was when she found out how cruel children could be to anyone who didn’t quite fit in, no matter the reason.

  “You are allowed to talk to me, you know.”

  His words surprised her, given how he witnessed firsthand the extent of her injuries. He knew how long it took her to learn to talk, to walk again, to do all the things she once took for granted.

  “I can’t.” She didn’t talk to anyone. It was a habit she didn’t know how to break, because modern technology, the dominance of email, texts, and the Internet, meant she never had much reason to speak to anyone, other than her grandmother and the birds.

  “Can’t?” Tyler said, watching as she drained her glass. “Or won’t?”

  “Please,” she whispered, turning her face away.

  For a moment he waited, hand resting on the table between them, and she couldn’t help but think of how it would feel if he were to put those hands on her. Then he sighed, shifted his weight, and she felt him lean away.

  “Paris it is, then. First train leaves St. Pancras International just after five-thirty tomorrow morning, but personally I’d rather not drag myself out of bed at such an ungodly hour.” He stopped and saw the look of horror on Emily’s face. “You want to go now?” He exhaled slowly, shook his head as he looked at his watch. “I assumed you’d want to at least rest for a bit, but I guess we could go today if there are still seats available.”

  She was shaking her head, over and over, willing him to comprehend what she was so scared about. What she knew she could not do.

  “Emily?” Tyler put both hands on her shoulders, tried to get her to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

  She couldn’t willingly go into a tunnel underneath the sea. A long, dark tunnel with no light and no air and all that water pressing down from above. She would be trapped inside a tube of metal with no way out. Just like before.

  “Mum?” Emily barely breathed the word and it came out caught in a sob.

  “Shit,” Tyler edged closer, wrapped his arms around Emily and drew her close. “I’m sorry, Em, I just didn’t think.”

  “Mum,” Emily whispered again, shaking her head against the bundle of disjointed images she couldn’t quite make sense of, didn’t want to make sense of. A car, the world flipping in and over itself, a flash of black and the dull thud, thud, thud of pain all the way along her spine. She knew the feeling would pass. But all she could do was sit, trapped in her own fear, unable to claw her way out of the darkness and back to reality.

  So she let him rock her gently, to and fro. She breathed in his words of comfort, kept her eyes tight shut and waited for her heart to calm.

  Then the sound of a message sent, an urgent ping, calling out its demand to be heard and pulling his attention away. Up he got, muttering an apology, saying he would be right back. She was left alone in his parents’ kitchen, with nothing more than a book and another memento from her grandmother’s past. A memory she wanted to discover but was frightened of where else it might lead.

  Blue-black clouds hung in the sky as Emily looked out of the window, watching dusk approach. This was when it was hardest not to cry, not to remember summer sunsets with her mother singing, her father smoking a cigar as he taught her all the constellations or sat waiting for a shooting star. Wishing upon wishing they were somewhere in the world, watching the passing of another day.

  When it was quiet, she could still hear their laughter. The low rumble in his belly, the softer trill at the back of her throat. The way they spoke to one another as if no one else were in the room
. Sometimes she believed they were still with her, or perhaps it was just her imagination.

  Which was why she always had to cover up the silence with music, needed it to drown out the pictures, the memories in her mind, in order to stop her from painting what she missed most of all.

  Opening the window, she heard the whistle of a bird somewhere high in a tree, a bird that called out to her, told a story through song. Perhaps he had yellow feathers and had flown free from his cage to soar up and through the sky. Maybe he had come to try and help cover some of her pain, if only for a little while.

  She had lost so much more than her parents, and being back in this house, this home, only made her feel it all over again. He had been her best friend, and then, quite possibly, something more, something still to happen. So many firsts experienced with him, then suddenly gone, as if she had imagined it all. Two years spent in a rehabilitation clinic, during which her godmother had never visited, simply sent letters that Emily’s grandmother would read, telling of all the things Tyler was achieving, so many hopes and dreams that should have included her.

  Turning the envelope over and over between her fingers, she sat, then took out more sheets of pale blue paper that contained another snippet from her grandmother’s past, laid them flat on the table, and began to read.

  8 June 1965

  “Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.”

  Paris, c’est magnifique! This city is just exhilarating and exhausting in so many ways, I’m not sure I could ever capture them all and find a way to put it down on the page.

  The quote at the top is written above the doorway in the bookshop where I am now living, yes living! Something taken from the Bible, apparently, but meant as a motto for all who are lucky enough to stay. In exchange for working during the day, myself and five other aspiring writers/artists/creative souls are allowed to stay here and experience everything that Paris has to offer.

  How did this happen? Me, a girl from the wilds of Scotland, in Paris, where so many creative geniuses once hath trod? James Joyce actually stayed here, in this very shop. So too did Hemingway, Kerouac and Mr. Fitzgerald. Not to mention all the streets around here, virtually impregnated with the pain of Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, crikey, just about everyone who ever lived in this ridiculous city, once upon a while ago. Someone told me that Picasso used to trade his paintings for food when he first came here because he was so poor. There’s a house up in Montmartre, near his studio, that was sold recently, only for the new owner to discover one of his canvasses in an old trunk in the basement. How incredibly pissed off would you be if you’d sold that house???

  To think this is where they all started, all those years ago. And who else has passed through, who else is still to come? Will I be one of those people? My name synonymous with books that line the shelves all over the world? Will people one day come here to think about me, about how I once slept on a bed and came up with an idea for a story that inspired them to follow my dream for themselves?

  This place is the stuff of legends, of stories and experiences passed down through generations, but I feel strangely possessive of it. As if it’s too good to share. As if this is my own, private discovery that would only be spoilt if others knew about the magic contained in these crumbling walls.

  I said there were five others staying here with me, but so far I’ve only met three…

  Charlotte, who hails from West Berlin and is sharp and bright and smokes like a veritable chimney. She’s also at least a head taller than I am and has legs that go on forever, so part of me hates her already. But only because of how fabulous she looks in her teeny-tiny skirts.

  Next comes Gigi. French, gorgeous, and I am completely obsessed with her. I get the feeling she’s filthy rich and running away from her heritage, or an arranged marriage, or something in between. But she has the dirtiest laugh and looks at me in a way that makes me know we will be friends forever.

  She flirts with everyone, and I mean everyone, which means nobody is capable of leaving the shop without buying at least three items, so she’s definitely the favorite employee.

  Is it the eyes, or the hair, or simply the way she makes you feel as if there’s nobody else in the room whenever she says your name? Bright red lips that catch on the end of a cigarette, long, slender fingers that always seems to be touching you, ever so lightly, somewhere on your body, pulling you into her space, her world. And curves that cling to her pantaloons, her blouse unbuttoned just the right amount.

  I wish I had that self-assuredness of who I am. I hope she can teach me what it is that makes French women just so, so sexy. I want to be sexy. I want someone to think I am sexy. Not just a wife-in-waiting, a dutiful woman who will do as she’s told. I want to meet someone who will push me to the very limits of my persona. Who will challenge me as much as they adore me, and make me rock with frustration and desire.

  Then there’s Noah. Oh my. From California no less. With a voice that melts inside your soul and a smile that melts everything else. He’s quiet. He’s broody. He’s probably going to destroy me, but I do not care. With stubble that I want to run my fingers, my lips over, skin the color of milky coffee and jeans worn low. The way he says my name, as if it’s the beginning of a song, makes me fizz. I feel like a silly girl stood next to him, all flustered thoughts that do not know how to behave.

  Last night we all sat around the piano, most of us drinking French (of course) red wine, and some of us smoking deliciously fragrant cigarettes that make the whole world spin. Talking about literature and art, music and love. So much to learn from these strangers, brought together under one dilapidated roof. Purely by chance, or, peut-être, fate had a hand in it as well? Either way, I don’t care, because I feel more alive, more accepted, here than I ever did at home. Nobody to tell me what to wear, to eat, to think! Here I can be whoever I want to be. No restraints, no past, and the future is entirely down to my choosing.

  There are bunks dotted around the shop, so that when the customers go home we all camp out in our makeshift castle, in amongst the words of the greats, hoping that some of their ability will rub off on us poor, hapless novices.

  This is it. I can feel the beginnings of a wonderful adventure. These people have already seen more of the world than I have even dared to imagine. Noah hitchhiked his way across America, can you believe that? Past the Grand Canyon, through the desert, over the plains and then caught a boat from New York to Ireland. He has no idea what to do with his life, I’m not certain any of us do, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that he isn’t doing what his father wants. He doesn’t care that he barely has two francs in his pocket. He doesn’t care that tomorrow the sky might fall on his head, because today is the only day worth living.

  Oh, and did I mention he is a cowboy? A bona-fide cowboy who grew up on a ranch, with the swagger to match. Be still my beating heart!

  As I said, he will be my undoing, of that I am sure.

  Gigi, on the other hand, has been seducing me with her own stories. Stories all about the colors of France. Of lavender fields in Provence that she danced through naked with a farmhand she cannot quite remember the name of, but says everything else about him she will never, ever forget.

  She told me about the light on the Atlantic Coast, so gentle, so subtle, compared to the darkness that drops over Paris like a stone when the day is done. About a man she met, with skin as dark as a conker, who fed her seafood fresh off the back of his boat, then took her skinny-dipping under the stars (and then they did all sorts of other things that I feel myself blushing about as I write). She is most definitely not a good girl from back home—Mother would have a fit if she knew!

  Gigi says she wants to be a chef, to discover all the tastes the world has to offer. To find inspiration for her food in all the people she meets (and loves) along the way. To write a book that makes people think about food as more than just a necessary part of their day. To see it as art, as pleasure, as indulgence.

  She is leavi
ng in a few weeks and wants me to go with her, all the way to the Mediterranean, and then who knows where? But Paris is bubbling over with possibility, with ideas, so I don’t know if I shall. Because I need to write my own story, to find my own raison d’être.

  Tomorrow I shall go exploring. I will walk along the banks of the Seine, stand under the Eiffel Tower, eat pain au chocolat and simply drown in all the absolute magnificence of this place. I’m hoping my muse will show up, somewhere along the way, proceed with an idea about what to write. Because at the moment all I have is the picture of a place in my mind. A house at the edge of the sea, where an old woman lives, trapped by her memories, too scared to go outside.

  CMR

  9

  SEAGULL

  Larus canus

  Emily wanted so badly to go home, to have it all return to how it once was. Her week used to be shaped by a long-practiced routine, not least waiting for the sound of milk bottles being left on the doorstep and post sliding through the letter box. The whistle of kettle, the clunk of cupboard, and the ting of spoon as her grandmother stirred her morning cup of tea.

  Now she was on a ferry, headed for France. Utterly terrified. Trapped between two worlds, neither of which she really wanted to be a part of.

  Last night she had feigned tiredness, asked to go to her room, only to sit up rereading her grandmother’s diary and flicking through her sketchbook, seeing if there was anything from before to give her an idea as to what the final story could be about. If she could somehow figure it out, there would be no need to travel any further. Trapped within the fold were a few crumbs from the biscuits that were her everyday staple, which she would usually toss outside for Milton and his friends. It had made her sad to think of them there, without her, and she could not remember when at last she fell asleep, with curtains wide open so that dawn would wake her.

  There had been no time to think about, to truly process, what it was she had been asked to do.