La Vie en Bleu

by Jody Klaire

  “If she loved her so much, she would leave this man. She would not play games.”

  “Like we do not?” A hint of bitterness seeped in. Years of frustration, heartbreak, and molten pain fuelled her grumpy mood.

  “Neither of us is married, Berne.” The bored tone irritated her further as Vivienne sipped on her champagne. “What games are there?”

  A dramatic sigh made Berne’s stomach clench. She hated it when Vivienne did this. What did she know? “The ones where you hide me from your life like a lover hiding from a spouse.”

  Having never complained of the situation before, it seemed so hypocritical for her to do so now. Still, the knowledge that she was nothing more than a sordid secret sparked a sudden need to get away, to run, to be free of the chains.

  To run to Pippa. She loved her. So why weren’t they together? Why had she left? Why had they wasted so many years?

  “You know why, Berne. I cannot do my job if my private life is questioned.” Vivienne narrowed her eyes. “And, I don’t like people thinking I’m like your new friend or the one you insist on keeping close.”

  “What are they?” Berne’s anger bristled. “What makes them so bad?”

  “I need men to find me attractive, you know that.” Vivienne rolled her eyes. “They need to think they can capture my heart.” A slow smile played across her lips. “But they are not the one I wish to seduce, non?”

  Berne’s mobile buzzed in her pocket. She yanked it out and read the text.

  “It is Rebecca. She has managed to talk to her. She is okay.”

  How true that was she didn’t know but it wasn’t her concern anymore. Pippa was not hers to worry over. The pain made it hard to swallow. Pippa wasn’t hers but she still loved her.

  “You wish to waste the evening thinking of some stranger?” Vivienne’s voice oozed with impatience. She’d never needed to wait for anything. With her looks, her status, everything fell into her lap with a simple smile. Berne, much to her own disgust, had been much the same.

  How could she not have been flattered that this actress wanted her? It beat brooding over Pippa, it dulled the ache.

  It was only to be a brief affair but that had stretched out into nine long years and she was still at Vivienne’s beck and call. She was still no closer to being treated as someone Vivienne truly loved and respected.

  But then, Vivienne didn’t know her like Pippa did. There was only one person who came close to it. Someone she really needed. “I should go and see Babs.”

  Not waiting to look at Vivienne, she hurried out of the door and strode away. The claustrophobic secrecy squeezed at her chest.

  As she rounded the corner from the apartment, she fought to suck in the hot humid air. She pulled her mobile from her pocket and dialled Rebecca.

  “Berne?”

  “Oui. She is okay, really?”

  Rebecca sighed. “Yeah, I mean. She’s freaked. Which she needs to get over by the morning or she’s gonna face some uncomfortable questions.”

  Barmy summer heat, moon glow overhead, Berne made quick work of the journey to Babs’s place. Hopefully her old friend would be alone. It was wishful thinking but maybe she was. “Why would they question her?”

  “Because . . .” Rebecca sighed. “Look, I know that whatever happened between you was epic but she’s supposed to be marrying prince charming.”

  Berne heard the sound of clanging and Rebecca huffing.

  “I mean, he’s like the dream for her parents. He’s rich, he’s handsome and they want her breeding future heirs.”

  “That is her dream too?”

  “No,” Rebecca said. “You and I both know that Pippa’s dream would be to own some kind of wood-crafting business and eat chocolate.”

  Again more clanging. What was that noise?

  “Thing is, she’ll do what her parents want and what Doug wants . . . and regret it every single day.”

  “Why?” Berne stared up at Babs’s window. She was in, the light was on, the main light. Maybe she was alone?

  “Manners, politeness . . . social expectation. Her brother is a colonel in the army, her sister is married to some barrister. Pip wouldn’t dare rock that image.”

  “That does not sound like the woman I know.” Berne had no doubt that she knew the real, indefinable, raw passion that was Pippa. Her laughter, her wish to dance under the moonlight like they did in the movies simply to feel the romance of it.

  “Probably because you bothered to fall in love with who she really is.”

  Rebecca clanged something again and swore under her breath.

  “What is happening with you?”

  Rebecca grunted. “Stupid car broke down.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest. I got off the motorway or whatever you guys call it and I’m somewhere between there and Ajoux.”

  Guest or no guest, Berne decided that she would have to break up the interlude. Babs would love the adventure of it anyway. “Stay with the car. We will come get you.”

  “Look, that’s lovely but I’m sure you and Vivienne want some peace and quiet—”

  “I am not with Vivienne . . . I leave . . . I . . . alors . . . My friend, Babs, we will be there soon.”

  Rebecca chuckled and a car door closed. A second later the lock sounded. “I’m more than happy to get off the spooky country road then.”

  She disconnected and took the steps to Babs’s apartment two at a time. Anything but wander around staring up at the moon.

  She hammered on the door. Perhaps it was too late for such noise but she didn’t care. She felt like she was breaking free. It felt good. Vive la liberté.

  “What the—?” Babs face broke into a grin and she hurled herself into Berne’s arms. “You are too long away from me!”

  Berne offered the double-kissed greeting, walked in, and grabbed Babs’s keys. “You fancy rescuing someone?”

  “She worth my time?”

  Berne smiled. “Let’s just say that she is a friend of someone who you may wish to see again.”

  Babs picked up her door keys without even casting a glance at the mess behind her. She was much like Pippa in that sense, organised chaos. “Renee?”

  Berne shook her head, searching for the little Clio.

  “Stephanie?”

  “We need to get to Ajoux-Sur-Rhône,” Berne said, opening the door to the little red car. They’d had some great adventures in her.

  “Emilie?”

  Berne got in the passenger side and handed the keys to Babs. “Non.”

  “I cannot think who.” Babs started the car and screeched out of the parking space. “I have not seen you this happy in years—” She slammed on the brakes. “Non?”

  “Keep driving.”

  Berne couldn’t hide her smile even when the driver behind them held down his horn for nearly a minute.

  After hurling expletives out of her window, Babs roared the car into life, whipping in and out of the traffic like always. “Could it be . . . ? Pepe returns?” She scowled and wagged her finger. “I am still angry with her.”

  “I know.” Berne squeezed Babs’s knee. “And you will forgive her as quickly as I did.”

  “So she is back for you?”

  Swallowing back the answer, Berne concentrated on the city whipping past.

  “Bebe?”

  “She is marrying someone . . . a man . . . I am working on their house.” Berne shrugged as Babs swung the car through a gap in the traffic and tootled up the road, leaving the city. “Mais . . . she told me that she loves me still.”

  “She does?” Babs honked the horn for good measure. “She does not love him?”

  Berne shook her head. No, she knew that, she could see it in Pippa’s desperation. She was fond of him but she didn’t look at him the same way.

  Babs’s black hair whipped behind her as she rolled the window down. “Then we need to bring her home, Bebe.”

  “I cannot do that.” She wanted to. It would be heave
n to wake up in Pippa’s arms again. “There is Vivienne—”

  “Merde to that. She is not Pippa.” Babs honked the horn again. “We’ll get her back.”

  Trying not to get carried away with Babs’s enthusiasm, Berne attempted to turn the talk to more mundane things.

  She hadn’t seen Babs in months. If she was honest, Babs and Vivienne had hated each other at first sight and so it had been difficult for nine years. Not that it stopped them meeting when Babs was home. It was harder to pretend she wasn’t in the city when Vivienne wanted to see her that was all.

  Nine long years of faking it.

  She shook her head as the city roads became narrow country lanes. Garish lights faded and the blissful quiet of the country made her rest her head back. Babs was a busy woman. Head of her own business, an internationally renowned business. Not bad for a five-foot-nothing dynamo. Berne smiled. Pippa had dubbed her the Flying Frenchwoman. She was right and it was good to know that energy hadn’t faded.

  Babs hurtled around a bend and Berne spotted a car at the side of the road. “There.”

  “Non . . . I would not have guessed.” Berne tutted at Babs’s sarcasm as they pulled over.

  They both got out of the car but Berne took out her mobile. Rebecca was in a foreign country, alone on a road. It was best to warn her. “I will call.”

  “Please tell me that’s you closing in on the car,” Rebecca said.

  Tempted to tease, Berne waved into the wing mirror. “Oui. You can come out. We do not bite.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Babs shouted from behind her.

  The door opened and Rebecca got out into the moonlight, her bright hair evident even in this light. She was everything that Pippa had described, and every bit as loyal as Berne had always imagined.

  She was, well, English. Pale, with reddish-blonde hair, at least under the dye. She was stockier than Pippa, more swagger in her walk. The tattoos and the fashion made her a walking statement of, “I don’t care,” yet under it, Berne could tell she was sensitive.

  Rebecca also had a real maternal side to her too. Berne had watched her mothering Pippa, affectionate and gentle in her chastising. She knew that her friend was struggling and she was trying to help her.

  Berne wanted to ask her why, why had Pippa left. Why had she run if she still loved her like she did? Only pride stopped her. If Pippa wished her to know, she would open up in her own time. She hoped.

  Berne turned to look at Babs and smiled at the glint in her eyes. Rebecca was everything Babs made impassioned vocal arguments against. She hated tattoos, she hated odd hair colours, she hated cocky arrogance, and she often left women when their fashion sense irritated her.

  Pippa had said Rebecca didn’t date short women. She didn’t date women who embraced fashion as art. According to Pippa, Rebecca felt they were false, shallow, and unintelligent.

  Berne smiled at that. She and Pippa had made a bet, which one would crack first. Which heartbreaker would win the battle of France versus England?

  “Hi.” Rebecca smiled, motioning to the car. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

  “Pas de problème. This is my friend, Barbara Henri.” Berne didn’t miss the appreciative glance that Babs gave Rebecca. “Or as Pippa named her . . . Babs.”

  “Er . . . Bonjour—I mean soir . . . bonsoir.” Rebecca wiped her hands on her jeans and held one out. “I’m Rebecca. Pippa calls me a lot of things but none of them are repeatable.”

  Babs’s hearty laugh made Rebecca jolt but then Babs laugh did that to most people. “Then our girl has not changed, non.” She gripped hold of Rebecca’s hand, yanked her forward, and placed two kisses on her cheeks.

  Poor Rebecca looked shell shocked.

  “Let’s head to the village. It is better to stay there. Maman will wish to feed us tomorrow.” Berne doubted that they could fix the car in the dark. It wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You sound like Pip now,” Rebecca said as they climbed into the Clio. “She is always thinking of her next meal.” Rebecca met Berne’s eyes as Babs slammed the car into motion. “Which she didn’t do before coming here.”

  “Food is more than just to sate the appetite, non?” It was good to know that she’d made an impact on Pippa’s life, on her passions. It had been a joy to show her France. Watching her experience it and fall in love with it stirred something inside her. She hadn’t meant to fall in love.

  The eighteen year old who had wandered into her flat during a summer storm had stunned her. Drenched from head to toe, she had a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she understood the feeling in the music.

  Eighteen and way too young for her. Berne was ten years older, she was training to be a gendarme. She’d waited until then to help out her father but had found herself in the city more and more.

  Pippa had wanted to learn everything she could about France, about working with wood and stone, about the language. It had been hard to ignore the lingering looks, the feelings etched across her gentle, soft features. Pippa didn’t even realise she was doing it half the time.

  It just made her all the more pleasurable to be around. She cared, really cared, about the mundane to the profound. She wanted to know how Berne felt, what she was thinking. Pippa reached her in a way that no one had ever come close to. And, she had been eighteen.

  Berne had been given a gentle warning from her father when he met Pippa that Berne was to do her job, tutor the girl, and make sure she had a wonderful time.

  That was it.

  Yet, her parents had been delighted when Pippa wriggled her way in to Berne’s heart. She’d never seen them as happy for her. Of course, they had to keep it away from the friend of Pippa’s family.

  He had given them a huge contract that had given the family much needed money. It had taken seven years to complete the Gite village but it had secured her parents retirement years. Pippa had always been mindful of the risk their relationship could have. Berne often wondered if that was the reason why Pippa had left.

  They hurtled over the humpback bridge at the bottom of the village, jolting her back to the car. Babs whooped and Berne laughed at the tickle in her stomach.

  “Dumb question but one, is this car stolen?” Rebecca asked and Berne turned to her. “And two, where are the seat belts?”

  “Relax, my little English lightbulb,” Babs purred. “You are in safe hands with me.”

  Berne noticed a slight blush creep over Rebecca’s cheeks or was that just her eyes in the dim light?

  “She thinks she is amusing,” Berne offered in case Babs had caused offence.

  Rebecca winked. “Only if you slow down, my little French lunatic.”

  Babs roared with laughter once more and Berne relaxed back into the seat as Rebecca grinned her way. Berne smiled to herself as she looked from Babs to Rebecca and out of the window.

  The competition was on. Interesting . . . very, very interesting.

  Chapter Nine

  SUNLIGHT STREAMED THROUGH the open windows and roused me into consciousness. I had fallen asleep to the sound of lovers giggling in the street below and woken to the buzzing rumble of a city on its way to lunch.

  Staring up at the white ceiling, I let myself doze to the beeps and roaring engines. It felt to me as though Paris was almost a country of its own in some respects. There was no doubting that this was France, yet Paris embodied a unique spirit all of its own.

  A tapping on my door swept my thoughts from the vibrant world below to the mess of a life I had found myself in. For the first time in years I seemed to wake up to the fact that I was living someone else’s life. This wasn’t me, this place I’d ended up wasn’t me. Not that it was a bad place but nevertheless it wasn’t where I felt happy.

  Groaning, I put my hands over my face with the admission. I wasn’t happy. What did I do about that?

  “Phillipa Grace Saunders, you open this door right now!”

  Uh oh, my mother was in a rip. What a way to start the morning. I glanced at the window and though
t about scaling down the side of the hotel. Anything was better than dealing with hurricane Daphne Saunders.

  Another thundering knock made me roll out of bed and I yanked open the door, sending my mother sprawling. She’d obviously been listening at the lock.

  Oops.

  “Is there something wrong?” I thought about helping her up but she was faster than a sprinter on an Olympic track, leaping to her feet like a starter pistol had fired.

  “You lock yourself away like goldilocks, give us all a scare, and you ask me if something is wrong?”

  “It was Rapunzel,” I said, attempting to help her to straighten out her clothes.

  “What?” She batted my hands away.

  “Rapunzel was the one in the tow—Oh, never mind. Is Doug around?”

  My mother shook her head. “No. Your father has gone with him to the new centre. You’re lucky that he is so patient with you.”

  The relief of not having to face him made my mother’s words take until I’d half dressed to sink in.

  “What?” I asked, yanking up my too tight dress. Had the stupid thing shrunk overnight?

  “He’s gone to the—”

  “Not that, why am I lucky?” And why wouldn’t the dress budge?

  “You have so many faults, darling. You know that. Most women without as many would be lucky to bag a man like him.”

  I blinked a few times as I stared at her. Wow, it was good to know how much she thought of me. “And what faults are they?”

  “I’m your mother. It’s my job to be honest—”

  “What faults?” I yanked up my dress and closed my eyes at the ripping sound.

  Wonderful. Just wonderful.

  “Now look what you’ve done.” My mother tutted as she hovered. “Can’t even dress yourself.”

  I threw the dress onto the floor. “Then I’ll just wear something that I want to wear.” I stomped into the apartment-like space of the main room, greeting the maid who was lurking, to my overnight bag. I pulled out my comfortable cargo shorts and a shirt. My favourite shirt.

  “We are in Paris,” my mother said. “Have some decorum, girl.”

  “It’s a French rugby top. I’ll fit in just fine.” It was silly to feel such defiance lifting me but so good. “And I’m not pregnant.”