by Harper Bliss
“There’s no conflict of interest?” Steph needed some more reassurance.
“While I am an MLR member, I’ve never been very active. Politics has never been a passion of mine. You can imagine the looks I got from my father when I announced I wanted to study psychology instead of political science.” Marion smiled broadly. “He had high hopes for me, just like Xavier had for Dominique. Xavier’s came true, my father’s didn’t. That’s life.” She gave a shrug. “I’ve been doing this for many, many years, Steph,” she added. “You can most certainly speak freely. I’m not doing this for the MLR, I’m not even doing this for Dominique. I’m simply receiving a new client. That’s it.”
“All right.” Steph could live with that explanation. Moreover, she was charmed by the kind look Marion had had in her eyes while she had delivered her little speech. A look that had made Steph feel more secure than any words that might have been spoken. Steph knew she was safe here in Marion’s house. It was a comforting thought. “So about me.” She rubbed her palms on her jeans. “I’ve been in the papers a lot lately, so you may already know a bit.”
Marion nodded thoughtfully, as if to say that it didn’t matter to her what Le Matin put on its front page. God, Steph wanted to ask her what it was like being the daughter of a president, which must have come with its own kind of pressure. But then she refocused her attention on the real reason she was here.
“I’ve just not been myself lately. I’ve gone from being totally anonymous to Dominique Laroche’s partner in days. I’ve had my privacy taken from me, and I never thought it would be this hard because I did it for love, you know? Not that I’m an expert in doing things for love… but I only had to go and fall in love with the poster child—and now candidate—of the MLR. Just my luck.” And I’m more of a socialist, Steph thought, but this was not about political affiliation.
“That’s a lot to take for anyone,” Marion said. “I’m honestly not surprised you’re feeling a bit lost, Steph. It’s perfectly normal.”
Steph sighed deeply. The mere action of sitting here, of having someone impartial to talk to about this. It made her feel a little less lost already. She had to hand it to Dominique. This had been a good idea, Steph could feel it in her bones. Because she didn’t have her usual stress outlets anymore, all she could really do was talk. “The worst of it all,” Steph said, “is that this campaign is only the beginning. What will it be like if she wins the election?”
She clutched her fist to her chest. “Lately, more and more, there’s this conflicting desire inside me. I want her to win. Of course I do. That’s why we did all this. That’s why I basically sacrificed my life for her. But then I think, Christ, what will it be like when she’s president? I can’t even imagine it. And we don’t talk about it because it’s bad luck to talk about things like that, and obviously Dominique is not the right person to talk to about that anyway. And my two best friends who are, incidentally, also my bosses, are working on Dominique’s PR with me, so I can’t tell them either. It’s like I’m constantly around people, but I’ve never felt so alone.” There. She’d said it. She hadn’t expected that to happen so quickly, but Marion’s kind, patient eyes, and her overall gentle demeanour made Steph feel comfortable enough to share these issues. She also suspected she’d been wanting to say this out loud for a while. Of course, there was still that other issue. But that would need to wait for another session. Steph wasn’t going to lay it all on the table so quickly.
“At the risk of sounding like a cliché, Steph, I know exactly how you feel. Being related—by blood or not—to a high-profile politician can feel a bit like a prison sentence. You want to support the person you love but at the same time you feel as though you have nowhere to go. As though their burning ambition leaves you, and all your doubts and fears, in the cold. It’s almost as though, I guess, you matter less. And that’s a tough position to be in.”
Marion sure had a way of nailing Steph’s doubts and fears. “I love Dominique so much. We tried to be apart, but that didn’t work out. I thought that anything was better than being without her and… it is, but it also isn’t.” Exasperation coiled into a knot in her stomach. “I live in this neighborhood. My flat is tiny and shoddy, but I love this part of town, and I haven’t been here in weeks.”
“Well, maybe next time we’ll go for a walk,” Marion said, and shot her another wide smile. Fifteen minutes into this conversation, and Steph already knew there would definitely be a next time. She had needed this sort of paid-for friend for a while. Her actual friends were either too close to her, too caught up in their own dramas, or—and this was the most ridiculous, although Steph didn’t doubt the truth of it—too respectful of her time. The other day Nadia had texted her and Steph had just been on her way to a TV interview with Dominique, so she could sit in the audience and look pretty, and she hadn’t had time to text back. “I’m also going to teach you a thing or two about time management, Steph. You’re burning yourself out at a very quick pace, and you really don’t have to go to everything Dominique goes to. There’s no rule that says you do. It doesn’t mean you love or support her less. It only means you’re taking care of yourself so you can be there for her again later.”
Steph thought of the political rally in Nancy she was missing today. Because of this appointment before lunch on Saturday, she had the rest of the day to herself. This would most certainly become a weekly rendezvous.
MARGOT
It was Sunday morning and Margot was still at Claire’s apartment. She’d slept in the guest room two nights in a row and had come to the conclusion that breaking up with your best friend is actually much worse than breaking up with your girlfriend. Claire was a teary mess from the moment she woke up until Margot put her to bed. It was only logical, of course, with all the history Claire and Juliette shared, and how Claire’s self-destructive mistake had ruined it in a few short months.
Last night, Margot had also taken it upon herself to remove all liquor from Claire’s flat. She knew it was a harsh move, but also a necessary one. Claire didn’t ride a motorcycle, and didn’t even own a car for that matter, but alcohol’s ways of destroying relationships were limitless. On Saturday afternoon, Claire had taken to that bottle of brandy again, and had turned into a blubbering mess again, wanting to text Juliette, and even go over to her flat. She’d refused to go with Margot to her flat in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in case Juliette had a miraculous change of heart and turned up on her doorstep.
The only person Margot expected to knock on Claire’s door was Dievart, but, luckily, she hadn’t returned. The possibility of Juliette wanting peace was also the reason Claire refused to leave the apartment at all, and Margot had gone grocery shopping for her. She’d taken the opportunity to text Nadia and let her know that Claire was being taken care of. Margot could only hope that, with time, things would get better. Claire without Juliette was not Claire. They weren’t just best friends, they were essential in each other’s lives. They were surely much too co-dependent, but what did that really mean, anyway?
When Claire woke up later, Margot insisted on taking her for a stroll. It was a beautiful autumn day in the most gorgeous city on earth. And Claire needed the fresh air. They could go to Le Marais, park their behinds on one of the heated terraces and people-watch. Margot might even allow Claire to have a glass of rosé. She didn’t want to totally curb her alcohol consumption, but she wanted her to be responsible about it.
Apart from that, it was weird to wake up in Claire’s flat. To use her bathroom and make coffee with her coffee maker. Because Margot’s subconscious still associated all these actions with being together with Claire. While Margot clearly still cared for her, and was more than willing to step up as a friend, she was also convinced that they should never try to be anything more than friends ever again. They had tried enough. No more of that. Of course, during the six months after her accident, Margot had often wondered if she and Claire could ever really be friends—especially after Claire had stopped her visits.
She’d also remembered that they’d said to each other, on that cold sad night underneath the Eiffel Tower, that they shouldn’t see each other for a while. And they hadn’t. Destiny had decided this for them. And now, destiny had brought them back together, and launched them on the path to a true friendship.
Admittedly, Margot did realize that her hatred for Dievart played a part in this as well. But if she had learned anything since she’d met Claire in Nadia and Juliette’s flat just a few buildings down from the one she was sitting in right now, it was that the sort of absolutist, black-and-white thinking she used to specialize in, would no longer do. She would no longer live by a self-imposed set of ludicrous rules—though this did not apply to drinking. Margot would never drink a drop of alcohol again. It was as much a punishment as a safeguard. She simply couldn’t allow herself to do that. Not after it had impaired her judgment so gravely.
“Hey.” Claire appeared in the living room where Margot was sitting with a cup of coffee, pondering all of this.
“Hey yourself.” The white of Claire’s eyes was interspersed with the red of popped blood vessels. If only Juliette could see her, Margot thought, then she’d know that no one would punish Claire more than she would herself.
“Best get your glad rags on,” Margot said. “I’m taking you to brunch.”
Claire tilted her head. “But—” she started to say, but Margot cut her off before she could continue.
“No buts. Shower. Now.” Margot still got a small kick out of telling Claire what to do. “I’m hungry.”
“Fine.” Claire didn’t even pout, just turned around and trotted off towards the bathroom. Margot remembered what Claire had told her last night—before Margot had taken away that wretched bottle of brandy. Claire had confided in her what Dievart had commanded her to do in bed. Margot had, decidedly, not wanted to hear that. It was one thing being friends with her ex, but hearing about her exploits in the bedroom with a colleague she despised was another matter entirely. Alas, Claire had told Margot all about the truly merciless spankings Dievart delivered—which, automatically, made Margot wonder about the spankings she herself had administered. Had they been too gentle? But Claire had been drunk and there was no point in trying to compare herself to Dievart. The amount of space the woman took up in Margot’s mind, she was starting to think she was getting obsessed with the neurosurgeon.
Over brunch, she wanted to explain her plan to Claire. Her plan to take Dr. Marie Dievart down. Maybe they could all hate her together now. Maybe it was a way of bringing Juliette and Claire back together. Joint hatred could be a very strong bond.
“Ready.” Claire re-emerged, wearing jeans and a thick woolen sweater. Margot could decide she and Claire could only ever be friends all she wanted, it didn’t change the fact that Claire was, by all standards, a magnificent-looking woman.
“That was quick,” Margot said as she looked away from Claire.
“Most of us don’t take fifteen-minute showers, Doctor de Hay,” she said jokingly, sparking Margot’s hopes that they could have a nice day together, despite Claire’s heartache.
“Thank you for coaxing me out of my home,” Claire said when they stood crammed together in the tiny elevator of Claire’s building. “The walls were starting to drive me insane.”
“Walls will do that to you.” Margot bumped her arm against Claire’s in jest. She’d had to borrow some of Claire’s clothes and was dressed in a sweater that looked more like a dress on her. If she’d still had a motorcycle, it would have been a quick trip to Saint-Germain, but now that she relied on public transport, it was much easier to just borrow a top from Claire and buy a new pair of underwear in the department store on the corner of the street.
When they exited the building Claire immediately started scanning the street for a taxi.
“Fat chance of that this time of day on a Sunday,” Margot said. “Let’s just take the Métro.” Again, she wished she still had a motorbike on which she could drive them to Le Marais. It was just so much more practical, and so much faster than any other mode of Parisian transportation.
“How about we take a bicycle? There’s a Vélib station just over there.” Claire pointed in the direction of the Rue Rhumkoff, where Margot had had the accident. She still couldn’t pass the tiny backstreet without her heart hammering in her chest.
“Oh, there’s a taxi over there.” Margot watched it park in front of Nadia and Juliette’s building.
“Splendid,” Claire said. “You see, you’re not always right. Let’s hurry.” Claire started walking briskly down the street and Margot tried to keep up as best she could. Just as they had almost reached the taxi, the door of Nadia and Juliette’s building flew open, and Margot’s heart skipped a beat. What are the odds?
Dozens of people lived in that building. But, of course, at this precise moment, Juliette walked out, her hands full of shopping bags, followed by Nadia.
Claire stopped in her tracks, and so did Margot. Oh shit. This was not the outing she had planned.
Juliette looked at them with a stunned expression for an instant, then said, “If you think you’re going to steal my taxi as well, you have a lot of nerve.”
“We—I—” Next to Margot, Claire seemed to be gasping for air like a fish on dry land, her mouth opening and closing and nothing coming out.
“Sorry. Our bad. We didn’t know it was booked,” Margot said, and nodded at Nadia. “We’ll get out of your way.” Margot needed to get Claire out of this destructive situation as soon as possible, if she were to stand the smallest chance of saving their Sunday. “Come on, Claire.” Margot looped her arm through Claire’s and gently tugged.
“You know, maybe you should consider selling your apartment so I don’t have to run into you on my days off as well,” Juliette spat, then turned her attention to the taxi driver who had gotten out of the car. “To the Gare du Nord, please.”
Nadia put a hand on Juliette’s shoulder, perhaps to calm her down, but Juliette didn’t seem to calm down at all. She took a step forward, as if she wanted to lunge at Claire. “Can I pass, please?” she said in a cold voice instead. “I’d like to put these bags in the trunk.”
Margot pulled Claire away from her, but Claire had something to say as well, apparently, because she resisted Margot’s pull and found her voice again. “I’m sorry, Jules. You’ll never know how much. I fucked up. Have you never fucked up? And have I not been there for you every single time when you did?”
Oh Christ. Margot saw this turning into a full-blown row in the street. If only she hadn’t spotted that taxi. If only… those wretched words she could put in front of so many sentences.
Before Juliette could reply, though, Nadia—who had a firmer grasp on her wife than Margot had on her ex-girlfriend—pushed Juliette in the direction of the now open taxi door. “Let’s go, Jules. We have a train to catch.” After she took the bags from Juliette and handed them to the driver, Nadia positioned herself in front of Juliette to obstruct her view of Claire, and grimaced at Margot, before crawling into the taxi herself.
Margot and Claire remained immobile on the sidewalk and watched until the taxi had turned the corner.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Claire said. “That’s why I wanted to stay in. To avoid a scene like this.”
“Look.” Margot went to stand in front of her. “They’ve gone now. Nadia said something about them going to Lille today. There’s zero chance of running into them again. I know it hurts, and it’s hard, but you can’t let it ruin your day. I won’t let you, Claire.”
Claire stood there shaking her head. “You know what I really can’t believe? She’s now closer to her real family, the one that dumped her like a piece of trash, than to me.” She balled her hands into fists. “Me. The one who got her through all that shit.”
“I know. I know.” Margot felt she had no other choice but to throw her arms around Claire, inches away from the very spot where she had lost control of her motorcycle, on that fateful evening she was going to declare
her love for Claire one last time.
EPISODE TWELVE
JULIETTE
Juliette hadn’t been this nervous since her first date with Nadia. Or, perhaps, since she’d asked Nadia to marry her. But wasn’t this the next logical step after marriage? The road billions of couples had travelled. Get married and have a baby. It was the most natural occurrence of events on the planet, so why should Juliette be excluded from that?
Nadia put a hand on her knee. “Relax, babe. You’ll punch a hole in the floor if you keep this up and I can assure you that Saint-Vincent does not have room in the budget for new flooring.”
Juliette took a deep breath and stilled her feet. It had been a hell of a week already, and it was only Thursday. Using Nadia and Steph as go-betweens, Juliette had managed to avoid Claire by strategically working from home when possible and dividing up the client meetings they would usually go to together between the three of them. She’d asked Véro to represent her at in-house meetings; she took much better notes than Juliette ever did, anyway. Juliette knew it was just a stopgap solution, and she’d have to face Claire sooner rather than later, but bumping into her in the street last Sunday hadn’t helped to encourage her to do that. Seeing her had felt like someone had sliced open her chest and punched her straight in the heart. Before she could face Claire again, she had to do this. She had to look Dr. Dupuis in the eye and ask her flat-out if she had any chance at all of becoming pregnant.
Juliette had done her own research, but the internet could only tell her so much. It was also a cesspool of conflicting opinions. She knew that if she wanted to find web-based evidence that she could still carry a healthy baby, that she would find it if she searched in the right places. Just as she knew she could find the exact opposite information. The internet wasn’t going to help her any further. She needed to hear it from her ob-gyn. She came for a yearly check-up. She’d never had any major issues. As far as Juliette knew, everything worked just fine.
