Two weeks after she got the papers notifying her that he had filed the papers, she left for Paris for the haute couture.
As he always did, Adrian came with her. He kept her company this time, instead of John. He dragged her from place to place. She was like a ghost. She was so out of it, you could almost see right through her. And Adrian was desperately worried about her. It was as though Fiona, the woman he had known and loved and laughed with and worked with, had entirely disappeared.
Chapter 12
Fiona did not go to the Hamptons all summer. She stayed at home, nursed her wounds, sat home alone at night, went to the office, and cried often. It was as though all the life had gone out of her, all the joy and excitement and passion. She felt as though she were in a dark tunnel, lost in the darkness. Everything she had hoped for and loved and trusted had been taken from her. And every time she saw Jamal cavorting through the house, she berated herself again for the mistakes she'd made. Right or wrong, she entirely blamed herself. John had shown her all she had ever wanted, and never let herself hope for, and when she failed to understand, he took it all away again. Nothing in her life had ever hurt so much, not even when her mother died, or she lost men later on. The loss of the marriage she had shared with John was the death of hope for her. She was like a naughty child who had been punished. For her poor judgment and foolish ways, she had been given an adult sentence, and put to death, or so she felt. She didn't deserve either the punishment he meted out to her, nor the abuse she heaped on herself afterward, and nothing anyone could do or say made it right for her again. As she dragged through the summer toward September, she could barely work. And on the Labor Day weekend, in crushing heat, disaster struck again. Sir Winston had a heart attack and was on life support for two weeks.
She visited him twice daily, before and after work, stroked his face, kissed his paws, and just sat quietly beside him. And finally, with a snore and a peaceful look at her, he closed his eyes one afternoon and went quietly to sleep for good. It was a peaceful death. And yet one more blow to her. He had been a beloved faithful friend.
Two days later, they had a major meeting with their ad agency, and there was no way she could avoid it. She discussed it with Adrian beforehand, and he said she absolutely had to go, no matter how hard it was for her. She hadn't heard a word from John all summer. When he ended it, he did so for good. The clock was running, and the divorce would be final in three months. After such a short marriage, it shouldn't have been the deathblow it was to her, but even Adrian knew now that it was.
She had opened places in herself to him that had never seen light and air and love before, and had never known human touch. And when he shut the door on them, and on her, he created wounds that she had been trying to shield herself from all her life. Worse yet, he had reopened every wound she'd ever had, while creating more. It was a blow of total devastation, and there was no way she could sit through a meeting with him. On the morning it was scheduled to happen, she picked up the phone to call in sick, and then thought better of it. Adrian was right. If only out of self-respect and dignity, she had to go. And what was worse, she wanted to see him, and did.
John Anderson strode into the meeting, looking tanned and handsome and athletic. He was wearing a dark blue pin-striped suit, a crisp white shirt that fit him to perfection, one of his classic navy blue Hermès ties with tiny red dots, and a white handkerchief in his pocket. He looked like a million dollars. And Fiona felt like two cents.
To all who saw her in the meeting, she looked competent, quiet, as elegant as ever. She was every inch in command and control, and she was pleasant and polite when she addressed him. But no one had any idea what it cost her just to be there, or to chat with him for a few minutes on the way out.
“You're looking well, Fiona,” he said politely. But when she looked at him, she saw that there was a self-protective wall all around him, and a shield of ice just behind his eyes. He was not letting her in again, and no one who saw them could have guessed that they'd been married, or that either or both of them were still in love. They both maintained an entirely professional demeanor, although he did notice how thin she'd gotten, and how pale she was. She was wearing a narrow black linen Yohji Yamamoto dress that accentuated her extreme slimness, and her face was the color of snow when they spoke. “Did you get away at all this summer?” She didn't look it, and if she had, she must have been hiding under a rock. Her skin looked almost translucent it was so white.
“I've been working on this ad campaign,” she said, looking distracted, “and we always close the December book in August. I've been pretty much working all month,” and in fact, since he left, she felt as dry as a bone, creatively, and hadn't come up with a decent idea in months. She felt washed up, and was. “How are the girls?”
“Terrific. Hilary is a senior, and Courtenay is doing her junior year abroad. She's in Florence, so I'll be going over to see her whenever I can.” They spoke like two old acquaintances who hadn't met in a long time, instead of two people who had been married and in love. He had completely shut her out. And a moment later, they both moved on.
Adrian had been watching, and spoke to her in a quiet voice as they left the room side by side. “How was it?” he asked, looking worried.
“How was what?” she asked, pretending not to know what he was talking about.
“I saw you talking to John.”
“It was fine,” she said, turning away to speak to someone else, and then she went back to her office, and successfully avoided him for the rest of the afternoon. Every time Adrian came to her office to discuss something, she pretended to be busy or on the phone. She couldn't speak to anyone, not even him. She was distraught.
It took another month after that for her to make up her mind, after several small disasters in the office, which were a warning signal to her that she could no longer handle not only her life but her job. On all fronts, and in all venues of her life, she was barely hanging on. She didn't even have Sir Winston to go home to at night. She had no one, and nothing, and the funny, crazy, zany free-spirited life she had once loved no longer held any appeal to her. She hated going to work every day, and even more than that she hated coming home.
She handed in her resignation to Chic magazine on the first of October, and she knew it was time. She gave them a month's notice, which wasn't long, and in a private letter to the head of the board, she strongly recommended Adrian for her job. She said that she was resigning due to health and personal reasons, and had made a decision to take a year or two off, and move abroad, which wasn't entirely a lie. She was so deeply depressed that she could no longer function, and she had decided to rent her house, and move to Paris for a few months. When she felt better, she wanted to try and write a book.
Adrian stormed into her office the moment it was announced. “You didn't tell me!” he said, looking hurt and heartbroken. “Fiona, what have you done?”
“I had to do it,” she said quietly. “I can't do my job anymore. I think I've lost it. It just doesn't mean anything. I don't give a damn about the people, the parties, the look, or the clothes. I don't care if I never go to a single couture show again, in fact I hope I don't.”
“You could have at least told me before you did it. We could have talked about it. Why didn't you take six months off?” But they both knew that she couldn't do that in her job. She couldn't leave the magazine without a rudder, in fact when she went away for a week, all hell broke loose, and everything got out of control. Two days later he learned that she had recommended him for her job. It was the right decision, and a wise recommendation, and within two weeks of her resignation, Adrian was named editor-in-chief of Chic magazine, and they told her that within another week, when the dust had settled, she was free to go. Everything had moved very fast.