She left her office quietly, without a glance over her shoulder. There were tears in her eyes when she walked out, carrying a box of books and a single plant her mentor had given her years before. Adrian was crying openly as he took the box from her. They both knew that the waters closed rapidly over old editors, and they were soon forgotten, but there was no denying that Fiona Monaghan had made her mark, and she had trained him well. They had wanted to give her a party when she left, but she had declined it. She just wasn't in the mood. Five minutes after she left her office, Adrian put her in a cab and handed her the box he'd been carrying for her.
“I love you,” she whispered as she smiled sadly, and their eyes met and held.
“You're the best friend I ever had.” There were tears in his eyes.
“You too. See you tomorrow.” He was coming to the house in the morning to help her pack. She had already rented her house, and was sending all her furniture to storage. She was taking almost nothing to Paris. She had rented a small room at the Ritz, at a discount they'd offered her, till she found an apartment. Thanks to wise investments over the years, she was in good shape, and wouldn't have to work for a long time. She was going to find an apartment and, if she felt up to it, write a book. Maybe in the spring. Before that she was going to take long walks, sleep a lot, and try to heal. The good news was that she would never have to see John Anderson again. She was going to miss the magazine, she knew, but not nearly as much as she missed him. And she had to forget them both. They were part of the past. The future was unknown and didn't look hopeful to her. And the present was intolerably painful.
Adrian came, as promised, the next morning. It took them all day to empty her closets into wardrobe boxes. She was amazed at what she found there, and at the mountain of once-meaningful out-of-date treasures she gave away.
“You could start a fashion museum with all this stuff,” Adrian said as he dumped another armload on the pile she was giving to Goodwill.
“If I'd done this while John was here, he could have had more than half the closets,” she said ruefully. There was almost nothing left in the closets that had once been crammed full.
“Forget about it,” Adrian said wisely. “It wasn't about closets. It was about a lot of things. Your lifestyles were too different. He'd been married all his life, you never had been. He had kids, you didn't. His kids hated you, his housekeeper hated you, his dog tried to kill you. Twice. And the people you hung out with drove him insane.” They both knew, as had John eventually, that although he loved her and found her fabulous and exciting, she had been like a hot chili pepper stuck in his windpipe, and a mouthful of wasabi that made his eyes water in terror most of the time. Adrian firmly believed that John had loved her. He had just bitten off more than he could chew. He needed someone a lot more bland than Fiona Monaghan would ever be. But it nonetheless broke Adrian's heart that John had left her so suddenly. It seemed terribly unfair to him. She didn't deserve that, no matter how chaotic her life was.
“Did you tell him about Sir Winston?” Adrian asked, curious, as he dropped fifty pairs of old Manolos into one of the boxes for Goodwill. The heels were too high even for Jamal. The flat ones she was giving to him. She didn't want to encourage him to wear high heels.
“I didn't think it was any of his business,” she said in answer to Adrian's question about the dog. “I didn't want to sound pathetic. ‘thanks for divorcing me, oh and by the way, my dog died too.’ ” She had paid five thousand dollars to bury him in a pet cemetery, and for a heart-shaped black granite tombstone, which she had never seen. She couldn't bear to go out and visit him.
Adrian came back to help her again on Sunday. And she spent the rest of the following week disposing of her things. In honor of her own sense of the ridiculous, she left for Paris on Halloween.
Adrian took her to the airport, and they stood looking at each other for a long moment before she went through security.
“Be good to yourself. Stop beating yourself up. Things happen for a reason.” Yeah. Her father leaving. Her mother dying. John divorcing her. Sir Winston dying. Giving up a job that had once meant everything to her. Now none of it meant anything. “And call me. I worry about you.”
“Do a good job,” she said with tears in her eyes as she left him. She knew he would. He was every bit as good an editor as she, and he had a lot more life in him than she did at this point. “Make me proud of you.” She was anyway.
“I love you,” he said, with tears rolling down his cheeks. Their faces were awash with tears as they kissed, both his and hers. “Knock ‘em dead in Paris. I'll see you in January, or before if I can get away.” January seemed like an eternity to both of them. The haute couture shows were nearly three months away. And the big problem for her was that she had been knocked dead in New York, far too effectively. She felt as though they should be putting her on the flight in a body bag, not a seat. She had never felt as awful in her life.
“Take care,” she whispered, as she put her head down and walked away, blinded by tears. He stood there for as long as he could see her, with tears rolling down his cheeks.
Chapter 13
The room Fiona had rented at the Ritz was small and almost womblike for her, and had a view of the winter sky. She sat staring up at it sometimes, missing everyone and everything, John, Adrian, her job, her house, New York, Sir Winston, even Jamal. In a matter of months, she had lost everything, and now she was here, not sure what to do next. The winter in Paris was rainy and gray, but it suited her mood, and she was glad she was there. She didn't need to talk to anyone, or see anyone. In fact, she didn't want to. She was steeped in her own solitude and grief.
In mid-December, the divorce papers reached her in Paris. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing did. She spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in her room. She went to mass at Sacré Coeur and a choir of nuns sang so exquisitely, she felt as though she had died and gone to heaven. She sat listening to them, with tears running down her cheeks.
And that night, when she went back to the hotel, she started to write. It wasn't the book she had thought she would do. It was a book about a little girl, with a childhood like hers, and it followed her into womanhood, the mistakes she made, and the healing she pursued. It was a catharsis of sorts writing it, and things came clearer to her as she did. It was so much easier to see it now, the paths she had chosen, the men she had feared, those she had chosen instead, her determination, her career. The things she had used as substitutes for real relationships, the job that had meant so much to her that it had obscured all else, the sacrifices she'd been willing to make, the children she'd never had. The pursuit of perfection, and driving herself. Even the dog who had become a substitute child. And the compromises she hadn't made for John, because she had been too afraid to make room for him, not in her closets but in her heart. Because if she had given him everything, which she had anyway, she would have lost too much if she lost him, which she had. It was all there in the story, page after page, as December oozed into January. She was deep into it when Adrian arrived, and he thought she looked better, although still too thin and so pale she was almost gray. But she didn't leave her room for days. She was writing furiously. And he was still in Paris when the realtor called to say she had an apartment for her. In the Seventh Arrondissement, on the Boulevard de La Tour Maubourg. She called Adrian, who was staying at the Ritz too, as usual, and he promised to come and see it with her after the Gaultier show. She had been carefully avoiding all the people from the fashion world. She had nothing to say to them anymore.