Isla and the Happily Ever After (31 page)

There’s a muffled ring from inside my coat pocket. I pull out my phone to silence it, and then it drops from my hands and bounces against the concrete.

Josh.

It’s his
actual
name.
I haven’t seen it on the screen of my phone since before Barcelona. My heart wrenches. “Is that him? How can that be him?”

“Whoa. He heard us.”

I pick up my phone. “What do I do?”

“One more ring until voicemail.” Hattie peers over my shoulder. “Tick-tock.”

I scramble to answer. “He— Hello?”

There’s a strange hiccup of silence. And then he speaks, and his voice –
It’s him, it’s him, it’s him –
is awash with strangled relief. “I didn’t know if you’d answer.”

“You got your phone back.”

“Yeah. Last week.”

I feel a stab of sadness that he didn’t call me immediately. And then a second stab, this one of guilt. I broke up with him. Of course he shouldn’t call me.

“It’s Sunday night,” he continues. “You aren’t at Pizza Pellino.”

“No, I’m at the Treehouse with Hattie.” And then I’m so dizzy that my vision goes black. “How…how did you know that I’m not there?”

But I’ve already anticipated his answer.

“Because
I’m
here.”

Chapter thirty

I’m trembling. Hattie’s ear is pressed against my head, listening in. Silver-white flakes catch in our tangle of red hair.

“Isla?” Josh says. “Isla, are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“I was hoping you’d be
here
. At Pellino’s. My friends and I are on our way to the Olympics, so we stopped by for old times’ sake. I wanted to introduce you. I mean, I know you already know them. But I wanted you to
know
them.”

My head swims. “You want me to know your friends?”

“Is that too weird?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d like to see you again. We could talk?” His question is tentative.

He’s caught me off guard. I’m not ready for this. I have to
prepare
for this. “How long will you be in town?”

“Just tonight. We’re catching the train to Chambéry in the morning.”

Hattie is nodding her head like a madwoman.

“Um,” I say. “Sure. I guess I could be there in…twenty minutes?”

“Great!” Josh says. “Okay, bye.”

I stare down at my phone’s screen. “He hung up.”

“He was afraid you’d take it back,” Hattie says.

I put my head between my legs. “I feel ill.”

“That was the strangest timing.
The strangest.
It’s like fate, if I believed in fate. I don’t know. Maybe I believe in fate now.”

The tone of her voice makes me lift my head. She grins.

“Hattie.” My heart seizes. “What did you do?”

“Jeez, nothing.”

“Tell me what you did!”

“Ow.” She covers her ears at my shouting. “Maybe I mailed your stupid book to his dad’s stupid office in DC, I don’t know.”

I frown. “Huh? What book?”

“The one you brought home from Angoulême, thanks for not inviting me, that I stole from your room to read and discovered you’d had personalized? I thought it was so sad and pathetic that I mailed it to him. And maybe I attached a note saying how much you were totally still in love with him, and he should try calling you again.”

It’s the only thing that could shock me more than Josh’s call. Finding out that I have
Hattie
to thank for it. I’m speechless.

“You’re welcome,” she says.

“Thank you? I think? I’ll let you know when this is all over.”

“You’d better.” She pulls me to my feet, leads me through the trapdoor and down the stairs, locks the door, and slides the key into her pocket.

The pressure inside my chest grows at a paralysing rate. “I don’t know about this.”

“Shut up. You’re being annoying again.” Hattie leads me, stumbling, into the closest
métro
station. I feel like I’m moving both too fast and too slow. She shoves me through the turnstile and says, “Don’t be a chickenshit. Tell him how you feel.”

“What if he doesn’t love me?”

“He does.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Ugh, then who cares? You won’t lose anything you haven’t already lost.” She flicks a snowflake from the tip of my nose. “For once in your life, listen to your younger sister. She’s taller, and she knows better than you.”

The flakes are scattered, here and there, as they float down to earth. I glance at the grey-white sky. If only a blizzard would burst from above and bury me alive. That would be better than what I’m about to do. The temperature is below freezing, but I’m sweaty and feverish and short of breath. My feet touch Pellino’s threshold, but my body won’t go any further.
One step at a time.
I place my hand on the door.

Pushing it open has never felt so impossible.

A chain of brass bells signals my entrance. The maître d’ brightens at the sight of me. “
Où est Monsieur Bacon?
”

“Kurt has other plans tonight,” I reply in French as my gaze darts around the room.

“Oh. Are we sad?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m actually meeting—”

“Isla!”

It comes from the corner table. St. Clair is waving me down as Josh turns around in his chair. Everything transitions into slow motion. The maître d’, the noisy chatter, the smoky fragrance of the wood-fired pizza – they vanish as I wait for his eyes to find mine.

We lock.

The entire contents of my heart reflect back at me in his expression.
Joy, pain, strength, wonder, sadness, beauty, hope.
He is everything.

“Ah,” the maître d’ says. “Of course.”

He guides me towards the table as my heartbeat thumps in my throat. The room closes in. My soul aches with attraction. There are four empty seats, and the maître d’ pulls out the chair beside Josh. I’m shaking as I place my coat onto the back of it. I’m shaking as I sit down. I’m shaking as Josh glances at the maître d’ with a look of unmistakable gratitude. Does that glance mean what I want it to mean?

“Where’s Kurt?” Josh asks.

“He’s out with some new friends. Underground. It’s a long story.”

Josh lifts his eyebrows in surprise as the rest of the table beams at me – St. Clair, Anna and Meredith. “Wow,” I say. “The gang’s all here.”

“Everyone but Rashmi,” St. Clair says.

Anna gives him a swift kick below the table, but I catch it. “It’s okay,” I say awkwardly. At least it’s answered a question. They know about my history with Josh. I glance at the three empty seats. “Is she coming?”

“One of those was for Kurt,” Josh says, and I’m touched.

“The others are for our friends who got us into the Olympics,” Anna says. “We split up today, and they’re still out sightseeing. They should be here any minute.”

“Friends from California?” I grab the opportunity to show them that I’m not completely in the dark. Just mostly.

She nods. “Yeah, Lola and Cricket. Étienne and I—”

“
Étienne
,” Josh says, and Meredith cracks up.

“They’re teasing me because I’m the only person who calls him that,” Anna explains.

“You’re the only person
allowed
to call him that,” Josh says. “You and his mom.”

St. Clair smiles. “The only two ladies I need.”

“That’s sick,” Meredith says, but she’s still laughing. She has a wonderful, friendly laugh. A tiny nose ring catches the light and twinkles. Everything about her is cheerful.

It’s unreal to be surrounded here, in person, by his friends. Those faces from his artwork.

Anna is one of those naturally beautiful girls who has no idea that she’s beautiful. She dresses in jeans and T-shirts, and she has this gap-toothed smile and a bleached stripe in her long brown hair. She’s comfortable in her own skin. Her boyfriend is also beautiful, but he’s aware of it. Not that St. Clair acts like a jerk. He’s just loaded with confidence. He’s short, but it’s never gotten in his way. Nearly every girl at school was in love with him, not to mention most of the guys and half the
professeurs.

But I was never in love with him. Not when Josh was around.

Anna clears her throat. “Anyway.
Étienne
and I—”

Josh and Meredith snicker.

Anna grins. “—work with Lola at a movie theatre. Cricket is her boyfriend, and Cricket’s twin sister is Calliope Bell. The figure skater?”

My eyebrows shoot up. “I’ve seen her face on about a billion advertisements.”

“That’s the one. She’s going for the gold.”

“And you’re all here to cheer her on?” I glance at Josh. He appears to be calm, but it’s superficial. A frenetic energy is pulsating from his core. Vibrating against me. I rub my arms, hair on end, but the others don’t seem to notice.

“Sort of.” St. Clair shrugs. It’s slow and full-bodied, very French. Maman has the same one. “Mainly we’re using it as an excuse to visit.”

I turn to Meredith. “Did you come in from Rome? That’s where you’re attending university, right?”

“Yeah.” She puts an arm around Josh and her curly head on his shoulder, but they’re clearly gestures of friendship. “When I heard everyone was coming, I couldn’t resist.”

“And you?” I don’t look at Josh. He knows the question is for him.

He can’t meet my eyes either. “Same for me, I guess. Couldn’t resist.”

St. Clair waggles his eyebrows at Josh, but the moment he sees that I’ve caught him, his expression changes to a flirtatious grin. “Aw, mate,” he says to Josh. “Admit it. You couldn’t resist
me.
”

Josh relaxes into a smile. “You’re like a gorgeous little bonbon.”

“Delicious in every way,” St. Clair says.

Anna rolls her eyes. “Wait until you try his creamy centre.”

St. Clair bursts into laughter as Meredith squeals. The chemistry between the four of them is as if they hadn’t spent a day apart. My heart squeezes, but it’s not from jealousy. It’s out of happiness for Josh’s sake. He leans across the table to jostle St. Clair, but he knocks against my arm instead.

“Sorry,” Josh says quickly. His voice turns strained. He sits, and the jovial mood crashes down with him, but his touch shudders through me in waves.

Longing.
As fierce and powerful as ever.

I look away, not wanting him to see how badly I wish he would touch me again. And then I discover a strange apparition outside the restaurant’s window. I blink. It’s still there. In the winter, the streets of Paris are grey and the coats that walk them are black.

So this…this is like…

“The circus,” Josh says, finishing my thought out loud. “It’s like the circus has come to town.”

“Brilliant,” St. Clair says. “That must be Lola and Cricket.”

A boy and a girl enter the restaurant. The boy is ridiculously tall and skinny – far more extreme than Josh – and it’s only emphasized by the tightness of his pinstriped pants. He could almost be wearing stilts. He’s wearing a bright blue military jacket, and his wrists are covered in rainbow-coloured bracelets and rubber bands. The girl is wearing a gigantic, poufy skirt with pink and yellow and turquoise crinoline peeking out from underneath. She also has a military jacket, Vietnam-era army green, but hers has been decorated with pink glitter. And she has matching pink hair.

“Hi!” Lola plops down beside me, and her skirt
fwoomps
up and onto my lap. “Yikes. Sorry about that.” She smiles as she jams it underneath the table.

“How did you manage to fit all of that into a suitcase?” I’m impressed.

Her smile grows from ear to ear. “I’m a championship-level packer.”

St. Clair snorts. “She also brought three times the amount of luggage as the rest of us.”

“But she
is
a good packer,” Cricket says. “You’d be amazed at how much she managed to squish into those extra suitcases.”

He pulls out the chair beside her, and she reaches up with both arms to hold him as he sits down. Not because he needs steadying, but because they’re clearly in the earliest stages of love. She simply
needs
to touch him. They double-hold-hands below the table. I feel a sharp pang as I remember doing the same with Josh. Lola gives Cricket a kiss, square on the lips, and he looks as if he might explode from happiness.

“Hey,” Lola says, suddenly seeing Josh. “I think I saw you on TV a few months ago.”

“It’s possible,” Josh says.

“You must be Isla and Josh,” Cricket says.

I almost correct him –
Oh, no, we aren’t a couple
– when I realize he means Isla and Josh. Not Isla-and-Josh. I shake his extended hand, feeling sad. “And Meredith,” he says, leaning over me to shake hers.

“I like your hair,” she says.

“Thanks,” he says. It stands on end, further adding to his manic height.

“So none of you have to ask,” Lola says. “Six four. Without the hair.”

“Étienne is five four,” Anna says. “
With
his boots.”

“Without,” St. Clair protests. But his grin tells another story.

“You’re shorter than I thought.” I say it without thinking. “Sorry.” I wince. “I only meant you don’t seem that small.” I wince again.

“
Confidence
, darling.” He leans across the table and touches a finger to my cheek. “You could learn something from me, you know.”