Chapter 191
I close the door
Like so many times, so many times before
Filmed like a scene on the cutting room floor
When I let you walk away tonight
Without a word
I try to sleep
But the clock is stuck on thoughts of you and me
A thousand more regrets unraveling
If you were here right now
I swear I’d tell you this
Baby, I don’t wanna waste another day
Keeping it inside, it’s killing me
‘Cause all I ever wanted comes right down to you
I wish that I could find the words to say
Baby, I would tell you every time you leave
I’m inconsolable
- “Inconsolable” by the Backstreet Boys
He made for a pathetic sight, he was
sure. Lying supine atop the hotel bed,
his good knee drawn up, his legless stump laid flat, Nick held up his cell
phone and dialed her number again.
“Hey, it’s Claire…”
As the phone connected to her
voicemail, he sighed and shut it off, sick of being tortured by the sound of
her cheerful voice. He tossed the phone
aside; it was a lost cause. Either her
phone didn’t have service in France, or she just wasn’t answering. Equally likely options, and both equally
frustrating. He had no way of knowing
where she was, where she might have gone, or how to reach her while she was
still in Paris, and he only had a matter of hours to try before he was set to
leave for the next city, Munich. Once he
crossed the border into Germany, he was shit out of luck. She wasn’t going to follow him there.
He still couldn’t believe she had
shown up here, at his hotel in Paris. Paris.
When he had gone to the door, prepared to tell off whoever stood outside
it for bothering him at six-fucking-a.m., squinted through the peephole and
seen her, his heart had jumped into his throat, and then he’d thought he must
have been dreaming. Or
hallucinating. But when he’d opened the
door, there she was, in the flesh, his Claire, looking like hell and beautiful
even so. Beautiful because it was her,
and she was there, in front of him, in France.
For one perfect moment, the
realization that he wasn’t dreaming had been wonderful enough to make him
forget about the other woman in his bed.
He had sworn off groupies after his
last tour in Europe, but somehow, in going back, he’d fallen back into the old
habit. There was something incredibly
sexy and sensual about European girls, the way they said his name in their
accented voices. They could drink with
him without getting drunk and stupid, and expose themselves to him without
seeming trashy and easy. They didn’t want
to talk as much as American girls did; they could play it cool and casual and
just be with him. The European fans were
as crazy as any American, if not more so, but the ones he brought back to his
hotel room at night were not like that at all.
The brunette in his bed had been with
him two nights. He’d met her after the
show in Brussels, and she’d come along with him to Paris. He thought she’d said she was from Norway,
but couldn’t remember for sure. He got
those Scandinavian countries confused, but her accent made it obvious she was
from one of them. He’d gotten good at
accents.
He supposed he should feel bad about
how he had thrown her out of his room, with only enough time to put her clothes
back on, and without any concern for how she was going to get back home or even
back to Brussels. But he found it
impossible to concern himself over anyone but Claire… finding Claire before
either one of them left the city.
Unless she answered her phone or
turned up again soon, he had a feeling it was going to be impossible. Damn her.
As much as he loved her, sometimes he hated her for being the way she
was. How could she drop everything to
fly to Paris and surprise him, only to turn around and run away from him once
she got there, without even giving him a chance to talk? How could she be so cool and casual one
minute, only to fall into a fiery temper and burn him the next? Why did she have to be so goddamn
melodramatic? She was an outright bitch
sometimes, making it seem like he was
the one to blame when she was the
hypocrite.
He could trash her all he wanted, but
it didn’t change the fact that he was still desperate to find her. Find her and tell her once and for all how he
felt – and make her say the same. That
she did love him, that she wanted to be with him. She wouldn’t have flown all the way to France
if she didn’t, and they both knew it.
Bitch or not, he loved her too, and with every moment he wasted, this
one chance of getting her back slipped another inch from his grasp.
The problem was, he could reach all he
wanted, but if Claire didn’t want to be found, he was never going to find her.
***
The two women meandered down the
Parisian sidewalk, their reflections walking along in unison in the store
windows. They made for a mismatched pair,
one tall and dramatic-looking, with her black hair styled in a sleek, modern
cut and her slender figure dressed in European high fashion; the other
comparatively short and dumpy-looking in her rumpled jeans and hoodie, her red
hair limp and flattened.
Yet Jenn Brooks, who had made a name
for herself in France with her photography and lived a glamorous life vastly
different from the one Claire led back home, was as good a friend as she had
been in the days when she and Claire had done their shopping at Hyde Park
Village, looking identically dumpy in their stovepipe jeans and University of
Tampa sweatshirts. During their UT days,
she had shaved her head bald so that Claire wouldn’t be alone once chemo had
taken her hair. Today, she had given up
her Sunday morning’s lie-in and taken the commuter train into Paris, so that
Claire wouldn’t be alone again.
They’d met in the small café where
Claire had hidden out, eventually calling Jenn with the number she – thankfully
– had stored in her cell phone, and waiting for her to arrive. It had taken her almost two hours, but
finally, there she had come, striding over in her clicking, high-heeled boots
to embrace Claire and say, in a mix of exasperation and admiration, “Damn,
you’ve got balls, girl.”
Claire had laughed weakly. “Maybe… but what good are balls without a
brain? I don’t know what I was
thinking…”
“Maybe you weren’t thinking, but hey, love’ll do that to you,” Jenn replied
matter-of-factly. “I think it’s très romantique.”
“Très
stupide, is more like it,” Claire scoffed, though she managed a wry smile.
Jenn returned it. “Well, if nothing else, it’s an excuse to
visit me. I just can’t believe you… All these years I’ve been begging you to
come to Paris, and you never have. Then
Nick Carter comes for two days, and you jet over here on a whim. Shows me where I rank, huh?”
Claire’s crooked smile turned
apologetic. “I know I suck. Like you said, love’ll do that to you. But it doesn’t matter now… I’m here, so let’s
hang out. I need something to make this
trip worthwhile…”
And Jenn had delivered. She’d gotten Claire out of the café and taken
her to the Louvre, arriving shortly after the art museum opened for the
day. It was already crowded with
tourists, but Claire didn’t mind. She
enjoyed losing herself in the shuffle and the amazing works of art, ancient
sculptures and famous paintings she had only seen in pictures. For a few hours, they took her mind off of
Nick; she could have stayed there all day.
But they didn’t. Jenn knew the Louvre well and made an
efficient personal tour guide, making sure Claire saw all of the best rooms and
most famous pieces before they left.
After stopping for some lunch, they went for what Jenn referred to as
“shop therapy,” a form of rehabilitation Dianna would have definitely approved
of.
Now they walked along the Champs-Élysées,
the “Fifth Avenue” of Paris. Jenn had
warned her that it was touristy, and Claire could tell what she meant. Many of the stores were the same stores they
had at home – The Disney Store, Nike, Gap, and Virgin – but it was fun to step
into the luxury boutiques and department stores and oggle at the designer names
and prices.
Jenn liked to try on clothes, even the most ridiculously expensive
items, and Claire spent long stretches of time waiting outside the dressing
rooms for her to come out, modeling evening gowns or €500 jeans. “Try something on,” she urged Claire, who
grimaced as she glanced around the store.
“I don’t think I’d fit into any of
these sizes right now,” she replied, slapping her hips. Child-bearing hips, she called them now, and
doubted if she’d ever get back the figure she’d had before she’d borne the
girls.
“Aww, come on, you don’t look bad for
a woman with four-month-old twins,” Jenn said kindly. “You will too fit into these clothes; find
something to try on. Something that’ll
make you feel sexy.”
“Ha,” Claire snorted. “Knowing my luck, my boobs will start to leak
while I’m trying it on. That’s not
sexy. There’s pretty much no chance of
me feeling sexy right now. But thanks
anyway.”
Jenn heaved a sigh and shook her
head. “Alright, fine. But if you ask me, you’ve looked a million
times worse than you do right now. At least
you look healthy, right?”
“Yeah…” said Claire, stopping to look
at her reflection in one of the mirrors.
She wasn’t crazy about what she saw, but she supposed Jenn was
right. She looked tired, but at least
she had some color in her cheeks. And
hair. So what if she was fatter
now? “At least there’s that.”
They chit-chatted as they continued to
shop, talking about Claire’s babies and Jenn’s photography, and carefully
avoiding the topic of Nick, which they’d been sidestepping ever since Claire
had spilled the whole story over the phone.
It was in the Louis Vuitton store that his name finally came up again.
“So, what are you going to do about
Nick?” Jenn asked bluntly, turning suddenly from a display of handbags to face
Claire. “I mean, you flew all this way
to see him, found him with another girl, and had all your hopes crushed, but
what now? Is that it? Do you just let him go
on with his life and fly back to Florida with your tail between your legs?”
“What else am I supposed to do? Go back and smack him in the face for being
such a player? Hope that I give him a
black eye or knock out some teeth or something so he’ll have to cancel a show
or two?” Claire chuckled humorlessly.
“No, you swallow your pride, and you
go back and tell him that you still want to be with him, if he can show you
that you’re the one he wants to be with too.
You do, don’t you?”
“Want to be with him?” Claire pretended to consider it, though there
was really no need. Deep down, she
already knew the answer. “Yeah, I do,”
she sighed. She almost wished she
didn’t; it would have been simpler that way.
“Then here’s what we need to do. Find a store with clothes that are actually
affordable, and get you something new to wear.
Something sexy; something that will knock him off his feet. Er… foot?”
Jenn cleared her throat. “Well,
anyway… we’ll get you looking like the hot mama you are, and then you go back
to that hotel and confront him again and just be honest with him. Don’t be mad; be honest. Got it?”
Claire laughed. “It’s a nice thought, but he probably won’t
even still be there. He’s probably
already left for the next city on the tour.
I don’t even remember where that is… somewhere in Germany, maybe?”
“You say ‘probably,’ but you don’t
know. He might still be there. You have to think positive – and why am I
telling you this? Usually you’re the
positive one and I’m the cynic. What’s up with you?”
“I divorced my husband a year after I
married him – guess that makes a person cynical,” replied Claire, rather… well,
cynically. “But you’re right… I should
at least give it a try, right? At least
try to talk to him…”
“There you go. Come on, let’s find a normal store.” Jenn grabbed her wrist in a death grip,
pulled her away from the handbags, and off they marched.
***
“Alright… I’m comin’.”
Heaving a sigh, Nick slammed the phone
down on its cradle and turned to survey the hotel room. His shit was strewn everywhere, and he’d made
no attempt to pick it up yet. Never mind
the fact that they were supposed to have left four hours ago. Someone in his camp had probably had to pay
extra for their still being there, and Nick was sure no one was very happy with
him. He didn’t really care. But now, his manager was insistent – they
were leaving. Now. Well, in ten minutes.
Nick looked around again. Ten minutes wasn’t long to get his stuff
packed up again. Yet he figured he might
as well try. There was no point in moping
around this hotel room any longer. He
was sick of Paris.
He got off the bed and limped around
the room, stooping here and there to pick up articles of clothing. He threw everything into his suitcase in a
messy pile, not bothering to fold or organize, not caring that it would all be
wrinkled when they arrived in Germany tomorrow.
Smashing the pile down to flatten it, he zipped up the suitcase around
it and smiled with a satisfaction that wasn’t really satisfying at all.
Checking that he had his wallet and
his room key, he lifted the suitcase from the bed, pulled up its long handle,
and wheeled it to the door. Several
other members of his crew were waiting in the hall for him when he
emerged. He offered a grimace, which
they returned. No one looked very
happy. Nick couldn’t blame them. They had an eight hour drive to Munich ahead
of them, and at this rate, they wouldn’t arrive until late at night.
He wasn’t looking forward to the drive
any more than anyone else. Eight lonely
hours to sit on his tour bus and think, think about Claire and how he was
leaving her behind without hardly seeing her, without getting to talk to her,
without saying goodbye. Mostly, without
telling her how much he still loved her.
***
Even as Claire walked back into the
lobby of the hotel from which she’d fled early that morning, she knew she was
too late. There was no way Nick would
still be here, not when he had a show in a completely different country the
next night. It was already near dusk;
surely, he would have left by now.
Still, as Jenn insisted, it was worth
a shot. Her friend was waiting for her
in the café down the street, and Claire knew she had to at least go up and make
sure. The new outfit Jenn had bought her
gave her a sense of confidence she didn’t really feel, but she faked it well as
she strode across the lobby in a new pair of dainty, black flats. “Think of them as souvenirs,” Jenn had said
of the shoes and the new top, a low-cut blouse of satiny royal blue that
accented the ample cleavage Claire had, courtesy of her nursing twins. “You can buy the cheap, touristy shit
yourself.”
Outside room 314, she adjusted her
top, smoothing its sleek fabric over her torso, and knocked. She tried not to get her hopes up as she
waited, knowing he wasn’t going to answer, yet wishing that, by some miracle of
fate, he would.
He didn’t. A few minutes passed, and as she turned to
leave, the door to room 312 opened up, and a maid came out, pushing her cart of
cleaning supplies. Glancing at Claire,
she asked something in French, something Claire did not understand. Claire just shook her head, forcing a brief
smile at the maid, and hurried past her, wanting to get out of the hotel as
quickly as she could.
Now that she knew she was too late,
the disappointment was overwhelming. Why
had she wasted so much time flitting around Paris with Jenn when she should
have gone straight back to that hotel and confronted Nick like a mature
adult? She was more upset with herself
than anything else. How stupid she had
been. All the money she’d thrown away to
take this trip, and for nothing. For
absolutely nothing. She had blown a
thousand dollars and her chance to make things right with Nick, and now that
she realized it, all she wanted to do was go back home, to her girls, and
forget the whole thing.
She trudged back to the café where
Jenn waited, hardly wanting to face her.
But what else was she going to do?
Jenn was the only soul she knew in Paris, and she couldn’t ditch her
too.
When she walked in, Claire found she
didn’t have to explain anything. Her
face must have given it all away, because Jenn just gave her a sympathetic
smile and pulled her into a bony hug.
“If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.
Just not this time,” she whispered in her ear, then pulled away. “You know what we should do?”
“What?” Claire asked dully. She didn’t feel like doing much.
“Hit the clubs and drink till you
can’t even remember your name, let
alone his.” Jenn’s elfin face gleamed
with mischief.
Claire grinned. “Yeah, alright… but can we make one stop on
the way?”
“Sure.
Where to?”
Claire glanced out the window of the
café. She couldn’t see the monument from
there, but she knew that was where she wanted to go.
“The Eiffel Tower.”
***
It was like a scene out of a
movie. The view of the sun setting on
Paris, across the sparkling, orange waters of the Seine River, was
breathtaking. Claire’s breath literally
did catch in her throat as she stood beside Jenn in the observatory at the top
of the Tower. It was gorgeous, magical
even, and a part of her couldn’t believe she was here.
And yet, there was something missing.
It wasn’t quite like a movie after
all. In a movie, the door to the
observatory would suddenly fly open, and Nick would come running in, just in
the nick of time – no pun intended – to sweep her off her feet and make things
right for the happily-ever-after ending.
The crowds would part to make room for the reunion, and everyone would
clap, caught up in the moment.
But it wasn’t a movie, and there was
no Nick, only herds of tourists who bumped and jostled and got in the way of
each other’s pictures. She felt removed
from them, like she didn’t quite belong there.
And she didn’t. What was she
doing at the top of the Eiffel Tower?
Her family, her daughters, were back in Tampa. Nick was on his way to Germany.
She continued to look to the west,
thinking of her home far across the Atlantic.
Then she moved, with the current of the crowd, to the eastern side,
where the sky was already fading to dusk.
Somewhere out there was Nick, getting further and further away from her
while she stood still.
***
Far beyond her eyes’ reach, just
beyond the city limits, on a big, black bus trundling into the approaching
darkness, a pair of blue eyes were fixed on the tower where she stood.
As the Paris skyline began to fade
onto the horizon, Nick watched the Eiffel Tower seem to shrink away and thought
of Claire. She was there, somewhere in
the city he was leaving behind. Was she
still thinking about him… or would she go back home and try to forget?
He slumped lower in his seat with a
sigh, as the road curved and the Tower disappeared from his view. He would never know that, for a moment,
though they were miles apart and getting further so with each turn of the bus
tires, they had been connected in thought.
***