She hung out with Camille and her other colleagues at the wine bar, but couldn’t help waiting and waiting ... and waiting, for Frederic. Weeks would go by without him returning to Paris, for one reason or another. Then he would show up again for a week or so, behaving as if nothing had happened. He even surprised her with the occasional weekend trip to Bordeaux, only to disappear again. This went on for months.
When he was in Paris, he gave her his full attention at first, but after a while he became very busy with meetings. Meetings that went on all night. And once again she waited.
In the meantime she tried to enjoy this wonderful city, but Frederic was always there in the back of her mind. She wanted to bewithhim, yet she wasn’t in a position to make demands since they had never promised each other anything. Eventually she realized that he was seeing other women, but thought she had no right to be angry—once again because she felt she had no right to make demands. After all, they weren’t a couple, were they?
Their unpredictable relationship had gone on for almost a year when she decided to give up hope. And yet they continued to see each other, albeit more sporadically. Because they had never been exclusive, she’d found it hard to let him go. And maybe she hadn’t been prepared to admit to herself that she had real feelings for him.
After a while, she’d gotten a job as a sommelier with a prestigious restaurant in the historic district of Marais, but continued to work the odd shift at Marion’s wine bar because she loved the place. One evening as she was serving a Swedish woman, Bente was talking, as usual, in some detail about the wines on offer. The customer was asking lots of questions, and it turned out that she was an editor on TV24’s morning show. She loved Bente’s descriptions, the way Bentetook down the wine from the crystal chandeliers, as she put it, and before long Bente was offered a slot on TV.
She didn’t tell Frederic she was leaving Paris until a week or so before she was due to go. He was in town for meetings, and as was their habit, they had gone to some club before going back to his apartment.Toward dawn, as the city was waking up, she had told him. She had imagined the scene beforehand, the way he would suddenly realize what he was losing, but that simply didn’t happen. It was obvious that Frederic had never felt the same way about her as she had about him.
She left Paris with a broken heart. Back in Stockholm, once TV filming began, she created a new life and a new world for herself as a celebrity sommelier. It wasn’t something she had dreamed of, but when she became famous, it was as if a desire had been awakened within her. A desire for the recognition, the attention. Thevalidation.
The fame had satisfied a need she didn’t know she’d had. But it struck her now that the feeling it once gave her—that of being drunk on life—reminded her of the way she’d felt with Frederic for a while.
She looked at him sitting across from her. He wasn’t all that exciting, if she was honest about it. In fact, she found it hard to understand what she’d seen in him. Okay, so he was a typically charming Frenchman, and he was knowledgeable and passionate about wine. But at the end of the day, he was probably even more lost in life than she was. The flirting that had once been so appealing now seemed unattractive. And then there was his hair—why had he had those beautiful curls cut off?
He leaned across the table and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
Suddenly she knew exactly how he had expected the day to play out. He had arranged this meeting in order to have some time alone with her, after she had behaved so dismissively. Back in the day, she might have been flattered that he had made the effort, but right now she had a show to make. She didn’t have time for this.
Frederic gazed at her searchingly, a small smile playing on his lips. “Why are you hesitating? What am I missing?”
She leaned back in her chair. “I ...” What could she say? He was used to the game between them. Which always ended in the same way. In bed. “I’m thinking that maybe we’re ... done with each other? We have history, but it doesn’t really appeal to me anymore.”
He laughed. “Done with each other?” He reached over, placed a hand on her cheek. “You and I will never bedone with each other.”
If she hadn’t been so disappointed that he had no information about the bottle, by the fact that she could literally see the show disappearing before her eyes, she might have stayed and finished the delicious wine, maybe tried another exciting bottle that the bar had to offer, indulged Frederic with some friendly flirting. But as it was, she just wanted to get out of there.
“Thanks for the wine, but I ... To be honest, I don’t have time for this. I’m only here for a few days, and I’ve got so much to do on the TV show.”
“Please stay, Bente.” Frederic got to his feet, realizing that she was serious. “I apologize, I ... I just wanted to spend some time with you.”
Bente looked at him. “And I wanted to see you, but I know now that I’m done with this. Give me a call. If you find out something about the bottle, that is.” She stood up and left the wine bar.
A cold wind was blowing up the street. Bente pulled her leather jacket closely around her body and headed for the hotel, feeling like an idiot. She had wasted two meetings with Frederic in the hope of learning something useful, and the worst part was that she had arranged the first meeting partly because she had wanted to see him. For so long she had nurtured the idea that Frederic and the way he lived were what she wanted, that they were right for her. How much had she allowed that perception to steer her actions? Would she have seen Henrik and her relationship with him in a different light if Frederic hadn’t been on her mind?
She would probably never know the answer.
She thought about visiting a museum, but she really needed to prepare for the day’s meetings.
When she reached the hotel, she went straight to the bar to order a large café au lait to take up to her room. Didrik was sitting at the bar,shoulders slumped, with an untouched glass of whiskey in front of him. He was staring at it as if he was wondering what to do with it.
“Are you going to drink that?” she asked as she slid onto the stool next to him.
He glanced at her, shrugged. “That’s what they always do in movies—knock back a large whiskey.”
The bartender came over to take Bente’s order.
“I’ll have the same as him.”
They both sat in silence, watching as the bartender poured whiskey into a crystal glass and placed it in front of her. The glow of the lamps was reflected in the amber liquid, causing tiny flickers of light to spin around the glass on the brass counter.
Didrik picked up his own glass, then changed his mind and put it down again.
“I thought you liked whiskey?”
Another shrug. “The odd sip is okay.”
