You can do this, Mia.
She’d fought so hard for other people in her life, and as far as she could tell, the only way forward now was to start fighting for herself.
13
FRANCE, 1937
Hope held her cigarette between two fingers and glanced over her shoulder. She’d felt the young man watching her before she’d even seen him, and this time when she turned, she caught his eye. Hope smiled, not intending to encourage him, but liking the sweet smile he gave her in return. There were plenty of men who tried to buy her drinks or talk to her when she was out, but most wore a wedding ring or, even worse, a smile that told her exactly what they were looking for. But this man was young and handsome, and she decided to make an exception to her usual rule if he came to her table. It wasn’t as if she could afford another drink on her own—she’d been trying to make this one last for at least an hour—and she decided to accept it if he wanted to buy her one. It was green hour, and a champagne and absinthe cocktail would be impossible to resist.
While she waited, she set her cigarette in the ashtray and picked up her pencil, still trying to perfect her sketch. When she wasn’t working, she was drawing or painting, and so far she hadn’t found anywhere she liked to sketch more than the crowded restaurant just down the road from her apartment. If she’d had the place to herself, she’d have just stayed there, but there were three of them sharing the two-bedroom, shoebox-sizespace, and she preferred to find somewhere she could sit on her own. Even if the table was small and the crowd was becoming almost unbearably loud.
She watched as a group near her laughed, their glasses empty and their conversation almost impossible to drown out. They were writers, often hunched over their notebooks just as she was over hers, but they’d clearly given up torturing themselves for their art for the day. It was why she was drawn to the place—it was always full of artists and writers—one of the first places she’d discovered when she’d moved to Paris. She might not have been able to sell any of her pieces yet, but she’d certainly found her home among other fiercely independent young men and women, most of whom were estranged from their families for one reason or another.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’
Hope looked up into blue eyes so bright, she found she didn’t want to look away.
‘Well, that depends.’
He laughed, and she found it impossible not to smile back at him. There was something different about him, and it wasn’t just the fact that he was clearly not a starving artist like the rest of the patrons.
‘I was wondering if this seat is taken.’
Hope considered him as she decided how to answer. She usually found it easy to turn men away, but it wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of meeting someone, it was more that she’d never met anyone who’d particularly interested her. Although lately she’d wondered if she should start to say yes when a man asked her for dinner, for the simple fact that she would be able to enjoy a nice meal out for once. Her growling stomach had told her on many an occasion that more food would be welcome, and the hours she worked scrubbing floors and cleaning toiletswere barely enough to cover her rent. It certainly hadn’t been the glamorous life in Paris that she’d expected.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Gustave,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘But please, call me Gus.’
She glanced at his outstretched palm, surprised by the gesture that was usually reserved for men, but she slipped her hand into his anyway. ‘I’m Hope.’
‘I’ve seen you here before, but you’re usually with a group.’
She felt bad for never having noticed him, but the truth was that most times she was here, she either had her head down as she worked or she was surrounded by friends. Which meant a thick haze of cigarette smoke and rounds of the cheapest drinks on offer as she commiserated with others like her trying to make a name for themselves.
‘You’re an artist?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘You?’
‘Nothing so exciting,’ he said. ‘I work in my family’s business.’
‘If you lived in my cramped apartment, or saw how much money I have to my name, you’d change your mind about the exciting part,’ Hope told him. ‘The life of an artist is a tortured one, and that’s being polite.’ Not to mention that she was almost at the end of the year she’d given herself, which meant she would need to get a permanent job that paid a decent wage. Without one, she’d have to tuck her tail between her legs and go home, if they’d have her back.
‘Would it be all right if I sat with you?’ Gus asked, leaning forward, those magnetic blue eyes catching hers again. ‘Perhaps I could buy you a drink?’
‘I don’t want to give you the wrong impression,’ she said. ‘I’m not sitting here hoping for a man to join me. I know it’s unusual for a young woman, but I’m perfectly content here on my own.’
His laugh made her smile. ‘If that’s what you were here hoping for, I have a feeling this seat would have been taken immediately. There’s no shortage of admiring glances being sent in your direction.’
Hope laughed back at him—she couldn’t help it. But there was something about his smile that made her want to say yes, that made her think that it wouldn’t be the worst thing to enjoy his company for a little while. She had friends in the city, and her roommates, but there had been plenty of times lately when she’d still felt lonely and wished for more of a connection with someone. Truth be told, she missed her mother, or wished for what could have been if things had been different; but her mother hadn’t written back to her, and the last two letters she’d posted had been sent back to her. Although she knew that could have been her father, taking them before her mother even had a chance to open them. She missed her baby sister, Claudette, terribly, too.
Hope closed the book she’d been sketching in and smiled at Gus, hoping she wouldn’t regret breaking her rule when it came to men. ‘All right, but just the one drink. I have to get up for work tomorrow.’
Gus’s smile lit up his face, and when he left and promised to return, she found it very, very hard to tear her eyes away from him as he disappeared through the smoke clinging to the air and made his way to the bar.
Just one drink. No matter how charming he is, it’s just one drink.
But something told her that one drink wasn’t going to be enough. She didn’t know why, but she had the strangest feeling that Gus had walked into her life for a reason. Then she laughed, and cursed the drink she’d had on an empty stomach. It was probably just the alcohol in her system.
