“You should too,” Reine returned, sipping at her apple juice innocently. “She only puts on that lipstick when she knows you’re going to be there, but you never say anything about it.”
There it was again, that small twinge of hope. Tom gave Reine another smile, then looked back to Ari, wondering if she knew just how much information about her life their daughter inadvertently provided.
Reine, Tom quickly learned, was an exceptionally observant child who watched and listened to the adults around her. Unlike those adults, however, Reine had yet to develop any sort of social filters, and so shared the information she gleaned without a drop of restraint or awareness.
“Tío Luis bought a new Barbie doll for four thousand pounds and Uncle Sebastian was so mad he opened her boxand then Tío Luis got mad and scratched Uncle Sebastian’s leather satchel and then they didn’t talk to each other for the whole weekend I was there,” she told him once, her eyes wide with innocence. Another time, she was sitting in a restaurant with Tom and Marnie, colouring in the paper children’s menu, when she noticed Marnie’s wine. “When we went for dinner at Stella’s house last week Uncle Corentin got out a bottle of wine for her and Mummy and Mummy said she was cutting back and then Stella said that the only person who should be cutting back is you, Grandma, because you always have a glass in your hands these days,” Reine remarked easily, switching from a blue crayon to a red one. “She said you’d end up a fermented old prune if you weren’t careful.” She then turned to Tom, looking at him curiously while Marnie seethed beside them. “Daddy, what’s a prune?”
It was the information Reine unknowingly dropped about Ari though, that Tom was really interested in. Through Reine’s innocently made comments, he learned that Ari had been dating again, though none of the men had lasted more than three or four dates, for which Tom thanked all of the gods he’d ever heard of as well as Corentin’s goddess, just to be on the safe side. It was through Reine he’d learned that Ari was painting again, working on a few pieces in the time she’d gained since he’d become a responsible parent, and it was through Reine that he learned Ari made an effort when he was going to be around, tidying her house, straightening her hair and putting on the perfume he had grown to love. These days, that light floral scent made him think of Ari’s dewy skin and warm smile, as well as the curve of her neck and the delicate tapering of her wrists.
Now he smiled at this newest addition to his hidden treasure trove of facts about her, and went to stand when she walked across the restaurant to their private table.
It happened before he could stop it or even knew what had gone so horribly wrong. Still jet lagged and tired, he’d rushed Reine home from her violin lesson earlier that afternoon and then attempted to get her into the tulle dress Luis had packed for tonight’s dinner. Tulle was a mystery to Tom, because how many fucking layers of fabric did a little girl really need? Luis clearly thought eight million, or at least that’s how it seemed to Tom, as he fought to get Reine into the frothy and yet somehow completely inflexible number. Still learning about how to be a father to a young girl, he’d then spent an hour and fifteen minutes with YouTube open while negotiating Reine’s seemingly unending layers of hair, unsuccessfully trying to do something called a ‘waterfall’ braid before taking a private moment to swear and then settling on a simple ponytail. Thinking they were late, he’d rushed Reine into an Uber to Whyte’s, tucking her into her chair at the table and making sure the tablecloth was tucked firmly over her clothes, because no way in hell was he laundering all that tulle when she inevitably spilled something oily and tomato based all over herself.
So, when he stood to welcome Ari, gobsmacked as he was by her utterly glorious beauty, he’d forgotten about Reine and the tablecloth, which, pulled tight across him to cover her, got caught in the bulk of his arms and hands when he stood. The tablecloth went with him, and Tom watched in horror as all the glassware and crockery came crashing down before him, as well as the two delicate but overly long tapered dinner candles, which spilled hot wax onto the shattered remnants of what had been a beautifully set table.
“Daddy!” Reine yelped, just as Sebastian demanded, “What the hell was that?” But Tom could only stand and stare at Ari, his mouth open.
“Jawline, if that was your attempt at some sort of pre-dinner magician’s trick, it’s gone horribly wrong,” Stella intoned drily.
“Yeah,” Luis added, shaking his head at the sight. “You know you’re supposed to pull the tablecloth off while everything else stays standing, right?”
“Right,” Tom muttered, bending down to check on Reine, who was thankfully fine. He picked the little girl up so she was nowhere near the broken glass.
“Reine,cómo va todo ese tul, cielo?” Luis asked, opening his arms to take Reine from him.
Once Reine had been handed over, Tom turned to Stella.
“I’m sorry, it was an accident, I had the tablecloth over Reine and—”
He was surprised to see Stella give a shrug.
“An awkward jaw and oafish hands,” she said easily. “I’m not surprised, to be honest. Never mind. It’s all right. Whyte’s will set us another table in the main restaurant, I’m sure.” She gave him a pat on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ll ask them for some plastic plates for you too. I’m sure they’ll have them somewhere. You clearly can’t be trusted with fine china.”
“I really am sorry,” he said again, his cheeks red, but Stella waved him aside, turning to find a nearby waiter and walking with him into the main restaurant. Luis, with Reine in his arms and Sebastian by his side, followed, leaving just him and Ari standing in the private room. He met her gaze and sighed.
“That wasn’t how I wanted that to go,” he explained, and Ari nodded.
“I know.”
“I’ll offer to pay for all the broken glass,” he added, and Ari was still looking at him, so he offered a wry smile. “If that had been a magic trick, and it had actually worked, it would have been amazing, right?”
His joke seemed to work, because Ari laughed. “I guess so, though I knew it was an accident, and not a magic trick.”
“How?” Tom asked, leaning back against the wall and gazing at her. “Maybe I’ve been practising at home. You don’t know what I do in my spare time.”
Ari smiled again, moving across the room to lean against the wall next to him. He could feel her bare shoulder through the thin fabric of his shirt, and he felt a shiver run through him.
“I knew,” she said gently, turning her head and gazing up at him softly, “because I’ve seen you do better magic tricks before.”
An image came into Tom’s mind of a lonely airport and a cold floor beneath him. Before him stood a young woman, her long hair falling over her shoulders, holding the queen of spades in her hands. Her eyes were warm and laughing, and Tom could still feel — even over the distance of many years — how his own smile had formed in return.
Tom took a long and deep inhalation of breath, followed by a wistful sigh. He knew Ari was thinking the same thing, knew that she felt the same way, and his eyes locked with hers. It was a shared moment over a shared memory. Momentarily losing himself in the blue depths of Ari’s eyes, all his sighs and deep inhalations were gone, his breath now caught tight in his chest.
It was just for a moment though. Ari seemed to shake herself together, then she straightened, one hand going to check that her hair was still in place.
“You look beautiful,” Tom told her softly, his voice more intense than he meant, and he watched as her cheeks tinged pink.
“Thank you,” she returned. “Now come on, magician man, they’ll be waiting for us.”
