“As long as I have to. There’s no way I can risk being out of a job again.”
I used to work at a lovely little marketing agency, but it went bust right after Jackson and Chloe’s wedding, three years ago this June. The terror of knowing that I wouldn’t be able to pay the rent if I didn’t get another job within eight weeks was so intense that I still break out in a cold sweat when I think about it.
I can’t describe the relief I felt when I landed a nice, safe position at a big commercial agency. I threw myself into work like never before and it was a perfect distraction from the pain of knowing that the man I’d loved since I was fifteen was lost to me forever.
My hard work didn’t go unnoticed: I was promoted within a year, and seven months later, I was promoted again. The pay is good and my CV looks great, but I have no choice over the projects that I run. My clients are huge multinational companiesthat specialize in the sort of fast-turnover stuff that sells into supermarkets. There’s no joy in it. And every time a pitch comes in, I’m expected to drop everything. It doesn’t matter if I have plans—if, for example, it’s my twenty-seventh birthday and my amazing flatmates have brought in food and wine, and other friends are set to come over—I have to let everyone down, stay late, and work until my boss, who has no life of his own, is satisfied that we’ve serviced clients that I personally couldn’t care less about.
I’ve been looking for another job, but the market is grim right now.
I sit with Tasha for a while before heading upstairs to my room, armed with my new rehydrating face masks, cooling gel eye mask, and This Works Deep Sleep Pillow Spray. My friends are thoughtful, but their hints weren’t necessary—my pale, drawn reflection in the mirror is evidence enough that I need to take better care of myself. Removing what’s left of my makeup, I change out of my navy skirt suit into my comfiest PJs and climb into bed.
Then, gingerly cradling my phone, I prepare to reply to the message that has played on my mind relentlessly for the last twelve hours:Happy birthday, Gracie. Are you doing anything to celebrate?
So simple. So harmless. And yet it makes my insides contract with pain.
I haven’t seen or spoken to Jackson since he got married. To begin with, he reached out all the time, but I always diverted his calls and sent rushed-sounding texts that read along the lines of:Sorry can’t talk right now!andSorry so busy, and he’d reply with things like:Just calling for a chat!andCall back when you can!andI miss you.It hurt to keep him at arm’s length, knowing that he still wanted me in his life, that he still loved me in his own way, if notin the way that I wanted. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I needed time and space to repair the heart he’d broken.
Eventually he got the message. The last time he texted was about six months ago, back in October. I didn’t hear from him at Christmas and I thought my birthday would go by quietly too. It’s alarming how affected I am by this one tiny text.
It’s annoying too. I should be over him by now.
I’d love to go and see Mellie in France again this summer, but that’s when Jackson and Chloe always go. I can’t avoid them if we’re there at the same time: our grandparents are best friends and our lives have been intertwined since we were kids—Mellie’s house in the mountains looks right over the rooftop of Jackson’s grandfather’s château.
I miss the Ardèche in summer. I miss the beautiful spa town of Sainte-Églantine-les-Bains. I miss having breakfast with my grandmother on her terrace and wandering through the evening market where she sells her pottery. I miss the scent of sunbaked grass and diving into Château Angèle’s swimming pool on a blisteringly hot day. I miss the mountains and the rivers and the stars in the sky on clear dark nights.
I miss Jackson and what we used to have and the hope of what we could have been.
I steel myself and open up his text, determined to reply quickly so I can put him out of my mind. But then I see that another message from him has come in:I’ve emailed you about work! I could really do with your help.
Sleep be damned, I’m intrigued.
Although Jackson’s dad is American and he mostly grew up in New York State, his entire family on his mother’s side is French. In his email, Jackson explains that this August marks not only eightyyears of his grandfather Albert’s life, but eighty years of Eau de Sainte Églantine, the mineral-water company that his great-grandfather founded, bottlingl’eau minérale naturellement gazeusede Sainte Églantine, the saint who lent her name to the spa town. Jackson stepped into the family business straight out of university, charged with increasing distribution into the US. He’s planning a rebrand and he’d love my opinion on the proposals he’s received from three marketing agencies.
I’m familiar with the agencies—they’re all prestigious—so I don’t need to put too much thought into my reply, which candidly expresses that his family business will be considered small-fry against the agencies’ larger accounts, and that, even though I bet they’ve quoted a shit ton of money, they’ll likely put a couple of juniors on the job and probably won’t even visit the factory, let alone spend quality time getting to know the town or the history of his family. I finish by joking that I could do the work for half the price and ask him to “give me a reason to tell my fuckwit boss to stick his job.”
Pressing send, I plug in my phone, turn off the light, and roll onto my side, blowing out a loud breath.
Barely a minute passes before my phone vibrates with an incoming call.
Mum?I roll back over and snatch up my phone. She texted earlier, but I’d hoped she’d call.
Everything inside me tenses when I see the caller ID:JACKSON COLE.
I stare at the screen, the call ends, my stomach drops, and then a text appears:Pick up pick up pick up!
My phone starts to buzz again. It’s late after a failed birthday and my defenses are down—I have a feeling he won’t give up, so…
“Hi,” I say flatly.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” he replies with excitement.
Hearing his deep American voice for the first time in nearly three years distracts from the words he’s saying.
“Of course you should do it! Fuck, Gracie, yes!”
What?
“It would be just like old times, you and me, spending the summer together in France, except this year you’d be getting paid for it! Could you do it? Like, seriously, would you want to? Do you actually hate your job? Would you have to give much notice? I’m going at the end of May and staying until early September—the project shouldn’t take that long, but could you come for the summer anyway? Apply for a long-stay visa? Maybe even do some freelance work or something?”
