Wished

Chapter 30

30

It turns out the reason my mom looked at me strangely when I said I’d always wanted to come to the French Riviera was because we’ve been coming here for years. Max’s great-aunt and her fisherman husband lived in Saint-Tropez, and when his great-uncle passed, Max bought his aunt the taffy-pink villa so she’d have a house on the sea that she loved for the rest of her life.

She died before Max and I met, but Max kept the house because it reminded him of his funny, hilariously vulgar great-aunt, her quiet husband, and the long summer days when as a boy he’d sneak away from his family’s vacation spot at an ostentatious resort and visit his dad’s funny black sheep of an aunt.

Apparently, every summer we stay for a week or two while Barone Jewelry has a pop-up store in an old bougainvillea-covered mansion with a beautiful blooming garden in the center of old town. My mom mentioned every year, Max has created a special piece of jewelry for me and incorporated it into one of the collections.

The first year we were married, there was the Effiel Tower—for Paris—the design hidden in numerous bracelets and necklaces. Another year, one of the necklaces had a pendant in the shape of a tarte tropézienne, my favorite pastry in Saint-Tropez, a fluffy brioche cake filled with decadent vanilla and lemon custard and dusted with pearl sugar. The pendant brioche was 24-karat gold, and the sugar was diamonds. When my mom mentioned the tarte tropézienne, Max laughed at the memory of me eating so much in one sitting that I didn’t have room for lunch or dinner. Then he went out and brought home a pastry box, just for me.

Another year, Max created a bracelet with opals for our time in Australia. There was the year with the sapphires for our sailing lessons on Lake Geneva. There was the necklace with a ruby heart for the year I started the Open Heart Kitchen, part of the community center that fed anyone who was hungry and in need. Now, it seems, there are a dozen Open Heart Kitchens around Switzerland. Another year, Max created a book charm for our shared love of reading Dickens.

Each year he hid a love note for me out in the open, where I was sure to find it. Maybe no one else knew the sapphires in the necklaces five years ago were a message from Max, but I did.

Well, at least, the me of this reality did.

So while every night I wish for this dream to end, during the days I love like Max asks, without reservations.

We stay the whole five days, meandering the cobblestone streets, exploring the churches, the seventeenth-century citadel, and the winding, narrow village lanes. One morning we wander to the Place des Lices, where white tents are bunched together, shading an open-air market. We find aromatic rosemary and marjoram, fresh, creamy goat’s cheeses, mounds of finger-staining berries, baskets of sun-warmed nectarines, sweet clover honey, and sprays of fresh-cut, bee-tempting flowers.

When Max catches me looking at a bouquet of freesias, he asks, “Would you like?—?”

“No.” I shake my head quickly and turn away, walking toward a table of cured sausage and olives.

The freesias remind me of Paris; of the wilting clock of our time together.

At night we binge-watch crime dramas, trying to out-spoiler each other, writing down our guesses for whodunnit on scraps of paper at the beginning of the show. At the end we unfold our guesses. Whenever Max wins I toss a pillow at him; when I win he tackles me under him and tickles me until I promise between breathless laughs to stop bragging.

By the end of the week my mom is more mobile and agile on the crutches, her leg healing. My sister has filled the house with watercolors, beach stones, and driftwood. Max is relaxed, quick to smile, and quick to kiss. I’m humming from the little touches, Max brushing his hand over me as he passes, a whispered kiss when we meet in the kitchen, a hand held in the market. If this were my life, I’d be blissed out on sun, tarte tropézienne, and the way Max’s arms wrap around me at night.

But this isn’t my life. And the happier, more blissful each day is, the more a shadow seems to creep over me, until I feel a cold grip inside.

At night, and sometimes during the day, Max will kiss me just like he makes love—a luxurious, erotic teasing of my mouth until I’m practically vibrating with need. But always, I say, “Not now, no, not now.” Then he’ll press a final kiss on my mouth and wrap me in his arms.

The excuses are creative. No “I have a headache” for me. One night, it’s “Too many tartes—I’ll puke if I’m jostled during sex.” Another, “I’m too sunburned to copulate—the sting is extreme.” Then “The gory, gruesome crime drama left me too freaked to fornicate.”

Finally, the last night, Max doesn’t kiss me; he just pulls me onto his bare chest and we fall asleep to the sound of the waves and the cool kiss of the breeze.

And so, five days later, a week into this wish, I’m so deep down in love with Max that I know, of the two sides of the beach, I’ve headlong tumbled into the riotous waves, and I’m currently being bashed against the jagged rocks.

We fly from the private terminal at La M?le airport and land in Geneva, leaving my mom and Emme with a kiss, a hug, and a promise to see them soon at their stone cottage outside Geneva, when my sister is back at school after break and my mom is back to work. Now we’re curling around the lake, nearly back to Max’s—our—home.

I stare out the window, watching the sky paint the hills purple and the water a rippling gold. Geneva is a collection of fireflies glowing above the lake, lighting up in the deepening sigh of dusk. It’s strange to be here, riding in Max’s Aston Martin back to his austere, starkly beautiful estate, instead of taking the bus back to my square-roomed, windowless post-war apartment.

“Home,” he says, a smile tugging at his mouth when he pulls down the drive.

My stomach dips as I take in the chateau, its windows lit and reflecting the warm gold of the setting sun, its weathered stone painted a sparkling pink. The flower gardens around the house, planted in this new reality, give a welcoming feel. Even the swifts swooping between the towers and the chimneys have a sprite-like, playful feel.

It’s a home. It’s really, really a home.

I know now what this feels like. I was making onion soup last night for dinner, whiskey poured into the pot, a loaf of bread in the oven, when the thought struck me right over the head.

The last time I made onion soup, after I was fired, my mom said I had a problem with honesty. She reminded me of all the times I’d made us take the bus back to the store or turn around because I realized a store clerk had accidentally given us too much change. One franc. Two. Ten. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the money wasn’t mine and it was wrong to keep it. I returned it every time. Because if I didn’t, I would feel sick to my stomach, cold in my hands, and I’d worry until I did the right thing.

This wish. This marriage. Max’s love.

It’s the same thing.

The store clerk gave me too much change. It’s not mine and I have to return it.

This marriage isn’t mine, and Max’s love isn’t mine, and the longer I hold onto it without turning around, the worse it’s going to feel.

Because it isn’t right.

Max turns into the garage, pulls the car to a stop, and kills the engine. “Happy to be home?” he asks, smiling over at me. “Back to work. I’ll be late tomorrow night, but I imagine you’ll be out late too, catching up—although I expect everyone did an excellent job while you were away?—”

I set my hand on his arm and cut him off. “If you were at a shop and you realized they gave you five francs too much in change, would you give it back?”

Max lifts an eyebrow. “Of course.”

I nod, wetting my dry lips. “And if it were one franc?”

“Still yes.”

“What about a cent—something that seemed completely inconsequential?”

He nods. “Yes. Accounting is the devil. I wouldn’t wish an unbalanced end of day on anyone.”

My heart thuds painfully, sounding loud in my ears. With the engine off, the car is hushed and still. The air grows warm and heavy. The interior lights cast a cool glow over us.

“What if,” I ask, “instead of a franc, you were accidentally given something more? A million francs. And, say, you were poor and had always dreamed of a million francs because of everything you could do with it. No one knew that it wasn’t really yours, so you could keep it, enjoy it, experience ... love. Would you? Or would you give it back?”

Max frowns, studying the light glowing over my face. He’s thinking, taking his time with his answer. The leather of the seat is warm beneath me and the motor-oil scent of the garage spills into the car. It’s a comforting, normal sort of smell, a normal sort of situation, sitting in a car with a man in a dimly lit garage.

Except this question is more meaningful than the usual driveway conversations.

I’m asking Max whether or not he wants me to give him up.

Because, let’s face it, if I can’t undo this wish, then I’m going to have to leave him.

This love isn’t mine to keep.

I only wonder if he’ll agree.

“I would know,” he finally says, his voice thoughtful. “Perhaps no one else would ever know, but I would know. What I think of myself matters a hell of a lot more than what anyone else thinks of me. At the end of every day, I want to be able to say that I did my best, I treated others well, I told the truth, I didn’t do anything that later on I’d be ashamed of. I’d return it, love. Even if it hurt to give it up, it’d hurt worse to keep it.”

My throat is tight and raw, so instead of speaking, I nod. Finally, I swallow down the peach-pit-size lump and say, “That’s what I thought.”

“You’d give it back too.” He smiles at me, reaching out and brushing a knuckle over my cheek.

“Yes,” I say, knowing that even if I’m in this reality forever, I can’t keep what isn’t mine.

“Why the questions?” he asks, his hand lingering on my jaw.

I turn my face into his warmth. “Just wondering.”

He nods. “Fair enough. Shall we go in? Have a late dinner? Make it an early night?”

At the smile in Max’s eyes, I know he’s imagining what we can finally do now we’re back in our own home, our own bedroom, and our own bed.

We’re back in Geneva. The dream is over. The freesia has wilted.

“Before we do,” I ask, knowing what I have to do, “can I see the necklace from the Bride’s Parure?”