“I should have come with you,” Henry muttered in my ear through the phone and I drew in a deep breath as I stared out the window at the sea.
“I’m all right, Henry,” I assured him.
“There’s no way you should be there alone.”
“I’m all right, Henry,” I repeated. “You have to be there. You do this shoot for Tisimo every year.”
“Yeah, which means I need a f*cking break from it.”
I sighed, sat in the window seat and kept my eyes out to sea.
The sun setting had washed the sky in peachy pink with slashes of butter yellow and tufts of lavender.
I missed those sunsets over the sea.
I just wished Gran was right there, sitting with me.
“I get done with this, I’ll fly out there,” Henry said into my silence.
“You get done with that shoot, Henry, you need to be in Rome.”
“I need to be with you.”
I closed my eyes, blocking out the sunset, having wished so many times in my twenty-three years as personal assistant to Henry Gagnon, renowned fashion photographer, video director and handsome, dashing, reckless, adventurous, audacious, daring international lady’s man, that he meant it in a different way when he said words like those to me.
Not that he valued me as his personal assistant.
Not that he liked me just because he did.
Not because we had over two decades of history and no one knew him better than me and the same was true for him with me (though, he didn’t know me quite as much but that was part of me being me).
No.
For other reasons.
Now it was too late.
Not that there even was a time when that would be a possibility. He had models and actresses on his arm (and in his bed). And I’d lost count how many times I’d seen him smile his lazy smile at unbelievably gorgeous waitresses, tourists or the like and fifteen minutes later, I’d be finishing my coffee alone or heading to a park with a free few hours because Henry was away to our hotel to enjoy those hours a different way.
There was no way Henry Gagnon would turn his beautiful eyes to me.
Not then.
Definitely not now, with me forty-five, way past my prime. Even if Henry was forty-nine.
Then again, Henry’s last two lovers had been thirty-nine and forty-two respectively.
In fact, thinking on this, it occurred to me his lovers had aged as he had. He hadn’t had a twenty-something since, well…he was twenty-something (or, at latest, he was early thirty-something).
“Josephine?”
I blinked myself out of my reverie and came back to the conversation.
“I’ll meet you in Rome. Or in Paris,” I told him. “I just have to go to the reading of the will tomorrow and see to things here once I know what’s what. It shouldn’t take long.”
Why I said this, I had no idea except it was my job to make Henry’s life aggravation-free and I’d lived and breathed that for so long, I didn’t know how to do anything else.
The truth of the matter was Gran had a home and it was packed to the gills. I had no idea what I was going to do with it all.
However, I could easily hire an estate agency to deal with an auction and I didn’t need to be present for that. Nor did I need to be present for a sale of the property.
I felt acute pain in my midsection at these thoughts so I put them aside and returned to Henry.
“A week, at most two,” I said.
“If it’s over a week, I’m there,” he replied.
“Henry—”
“Josephine, no. Not sure you could miss the fact that you’ve been taking care of me for twenty-three years. I figure this once, once in twenty-three years, I can do whatever I need to do to look after you.”
“That’s very kind,” I said softly.
There was a brief pause before he returned, just as softly, “That’s me looking after my Josephine.”
This was one of the reasons I stood by Henry all these years.
And it was one of many.
First, it wasn’t that difficult to do my job. Henry was not a male diva, even if his talent meant he could be. He was pretty no-nonsense. I wasn’t rushing around picking up dry cleaning (well, not all the time) and trying to find a coffee shop that made lattes with unpasteurized milk.
Second, he paid me well. Very well. Actually extremely well. Not to mention he gave bonuses. And presents (one of these being the Manolos I wore to the funeral, another being the diamond tennis bracelet I had on my wrist at that moment).
Third, we traveled widely and he didn’t make me sit in coach when he was up in first class. No, I sat next to him. Always. Further, it wasn’t hard being the places we’d go. It was true I didn’t exactly enjoy that time in Venezuela (nor the one Cambodia, the one in Haiti or the other one in Kosovo) but only because he wasn’t doing a fashion spread but instead taking other kinds of pictures and thus we weren’t exactly staying at the Ritz.
Henry liked adventure. Me, that was a different story. But I was always at Henry’s side.
Always.
Except now.
And last, and maybe most important, he could be very sweet and he was this way often.
“I want you calling every day,” he demanded. “Check in. Let me know you’re okay.”
“You’re too busy for me to call you every day,” I told him something I should know, since, even though Tisimo magazine had given him a young man named Daniel to take my place temporarily, I still knew his schedule like the back of my hand.
“How about you let me decide what I’m too busy for, sweetheart. But I would hope you know by now, one of those things is not and never will be you.”
Oh my.
Yes.
So very sweet.
“Henry—” I started on a whisper.
“Now, do something good. Like go out, buy a great bottle of wine, and drink it watching some ridiculous TV show you would normally hate so you can tell me all the reasons you hate it. Do not sit around, drinking your tea and doing something worthy. Like emailing Daniel to make certain he’s on his game or trying to read War and Peace for the seven millionth time.”
“I’m going to finish that book someday,” I vowed on a mutter.
“Let’s not make today that day,” he replied and I smiled.
“All right. Reality TV and a good bottle of wine it is,” I murmured.
“Good girl,” he murmured back and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Tomorrow, I want to know all the ways the housewives of wherever get on your nerves.”
I smiled again before I asked, “Would you like me to take notes?”
“Seeing as they’ll probably get on your nerves in so many ways even you’ll forget a lot of them, yeah.”
“Then consider it done.”
“Right.” I could still hear the smile in his voice. “Now go. Wine. TV. And while you’re at it, buy something good to eat. And I don’t mean an excellent wedge of brie. I mean something like a bucket of chicken.”
I made a face that he hopefully could not hear in my voice when I lied, “Consider that done too.”
“Liar,” he muttered and I smiled again.
Then I said, “I should let you go.”
“For now, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, Henry.”
“Be bad,” he said quietly.
“I’ll try,” I replied and both of us knew that was a lie too.
There was another pause before he whispered, “Chin up, Josephine. Always.”
“It’s up, Henry. Always.”
“Okay, sweetheart. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“’Bye, Henry.”
“Later, honey.”
I disconnected and threw my phone on the cushion in front of me.
Then I looked out to the sea.
There was no buttery yellow in the sky, the peachy pink was fading and the lavender was taking over.
It was stunning and it made me wish that Henry was, indeed, here with me. He’d take a fabulous picture of it.
I was in the light room at Lavender House, the house Gran inherited from her mom and dad when they died which was thankfully after she’d divorced her husband.
The house that had this room, five stories up a spiral staircase. A circular room that was curved windows all around so you could see everything. The sea. The outcroppings of rock and beaches along Magdalene Cove. The centuries old, tiny town of Magdalene. And the landscape beyond.
This room with the window seats all around. The big desk in the middle where I knew Gran always wrote her letters to me. Where she sometimes took and made her phone calls to me. Where she paid bills. Where she wrote out recipes. Where she opened my letters to her and she probably read them right here too.
The room that had the half-circle couch she found and bought because it was, “just too perfect to pass up, buttercup.”
And it was. That couch was perfect. It had taken seven men, a pulley and who knew how much money to get it up there through a window. But Gran had seen it done.
She loved it up here.
I loved it up here.
And I sat in this very spot years ago after I became well enough to move around a bit after she saved me from my father. I also sat in this very spot after I called her and told her I had to get away, I just had to get away, and she flew me here.
Here. Home.
Here was where I put my father behind me.
Here was where I put my world behind me.
Here was where I got the call from a girlfriend who had moved to New York to do something in the fashion world (anything, she didn’t care, and she succeeded and was then working as a minion for flash-in-the-pan diva designer who thought he was everything who had recently been fired from his job designing clothes for discount department stores).
A girlfriend who told me Henry Gagnon was looking for an assistant and she knew I loved clothes, I was an admirer of his photos and she could talk to someone who could talk to someone who could maybe get me a meeting with him.
And here was where I took the next call when I learned she got me a meeting with him.
Here was where my life ended…twice, even as it started again…twice.
It still smelled like Gran here even though it had been years since she could get up to this room.
She was everywhere in Lavender House.
But mostly she was here.
And now she was gone.
And on that thought, it happened.
I knew it would happen. I was just glad it didn’t happen at her graveside, in front of people.
It happened there, the safest place I could be, the safest place I ever had, with Gran all around me.
The first time in over two decades when I let emotion overwhelm me and I wept loud, abhorrent tears that wracked my body and caused deep, abiding pain to every inch of me rather than releasing any.
I didn’t go out and buy a bottle of wine.
I certainly didn’t get a bucket of chicken (not that I was going to anyway).
And I didn’t watch the real housewives of anywhere on TV.
I fell asleep on that window seat with tears still wet on my face and with Gran all around me.
The safest place I could be.