“Don’t ask.” I sighed. “So what’s up? It’s late over there, isn’t it?” I did the mental math. If it was eight thirty in Florida, that made it two thirty tomorrow morning in Paris. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Poppy said. I could hear the smile in her voice. “I’m not in Paris, actually. I’m in your time zone.”
I sat up straight in my lounge chair. “What? Where?”
“In New York!” Poppy said gleefully.
“In New York?” I repeated. “What are you doing there?”
“Turns out that Guillaume’s waterskiing incident was a success after all,” Poppy said. “We got calls from all sorts of American media outlets. We just got in tonight, and we’re scheduled to do Today with Katie Jones tomorrow and Good Morning America on Friday!”
“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed. “Poppy, that’s wonderful! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” she said.
“Surprise me?”
She paused. “I was hoping you would come up and join us.”
My heart sank. “I’d love to, Poppy. But I can’t afford the trip up there now. You know that!”
“Well,” she said, “let me put it this way. I’ve already booked an airline ticket in your name, and you have a room at the Hyatt Grand Central. You’d fly up tomorrow morning, so you’ll only have to take a day off work. Frankly, you’d be silly not to come.”
“Poppy—”
“Guillaume paid for all of it out of pocket,” she cut in. “He still feels terrible about what happened—as he well should. So you might as well get a free trip on his dime!”
I thought about it for a moment. She did have a point. And if the ticket was already purchased . . .
“All right,” I said slowly. “I guess I’ll be there, then.”
“Brilliant!” Poppy exclaimed. “Be at the Katie Jones studio on Broadway and Fifty-third at noon tomorrow. I’ll leave a ticket for you. We’ll have dinner after the show!”
“That sounds wonderful,” I said warmly. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I know how you can thank me,” Poppy said.
“How?”
“Come to your senses and walk away from Brett before you get sucked back in,” she said. “I know you feel like you’re lonely and stuck there, Emma. But don’t fall back into that. Please.”
I thought about it for a moment. “You’re right,” I said softly.
“Good girl,” Poppy said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Emma. Au revoir!”
I sat there for a moment after I hung up. What was I doing? How had I come to a place where I once again thought Brett was the answer to everything? Three weeks’ worth of Jeannie’s get-back-together-with-him-you-idiot diatribes had turned me into someone different, and the hopelessness of my situation had made me desperate and needy.
But I’d become someone else during my brief time in Paris. Or, more accurately, I’d looked inside for the first time and gotten in touch with me. It wasn’t the job or the meaningless dates, or even the self-destructive crush I’d had on Gabe. It was that, for the first time in more than three years, I’d learned that being alone really wasn’t so bad.
I took a deep breath, stood up, and walked back to our table.
“That was really rude, Emma,” Brett said, shaking his head. “I never answer calls during dinner.”
I looked at him funny. “Brett, you used to answer your phone all the time while we were eating.”
“That’s different,” he said. “Those were work calls.”
“Well, actually, this was a work call, too.”
“What, the restaurant was calling you?” Brett smirked. “Important waitress business?”
“No, Poppy was calling,” I said. “About Guillaume Riche.”
“I thought you were fired from that job.”
I nodded. “But maybe it’s time to fight for what I deserve,” I said. I paused. I was still standing beside the table, and Brett was beginning to look uncomfortable.
“Aren’t you going to sit back down, Emma?” he asked. “People are looking.”
I ignored him. “I need to ask you something,” I said. “Why do you want to get back together with me?”
Brett looked confused. “Because I love you.”
“Why?” I persisted. “Why do you love me?”
“I don’t know.” He looked uneasy. “I just do.”
“Why?” I persisted. “I mean, why me? Why me instead of Amanda?”
“Let’s not bring her into this,” he mumbled.
“I think you already brought her in,” I said with a shrug.
Brett had the decency to look embarrassed. “I don’t know, Emma,” he said, sounding exasperated. “I love you because you’ve always been there. I love you because you know me and put up with me. I love you because I know you will be a good mother to our children. I love you because we’re perfect together. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
I looked at him for a moment. None of his reasons for loving me had anything to do with me. They never had, had they?
“You were right,” I said finally.
Brett nodded, as if this was a given. “About what?”
“About us.”
Brett smiled. “Good. Finally! You’ve seen things my way. So do you want to move back in? Or should we take things slow?”
I shook my head. “No, I mean you were right the first time.”
“What?”