Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

in unspoken agreement that we shouldn’t entrust it to Marla, who might inadvertently leave it on the Metro or in a café if she got distracted flirting with a guy.

The best part: Gabriel volunteered. I didn’t have to ask him.

“You are going back to work?”

I nod. “I start back Wednesday. I have to make money to cover that inheritance tax.”

I almost add and legal fees, but the last thing I want is to sound like I’m fishing for freebies.

“HOW DID EVERYTHING GO?” Marla asks when I walk in the front door. “Does he think it’s the real thing?”

“It might take a while before we know anything. Lots of reading and comparing. You know, all sorts of academic stuff.”

“Boring.” Marla feigns a yawn and returns her attention to a wooden box full of what appears to be costume jewelry. She swirls her hand through the bobbles. It sounds like a wind chime.

I laugh. “You didn’t think I was going to come back with a definitive answer, did you?”

She shrugs. “I was hoping. I don’t know how that stuff works. I didn’t know if they have some kind of database where they can plug in the words and get an answer.”

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it? If this book has already been published, there will be a record of it. That will be easy. If not, all they can do is compare style and do some sort of test on the paper and ink. And maybe even try to figure out what kind of a typewriter it was written on.”

My gaze darts around the living room. “You didn’t happen to come across a typewriter while you were taking inventory, did you?”

“Nope. I didn’t see one.”

She picks a rhinestone-studded brooch out of the box and holds it up to the light.

“What are your plans?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my vacation is almost over. I’m leaving tomorrow. Are you comfortable staying here by yourself?”

She drops the brooch back into the box and resumes swirling.

“I guess so. I’m certainly not going back to Orlando, and you made it clear you don’t have room for me in London.”

I start to suggest she could always find her own place, but I don’t.

“You’ll have to go back to Florida sometime—after Gram’s house closes.”

“When that time comes, you can come with me.”

She’s right. We will both have to sign the papers when we sell the house.

“What are you going to do in the meantime? I mean, do you have money to get by?”

She sets the jewelry box on the coffee table and sits up, pushing herself forward to the edge of the couch seat and gripping the seat cushions as if for support.

“I have a little bit, but I’ll have to get a job eventually. I’m not sure how to do that here. I mean, since I’m a property owner, does some kind of a visa come with it?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “You’ll need to look into that. You do realize even if you live here, this place belongs to both of us.”

When we jointly inherited Gram’s house, Marla wouldn’t hear of us keeping it. She needed money, not memories. I, of course, would’ve been hanging on to the place solely for the memories. It was my childhood home. When I suggested we rent it out, she wanted no part of that, either. The only arrangement she would entertain was me buying out her half or putting the house on the market.

I wonder if she’s remembering that now.

“What are you saying?” She squints at me.

“I’m saying given the inheritance tax and the high cost of living in Paris, maybe you shouldn’t get too comfortable here. We might need to rent the place out or eventually sell it.”

“I can’t even think about that,” she says. “We’ve worked so hard this week to get it into livable shape; doesn’t it seem a shame to let someone else move in? Hannah, I feel so at home here. For the first time in my life, I feel connected to a place. I feel a connection to you and Ivy. It’s all we have left of her. This is our legacy. We can’t just turn it over to someone else.”

“Remember what you said about Gram’s place? You insisted I needed to buy you out or we needed to sell it—”

“Hannah, you know I am not in a position to buy you out. I thought we’d made so much progress. I thought this apartment had brought us together.”

Here we go, plucking the heartstrings to distract from the fact that she’s trying to skirt the very rule she made: buy the other one out or sell.

No negotiation. No discussion.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says. “I can read it on your face.”

“Why should I pay rent in London while you’re living in Paris rent-free. How is that equitable?”

“Don’t think of it as me living rent-free in Paris. Think of it as me being the custodian of our investment—of our legacy.”

Of course, she evades the question.

“Did you really want to hang on to Gram’s house?” she asks. “Did it mean that much to you?”

I shrug. It’s not an easy yes-or-no answer. I wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons, but the practical side of me knew keeping a house in Orlando wasn’t… well, it wasn’t practical. “It was my last tie to Gram.”

Marla rolls her eyes.

“You know rude gestures like that are not helping, right?” I say. “They’re not winning you any points.”

“I’m not trying to win points, Hannah. I’m trying to stay in Paris.”

“It’s always all about you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Hannah.”

She gets up and walks to the window and looks out. Her back is to me, reminding me of all the other times in the past when she turned her back when things got hard.

“I wanted to keep Gram’s house, but you wouldn’t even discuss it.”

She whirls around to face me, but she’s smiling rather than wearing the pigheaded glare I was expecting. “That’s it! That’s the answer. You keep the Orlando