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

my boss let me take home. I love the loose, straight drop-waist skirt that falls just below my knees. I’d paired it with stockings and laced-up oxford shoes.

The look was inspired by a Coco Chanel design I saw in Vogue magazine.

As Mum inspected me, I did a twirl and asked her if she liked my frock. A cheeky move, I know, but I refused to stand there and let her berate me. Her nostrils flared as if she smelled something bad.

Her reaction made me wish I’d worn the golf knickers and tie I had finished sewing last week. Paired with argyle socks, the unfeminine ensemble would’ve made Mum apoplectic.

I would have wasted my breath if I’d tried to explain that Chanel has liberated women by taking inspiration from men’s clothing, which is so much more comfortable and convenient than the restraining styles of the past. Instead, I told her that wealthy women these days pay a lot of money to dress down, and soon, I intend to capitalize on it.

Money is a language she understands.

All she did was shake her head and say she knew my move from Bristol to London would lead to my ruin. The way I looked today was proof.

Then she announced that Allister Hutcheon, the widower undertaker back home, was looking for a wife and had been asking about me.

When I pointed out that Allister Hutcheon was closer to Dad’s age than mine, Mum sucked her teeth. She said I was too old for this nonsense. It was time to leave this foolishness behind and return to Bristol while my face was still fair and my virtue was intact. In other words, while I was still marriageable.

I don’t need a husband to take care of me and certainly not old Allister Hutcheon. I was so incensed I removed myself to the kitchen and started brewing tea to give myself a moment to calm down.

Everything considered, I’ve done well for myself. I’ve made good decisions and enough money to support myself. I’ve even managed to stash a little under the mattress.

I’d planned to tell Mum during her visit today that I was indeed leaving London, but not to return to Bristol. The way our talk was going, it was clear that I needed to break the news sooner rather than later.

When the tea was ready, I brought it out and blurted the news before my courage could escape me. I informed her I was moving to Paris with my friend Helen to apprentice in the atelier of Coco Chanel.

Mum scooted her chair away from the table. I’ll never forget the shriek of wood scraping wood. Nor the way she looked at me with fury in her blue eyes. She gathered her handbag and told me that unless I returned to Bristol with her, I needn’t come home ever again. I would not be welcome.

Once she left and her ultimatum settled in, a future life in Bristol flashed before my eyes—the regret of not going to Paris as I wasted away in spinsterhood or, I shudder to think, marriage to Allister Hutcheon.

With that, my choice was crystal clear.

Two

December 31, 2018—5:00 p.m.

Bath Spa railway station

Two hours later, I’ve deposited the group at Thermae Bath Spa. There was no sign of Jerry and Frances. When I spoke to Emma, she hadn’t heard from them, either.

I’d wager that Jerry will simmer all the way back to Wisconsin, where he will fire off a nasty letter to Emma. He may ask for a refund, but that will likely be the end of it.

A cold wind whips around me as I make my way to the Bath train station. British weather is so different from what I grew up with in Florida. Not only does it get much colder in the UK, but there’s also fog that descends from out of nowhere and seeps into your bones. Lit by the streetlamps, the misty air shimmers as it couples with the darkness that has fallen around me. It cloaks the evening in a melancholy blue that transports me back to my childhood.

When I was a little girl, “the blue hour” made me wistful and homesick for my mother, who was never there, even on the rare occasion that she was present.

The icy wind cuts through me, and I’m transported back to those nights when I felt hollow and abandoned.

Marla, why are you in London?

When we spoke earlier, she didn’t get a chance to explain because Emma beeped in. I told Marla I had to take the call. I did manage to say that I couldn’t pick her up. I was out of town working. Because I am.

I didn’t mention that I’d be home tonight.

To buy myself some time, I texted that she should check in at the Holiday Inn at Camden Lock until we can meet up. It’s affordable and an easy five-minute walk to my flat.

The thought of having her that close, even for a holiday, gives me pause.

Without the Atlantic between us, there is no buffer to keep us from colliding. Just Marla and me, face-to-face, forced to figure out what to do with each other before she inevitably floats out of my life like a balloon let loose from its tether.

But for whatever reason, she’s here, and there’s nothing I can do about it now.

As I settle into my seat on the train, all I want to do is sleep during the hour-and-forty-five-minute trip from Bath to Paddington station. But my watch buzzes a text alert.

In the split second before I look, I decide that if it’s my mother, I will take off the watch and stash it in my purse.

But it’s not her; it’s a group text from my flatmates Cressida and Tallulah.

Cressida: What time will you be home, Han?

Me: On the train now. Should be home 7:30-ish.

Cressida: I have a man for you tonight…

I can virtually hear her voice singing those frightful words.

Me: No thank you.

Cressida: Come on, Han. Zed wants to meet