The morning of Annette’s wedding and Jodie was in full matron of honour mode. Ben had suggested Annette spend the previous evening and night with them and now the two of them were in one of the guest bedrooms getting ready for Annette’s special day.
‘You don’t think it’s over the top, do you?’ Annette said, standing in front of the full-length mirror and looking at Jodie for reassurance. ‘What’s the English saying – a sheep wearing a dress like a lamb?’
Jodie giggled. ‘I think you mean “mutton dressed as lamb”. And no, you definitely don’t look like that. You look beautiful,’ Jodie said. ‘You’re positively glowing. A picture-perfect bride.’
Annette’s outfit, a 1920s vintage-style, coffee-and-cream-silk dress, with a handkerchief hem and an overlay of delicate lace, had been an inspired choice. Classy and dressy. A jacket in the same material would provide some warmth on the sunny but cold late-November day. The purple-grape colour of Annette’s accessories and the gold chain of the handbag complemented the outfit, bringing it bang up-to-date.
‘Stop worrying, Annette, Thierry loves you and he’ll love how beautiful you look in your outfit. You need to put some lipstick on now you’re dressed,’ Jodie added. ‘And then we’re good to go.’
‘You look wonderful, Mama,’ Ben said, waiting for them when they went downstairs. ‘A glass of champagne before we leave for the Mairie and church? Tina has it ready in the conservatory.’
Accepting her own glass of champagne from Tina, Jodie held one out towards Annette.
‘I know there will be lots of toasts today but I wanted to be the first to wish you every happiness in your new life with Thierry, Annette. You’re a very special mother-in-law to me.’
‘Oh, ma cherie, thank you,’ Annette said, looking as if she was on the verge of tears as all four of them raised their glasses. ‘Annette.’
‘No. Don’t you dare cry,’ Jodie said, sensing Annette was welling up and putting her own glass down after the tiniest sip. ‘There isn’t time to do your make-up again. In fact I think the four of us ought to be going. Tina and I will see you at the Mairie’s office. Ben, Annette’s bouquet is in the kitchen – don’t forget to pick it up.’
At one point Annette had wanted to invite Travis to the wedding, saying he was part of her extended family and suggesting he could drive Jodie and Tina down to the ceremony. Jodie had looked at her mother-in-law as if she were mad.
‘No way. And that’s non-negotiable.’ Until she and Travis had talked, she planned on keeping her distance from him, and making small talk in the confined space of a car was definitely not on her agenda.
‘I’ll drive Tina and myself down.’
Now, as she drove Tina down towards the village, she pushed all thoughts of Travis and their impending lunch out of her mind. Today was Annette and Thierry’s special day. She wouldn’t let her less-than-happy thoughts spoil it.
Expecting to see Thierry on his own waiting outside the Hôtel de Ville, Jodie was surprised to see a group of people standing by the steps as she parked the car. She’d forgotten that Ben had mentioned Thierry’s daughter and her family were travelling up from Carcassone where they lived.
Thierry briefly introduced everyone but there was no time for more as Ben and Annette arrived and it was time to go inside for the civil wedding ceremony. The Mairie officiating was an old friend of both Annette and Thierry and there was a lot of laughter between the three of them before the serious business of marrying the couple began.
Within minutes, it seemed to Jodie, everyone was following the newly married Monsieur and Madame Francis across the square from the Mairie’s office to the village church to have their marriage blessed in front of more of their invited friends.
Standing next to Ben, her hand entwined with his, listening to the vicar as he blessed the union of Annette and Thierry, Jodie allowed her thoughts to drift. It would be Christmas in a few weeks and her own wedding anniversary.
What a year it had turned out to be. After all the trauma and heartbreak of her mother’s untimely death she’d not expected to be truly happy for years – if ever again. Meeting Ben had catapulted her into an unfamiliar life in a foreign country, but it was a life she now adored.
Getting married, moving to France, becoming a partner in a literary agency, an unknown brother appearing in her life… all these had taken her down an unexpected road. A road she suspected would continue to have a few bends in it and never be a direct route through life, although she had so much to look forward to now. Especially the wonderful news she intended sharing with Ben very soon. Of course she still missed her mother, and deep down knew she always would, but her own life was evolving and the future was full of promise.
Jodie glanced along the pew to where Tina was sitting looking very pensive. From what she’d told her, this Luc had come to mean a lot to her in a very short time. Jodie could only hope that whatever ‘complications’ he had in his life, Tina would be able to deal with them and find the happiness she deserved.
An hour later, back at Annette’s house, the champagne was flowing and the caterers Thierry had insisted on engaging were busy helping people to the food. When Jodie refused a glass of champagne and shook her head at the plate of canapés being passed around, Ben looked at her.
‘You OK? That bug still bothering you? I wish you’d go to the doctor.’
Jodie took a deep breath. The moment had arrived. ‘I’ve got an appointment next month,’ she said.
‘Change it. Get an earlier one. You need some antibiotics to knock it on the head. Why not?’ Ben demanded as Jodie shook her head.
‘Because I’ve done a test and know what he’s going to tell me,’ Jodie whispered, smiling at him.
‘How can you possibly know…?’ Ben said, his voice trailing away. ‘Test? It’s not a bug, is it? You’re pregnant,’ he said, a huge smile on his face.
‘Sshh. Today is Annette and Thierry’s day. It’s very early days so we’ll keep it a secret until they’re back from honeymoon, OK?’ Jodie said.
‘That, ma cherie, is going to be so difficult,’ Ben said, moving closer and putting his arm around her shoulders and squeezing her.
‘Your mama and Thierry look so happy,’ Jodie said, hoping to change the subject. ‘Thierry’s daughter seems nice.’
‘Christiane? She is, although we fell out spectacularly when we were teenagers and were sworn enemies until a few years ago when we decided it was all in the past and best forgotten.’
‘Did you fall out when you learnt about Annette and Thierry’s cinq à sept arrangement?’ Jodie said quietly.
‘Mama told you about that?’ Ben sighed. ‘It’s only recently that she’s told me the truth about that particular episode in her life. That my papa was also guilty of being unfaithful – several times it appears.’ Ben took a bite of a salmon blini. ‘But at the time I told Christiane that Thierry was a marriage-wrecking bastard and she retaliated by calling Mama a trollop. We didn’t speak for years after that,’ Ben said ruefully. ‘Shame really, because we were good friends when we were very young. Think Mama and Thierry had high hopes for the two of us at one stage!’
‘Oh, should I be jealous?’ Jodie said, looking across at the elegant Christiane as she laughed at something Annette said to her. How did French women always look so effortlessly chic? Had to be in their genes, Jodie decided.
‘No. Let’s go and join them and you can meet my new stepsister properly,’ Ben said.
‘First, promise me no name calling now Annette and Thierry have united you into one big, happy family,’ Jodie said, laughing at the expression on Ben’s face.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Ben said. ‘Not with Mama standing there.’
An hour or so later Jodie found herself standing next to Tina as everybody waved Annette and Thierry off on honeymoon. ‘Lovely wedding,’ Tina said, sighing.
‘Are you all right?’ Jodie said, concerned.
Tina nodded. ‘Just wondering if I’ll ever have one half as good.’
‘Of course you will,’ Jodie said.
Tina shook her head. ‘I’m not so sure any more. Another few months and I’ll be thirty.’
‘Annette and Thierry are hardly in the first flush of youth,’ Jodie said.
‘But it’s second time lucky for them. I haven’t had a first time yet. That’s the problem with weddings. They stir all sorts of emotions that normally stay dormant under the surface. Make you wonder where and when exactly the masterplan you’d mapped out for your life went AWOL. You, at least, have four and a half ticks on yours.’
Jodie looked at her blankly.
‘You must remember the plans for where we’d be in ten years we made on our eighteenth birthdays?’ Tina tapped the fingers on her left hand with her right forefinger. ‘1 – college, tick. 2 – career, tick. 3 – engaged, tick. 4 – married, tick. 5 – stay-at-home mum, half a tick. And 6 – mid-thirties, back to re-establishing career as the children grow and leave home. So far I’ve managed to tick the first two and the remaining four are evading me.’
‘I think we both know now that making plans like that is a tad unrealistic,’ Jodie said. ‘Life rarely goes as planned. I certainly didn’t expect to meet Ben and end up living in France. You can never anticipate the curveballs life throws at you.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Tina said. ‘Starting to feel the only thing I can rely on is the ticking of my biological clock and that’s not the kind of tick I want.’
‘You’ve got lots going for you at the moment. The agency is taking off, and Luc is planning to talk to you about… about things,’ Jodie said.
‘And that on its own is probably a huge curveball,’ Tina sighed.
‘Whatever it is you’ll be one step nearer to knowing if the two of you have a future.’
‘I keep thinking of the Robert Louis Stevenson quote,’ Tina said, looking at her. ‘The one our English teacher kept telling us to remember: To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive. I’m not sure I want to know about the complication in Luc’s life – I’d rather live in hope that it will all miraculously go away. But I guess that’s not possible.’
Tina looked across at Ben. ‘I hope you’ve told him your news?’
Jodie nodded. ‘Yes, but not a word to anyone else, OK?’
‘Of course not. You’re having lunch with Travis soon, aren’t you, and talking about your dad.’
It was Jodie’s turn to sigh. ‘Yes. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.’
‘You’ve always wondered what he was like, so at least you can ask questions now. Didn’t you say Travis had brought some papers and things? Things that will help you understand and get to know the kind of man he was.’
‘The thing is, as far as I was concerned he was dead all my life, which made him a romantic, mysterious figure to me. And the fact that Mum would never talk about him added to that illusion. I can’t get my head around the fact that he was alive all that time.’ Jodie shrugged. ‘As for the fact that Mum lied to me for all those years about him being dead…’ She shook her head. ‘It seems to make a mockery of my childhood, which I thought, despite not having a dad around, was a good one. But now I know it could – should – have been different.’
‘There’s nothing you can do to change it, though. It is what it is and you have to accept it,’ Tina said gently. ‘Maybe concentrate on the fact that you have a new family member in the shape of an alive and handsome brother.’
Jodie nodded. ‘You’re right, of course. Maybe when I’ve actually talked to Travis I’ll feel better about things. But right this minute I’m not sure I really want to acknowledge either the past or the presence of a brother in my life from now on.’
‘It will take time but you will,’ Tina said. ‘I’ve just had a thought. Perhaps I should forget all about Luc and fall madly in love with Travis and disappear off to Australia. We’d be sisters-in-law then.’