Chapter 19: Love Story
Avignon Station - - Provence, France
Isabelle's boots hit the pavement of the train station's platform with a desperate sort of thud. She had nothing in tow, no overnight bags, no money save for a crumbled stash of euro in the bra of her white cotton dress. And she had no inhibitions other than the one that told her she was wasting her time.
Her heart pounded as she moved toward the small street streaming down through the hills, the one where half a dozen taxis had stopped for her and Roux, what felt like a lifetime ago now. The sun was sinking, the post town was growing a shaded hue of orange, and there were no cars in sight, only Isabelle, only her nerves and certain stupidity. She thought about what she would find if she ever made it to the next town over, to St. Remy. She wondered if Roux would be right where Danny had insisted he was. She wondered if the woman she had seen absent at O'Sullivans, the one that had told her to leave him in the first place, would be by his side, with a crimson-haired, clover-eyed child in her arms. She wondered until she realized the seconds and minutes ticking by without her, and then she did what she knew now she was so excellent at.
She ran.
It was almost four miles to St. Remy, through boundless fields and crop meadows and rolling hills that twinkled with every new color that arose in the sky. And Isabelle ran all of it, the marathon of love's true test. She darted between the high southern grasses of a place that was warm even under the spell of September's wind. She harrowed through a dozen or more hidden creeks, over derelict fences from a time long since gone, and across the properties of unsuspecting French farmers. She ran with nothing but him on her mind, trying to remember every little detail. There was his face in this place, in only St. Remy, rugged and disheveled and passionate. There was the taste of his mouth, like the richest of wines and the headiest of tobacco smoke. There were his hands, just and lovingly superior and heated at every pore of her skin. There were his arms--his legs--that tangled all around her, locking her to him forever without restraint.
And even that hadn't won against her leap of conclusions all those months ago. Fiona had said one single thing to her, that she was pregnant with his child, that she suspected Roux would want to have a family with her at the news, and Isabelle had made the worst choice of her life, to run from the only person that ever purely loved her.
Now though, after a year of jet-setting and platinum album covers and romancing with an untouchable heart, of taking the entire country and even the world by the string dangling in her hand, Isabelle was running right back to where it all started. She was running down the purple streets of a town she'd never seen before, tumbling through the darkening alleys of a place that filled her with a sense of gratification, in merely being there. Tiny St. Remy was the most powerful place in the world to her. It was a cosmic sort of magnet that seemed to pull her further and further into its depths, closer and closer to the one corner she needed to be. The streets were shadowed with the quieted voices of evening patrons, growing only louder and more distinct as she turned towards the name of the small road Danny had given her in a single shout as she stormed from the pub, Rue Carnot.
It was picturesque, in only the way finality can really be. She fell against a tattered old wall, breathing heavily, brow damp with her constant movement and never ceasing storm of the valley. Isabelle's hand was pressed to her heart where it was trying to beat its way from her chest and all she could think to do was stare at the corner of the street, where the truth sat waiting for her, under the illuminated glow of a windowed pub, a light that drew her ever nearer like a fly to the electric zing of a lamppost. La Gousse d'Ail, a family operated bistro, was settled at the last crook of the street, luring crowds with its tender harmony, the one that seemed to seep through the very cracks in the walls and the threads of the moth eaten curtains in the windows. It was homely, comfortable even from a distance, and begging Isabelle to step across to the other sidewalk, to enter the radiation of the lights and heat and assembly, to find the man behind the guitar she could distinctly pick out between the other gypsy instrumentals.
Roux and his guitar, she thought lovingly, a smile plastered on her face as she walked to the corner of the window and stared inside.
He sat in the center of lively band, perched on a stage like that at O'Sullivans, but not so disconcerted with drunken fans. Where he was, strumming lightly on his rugged olive Gibson, he was safe and sound and wrapped in something that seemed to say he was 'home' instead of just 'welcomed', the way he was in Paris, the way they both had been. The men who surrounded him, their hair dark and tangled, their fingernails on their instruments dirty and labored, their brows strong and their jaws shifty with the lyrics of the music they played, all appeared to be his brothers, instead of just his friends like Connor and Danny. And maybe they weren't in retrospect, maybe they were only his brothers through music, but the uncertainty warmed her all the same as she watched him. The slide of his fingers across the six strings that had once spun a web of tunes for her alone was mesmerizing, and it shot a ripple of warmth along her spine as she remembered just what those fingers had done to her body on the coattails of the summer before.
"Merci. Merci de venir ce soir."
The voice of the band's lead pulled her back from all of her memories, and with one hand on the glass of the mirroring window, she watched as the crowd of satisfied guests applauded, whistled and shouted in French gratitude that confused her. There was a shift in the seating on the stage, whispers of things from the patrons as they ate their food and sipped at their wine, and before Isabelle knew what was happening, it was Roux sitting on the stool at the foot of the stage, his guitar propped on his lap as his mouth moved toward the microphone. Her heart began to kick against her chest again and even her hand couldn't calm it this time. It had been too long since she'd heard him sing, let alone the sound of his voice, and as he opened his lips with a smile toward the audience, she gasped and realized that his eyes had somehow driven straight through the shoulders and faces of the masses. His blackened gaze became a wild stare in her direction and it was as if he were peering deep into her soul from the glass separating them. She saw him shake his head with a twisted sort of confusion plastered on his face, as though he were seeing a ghost, and before he could look back and find out the truth, Isabelle was gone from the window and moving into the street again.
His voice though, above the noises of the restaurant, trailed after her.
"This next song is something that I wrote for an American band a few months ago. This is th' first time I've played it for anyone, so I hoped ye all like it."
She paused, boots scratching cobblestones and her hands twitchy against the thighs of her dress.
"It was inspired by an American girl. Go figure."
The laughter in the crowd was humbling, warm, so much so that Isabelle shifted back on her heels, facing the light of the café again. There was quiet for only a moment, and when it faded away, it drifted to the easy symphony of a steel Gibson, a couple of Fenders, a violin and a piano. Then, above everything else in that tiny building, and in that silent town, and the whole of the surrounding universe, there was nothing but the sound of a lover's voice.
So ye sailed away
Into a grey sky morning.
Now I'm here t' stay,
Love can be so boring…
An' nothing's quite the same now
I just say your name now—
Isabelle was lost without mode to really judge anything but her boots shuffling towards the doorway of the restaurant, towards the tune that was hers. Her hands trembled, her knees shook and her eyes were welling with tears, but she knew none of it. She only knew his voice.
But it's not so bad
You're only th' best I ever had.
Ye don't want me back,
You're just th' best I ever had…
'That was the best I ever had', she heard herself saying all too long ago. Vous êtes le meilleur que j'ai jamais eu, he'd written on that napkin. You're the best I've ever had. She understood it all so completely now, everything that was between the lines of right and true, wrong and false. And where her gaze turned, around the corner of the doorway, through the weaving heads of the crowd, she saw only one thing, and it's what broke her heart in two. She saw him, tearing the words from his chest with every thrash of his guitar, and evident moisture piercing the corner of his right eye.
So ye stole my world
Now I'm just a phony
Remembering th' girl
Leaves me down an' lonely…
Well send it in a letter
Make yourself feel better—
But it's not so bad
You're only th' best I ever had
Ye don't want me back
You're just th' best I ever 'ad…
She put one boot down inside of the café, then the other, stepping up to the level of the tables, of the bar, of the stage four yards away. She didn't pay the listening, paying crowd any mind as she began to weave through chairs and bodies, lulled by the peaceful regret in Roux's voice, the one that said this was the closure, this was her last chance to interrupt his decision to corner her away in his heart and completely forget. She had a matter of seconds, if lucky, to cast her spell again and make him turn his eyes up from the guitar, from the solemn seams where he appeared to be trying to stop the tears from falling with his song.
An' it might take some time
T' patch me up inside
But I can't take it,
So I—I run away an' hide
And I might find in time
That ye were always right
You're always right…
Then, as the tune enveloped into a valley of silence, as the strumming and movement and brashness and sound all came to a seducing pause, Roux lifted his eyes instinctually. He half expected to see a bored crowd, or a slumber audience. But instead, he was granted only the haunting omen of his every word. He had sworn he'd seen the muse of her memory through the window, the same way he'd seen her in the reflection of every mirror, as a mirage in every field and street and doorway since she'd left him. This time though, she was feet away, standing in the midst of reality, in the middle of a patronage of listeners that he knew could not be persuaded by his teasing mind. This was real. She, Isabelle--in her cotton dress from the past, her golden curls spiraling down like a waterfall of sunlight, her old brown boots scuffed to absolute perfection—was staring at him, looking straight through him, touching his heart.
Choked up and unable to breath to sing, or sing to conclude the purpose of the song, he waited until he saw her smile and mouth the word 'play'. And only then, for the first time since forever, did he allow himself to give into the ghost of the girl in his guitar, and only then did he begin playing again, and finish singing her song.
So you sailed away
Into a grey sky morning
Now I'm here to stay
Love can be so boring—
Was it what you wanted? (she shook her head with a wild grin)
Could it be I'm haunted? (and again with tears in her eyes)
Roux took the liberty then, for his own swelling heart, to stand from the stool and leap down from the edge of the stage. He continued to strum at the instrument as he swayed through the tables towards the only risen body, the one that stuck out like a ray of light through a cloudy day, the one that had Made in the U.S. written all over her. He loved that about his Isabelle.
But it's not so bad
You're only the best I ever had.
You don't want me back (she nodded ferociously when he stepped towards her)
You're just the best I ever had…
As the band continued playing, Roux let the guitar drop from his hands, sliding until it hung by a lone string across his chest, and against his hip. His boot toes matched hers in the middle of the restaurant, amid the startled and whispering customers, the ones that sighed with knowing passion and romanticism at the way he looked into Isabelle's eyes, the eyes of a young girl that some of them recognized from the covers of French Elle and Marie Claire. His left hand came out to cradle her cheek as she nuzzled to the touch, her tears running down his palm from her jaw. Her coffee eyes were aglow with something he'd missed badly enough to have killed him. Then he stepped just that much closer and pressed his forehead to hers, both of them lost inside of the dwindling harmony of the band, as he whispered against her nose, "You're just th' best I ever had, Izzie."
"You mean it?"
"O' course I do." He kissed the bridge of her nose. "It's all I ever meant."
She sighed then, falling to the place where all the pain had come from, the day that everything had first ended between them. And surprising herself even more than she surprised him, Isabelle noticed the sensation of her feet shifting back from him, her face from his palm, and lastly, herself from the inside of the restaurant as she hurdled through the crowd. There were unsuspecting gasps from the audience, people trying to stop her, trying to hold her back, but she was stronger than the force of hopeless French romantics. She made it to the door with effort and very nearly out of the café.
"Isabelle. Stop."
To her dismay though, she halted. She'd known she would if he told her to. She had never ceased to abide by his desperation, or his pleading demands. With one hand on the panel of the doorway and one boot half out into the night air again, she breathed in deep as the people around her whispered amongst themselves.
"You're not running from me again."
His words stung. Not because he was showing his force over her, but because she knew they were completely true. She wasn't going to run. Instead she turned back to him, to the show down that felt as necessary as his lips at this point.
"I ran because I didn't want to get in the way before."
Roux stepped once closer to her through the gawking townspeople.
"Wot' did ye think you'd be in the way o', honestly Isabelle?"
"Of everything." Her voice doubled against his. "I was already in the way when I came to Paris. I was in the middle of you and Fiona and--"
"There was nothing t' be in the middle of," he cut her off. "Fiona an' I--"
To which she returned the favor with a hasty step inward. "I know all about you and her. I know that there was something there. Maybe it wasn't what you felt for me, but it was enough."
"Wot' are ye talking about, love?"
"The baby, Roux."
With her solemn response, came the lull of the crowd. He stared at her from feet away, his hands subconsciously drawn into fists as his brow furrowed with anger. In his mind, Roux saw Fiona. He saw her coercing lips and her bare skin beneath him, where he'd taken out the pain of his missing Isabelle for almost five months prior. Then he saw Fiona storming out of the pub the same day he'd found Isabelle on the cover of Rolling Stone. He saw her with her bags and a scowl. He saw her with her lying eyes, the ones that he'd always somehow known were keeping something important from him, something that she herself had obviously stirred.
"Fiona said she was pregnant with your child. I didn't want to be involved."
He shook his head with a gaping jaw. "So ye ran, without mentioning the reason t' me then?"
Isabelle was frozen under his words, mostly because he was right to say them.
"I didn't want to get hurt again."
"I would never hurt you. I've told ye that, Izzie."
"I know, but--"
"But nothing." He filled in the gap between them, and with the force that only love can ever shelter in a man he took her face in both of his hands, his fingers twirled gingerly through her blonde curls. "There is no baby. There is no Fiona. There's nothing but me, darling."
There were a few passionate sighs from nearby women and Isabelle regarded them as her sign. That combined with the burning fury of truth in his eyes that resonated tears in hers.
"I loved only you, Isabelle. Never er', ever. It was just you."
She nodded peaceably in his hands. "And do you still--" then breath choked her and she gulped. "Do you still love me?"
Everyone's breath was held with hers. She stared longingly up at him, begging him to take her back to where they used to be, to the places his song had conjured through memory. And Roux was just as eager, just as determined to make her his all over again. He rode the wave of anxiousness in the crowd and in Isabelle, dropping his face to hers, nearly touching her lips when he released the tension that brought the entire swarm of locals to their knees, right alongside the American girl that had stormed their pub.
"Wot' the hell do ye think, love?"
Isabelle's tears were cut by her laughter.
"I think you love me like I love you."
"Like crazy?"
She pressed her lips to his with an undertone, "Like crazy," and the pub was washed away into a contented fit of starry-eyed ovation.
(Song by Gary Allen, written by Vertical Horizon—Best I Ever Had)