Once I’m in the hall, I hear Jasper calling after me.
“Laura, I don’t understand. What happened in there? I was going to name a kitchen after you,” he says, with wounded eyes.
“That’s so sweet of you, but you know, I don’t think I’m kitchen material, Jasper. I’m really more of a living room girl.”
Jasper is still looking at me like a puppy, and I do owe him more of an explanation. I close my eyes, searching for the words, and when I open them, I say, “You know you told me how all your family wanted you to stay in law, that being a lawyer was the right fit for you, a sensible career. But you just had this feeling—about kitchens, this calling.” Jasper frowns, trying to follow what I’m saying. “This guy, Ted, I’ve just realized, he’s kitchens for me.”
Jasper rubs his chin with his hand, his eyes darting left to right as he processes what I’m saying.
“And I’m law?”
I nod, giving him an apologetic smile.
He puts a hand on my shoulder, looks me in the eyes and says, with all sincerity, “Well, you go get your kitchens then,” and then he raises his fist in the air, as though he’s an American football coach, sending me out to the field.
* * *
* * *
I don’t know how I’m going to get back to L’Étacq without waiting here for a cab. I run out into the road, flagging down a car as I go, hoping the island’s hospitality stretches to hitchhikers. The first car around the bend pulls in, and I run to get into a purple Ford Fiesta, driven by a woman in her thirties with curly red hair and a gray whippet on the backseat.
In my haste to get across the road, I’m nearly hit by a car coming the other way. It screeches to a halt, and I thump both my hands on the bonnet, shouting with fear and fury, “Hey, watch it!” at the driver. Then I see who is driving—Ted. He jumps out, leaving the driver door open, the engine still running.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my breath quickening, my heart pounding against my chest.
“I’ve come to make a grand gesture,” he says, running around to the front of the car to meet me. “The cabinet you left me— Laura, I love it, it’s the nicest present anyone has ever given me.” He runs a hand through his hair, his eyes earnest. “I was being a coward. I know I’ve only known you three days, and I know I’m a mess, but—pick me, let me be the one who tries to make you happy. Am I too late?” Ted grins, a sheepish grin. “I’m ready to burst in there and challenge your Suitcase Man to a duel if need be.”
“I don’t need to be dueled over, thank you, and you’re too late anyway,” I say. “I walked out.”
“You walked out? What about your job?”
“I’ll find another one, one that doesn’t involve selling my soul or being with the wrong person.” I shrug.
Almost before I’ve finished speaking, Ted takes me in his arms and kisses me, and every particle of my body melts into joyful jelly. After an irresponsible amount of time spent kissing in the path of oncoming traffic, I apologize to the red-haired woman for holding her up, and Ted and I climb into his cab, grinning at each other.
“I need to shower when we get home, I must look ridiculous with so much makeup and all this hairspray,” I say, reaching up to scrunch the bouffant blond helmet of hair.
“Home?” Ted says, a grin stretching from ear to ear.
“Well, you know, the fisherman’s cottage—home for now.”
Ted pulls the car into gear and starts driving up the hill, away from St. Ouen’s.
“Where are we going?” I ask, turning to look at the road behind us.
“I thought you wanted a grand gesture?” says Ted.
“I thought storming into the interview was going to be the grand gesture?”
He shakes he head and reaches out a hand to hold mine.
“Nope.”
* * *
* * *
Ted drives us back to Plémont, to the place where the hotel used to be, where my parents spent that first summer falling in love.
“Ted, what are we doing here?” I ask, looking at the deserted headland.
He runs around and gets a box from the trunk and then, with his hands full, beckons me with a sideways nod of the head.
“OK, I don’t have a lot of experience with grand gestures, so I might have got this completely wrong,” he says. “Will you just close your eyes while I set something up?”
I smile at how nervous he is. I’m not sure the grandest of romantic gestures start with someone being told to close their eyes so close to a cliff edge, but I go with it. If he asks me to walk anywhere with my eyes closed, I might have to voice my safety concerns.
Then music starts to play from a sound system—“One More Night” by Phil Collins.
I open my eyes, and Ted is holding out an arm, beckoning me over. He takes my hand, and we walk up the path together. My face aches from smiling.
“I thought you hated Phil Collins.”
“I do,” he says. “But if you love him, I’ll allow my ears to be assaulted once in a while.”
On the flat plateau of grass, he’s marked a large rectangle out on the ground with silver tape.
“This is where the old dance hall used to be; I looked up the plans.”
“You didn’t!”
Then he draws me into his arms, and we dance cheek to cheek on the cliff top to one of my favorite songs, and the air is pure magic. How did I not realize earlier—that it was Ted all along?
“So how did I do?” he says quietly in my ear. “Grand enough?”
“Perfect,” I reply. “Just the right amount of effort, without being over the top.”
“A live band would have been too much then?”
“Yeah, that would have been too much,” I say, tilting my face to look up into his eyes.
“Do you think your own kids will be on this cliff top in thirty years’ time, dancing to Phil Collins, trying to replicate the most romantic night of their mother’s life?”
“You’re backing yourself then, if you think this is the most romantic night of my life,” I say, pressing my tongue into my cheek.
“Damn, I knew I should have gone for the band,” he says, and I swallow a laugh as I lean my head against his shoulder.
“Seriously, though, I think I’ve learned not to hold on to other people’s love stories too tightly,” I say. “That it’s not the story that’s important.”