Fromage a Trois Read online

  I frantically tried to piece together what was going on. Any notion of me supporting Paul had swiftly disappeared and been replaced by rage. Questions spun through my head: Why did he bring me to our favorite restaurant to dump this news on me? Did he really believe I would just sit back and get on board with his plan? How could I have thought he was going to propose? Did I really waste the last eight years of my life with this fool? My God, was he sleeping with this meditating CrossFit girl?

  “Are you sleeping with this meditating CrossFit girl?” I blurted out.

  “Who? Jessyka? Don’t go there, Ella. And even if there were someone else in my life right now, it wouldn’t change anything. I always figured that we were just a bit of fun, nothing too serious. You feel the same about us too, right?”

  The problem was that I didn’t feel the same. After eight years together I was deeply committed, and up until dinner, I’d thought that Paul was too. I was sure that I’d wanted him to propose. God, I’d even started imagining the lavish wedding ceremony: my poufy white dress that would have to be tamed by my half-dozen bridesmaids, the epic flower arrangements that would visually represent our ever-blooming love. I’d even made a mood board. Ella, you idiot!

  “Paul, we’ve built a life together. And I love that life. I thought we were moving towards the same goal.” I was coming across more desperate than I wanted.

  “What goal?”

  “Getting married . . .” I started.

  Paul looked stunned. “Married? We’ve never talked about getting married before. I didn’t even know you believed in marriage.”

  “Where did you think this relationship was going?”

  He was mute.

  I didn’t even bother bringing up the idea of us having children together. The life I’d been envisaging for us as a couple was quickly imploding.

  “And what about our apartment?”

  It was Paul’s turn to lean towards me. His eyes narrowed as he said, “Ella, that’s my apartment. I paid for it. It’s my name on the mortgage.”

  I gasped. There was the financially-ruthless Paul I recognized. Granted, he had paid the deposit and was paying the majority of the monthly mortgage payments, but it was definitely our place; we’d chosen it together. I’d been there at every inspection and had supported him when he was making the offer. I’d even helped choose the furniture. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that he might claim it as his territory. What the hell was happening?

  He continued, avoiding my gaze. “Yes, you helped me find it and I’m grateful for that. But if you can’t support my chosen path in life, I don’t know where that leaves us.”

  Paul pulled out his wallet—no ring box in sight—and motioned to the server to bring the bill.

  “Ella, I need to get going or I’ll miss my flight,” he said. Our relationship clearly wasn’t up for further discussion.

  I looked at the man in front of me, and suddenly the future I’d spent the past few months dreaming about began to seem absurd. Nothing that Paul was saying made me feel like I could, or should, wait for him to get back. For the past eight years I’d compromised my own plans and goals to fit in with his life, and he’d just strung me along. The realization hit me hard. I felt like I might throw up.

  Enough is enough, girl! Where’s your pride?

  “Paul, I think we should break up!” I half yelled, shocked as the words came tumbling out of my mouth.

  “Seriously?” he asked. “You don’t want to wait until I get back and see if I’ve changed or not?”

  “I don’t think I do,” I said.

  “Oh well. I guess some things just have a natural ‘expiration date,’” he said, air-quoting the last two words with his fingers.

  I grabbed my clutch and made to leave, feeling trapped at the table, at the restaurant, in my dress, but Paul put his hand on my arm, wanting me to sit for a minute longer. I searched his face for a sign of something, anything, that would bring us back together, still hoping that this was all a big joke and that maybe he’d propose after all, but his face remained somber. He sat there in his purple shirt with the hideous dollar-sign cufflinks that screamed finance-douche rather than meditation master. He was my Paul. But now he wasn’t.

  “What?” I snapped, still trying to hold in my emotions, desperate to get away from him so I could scream in rage, burst into tears, or perhaps try both simultaneously.

  He patted my hand patronizingly and I brushed him off. “When do you think you’ll move out?” he asked.

  “I’ll be gone by next weekend,” I said dramatically.

  “Ella, you don’t need to rush. Take all the time you need. If you’re still there when I get back, we can talk some more.”

  “I’ll be gone by next weekend,” I repeated. “Now are we done?”

  Paul nodded, an infuriating air of zen descending over him.

  “One last question, Paul,” I said. “When you told me you were saving for something big, what the hell was it?”

  “The retreat,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve booked the more expensive Chakra Cabin. It has its own outdoor shower and private plunge pool.”

  “Of course you did,” I said. “How very mindful of you.”

  Standing up, I caught my stocking on the wicker of the chair, which set off a chain reaction and made me spin around too quickly and knock over what was left of my wine. The liquid ran about the table dramatically, and I envisaged it as the blood pouring from my heart into Paul’s lap—how fitting that we’d ordered a bottle of red, I thought. He let out a manly squeal and started patting his trousers furiously with a napkin. I muffled a laugh, not surprised to see that his zen state could be so easily shaken.

  Given that we were already making a scene, I decided to amp up the action some more and threw my remaining water in his face. “And that’s for cheating on me!” And even though he hadn’t—or perhaps he had—it felt good. Really good.

  Turning on my heels, I left the restaurant with my head held high, holding in the torrent of tears until I was a safe distance away.

  Rounding the corner and passing by the restaurant’s main window, I glanced through to see if he was watching me go, but his ugly face was illuminated by his mobile screen. Probably messaging his new spiritual advisor, Jessyka, now that he was finally free of his unsympathetic girlfriend and could live life as his true self. Or perhaps he was just making plans to meet up with her when he got back from Thailand and have sex after pushing a tire around or something.

  I made it to the car before my tears arrived in a long, steady stream, interrupted only by my noisy and unglamorous nose blows. I sat for a long time staring at the rain on the windshield, trying to figure out what had just happened.

  Oh God, what have I done? I just broke up with someone who, up until a few hours earlier, I had planned to spend the rest of my life with.

  Chapter

  3

  I SAT IN THE CAR and indulged my tears, wondering where the line between my relationship expectations and Paul’s feelings had gotten so skewed; wondering how I’d wasted close to a decade dating a guy who could so easily tell me that he was leaving me to go and “find himself.” For a few seconds I contemplated calling Mum to tell her that Paul and I had broken up, but then decided against it, fearing the complicated discussion that would follow.

  Where did I go so wrong?

  I thought back to when I met Paul. It was eight years earlier on a European summer tour. I was young and wide-eyed and so was he, but while I was trying to see and experience the world—having been backpacking around Thailand, Vietnam, and China for a month beforehand—Paul had flown into Paris directly with four of his college friends, and it was obvious they were only there for a good time.

  I’d fallen in love with Paris the second I stepped out of the train station at Gare de Lyon; the river, the buildings, Parisians—everything seemed so old and romantic. I walked the streets for hours, getting lost in m
y admiration of the city, strolling into galleries and eating crêpes whenever I got tired or hungry. I was mystified by the grandeur of the parks and gardens, tempted by the windows full of pastries and cheese, and enchanted by the city’s inhabitants, whose main preoccupation seemed to be enjoying life.

  Falling in love with Paul had taken a little longer. With the tour group, we set off on our ten-day extravaganza around western Europe. The standard tour revolved around oohing and ahhing at historic monuments during the day, and then desecrating whatever beautiful city we found ourselves in with nights of drunken debauchery. After nearly two weeks of this, we ended up back in Paris with a couple of mostly free days before everyone went their separate ways.

  It wasn’t until a few days in—our first night out, in fact—that I even spoke more than a few sentences to Paul and his friends. And on the penultimate night of the tour, after returning from a boozy night out in a club on the Seine, he pulled me aside, finally finding the guts to ask me if I wanted to spend our last evening together, with a picnic in the Champ de Mars overlooking the Eiffel Tower.

  Paul was different from the rest of his group of friends; he seemed to care a little less about drinking and was more serious about life in general. I liked how discreet he was when asking me out, how sweet it was that he waited until the last minute to do so. He reminded me of a Labrador with big, adorable eyes, desperate for affection. Of course I jumped at the offer, thinking to myself, a love affair beginning in Paris . . . could the story get any better?

  So later that afternoon, we’d strolled off to an épicerie to buy picnic food and loaded our backpacks with bread, cheese, and fresh fruit. It was summer in Europe and everything delicious was in season. Figs were ready to explode with their sweet juice at the merest touch, the summery smell of peaches infused the sidewalks, and the baskets of strawberries lining the fruit stands screamed for attention in a flurry of luscious red temptation.

  Paul wandered around the cheese section and picked up a slice of Comté. He began telling me that it was one of France’s finest cheeses. He seemed so confident and sophisticated when I looked at him through my twenty-one-year-old eyes—especially compared to the other guys I’d just spent the past two weeks with—and I was impressed by his knowledge of French food. When we got to the cash register, Paul paid for the cheese and the baguette, and then added two bottles of champagne to our haul. He brushed my offer of cash away and slipped out his—parent-funded—credit card. It was such a small thing, but that impressed me, back then. He was such a grown-up.

  On the Champ de Mars, we sat, drinking and reminiscing about our European adventures, edging closer together as the summer sun slowly set over the city. I cut myself a slice of Comté and mindlessly bit into it but was immediately overtaken by my senses. It was glorious. The light, slightly rubbery and slightly crumbly cheese was perfection: fruity and nutty, interspersed with salt crystals that popped like flavor explosions on my tongue. And as if by magic, during that bite, the Eiffel Tower lit up, flashing brilliantly in time with my chewing. I asked Paul how he’d known that this cheese was so delicious.

  “A man never reveals his secrets,” he replied. And I laughed because it sounded corny, but after a lot of champagne and under Paris’s spell, I found Paul utterly charming.

  Finally, after an involuntary shiver and just as I was about to suggest we go back to the hostel, Paul slid his arm around my shoulders. I remember in that moment feeling the safest yet most free I had ever felt in my life. We were having this amazing holiday over on the other side of the world without a worry or care between us. All that was in front of me was this gorgeous Australian man and the lights and intoxicating beauty of the city. And then he kissed me. A little awkwardly at first, with his perfectly straight white teeth clunking against mine, but once we’d found our rhythm, I felt like we were the force making the Eiffel Tower sparkle.

  We must have been kissing for quite some time, because when we finally broke apart for air, the mass of other people who had been picnicking around us was nowhere to be seen. After realizing that we were more or less alone—there were a few other couples engaging in similar activities at a safe distance—Paul pulled me closer again. I felt dizzy with what seemed like love, but was more likely my raging twenty-something hormones.

  When I told friends and family this story, I would generally stop around this moment, before Paul slid his hands up my top and, a little too expertly, undid my bra, keeping that part to myself. But lately, despite it being an entertaining tale to tell people when they’d ask how we met, it had begun to seem clichéd, like I’d outgrown it. I’d reverted to telling people the short version: that we met when we were both students traveling through Europe.

  A few years after we started dating, I asked Paul again how he’d known about the deliciousness of Comté, and he told me the real story. During university he’d been reading a series of British spy novels starring Jonathan Boons and one of the books in the series had been set in France. After defeating August Le Comté, a corrupt French aristocrat, Boons had finally managed to sleep with the elusive French agent, Fanny d’Amour. Following a night of hot passion, they too had shared champagne and twenty-four-month-old Comté, but against a backdrop of the French Riviera.

  “But hang on, had you even tried it before?” I asked as a follow-up.

  “No, but I figured that if it was good enough for Boons and Fanny, it’d be good enough for us.”

  Maybe if I’d known this at the time, our relationship would have deteriorated sooner. I mean, who learns about cheese in a spy novel and pretends to know anything about how it tastes? It seemed absurd even thinking about it. I’d pegged Paul as a worldly food connoisseur, knowing about cheese and wine. And while a slice of cheese wasn’t solely responsible for us dating, it’d certainly been a contributing factor to making that night in Paris, and Paul, seem perfect.

  But that was Paul. Always jumping on a trend and believing it was the most important thing in the world. What was once cheese became CrossFit and had now morphed into meditation. Perhaps I should have guessed what would come next.

  I checked my watch and even after half an hour of sitting miserably in the car, I realized I was probably still too drunk to drive home. I grabbed my phone and ordered an Uber. When the driver pulled up next to me, he looked me up and down carefully before letting me in. He must have spotted my red, puffy eyes a mile off.

  I blew my nose loudly and the driver sighed, turned down the radio, and asked if I was all right.

  “Yeah, I’m totally fine. Just another Friday night,” I told him, trying to sound chipper.

  “Thank God. I just had this customer who’d broken up with her boyfriend over dinner. Can you imagine? She was a total mess. It was a sad state of affairs. She was a real desperado. Didn’t even see it coming.”

  A two-star rating seemed more than reasonable.

  I reached Paul’s apartment with frozen fingers and fumbled with the keys. Once inside, I slammed the door behind me, threw off my heels, and chucked my mobile on the kitchen table. I went immediately to bed, ripping off my dress as I stumbled down the stairs.

  Chapter

  4

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT morning with sun streaming through the windows. The clouds from the night before had cleared and it was a gorgeous day.

  Eugh, just my luck, I thought.

  I got up to go to the bathroom, took one look at my puffy, mascara-stained face, and gasped in horror. I closed the curtains and got back in bed, thanking God it was Saturday and I didn’t have to go to work. I let the tears flow again and eventually fell back to sleep, avoiding any thoughts of Paul, the breakup, and having to move out of his perfect apartment.

  I spent most of the morning between sleep and tears. It was only after hearing a half dozen or so message alerts from my phone upstairs that I was pulled from the safety of my warm bed. My heart sank when I saw that there wasn’t one from Paul. No message to say that it’d all been a big mistake a
nd he was sorry. Instead, they were nearly all from my mother asking me how things had gone last night. I really didn’t want to respond to her, but I knew she wouldn’t stop bothering me if I didn’t. I sent a quick message telling her that Paul hadn’t proposed, avoiding any mention of the breakup, which would lead to an eventual interrogation over a long and arduous phone call.

  There were also two messages from my good friend Billie—the first asking me if I was free for coffee, the second, precisely an hour later, making sure I wasn’t dead. I called her immediately. I needed to talk to someone about what had happened and she was always good at giving advice. She’d be more sympathetic than Mum. Or at least she’d take my side.

  “Hey,” she shouted, and I turned down the volume on my phone. “How’re things?”

  “Not so great. Paul and I broke up last night.” I fought back tears.

  “You guys what?”

  “Well, I broke up with him. But it was sort of an accident,” I said.

  “An accidental breakup? Tell me everything.”

  And so I gave Billie the extended version of what had happened, from the tight dress to Paul’s desire to go on a retreat and find himself, and finally, the moment that instigated the breakup: his telling me that I could wait to see how he felt about our relationship when he got back. I didn’t mention that I had gone to dinner expecting Paul to propose, because in the light of day, it felt too ridiculous to even say out loud.

  How could I have been so blind?

  “Well, good riddance. You’ll be one hundred percent better off without him.”

  Billie’s quick appraisal of my situation may or may not have been entirely truthful, but I didn’t mind. She was dependable and sweet, and she certainly knew how to lie when she needed to, especially if it was to protect her friends.