Page 38 of Old Flames

“I’m sure it does,” Ayesha said.

“And you’re a far better writer than us,” Jules added, steering the ship to shallow waters. “That’s the last time you’ll hear me say it.”

Ayesha offered a sad smile. “What a waste!”

Jules agreed. They’d wasted years squabbling when each had exactly what the other needed. For the second time within a half hour, she found herself locked in a woman’s embrace. She hugged Ayesha back.

“Promise we’ll keep in touch after this wild weekend is over,” Ayesha whispered.

“Who knows?” Jules said. “We may be trapped here forever. We may never leave.”

“Please don’t say that!” Ayesha whimpered. “I miss home.”

Vicky joined them soon enough, grimacing as she climbed the stairs. “Couldn’t Hemingway have installed an elevator?”

In her cork platform sandals, the climb was more strenuous than it needed to be.

“Pauline would’ve had to install it,” Ayesha said. “Ernest was too busy pissing his money away at the bar.”

“This is some setup,” Vicky said when she reached the top.

Ayesha agreed. “It’s fantastic.”

“The man had the right idea,” Jules said, wistful. “Find someone to bankroll your dreams. What I’d give for a space like this.”

“No book advance can buy you paradise,” Vicky said. “That’s for sure.”

“Remember when we sat at our wobbly dining table to catch up on writing?” Ayesha asked.

“I struggled years to afford my one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn,” Jules said, “and I still write on a wobbly dining table.”

“You three up there!” Sebastien called to them from the garden below. “Look here!”

They swiveled around and found him aiming a camera lens at them. He snapped the photo commemorating the moment when from the threshold of Hemingway’s studio, Jules, Vicky, and Ayesha bid a farewell to arms of another kind and started again as allies and friends.

Leo was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, offering a hand. Why did he have to be so attentive, so overly solicitous? She couldn’t stand it. And yet she took his hand and let him guide her away from the others.

“The Royal typewriter is a beauty. Did you see it?” he asked.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said. “Do you think they’ll encase your MacBook in glass for future generations to admire?”

“I use a word processor that I picked up on eBay for fifty bucks. It’s a worthless piece of shit, glitches often, but hasn’t let me down yet.”

“Wait,” Jules said. “Those old-school processors with the tiny screens that show one paragraph at a time?”

“I like it that way. It’s good for a first draft. You can’t delete what you can’t see.” In a now familiar gesture, he reached for his nicotine gum. “How about you?”

“First draft? Pen and paper, baby.”

“Who’s old-school now?” he said.

A black cat scurried across the lawn, careful to avoid her. Jules shivered. “Those damn cats hate me,” she said. “They love Vicky, though.”

“Vicky is easy to love.”

“What does that mean?” Jules snapped.

“She’s warm and fuzzy.”