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The knock on her door is the first indication that something is seriously wrong.
Because Gabin doesn’t knock.
Usually he announces his presence by engaging in a shouting match with Lucien in the reception area. Then the doors will burst open with the kind of force only rivaled by Cheyenne’s equally dramatic entries, and Gabin will strike a dramatic pose and exclaim “Me voici!”, just in case Geneviève still hasn’t caught on.
But today, there is a knock, and there’s Lucien calling out to her, “Gabin wants to see you,” and then Gabin slinks through the doors, looking more like a kicked puppy than what Le Figaro has most recently called “an étoile montante” and the Frankfurter Allgemeine has referred to, in both flattering and mildly offensive manner, as “Queere Sensation.”
“What happened?” she asks, concerned, when he falls heavily into the chair across from the desk without looking her in the eye. “Is something wrong with your mother?”
He looks up at her at last. “How would I know?” he shrugs, indifferently. “I haven’t spoken to her in months.”
“Right,” she says, and reminds herself sternly that meddling in her dancers’ family affairs hasn’t gone over so well for her in the past. The last thing she needs right now is to get into an argument with Gabin’s elusive mother on the phone.
“So what is it then?” she asks, folding her hands on top of her paperwork.
“It’s June,” he says gravely, as if that might somehow be news to her.
“I’m aware,” she answers dryly. “This may come as a surprise to you, but keeping track of the calendar is part of my job.”
“Yes,” he says, absentmindedly, and she wonders if he heard a word of what she said. “The season ends in three weeks.”
“I am aware of that too,” she nods slowly. “And you are usually pretty happy about getting out of here for a bit.” She narrows her eyes. “But if you are here to ask about skateboarding or parkour again, the answer is still no.” She points a stern finger at him. “You are no good to the company if you bust your kneecap on a slab of concrete because you find it too boring to walk down a staircase the normal way.”
He shakes his head unhappily. “No,” he says morosely. “No parkour, I promise.” He swallows. “Tobias is supposed to leave once the season ends.”
“Ooh,” she makes, and feels a little stupid for not seeing this coming. “Yes. I was wondering when you two would want to talk to me about that.”
Gabin laughs sharply. “That would require him talking to me about it first.”
She frowns. “You must have spoken about it at some point.”
Gabin throws up his hands. “I tried to bring it up, believe me," he says. “Many times. I tell him what day it is and he says to remind him again when the new Jurassic World movie drops. I ask him about his summer plans and he says his only plan is to stay out of the sun as much as he can. A few days ago, I asked him if he would want to show me around New York sometime and he told me I could be his plus one at a wedding he got invited to, except then he realized that the wedding already happened two weeks ago and he forgot to RSVP.”
A giggle escapes Geneviève’s throat, and she hastily covers it up with a cough that still prompts Gabin to shoot her a look from narrow eyes. She gestures dramatically towards her throat, reaches for her bottle of Perrier, and hopes that it’s enough to avoid any suspicion that she may not be taking this situation as seriously as Gabin demands.
“Maybe he already assumes that you will stay together,” she suggests gently, and pours sparkling water into a glass. “Long distance is pretty normal for people in the arts, you know. A lot of couples do it for years.”
Gabin raises his brows at her. “Do you know how Tobias’ last relationship ended?”
She spills water on her desk in surprise. “He’s been in a relationship?”
“Of course he’s been in a relationship,” Gabin says indignantly. “He’s 36 years old. And. You know. Extremely attractive.”
“Sure,” Geneviève says noncommittally. Personally she prefers men who don’t look like their hair got cut by a 5-year old with craft scissors, but there is no accounting for taste. “So what happened?”
Gabin leans forward in his chair. “Tobias went to Japan for work and then just forgot to call him for a year.” He lets himself fall back in his seat. “By the time he remembered he had a boyfriend, the guy was engaged to someone else.”
Geneviève chokes on her water. “Ah,” she makes. “That is, uhm. Unfortunate.” She frowns and sets down her glass. “But surely you can’t think that he would just forget about you?”
Gabin shrugs and looks away.
“But you’re his –“ She gestures. “His person. His muse. Even Marie Claire says so.”
She picks up the most recent issue of the magazine that landed on her desk a couple of days ago and flips it open to the first page of the feature about Tobias and Gabin. “Le génie et son muse,” she reads out loud. “See? Those pictures came out great, by the way.”
Gabin takes the magazine from her and stares at the title page of the article. “I had to physically drag him to that shoot, you know,” he says glumly. “He didn’t want to do it.”
She sighs, then opens the top drawer in her desk and reaches for the small box she keeps in there for moments like these.
“Here.” She lifts the lid and offers the open box to Gabin. “Have one of these.”
He looks down at the chocolates, then up at her. “Is this a trap?” he asks suspiciously. “I’m not supposed to have sugar.”
“It’s not a trap,” she sighs. “It’s an emergency. Come on,” she gestures. “It’s Patrick Roger. Best of the best. I won’t tell anyone.”
He stares longingly at the chocolates. “Fine,” he says, and selects one of the tiny nougat squares. His eyes flutter shut in bliss when he pops it into his mouth.
“Almost good enough to give up dancing for,” he says after he swallows, and opens his eyes again. “Merci.”
“Gabin,” she says firmly. “Just talk to him. He obviously adores you. Everyone can see that. The entire internet has seen that. I promise, you will figure something out.”
“Okay,” he says, his expression somewhere between doubtful and cautiously optimistic, and she really, really hopes that she isn’t making promises that she has no power to keep.
“Is this going to take long?” Tobias asks. He fidgets and glances over his shoulder at the door, as if he is already contemplating flight. “Because you know I have a rehearsal scheduled for right now.”
“Your rehearsal doesn’t start until ten,” Geneviève says, “and this isn’t going to take long.” She signals at Lucien, who quickly pulls the doors shut behind Tobias - not really to trap him, of course, that would be unethical - but just to slow him down a little if he actually decides to leave before she is done.
Sit,” she adds, a little more sharply, when Tobias starts wandering toward the built-in shelves, and he jumps in surprise at the sound of her voice but obediently returns to the chair across from her desk.
“What is it?” he asks. “Look, if this is about Sophie, I am not the one who made her cry.”
“You mean Sonya?” Geneviève asks dryly. “But no, this is not about her. Look, Tobias, I just wanted to talk to you about New York.”
“New York?" Tobias frowns. “If you need travel recommendations, Jack is a much better person to ask.”
Geneviève sighs. “You do remember that New York lent you to us for a year, right?”
“… Yes?” Tobias says carefully, as if he thinks it may be a trick question.
“And that you are supposed to go back when the year is over?”
“So?” Tobias shrugs. “Why are we talking about something that’s not happening for months, when I have rehearsal in –” he looks at his watch – “fifteen minutes?”
Geneviève pinches the bridge of her nose. “Do you know what month it is, Tobias?”
“Of course,” he says, then pauses. Blinks. Glances out the window, uncertainly. “April?” he guesses.
“It’s June 25, Tobias,” she says. “The theater closes for the summer in three weeks. You are supposed to be back in New York by August 1.”
Tobias stares at her. “That can’t be right,” he says slowly. “I just got here.”
“Well, time flies when you are having fun, as the Americans say,” Geneviève says. “I just wanted to make sure you understand that your time here is coming to an end, so if there is anything you need to – take care of, or discuss …”
“I can’t leave now,” Tobias says, agitatedly. “I still have to – I still have a lot of work to do.”
Geneviève puts her hands flat on the desk to resist the urge to throw a paperweight at his head. “Your work here ends in three weeks,” she repeats. “You have been incredibly productive and we are all very grateful to you. You don’t need to worry about your work. But perhaps –“
Tobias jumps up from his chair. “I have to go,” he says. “I am going to be late for rehearsal.”
“Tobias –“ Geneviève starts, but he is already at the door, and she watches him push against the handle for several moments before he remembers that the door opens into the room and he’s supposed to pull. Eventually Lucien pushes the door open from the other side, almost hitting Tobias in the face, and Tobias throws up his hands and storms off, leaving Lucien to look at her from the doorway, questioningly.
“I take it that didn’t go well?”
“Quel foutoir,” she mutters and buries her face in her hands. “God, what a mess.”
“Y a-t-il un problème, Lucien?” she asks warily when Lucien pokes his head into the room again about an hour later. She has just started to actually be productive, but she has an inkling that this half-written email to a potential donor will remain incomplete for a while.
Lucien clears his throat. “It’s Melanie.”
Geneviève frowns. “Shouldn’t she be in rehearsal with Tobias?” For a ballerina of her standing, Melanie tends to be pretty low maintenance, but of course everyone has a breaking point. Geneviève just hopes it’s not another injury. Or pregnancy. She makes sure the email is saved as a draft and takes a deep breath. “Let her in.”
“Madame Lavigne.” Melanie is standing just inside the door, apparently reluctant to venture further into the room, and that doesn’t make Geneviève feel particularly optimistic about the kind of message she is here to deliver. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but …”
“Just spit it out,” Geneviève says, “so you can go back to rehearsal. Tobias is not going to be happy if you miss –“
“It is about Tobias,” Melanie blurts out quickly, and oh. Now her anxiousness makes a lot more sense.
“What about Tobias?” Geneviève asks, rubbing her forehead tiredly.
Melanie nervously twists her fingers together. “Tobias and Gabin started shouting at each other about ten minutes into the rehearsal. It went on for a long time, so we left the room to, uhm, give them privacy, but they are still yelling, and people can hear everything from the hallway.”
“Shit,” Geneviève says. She is starting to think that more pregnancy news might have been preferable after all. “Did you tell Raphaël?”
“We did,” Melanie confirms. “He said he doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this. And that if he did have to deal with them, he would probably strangle them both, and a double homicide would be a bad look for the ballet. So we thought maybe you could –“
“I’m on my way,” Geneviève sighs and grabs her heels from the floor.
The shouting is loud enough to be heard halfway down the staircase, and she looks at Melanie, incredulously. “They really have been at this for an hour?”
Melanie shrugs. “Tobias doesn’t take breaks.”
“I suppose we should be glad they aren’t opera singers, so we don’t have to worry abut them losing their voices,” Geneviève says, then stops in her tracks. “Has anyone been throwing things? Do we need an ambulance? A fire truck? Animal control?”
Melanie shakes her head. “Unless things really escalated in the last five minutes, no. Just shouting so far.”
"Thank God for small mercies," Geneviève mutters and looks down the hallway, lined with dancers whose expressions range from horrified fascination to deep embarrassment. Geneviève tries to offer reassuring smiles while she makes her way through their rows to the door of the rehearsal room. Someone has had the presence of mind to close it, not that it matters – she (and likely everyone else within twenty kilometers of Paris) can hear them both just fine through the wood.
“ – many times do I have to tell you that I didn’t realize it was June?” Tobias snaps, frustrated. He’s pacing, probably. She can easily picture it.
“How can you not have realized?” She imagines Gabin throwing his arms out wide, exasperated. “Monsieur Leutwylek has already been sending you the materials for the fall season.”
“Who the hell is Monsieur Leutwylek?”
“Nicholas Leutwylek. The artistic director of the company you work for?”
“His last name is Leutwylek?” Tobias asks, in disbelief. “What kind of name is that? And how do you know he has been sending me materials? Why are you going through my mail?”
“They are spread out on the kitchen counter in your apartment!” Gabin shouts. “You’ve been using them as place mats for your Asian take-out.”
“Yes, because I still don’t have proper place mats.”
“I don’t care if you have place mats! I have never owned a place mat in my life!"
“Then why are you complaining about place mats?”
“I’m not complaining about place mats. I’m complaining because apparently you have missed the fact that you are leaving the country in four weeks.”
“I’ve been busy!” Tobias shouts. “I’ve been very busy with work!”
“I know,” Gabin retorts. “I’ve been there for all of it! But there were times when you weren’t working.”
“Well, when I’m not working, I’m busy with you!”
“Oh so now this is my fault?”
“I didn’t say that!” Tobias yells. “I still don’t even know what this is!”
There is a sudden silence. In the hallway, Geneviève and twenty ballet dancers are holding their breaths.
“Well,” Gabin says eventually, and he is not shouting now, but somehow that seems so much worse. “If you haven’t figured that out yet, then I suppose there is really nothing left to say.”
The door opens and Gabin storms out, stopping in his tracks when he all but runs into Geneviève. He throws up his hands and shakes his head, then moves around her with the practiced agility of a professional dancer before she can reach for him, and storms down the hallway, past the row of his wide-eyed castmates.
“Quoi?” he growls, and Clive jumps backwards hastily, giving him space to pass through.
Geneviève looks at the gaggle of dancers, then at the door to the rehearsal space. “I think rehearsal is over for now,” she says eventually. "Make the most of your free day." She shoos off the noisy stragglers angling for more gossip material, then steps into the room and pulls the door behind her firmly shut.
At the sound of the door, Tobias startles and looks up. His eyes are damp and a little red. “Where is everyone?” he asks. “We are supposed to rehearse.”
“I sent them home,” she says. “They have been listening to you and Gabin shout at each other for an hour. That must have been as physically draining as a full workday, and we can't afford paying them any more overtime.”
“Just an hour?” Tobias asks, shoulders dropping. “It felt a lot longer than that.”
“Melanie timed it,” Geneviève says. She sits down on the floor by the windows, back against the wall, and waits for Tobias to fold himself into a cross-legged seat next to her. “But since it's just you and me now, why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m not sure,” Tobias admits. He sounds lost. “Gabin is very angry at me and I don’t really understand why. I told him, it’s not my fault my contract here is ending. Jack never consulted me when he made the arrangements. I didn’t even want to come here in the first place.”
“If you phrased it like that, I can see why he’d be upset,” Geneviève says dryly. “Tobias, do you want to go back?”
“Yes? No? I don’t know.” Tobias throws up his hands. “I was so frustrated when I came here. Everything was wrong. The toothpaste and the soap and the cars and the currency – Euros, who came up with that name anyway? Not a lot of creativity went into that one, huh.”
“I remember,” Geneviève says gently. “You hated it. And now?”
“Now there’s Gabin,” Tobias says simply, as if that is a sufficient explanation, and she figures that to Tobias, it probably is. “But he’s mad at me, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
Geneviève sighs. “I think perhaps he is just worried about what’s going to happen when you go back. What’s going to happen to your – relationship. Whether it will last.”
Tobias blinks. “Why wouldn’t it last?”
“I don’t know,” Geneviève says. “Long-distance relationships are a lot of work. You probably know that. Gabin said something about, uhm. A boyfriend you forgot when you were in Japan?”
“Kevin?” Tobias looks at her, puzzled. “I didn’t forget about him, I just got – distracted. And anyway, that’s not the same. Me and Kevin weren’t like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like me and Gabin.”
“And does Gabin know that?”
“Does Gabin know what?”
Geneviève takes a deep breath and slowly counts to ten in her head. She desperately needs a cigarette. “Perhaps he is worried that you will go back to New York and get – distracted.”
Tobias frowns. “Then why doesn’t he just say it that way?”
Geneviève sighs. Thinks of her first marriage. And the second one, the one that Jack believes he played a part in breaking up, but that’s mostly his inflated ego talking. That marriage was over long before she ever went to bed with Jack. “Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes the point is not having to ask.”
Tobias shakes his head. “Gabin never has a problem with asking for what he wants. That’s how he – that’s how we started working together in the first place.”
“Well,” Geneviève says and stretches her legs out in front of her. “You know Gabin better at this point, no doubt. But I’ve known him for much longer. When I first found him, he was – anyway. He can tell you himself about that sometime. Or maybe he already has. The point is, he’s never just been … given something. He always had to ask, demand, fight, for every little thing. And maybe he doesn’t want to have to ask you because he is hoping you’d care enough about him to want it on your own.”
“He thinks I don’t care about him?” Tobias looks horrified. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Geneviève asks evenly.
Tobias stares across the rehearsal room. “Remember when he went to Reims for his aunt's funeral? He said I could come with him but that I probably wouldn't have much fun, what with it being a funeral, so I stayed in Paris. The second night, I went to the hospital because I thought I was dying.”
Geneviève stares. “You – what?”
“I couldn’t breathe, and there was this pressure on my chest. I googled it and the internet said I was having a heart attack. But the doctors at the hospital told me there was nothing wrong with me. I didn’t believe them. One of them called me hysterical, which is just plain offensive - hysteria has been debunked as a tool of medical misogyny for ages, and I don't even have a uterus anyway."
"Right," Geneviève says slowly.
"But then Gabin came back and the pain went away, so maybe they were right after all.” He sits up straight. “I can’t go back to New York,” he says helplessly. “How am I supposed to create if I feel like my heart isn't working right?”
“I can't answer that question for you,” Geneviève says and climbs to her feet. “But perhaps you could start by telling Gabin what you just told me.”
She leaves Raphaël and Lucien to keep an eye on the evening performances, and allows herself to go home early-ish for the first time in years. There are a hydrating foot mask, a new soap opera episode, and a bottle of red wine quite insistently calling her name.
Settled in comfortably on her couch with her second glass of wine, her feet covered in rose-scented goo, she lets the call go to voicemail when her cell phone rings the first time.
A moment later, the phone starts chiming again. She swears in French, English, and Italian for good measure, fishes the remote out of the crack between the couch cushions, and reluctantly checks the caller ID.
"Gabin," she says tiredly and moves the phone to her other hand so she can pick up her wine glass again.
For a moment, all she hears is rustling and the sound of a gurgling kitchen sink. Then, after what feels like forever, there is Gabin's dejected voice: “He’s gone, Geneviève.”
She tries not to let the wine slosh over her hand as she struggles to sit up straight. “What?”
“Tobias,” he says tonelessly. “He left.”
“Left … you?” she asks, disbelievingly.
“Left town,” Gabin answers miserably.
“What?” She downs the rest of the wine in one go and sets the empty glass on the floor. "How do you know he has left?”
Gabin groans impatiently. “Because I’m in his apartment and he isn’t there, and neither are his luggage or his coat.”
“What about his goldfish?” Geneviève asks and reaches for the towel to clean the goo off her toes.
“What?”
“Did he take his goldfish?”
“Of course he didn’t take his goldfish,” Gabin retorts, annoyed. “Do you think Tobias would carry a goldfish around in his suitcase? He isn’t insane.”
“Of course not,” Geneviève says diplomatically. “Did you call his cell phone?”
“Yes,” Gabin sighs. “I called his phone. I found it in a bucket under the sink.” He clears his throat. “I’ve also called the police, and the hospitals, and Melanie, and Lucien. No one has seen him or heard from him. Geneviève –“
“It’s going to be fine, Gabin," she says reassuringly, and wipes a blob of foot cream off her rug. "You know how he is. He probably just lost track of time standing in line for brioche somewhere.”
“It’s almost midnight, Geneviève,” Gabin says tightly. “He’s not standing in line for brioche. Are you not worried? Do you not care at all?”
“Of course I care,” Geneviève snaps. “But I’m tired. I am trying to run a company, you know? Everything that goes on at the theater is part of my job description: The budget. The PR. The artistic vision. Labor politics. You know what’s not in my job description? Playing babysitter for overdramatic manchildren. I’m not your mother, Gabin.”
There is an awful, brief silence, during which Geneviève seriously considers throwing up.
“No,” Gabin finally says, in a terrible, small voice. “Of course not.”
“Gabin,” she says, pleadingly. “I'm sorry. Look, why don’t you come over? It's just around the corner from his building. We will look for him tomorrow, but I don't want you on the Métro right now. You can sleep at my place, I'll pull out the couch.”
“That’s fine,” Gabin says quietly. “I will stay here with the goldfish. He shouldn’t be alone tonight.” The call disconnects.
"Fuck," Geneviève says emphatically and goes to find her cigarettes, not even caring that she leaves pink footprints on the carpet the entire way.
“What on Earth happened to you?” Raphaël asks. He is sitting behind her desk, covering the speaker of her phone with his hand when he sees her walk in. “You look like you didn’t sleep at all. I hope it was a fun night.”
“It was not,” she says heavily. “Tobias has disappeared, and I possibly made Gabin cry. I tried to distract myself with a soap opera, but Demain nous appartient is nothing compared to the soap opera playing out at this ballet.”
“Ouch,” Raphaël says, not without sympathy. “I suppose you won’t be thrilled then to hear that I have Jack on the phone for you. He says it’s urgent.”
“Ugh,” she makes. “Fine,” she says, and gestured for Raphaël to get off her chair so she can take his place. “I’ll take his call. It's not like this day can get any worse. Lucien?” she shouts. “Café, s’il-te-plaît. Et un paquet de Gauloises.” She pauses. “Deux aspirines. Et la bouteille de l’eau-de-vie.”
Lucien sticks his head through the door. “Rough night, eh?”
Geneviève shakes her head. “You have no idea,” she says, and then she picks up the phone.
“Jack,” she says coolly. “I have a situation on my hand here, so whatever it is, I’d appreciate if you could make it quick.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack says, his tone appeasing. “I know you are still mad at me. But listen, I have the director of the Zurich Ballet on the other line.”
“Gabriel Burri?” she asks. “Well, if you plan to do another artistic swap with Zurich, maybe have the courtesy of warning him that you will be stealing his best talent before you sleep with him.”
Someone clears his throat. She is pretty sure that someone isn’t Jack.
“Let me guess,” she says evenly. “He heard all of that.”
“It’s a three-way call,” Jack confirms, sounding about as mortified as she feels. “So maybe let’s skip the personal details for now and focus on the job. Also, this isn’t about a collaboration. Gabriel called me because Tobias Bell showed up at his office this morning.”
“What? Tobias is in Zurich?” Lucien arrives at her side in this moment, placing coffee, cigarettes, painkillers, and the liquor on the desk in front of her. She throws him a grateful look and reaches for the schnapps first. She has a feeling she will need it. “Is he there on purpose or did he just take a wrong turn on his way home?”
“Madame Lavigne, bonjour,” Gabriel Burri says in a flawless French accent before switching to equally perfect English: “Believe me, we were as surprised as you are. The short version is, he asked if we would hire him. And if that would help him obtain a residence permit for the EU? I, uhm, had to explain to him that Switzerland is not part of the European Union. Americans, you know. Present company excluded, of course, Jack.”
“I just don’t understand why he wants to move to Zurich,” Jack says, confused. “Last year he called me a traitor for taking him away from his American toothpaste. I thought he’d be ecstatic about coming back to New York next month.”
“Things change, Jack,” Geneviève says flatly. “You of all people should know about that.”
“Well,” Gabriel interjects smoothly, clearly invested in nipping any potential argument between them in the bud. “Obviously I told him that we would love to have someone as brilliant as him on our team. We’d hire him in a heartbeat.”
“Really?” Jack asks, in disbelief. “Just like that? You don’t even know if you could afford him.”
“This is Switzerland, Jack,” Gabriel says, with a distinct air of superiority. “Of course we can afford him. But I also told him that I should probably speak to his current employers first. We, uhm. We put him in an empty room, gave him coffee and chocolate, and he’s listening music now, but we weren’t sure what you wanted us to do with him.”
“Whatever you do,” Jack says. “Don’t let him leave. It would be such a hassle if we’d have to track him down in Thessaloniki next.”
“Can I speak with him for a moment?” Geneviève asks, doing her best to ignore Jack.
“Of course,” Gabriel says, and she hears the sound of footsteps and a door opening, and then Tobias’ voice, impatient as ever: “What now?”
“Tobias, it’s Geneviève,” she says.
“Oh hi,” he says, irritation quickly draining from his tone. “You know, I always thought Swiss chocolate was a marketing scam, but it is really the best. Do you have an opinion on Swiss diamonds? I’m afraid most are unethically sourced, but I assume some companies sell lab-grown pieces too.”
“Tobias,” she says sternly. “I don’t care about Swiss diamonds. But you need to come home.”
“I will,” he says earnestly. “I’ll be back soon. I just need to take care of some things.”
“Today, Tobias,” she insists. “You know Gabin is worried you are dead? He texted Lucien this morning to ask him how difficult it is to find the body of a person who drowned in the Seine.”
There is a brief pause. “Why would he think I’m dead?”
Geneviève washes the aspirin down with a long gulp straight from the schnapps bottle, and follows it up with a sip of caffeine. “Maybe because you disappeared without a trace?”
“But why didn’t he just call me?” Tobias asks, confused.
"He tried." Geneviève tears the plastic wrapper off her pack of cigarettes. “You left your cell phone in your apartment under the kitchen sink.”
“Oh,” Tobias makes. When he continues, his voice is subdued. “I didn’t mean to worry him. I just wanted –“ There is a pause. “Tell him I’m sorry," he says. "I swear I’ll be back tonight. And I’ll make things better. There is just something I need to take care of first.”
“I'm sure he'll be glad to hear that,” Geneviève says. “And Tobias,” she adds. “Let’s talk about your job situation when you get back. You, me, and Jack. Then you can call Mr. Burri back about that job offer, if you want. Apparently Zurich has infinite resources to spare.”
There is a clattering noise as if someone abruptly dropped the phone, and then Gabriel is back on the line. “We’ll put him on a train this afternoon,” he promises, and then, in a lower voice: “On second thought, I’m going to send my assistant with him. Just to make sure he doesn’t get lost on the way back.”
To her profound relief, Gabin actually takes her call, and after she reports back to him, he does seem a little more stable at least. Which is good, because he still has a performance to get through today.
It ends up being a decent performance too – perhaps not his best ever work, but considering that he spent the entire night talking to his boyfriend’s goldfish while calling every morgue in the city, she thinks he is really doing just fine.
Since Tobias isn’t there to provide post-performance feedback, she slips out of her seat during the final applause to check in with the cast backstage. She is just patting Daniel on the back and complimenting his form when she hears footsteps approaching quickly, and there is Tobias, storming into the backstage area with his headphones around his neck, pulling a small carry-on, green coat slung over his arm.
“Gabin,” he says breathlessly, coming to an abrupt stop. The coat slips off his arm onto the ground.
At the sound of his name, Gabin looks up, and Geneviève watches all the color drain from his face. “Tobias,” he says, shakily, and doesn't move. For a long moment, they just stare at each other - then Tobias lets go of his suitcase, grabs Gabin’s sleeve, and drags him into the backstage changing room, throwing the door closed behind them with an audible bang.
“Huh,” Geneviève says. There are confused looks and some whispers among the dancers, and then, eventually, Melanie says hesitantly: “There is no yelling. That’s a good sign, non?”
“Do you think we can go change now?” Liam asks, switching from one foot to the other and back again. “I kind of need to pee.”
“Let’s find out,” Tristan proposes reasonably. He pushes the door to the changing room open and peeks inside … only to close it again quickly, almost getting his fingers caught between the door and the frame in his haste. “I, uhm,” he stammers, flushing furiously. “Probably best not to go in there right now.” He clears his throat. “Harmony, I’d recommend getting a new hairbrush too.”
“Mon dieu,” Harmony gasps, somewhere between morbidly amused and scandalized.
“This is a picture I very much did not need in my head,” Raphaël mutters darkly and covers his eyes with his hand, as if that will somehow make the mental images disappear.
Geneviève is about to agree with his sentiment when she spots a young woman standing to the side, looking confused and very lost. She is holding a Sprüngli paper bag in one hand, and with the other seems to have picked up Tobias’ forgotten luggage from the floor.
“Are you Gabriel’s assistant?” Geneviève asks, and the young woman nods in relief. “Oui, Madame, je suis Ursula.”
“Bienvenue à Paris, Ursula,” Geneviève says wryly. “Thank you for bringing Tobias back to us. Leave his suitcase here, I’m sure he’ll be a while. Come on, I'll buy you a drink.”
She takes Ursula for cocktails and olives to the nearest bar and then gets her settled in a hotel room before returning home for the night. She falls into bed face first, still clothed, and manages five full hours of sleep before the alarm pulls her out of an odd dream that seems quite significant, but by the time she brushes her teeth, all she remembers is that it featured Gabin as a gold fish swimming in an enormous bowl of Swiss chocolate fondue.
In the office, she toes her shoes off, takes another aspirin with her café, and pulls up her half-written email to the donor, sending a quick prayer heavenward in the hope that today is the day she'll actually finish it too.
The shouting in the reception area starts right as she is signing the email with her name, and she actually manages to hit send just before the door flies open with the familiar dramatic flourish, revealing Tobias and Gabin. They both look a little pale and a little anxious, but they stand close enough that a sheet of paper wouldn't easily fit between them, and she decides to take that as a good sign.
“Can we talk to you?” Gabin asks nervously, and she wordlessly gestures toward the chairs in front of her desk. Something glitters in the sunlight when Gabin pulls out his chair, and she leans forward with interest, trying to get a better look.
“That’s a very pretty ring, Gabin,” she says innocently. "Ruby?"
Gabin flushes. “Uhm, yes,” he says, throwing Tobias a quick glance. “Thank you, Geneviève.”
Tobias puts a proprietary hand on Gabin’s arm and leaves it there. “You said you wanted to discuss my appointment here in Paris,” he says. “We would like to do that now.”
“Of course,” she says evenly and opens her drawer. "Just one moment, please."
“You are not going to feed me chocolate again, are you?” Gabin asks, concerned. “Because I found Tobias’ stash of Milky Ways while he was gone, and ate them all, so I probably shouldn’t – “
“No,” she says and pulls out her bottle of eau-de-vie. “This occasion calls for something stronger, don't you think?”
“Oooh,” Gabin makes approvingly and bounces over to the shelf.
“I want to stay here,” Tobias blurts out, while Gabin is pulling three glasses from the shelf. “Permanently. If you can’t afford me, I’ll go to Switzerland, even though I still find it a little suspicious that they refuse to join the EU. And they have so many cows. But I can’t go back to New York.”
Geneviève pulls the lid off the bottle. "Good," she smiles.
“You are fine with that?” Gabin asks, sounding surprised. As he leans across the desk and puts three shot glasses in front of her, she notices a dark bruise at the base of his throat that she is pretty certain wasn’t there last night. Thank God for stage make-up, she thinks, and pours generously.
“Yes, Gabin," she says and pushes one of the drinks in his direction. "Considering that you two single-handedly saved my job – and possibly the entire National Ballet, according to Marie Claire – yes, yes, I am fine with that.”
Gabin knocks back his drink. “And Mr. McMillan?”
“He took Cheyenne from us,” she shrugs, dismissively. “So he owes us something in return. That something can be Tobias Bell. Leave Jack and the bureaucracy to me. I’ll sort it out. You two focus on – making beautiful, crazy art together. Just –“ She picks up her glass and downs it in one go. “Please don’t defile the backstage changing room again.”
“I take offense with the word defiling,” Tobias says primly from behind his drink. “But I suppose we can use the tech closet next time, if you prefer.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t have sex in this building at all,” she says steadily, “but the season is almost over, so I will have at least four weeks before I will be forced think about your fornication habits again.”
Tobias looks like he has other things to say on the topic, but luckily Gabin clears his throat then, and when she looks up at him, she finds him watching her from across the desk, a little hopeful, a little cautious, too.
“What?” she asks. “Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that you are not moving to America, but I’m still not going to let you go skateboarding this summer.”
He smiles, shakes his head. “No skateboarding. No parkour.” He takes a deep breath. “You will be our witness though, right? For the ceremony.”
“The … ceremony?” She stares, suddenly at a loss for words. “You mean like …”
“The wedding, yes,” Tobias nods easily. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” she echoes, and runs a hand over her suddenly damp eyes. “Yes, of course. I’d be honored.”
“Good,” Gabin beams, “because our appointment is in 45 minutes, and we couldn’t decide on a second witness, so we will just have to pick up someone along the way. Do you think Lucien would do it if we asked him to?"
“What, now?” she asks, bewildered.
“Yes, now,” Tobias says, as if that is an utterly silly question, and reaches for Gabin's hand. “Do you have anything better to do?”
She looks up at Tobias’ determined face, at the bite mark on Gabin’s neck, at their linked hands and their bright eyes, then swallows around the lump in her throat, and shakes her head.
“No,” she says, and bends down to pick up her shoes. “I really, really don’t.”