‘Let’s do it though,’ they said later, as the sky began to lighten, ‘let’s really do it,’ their fingers cold, their backs wet with dew as they lay on the grass of the Jardin des Tuileries, sharing the blanket and Nina’s cigarettes, the hum of the city beginning around them, the imposing architecture of Le Crillon behind them. ‘Let’s meet up here every year, whatever happens.’

Twelve hours in Paris. That’s all it took to cement their futures. They would often wonder in the years ahead: what if Jules had never come across Nina in that bathroom? What if Alice and Teddy hadn’t been there at all? Where, and who, would they all be now?

2

TWENTY YEARS LATER

Friday a.m.

Nina

Nina was humming a Florence + the Machine song as she scanned the busy concourse for a place to sit so she could rearrange the various items she was juggling: magazines were slipping from her underarm and bulging paper bags from La City Pâtisserie were digging into her wrist on one side, while the other hand dragged along her suitcase and the song in her head told her to Shake It Out.

Jules had a problem with earworms – songs she couldn’t forget that burrowed in her brain – so these days, whenever it happened, she sent a voice note of the song in question to her friends. The subsequent flurry of messages was usually a successful antidote and as Jules said, even if it wasn’t, there was comfort in knowing the three of them were now listening to – or in Nina’s case, humming – the same tune.

That’s what had happened this morning, when their messaging group, When in Paris, had been particularly active:

My Uber driver is SO FIT! He looks like Keanu Reeves.

Young or old? I would take either tbf.

Lordy, I think I just wet myself running for the train!

Nina loved the preamble to a weekend away; the joy of it was all part of the experience for her. It was three years since they had last all been in Paris together and Nina sensed they needed a few days there now more than ever. She certainly did.

From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Alice. She squinted as she approached. Was that Alice? She had her look: flippy skirt, chunky jumper and boots, wavy shoulder-length ombré hair, her slender frame and protruding cheekbones, toned by the demands of parenthood; but it was hard to tell, hunched as she was, head in hands. It was only when Nina was practically on top of her, and could see the small symbol of the Eiffel Tower etched in delicate black lines on her neck, that she was absolutely sure. She glanced down at her wrist, red-lined by the takeaway bags, to her own matching Eiffel Tower tattoo: they had got them together to mark their thirtieth birthdays (deeming the Eiffel Tower more fitting than a dolphin). Jules’s was on her hip, discreet and not discernible in her work attire. Nine years ago, marvelled Nina with a smile.