Desperate for Soulmates

Prologue -

© 2015 Victoria Pietrzak. All rights reserved.

I watched my little daughter eating her banana split. Her long blonde locks and sunlit smile distracted me from the dull surroundings.

Coming back here after such a long time felt strange. Nothing had changed but all at the same time it changed so much.

I looked at the red clock on the wall above the glass doorway. Parisians have something about red. I see it everywhere; all it needs is some green to go with it, I thought.

"Darling it's time to go." I nudged Charlie, getting up. My husband was already outside, standing by his Range Rover, talking to an old business friend.

"Fine mommy." Little Charlie put down her spoon and jumped off her chair and we walked out.

"Ah, here you two are." Collin smiled proudly. "Roland, this is my wife Camille and our daughter Charlie."

"It's a pleasure." His plastic looking business friend, held out his hand to shake.

"Delighted." I said straight faced, shaking his hand. "Strange how you have me meet all these friends of yours, Collin. It's almost as if you want to get replaced."

Roland bit his lip, trying to hide amusement.

"What's gotten into you Camy?" Collin hissed, shot me a killer look. "Well, we should get going then. Get in the a car Camille."

I walked around the back to fixate Charlie in her seat. I tugged at her seat belt to unblock it. My wallet fell out of my handbag. It opened and all the credit cards shot out.

"Oh god..." I sighed bending down to pick it up.

Collin swung into the driver's seat, starting the engine. "Hurry up Camy, I'm driving off." He was doing it on purpose to irritate me.

"Would you wait a moment? I dropped my things." I shouted against the roar of the engine. I put my wallet on Charlie's lap and closed her door.

"One of these days you will run me over, if you continue doing this." I sighed, getting into the passenger seat.

"Ready to see our house in Paris, Charlie?" Collin looked at Charlie's reflection in the review mirror.

"Yeah!" Charlie clapped her hands. She went quiet for a moment. "Mommy who is this man?"

"Who dear?"

"In this photo." She handed me a small tattered photo. A young man with chin-length brown hair and a penetrating blue-eyed gaze, stared out of the photo.

I examined it closely.

"This photo was in your wallet." Charlie raised her eyebrows. At the age of five, she already has her daddy's interrogative temperament.

"This, is someone who was part of my past." I shook my head. Looking at those blue eyes brought back a million and one memories all at once. "Someone who I thought would be part of my future."

"What is that?" Collin asked, arrogantly slipping the photo from my fingers.

"Keep both hands on that steering wheel, would you?" I said. He held the photo out for me to take. "It's Howard. You remember him don't you?"

"Oh yes, yes." Collin said, cautiously forging unconcern. "He was a... nice young man, um... Howard Jones am I right?"

"Howard Samuel Beliere-Jones. Yes."

"What happened to him?" Charlie's voice asked from the back.

"He-" I began.

"He wasn't very good friends with your daddy, and everyone knows that never does a person any good." Collin said, looking ahead at the road.

"Collin you're speaking to a child!" I reprimanded him. I turned around to face Charlie. "Howard was badly hurt in an accident that's all."

"Who was he?"

"He was an artist. He could paint the whole world in words. At times I felt he was all I had. An amazing friend." I said with a smile.

At that moment, my body was in the passenger seat, driving to Collin's old family residence. Although at the same time, my soul was somewhere else. It was sitting on the doorstep of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper redaction.

The night it all began.

If closed my eyes and I could see it all so clearly. The pouring rain on the street, the broken champagne bottle in my hand.

I closed my eyes...