Martha Fletcher has only ever had one job- Executive Assistant to Sam Courtenay.
She'll schedule his diary, pick up his dry cleaning, usher girls out of his apartment first thing in the morning... nothing was out of bounds until one night, that blur...
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Giddy always struck me as such an old-fashioned word, something that my grandmother would say if she ever had an excitable great-granddaughter. Or something that she'd say in this exact moment if she were here.
Martha has dragged me to Paris with her for her bridesmaid dress fitting and now that we're here, she's like an excitable puppy whose attention is captured over the most trivial of things. We were walking down a street this morning and Martha managed to find everything 'amazing' or 'cool' or even, and I didn't like this word, 'rad.' The tiniest thing fascinated her and while it was adorable a few months ago, it now made me roll my eyes and keep walking on, leaving her to trail behind while she found even more things to go giddy over.
We've been in Paris for a few days, arriving at the same time as Charlotte. The wedding dress and Martha's bridesmaid's dress were being made by the new designer at Charlotte's mother's fashion house here in Paris and despite Charlotte having already left for Marseille, her soon-to-be step-daughter insisted on staying in the City of Love until the very last moment she was needed at the rehearsal.
Emma, Charlotte's sister, had taken us under her wing, showing us the sights. Her boyfriend- I think that's the correct term for him but who knows- had also insisted on directing us the lesser known sights the city had to offer. Hugo and Martha were getting on like a house on fire due to their mutual adoration of Paris.
"Hugo really winds me the fuck up," Emma mutters as she pauses in the street and taps her foot impatiently, waiting for Hugo and Martha to catch up. Holding her hand above her eyes to shade them from the bright sun, she glares at the pair. Shouting, she says, "It's just a sphinx, Hugo. Now, can we please grab some lunch? I am starving."
Hugo waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, ok."
"No, not today," Emma said, grabbing my forearm and dragging me down the seat. "Today is not the day to annoy me. Come on, Sam, let's hit that café over there."
I'd been observing Emma and Hugo together over the past few days and it was remarkable how comfortable they were in each other's company considering Emma's current circumstances. Deeming us 'family' seeing as her sister is married to my brother- and incidentally, her divorce lawyer- Emma had been more than upfront about her marriage coming to an end and how her relationship with Hugo is going.
It was interesting for me to see them together. While Charlotte and Martha disappeared for their fittings and Hugo ventured off for a modelling shoot, Emma and I had hung out a lot. In that time, I learnt that Emma and Hugo had known each other for almost twenty years but they never thought about pursuing a relationship until this year. She said that if it had happened sooner, it would never have worked out.
"We were kids," she explained over coffee yesterday morning. "The people we were back then when we were teenagers, I wouldn't recognise them if they walked past us in the street. I mean, we're not even the same people we were yesterday. People change, dynamics change. With him, it's probably been a case of right person, wrong time for years and them finally! Right person, right time."
