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On a Saturday, Carol was free to work in the library because Louise had a playdate with a British couple’s daughter. French children didn’t do playdates. They hung out with their parents.
Carol passed through the huge wooden doors into the bibliothèque’s courtyard. The cobbles were particularly historic and therefore bumpier here. She had to watch her feet or wrench an ankle.
She entered the outer lobby where she’d eat her brought-from-home lunch during the winter, when it was too cold and raw to eat in the jardin around the corner. Then she opened the inner door to the bigger inner lobby and saw Anjali getting her assigned seat from the woman behind the desk.
“Hi there!” Carol said as Anjali turned toward her, clutching the white laminated slip with her seat number on it. In France, by George, you jolly well sat in your assigned seat or the proctor would make a fuss.
“Hello!” Anjali said. She was delighted to see Carol. A fellow screenwriter! Maybe they could collaborate! This writing business meant so much time spent alone.
Carol paused. Seeing the eagerness in Anjali’s face, she thought, maybe I should have let her find her seat without letting her know I’m here. She’ll expect me to critique her work extra, not just at the circle. I don’t have time, I have to make some money! No, there’s that stupid motive again. Bollocks!
They stood just outside the glass doors to the reading room. Carol peered through to see the gilded beams hovering above young French heads bent over their books and laptops, conforming their minds to their textbooks and their teachers’ expectations. They all need a year in London, she thought, among the Goths.
“I’m so glad to see you! I love this library,” Anjali said.
“Nice to see you, too,” Carol cooed. “Yes, it’s rather a brilliant place, isn’t it?”
“Are you working on a screenplay?”
That was a bit of an industrial-spy-type question, Carol thought. “Oh, a bit here and there. And you?”
“Yes!”
“Lovely! Will we see it at the next writers’ circle?” That was a hint, dear.
“I’ll let it steep a bit more than that,” Anjali said. She thought, how nice to see Carol. What is all this frosty British reserve about?
So, Carol thought, her shoulders aching under the weight of her laptop and notebooks, she knows the steeping trick. How much do I want to teach her? We’re competitors for the few slots of films that actually get produced in this world. She thought of Philippe and what he’d probably say about selfishness. I’m quite the bitch not to be more helpful, aren’t I?
“Let’s see if we can sit together. Or we can at least email or text each other with some ideas on each other’s work today. Want to?” Carol said.
Anjali felt her heart grow warm with all the fuzziness of a stuffed Paddington bear. One with a Union Jack sewn on its pocket. For all that the British had done wrong in India, here was a Brit poised to help her.
“Fabulous!”
