Chapter 7- Tea and Cookies

Ian sighed, he didn't like Paris. Everything was so crowded, dirty, and not at all sunny. He brushed his hair back as he got ready to drive back to his flat from a long swim when his phone rang. Abby. Cheering up, he grinned and answered. "Hey there, Abby love."

"Hi!" She spoke energetically. And of course, an awkward silence.

"So how's your last year of uni?" Ian asked. "Better than what I'm doing, I hope."

"Swims going that bad?" Abby asked.

"Yeah…sadly."

"Well, Sorbonne is great, but I really miss being in Athens." Abby replied. "It's not sunny here, ever. Or as sunny as it is in Australia. I suppose it's almost summer there now, right?"

"Yeah, it is. Getting hot last time I checked, 35 Cels." Ian replied. "Or 96ish for you Americans."

"Hah." Abby said, slightly laughing. She sighed into the phone. "I'm homesick."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." Ian replied. "When you miss your mom's cooking."

"Or the smell of the bathroom after it's clean." Abby added.

"Yeah…what?!" Ian asked, confused. He sat in his very small French Peugeot getting ready for a long drive past Champs Elysees.

"Just making sure you're listening." Abby laughed. After some more silence she softly spoke into the phone "I miss you."

"I miss you too." Ian replied. "Two weeks in Greece and now we're two distance torn lovers. God, how soap operatic."

"Weren't you on one?" Abby asked.

"God no, although I have gotten offers." Ian answered. "Only if Kylie was on it. Kidding. Kidding."

"Yeah sure." Abby said, though he couldn't see it, she rolled her eyes. She flipped open her Cultural French text and started randomly highlighting.

"When do you have holidays?" Ian asked. "Because I'd love for you to visit me."

"Erm, I have all of December off, I'd go home but it's too much of a hassle." Abby said twirling her highlighter.

"I'll pay for your ticket." Ian offered as he turned on another Rue.

"No…as chivalrous as that is, and as much as I welcome chivalry…I couldn't have you do that." Abby replied.

"Then I'll visit you. The trainers are giving me December off, and by off they mean only 2000 m a day." Ian answered, sounding positively riveted.

"Damn, I have class in an hour, traffic will be a bitch." Abby replied. "I've sent a letter at least three weeks ago, have you gotten it yet?"

"No, I haven't gotten any letters from you yet, love, I'll check." Ian replied. "I miss you and I'll talk to you again."

"Goodbye, cheeky monkey." Abby said with a laugh as she hung up. She had to get to the Sorbonne before 10 a.m., and the Metro was only two blocks away from her flat.

She doodled away during her French Psychology class drawing the Olympic rings, and writing Ian's name a couple times in various styles. She wrote her name, and Abby Thorpe dozens of times before the class finally ended at 2. As much as she loved the chic ex-patriate lifestyle, she did miss the simplicity of Hartford life, even New York City was a sight for sore eyes, no matter how often she badmouthed it.

Ian, on the other side of town, took in his mail flipping through it, finally finding a rather hefty letter from his parents. "An envelope within an envelope, a paradox. Or is it…whatever." He said to himself. It was a letter from his mum and dad, and also included a letter from Abby. Part of the letter from his parents read

`Ian, there is a letter from Abby, we didn't have the heart to send it back to her and make her pay for more postage, so we sent it with our things instead. We didn't open it…we promise, and we hope you're having a wonderful time training (at which point Ian snorted) in the city of lights.'

Ian looked at Abby's envelope, addressed to Australia, and remembered he hadn't gotten her New York City address, he looked at the return address and read 28a Place de Pigalles. Five miles south of where he was. He decided to do what any American star would do when venturing into the public and wore a baseball cap and sunglasses.

Taking the Metro, he had a sudden lurch in his stomach, not too different from the rush he felt once on the diving blocks before a race. He walked along the narrow street of Pigalles and found number 28. He pressed the buzzer for apartment A.

"Oui, qui est-ce?" A very French voice asked.

"Uh, Abby?" Ian asked tentatively. "It's Ian." The intercom went dead and the door swung open.

"IAN!" Abby shrieked as she practically jumped onto him. Ian, luckily, caught her as he laughed. "What are you doing here?! How did you…what's going on?!"

"One at a time." Ian grinned. "The French will think you're mad." Abby looked into the street at a group of onlookers and quickly pushed Ian back into her flat. Ian took a seat on her sofa. "Well, I'm training here in Paris and doing a tour to talk to young swimmers here in Europe. Although I don't know why Hoogie couldn't have done it instead."

"Hoogie?" Abby asked while preparing some tea.

"Pieter van den Hoogenband." Ian answered. "My agent said it was something about endorsements. And you, milady, what brings you to Paris?"

"The Sorbonne, foreign exchange. I'll be moving to Italy in January." Abby replied. "Michael is flying me out to the World Championships, and the Pan Pacs."

"Is he?" Ian asked with interest. "Well…"

"Well what?" Abby asked, pouring the hot water into tea cups.

"My events only take up the first three days. We can do…whatever, after that, and my game won't be ruined." Ian said, slyly.

"But you'll be at the Pan Pacs a whole week before the races!" Abby said indignantly.

"Have you seen that episode of Seinfeld where George goes without sex for a week and he becomes a genius?" Ian asked. Abby nodded as she took some cookies out of their packaging. "Well…I sadly have to do the same so that I can just focus…you heard about how I was DQ'd from the 400 free during the trials? It was because I had sex two days before…she broke up with me because she was shagging Grant Hackett on the side…bastard."

Abby sat close to him and put her head on his shoulder. "Ah, don't worry, I haven't been doing anything of the sort." She felt the rumble of his laughter as he put his arm around her. She grumbled "Haven't done anything of that sort since Athens."

"As sad as that is, that's what I'd hoped." Ian replied. "Yeap…deprived for, oh what, two months?"

"That's a long time." Abby sighed, as she got closer to him. It was starting to turn to winter in Paris and she had been too lazy to turn on the radiator. She looked up at him and added "A really really long time."

"How far away is your bedroom?" Ian asked suddenly, as though it was the difference between life or death.

"Not far, why?" She asked.

"I was just wondering if it was worth it to spend energy to go there or to do it right here, right now." Ian said to himself, laughing at his sheer laziness.

"I haven't put my bedsheets on the bed yet, I've just gotten home from the laundromat." She answered.

"Oh, well that settles it."

The tea and cookies lay completely forgotten on the kitchen counter.