Free Finding It by Leah Marie Brown

“honeymoon” through Provence and Tuscany.
    Second, she can be a relentless interrogator. I am talking Spanish Inquisition relentless, putting-you-on-the-rack-and-stretching-your-limbs-like a-rubber-band relentless.
    “Vivian? Hello?”
    Fanny calls me Vivian because she thinks it’s more sophisticated than Vivia. Like Vivian Leigh.
    “I’m here,” I whisper. “Bishop is not sleazy. He’s actually kinda nice.”
    “Bishop?” Fanny’s French accent is unusually thick, a sign she is teetering on the precipice over the valley of Truly Pissed Off. “Bishop is it? So now you’re on a first name basis with Bishop Raine? I can think of another man you’re on a first name basis with: Jean-Luc de Caumont, your boyfriend. Remember him?”
    “Wow!” I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at the screen as if I might find the explanation for Fanny’s anti-Bishop tirade. “I had no idea you had such strong feelings about Bishop Raine.”
    “ Je m'en fiche !”
    I don’t care! I whistle low and long. Her transition from thickly accented English to full-on French means I am in deep trouble.
    Fanny might be Team Luc, but her reaction is a bit overblown. It’s not like I ditched my boyfriend to become a Bishop Raine groupie. I didn’t pawn my MacBook and buy an old VW Van so I could follow Bishop from gig to gig.
    “Calm your culottes, Frenchy! No need for a revolution,” I chuckle, in a dismal attempt at levity. “I am flying to be with Luc in the morning, and the British boy will be but a distant memory.”
    “I still don’t understand why you are in some club in London, French kissing the sleazy comedian, instead of celebrating your one-year anniversary with your boyfriend in Paris. What is this really about, Vivian?”
    I tell Fanny about my right royal cock-up with the Prince Harry story, my time in the pokey, and Big Boss Woman’s vaguely displeased text.
    “Normally, I would choose Jean-Luc every day of the week and three times on Sunday, but after tanking the Harry story, I thought I could save face by going back to my editor with a dishy tell-all about London’s reality TV stars.” I take several breaths before launching into my final argument. “Choosing Poppy’s party over Luc’s love-in was a shrewd career move. If I am going to go out, I might as well be on top, and not wallowing in a pit of humiliation over a failed story.”
    I speak the truth, but deep down something niggles at me. Something else kept me from leaving London, from joining my crazy-hot boyfriend in Paris for some crazy-hot sexy time, but I don’t know what that something else is.
    Fanny mutters something in rapid French.
    Despite countless hours of Rosetta Stone brainwashing, my ability to translate spoken French is no better than a deaf and dumb Inuit. I think she said, “Lord help me teach the old monkey to make funny faces,” but I don’t know what an old monkey has to do to with our conversation or why she would want to teach it to make faces.
    “Who is Poppy?”
    “Poppy Worthington. Heiress of the Worthington Hotels fortune?”
    I wait for Fanny to respond, the muffled thumping of the electropop playing in the background.
    “She’s a British socialite. She dated Sir Richard Blanchard and Tristan Kent, remember?” I hold my breath and wait for Fanny to say something. Six muffled thumps later, I finish my story. “We met on the street outside the police station. I was trying to hail a cab, waving my arms and jumping up and down like an idiot. Poppy took pity on me. She taught me the proper way to hail a cab.”
    “What the…” Fanny emits an explosive pffft. “The proper way to hail a cab? Did you really just say that?”
    “We have different rules for hailing a cab in London,” I say, defensive of my new friend. “She was only trying to help.”
    “She sounds pretentious.”
    “Anyway,” I say, ignoring the jab. “I told her about my royal cock-up and she invited me to a party at Boujis. It’s