The Secrets of Billie Joe Armstrong

The train back to Paris was again a lonely journey for me.

Part of me wanted to slap Claire and tell her to stop being so… unfair toward me.

At least the son I had abandoned didn’t seem to hold a grudge.

I admired him for that, I really did.

Billie had kept the photo of him when he was a little child that I had given to him, and I was pleased, but saddened as I couldn’t have anything to refer back to when I needed to remember him.

A tear escaped my eye as the train pulled into the final stop.

What more had I gained by going to see him? I had just left him for a second time. I had met my son and now abandoned him again? How could I have done that?

And now I was in my forties and accidentally pregnant? There would more than likely be something wrong with the pregnancy at my older age.

A wave of emotions struck me as I began to remember Andy, and being pregnant with Billie, and then of course my strong friendship with Grace. How I missed Grace. It was then, as I stepped out of the train and back into my real life reality, that I vowed to see Billie as much as I could, and to also relocate Grace.

I missed her friendship, I missed having a tie back to California and back to Andy. I missed truly being in love with someone other than Mathieu who I do love but couldn’t possibly compare to Andy.

All in all I was one messed up woman, and I needed to decide what I wanted and who had to be in my life before this new baby arrived, and the only two people I knew I needed for certain were Grace and Billie Joe.

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“How was it, then?” Mathieu asked me rudely as I placed some potatoes on the table in front of him.

“It was fine,” I replied, “I didn’t watch the concert of course… but it was nice.”

“Nice is hardly the word to describe it,” Claire piped in. “It went off the hook! And Maman said she’d look after me and Jacques, Daddy. But she didn’t. And it got so out of hand I was scared!”

I couldn’t believe what Claire was doing to me now. I had let her go after all, I had given her the freedom to go alone with Jacques.

“Is this true, Olivia?” Mathieu asked, “you didn’t end up going after all you’ve said to me? Why were you there then? Why were you in London?”

Mathieu’s voice had turned bitterly sour in a matter of moments and it scared me. I didn’t know what I was going to say to get out of this. Hopefully he’d assume I stayed with his sister.

“I’m calling Lindal right now.” He warned.

“Please… I wasn’t anywhere that I shouldn’t be. Just don’t ruin this dinner. And don’t talk about these things in front of Claire, okay? Just cool it. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“Well what were you doing then? Hmmm? What were you doing Olivia?”

“I don’t have to answer that now.”

“If you didn’t do anything wrong,” Mathieu patronized, “then why can’t you talk us now?”

I was trying extremely hard to come up with some sort of excuse for my whereabouts, knowing full well that I couldn’t spill the beans about Billie Joe just yet. What was I going to do? I started to think about something I could tell Mathieu and not Claire. And then it hit me. I had an inappropriate alaby!

“I was out at a store, Mathieu.” I hissed, “I can tell you, but I can’t say where in front of Claire, okay?”

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After dinner Mathieu approached me in the bedroom.

“Where were you?”

“Now that I can tell you with out Claire listening, I was at a… strip tease club.”

“A what?”

“That’s right.” I said, “I was trying to learn some things I could do to… seduce you… after the baby arrives.”

Mathieu’s face softened dramatically and his face melted into a smile. He came up behind me, wrapping his arms protectively around my waist, his hands resting lightly on my growing stomach.

“You’re getting bigger now.” Mathieu said, kissing my neck and pulling me closer toward him.

“Mmm.” I mumbled, falling back into him.

“I’m sorry for everything lately.” He said, “it’s just with the business and everything I’m always so uptight and I don’t have room to be romantic… but I know that that doesn’t mean I can’t at least be nice to you… or tell Claire to stop being so rude to you. I’m sorry I doubted where you were. Of course you weren’t cheating or anything like that… I’m sorry Olivia. I want this baby to… rekindle our lives, yes? As though it were Claire – our first child when we were utterly in love and had no secrets…”

I listened intently as Mathieu declared peace within our relationship. That was what I had wanted. Although I felt like a cheater. I felt as though I had gone out and had sex with another man, because all in all I had deceived Mathieu, just in another form. I was still lying. I was still going behind his back.

He spun me around to face him and kissed me passionately, his lips moving seductively against my own. I had forgotten what a fantastic kisser he was.

His hands ran down to my shirt and pulled it over my head, and his lips moved from mine down to my collar bone where he kissed every inch of exposed skin he could find. His hands snaked around to my back as he unclasped my bra, his hands grasping my breasts.

I lifted off his shirt and did the same, my hands racing down toward the zipper of his jeans.

Where was I? I asked myself, wouldn’t you like to know.