Authors: Christine Sneed
“I had not expected the evening to run as late as it did,” he said.
“I guess you were having a good time,” she said.
“How was your day?” He stepped closer and put his arms around her. He was acting as if everything were the same as always, as if he knew nothing about her and André, and for this alone she knew she should be grateful, but she was still mad that he hadn’t responded to her calls or texts.
“Quoi, Jayne?” he said. “What is it?”
Even in her state of angry distress, she didn’t have the nerve to ask why he’d been out with Sofia and what had happened on their lunch date. Instead, she blurted, “Have you ever noticed how few books by women you have on your bookshelves?”
The clownish smile appeared again. “What?”
“Why do you have so few books by women?”
He pulled her closer, but she turned her face away. He smelled so powerfully of smoke, and she could for sure smell whiskey on him now. “What’s the matter?” he asked, pretending to pout. “Why are you angry with me? Aren’t you happy about the show next spring?”
“I’m very happy about that,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it. Certainly not so soon. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Jayne.”
“I tried calling you on your cell tonight,” she said. “I also called the gallery around five thirty and asked André to have you call me, but I guess he didn’t tell you. I texted you too.”
He let go of her to unfasten one of his cuffs, but he had trouble removing the silver cuff link. She’d forgotten that he’d left that morning wearing her favorite shirt, a tailored oxford in light blue, made from a cotton fabric so soft it felt like silk. He had bought it at Saks and had let her wear it around his apartment in New York one night on the condition that she go without a bra. Now he had worn it to lunch with Sofia and to dinner with Chantal. “That’s my favorite shirt,” she said.
He nodded. “Thank you. I like it too.”
She said nothing and watched him continue to wrestle with his sleeve before she grabbed his clumsy hand and unfastened the cuff link for him.
“André told me you called, but my phone ran out of power,” he said.
“Couldn’t you have borrowed André’s cell? I told him it was important.”
“He didn’t offer, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t think to ask. What happened?” He blinked as if his vision was blurry. “He did not tell me it was important, Jayne. At least I don’t think he did.”
“You don’t think he did,” she repeated.
“I don’t remember. I am sorry. It was a very busy day.”
“I guess so.”
He paused. “Yes, it was, Jayne.”
She looked down at his feet. He was wearing the shoes he’d had on the night they met, Florentine-made loafers, very soft black leather. “How was your dinner?”
He put a hand beneath her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. “It was fine,” he said. The whites of his eyes were pink- tinged.
She held his gaze. Someone on the street honked twice, the second time long and irate.
“You remember that you should not worry about me when we are not together,” he said.
“Yes, I know, and you aren’t going to worry about me either,” she said, failing to keep her voice from rising.
He ignored her exasperation. “No, I am not. I do not see the point. I cannot control you or anyone else, nor do I want to.”
“I guess you didn’t see my text either,” she said. “I called because Pauline needs her paycheck, and your daughter asked me to lunch today. She said that your ex-wife is also going to be there.”
He made a disgruntled sound. “Anne-Claire is—” He shook his head.
“She’s what?” she said.
“She is funny.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“Elle est un peu bizarre,” he said. “Strange is how you would say it, I think.” He bent down to slip off his shoes.
She wondered if he would want to have sex tonight. She wanted to be left in peace but had only ever refused him once, on a night when she had an upset stomach from the clams she’d had at dinner. He’d had steak and later joked that she really should eat more red meat.
“Your wife is strange,” she said. “That’s all?”
“Ex-wife,” he said, putting his arms around her again. “You are in such a foul mood tonight, Jayne. I am sorry, but I did not expect my phone to die at dinner.”
She knew she should say, “That’s all right.” How many arguments, how many backs turned coldly away, would be avoided if these three words were said instead of some furious alternative?
“You still haven’t told me why you have so few books by women either,” she said. “Did your wife take them with her when you got divorced?”
“She did take some of them,” he said. “Ex-femme, s’il te plaît.”
“The ex-femme who I’ll be meeting on Saturday.”
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“No, I’m going. I already told Jeanne-Lucie that I would.”
“Anne-Claire will be nice to you,” he said, reaching for her again. “And Pauline’s check is at the gallery, where I keep forgetting it.”
“Why is it there?” she asked, surprised.
“Because, nosy girl—” He paused. “That is the expression, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Our accountant does some of my personal bookkeeping too.”
“That’s nice of him.”
Laurent shook his head. “I pay him for it.”
“I was kidding,” she said.
She stood in his arms, halfheartedly hugging him back. There was nothing wrong, not really. If she were to lay everything out—her fears, the possible problems and self-doubts—if she were to arrange and inspect them like laundry on the line, with its wrinkles and small indelible stains, she would find little more than the occasional inconveniences and minor indignities of being alive. And what were they when compared to the impossible good fortune of a gallery show, of a generous, indulgent lover in Paris?
If she wanted to continue to live with Laurent, she knew that she’d have to trust him. The lunch with Sofia had probably been nothing more than two friends, business associates, really, meeting up after a long time apart, and maybe his phone really had run out of power. She did not know why she was always so willing to assume the worst. Being with Laurent in Paris, working more purposefully as an artist, did feel like the beginning of a new life, the one she had hoped to step into since she’d left home at eighteen and started college.
“Come to bed, Jayne,” Laurent was murmuring now into her ear. “Don’t be cross with me.”
She fidgeted against him, his beard tickling her. “Cross,” she said. “You sound so British.”
“Blame my son-in-law,” he said. “You might meet him on Saturday if he has the courage to stay home for the luncheon.”
Instead of the bedroom, he led her by one hand to the
canapé
, their steps silent on the plush rugs. She had given in, she recognized, accepted his evasions, but she could feel a kernel of resentment in her chest, something that might not go away. The bitter heart of the matter, she knew, was jealousy. It bothered her badly that he might be attracted to Sofia and to Chantal, the painter that he and André had met for dinner, though when Jayne had looked up Chantal online after the call with André, she’d found only two photos, both showing a pale, severe-looking woman with thick black eyeliner and a confrontational look—not Laurent’s type, as far as Jayne could tell. She had looked up Sofia too, having finally managed to decipher her last name from her signature on one of the six portraits in the hall. Sofia looked beautiful in the pictures that Jayne found of her—a Sophie Marceau lookalike—and this had done nothing to improve Jayne’s mood.
She knew that she couldn’t expect Laurent never to find other women attractive simply because she was living with him. She herself had not stopped noticing other men, and considering what had happened with André earlier that day, she was hardly blameless. She had been in touch with Colin too, and perhaps even more of a transgression was the fact that she’d begun drawing him in her sketchbook.
Laurent spread the purple throw over the sofa, and Jayne lay down on her back, shivering as he settled on top of her and parted her legs with his knee. She could not resist his lust or the inevitable upwell of her own when she saw its determined, exhilarating glint in his half-closed eyes. They had done this so many times now, almost every day since she’d started seeing him. She wondered when their desire for each other would wane—a year from now, two years? But right now he was kissing her neck, the whole fragrant, sinewy length of him pressing her into the soft blanket beneath her naked back. She did not want to do this with anyone else, but when the image of Colin’s face arrived, she felt a confused stab of desire. A moment later, André’s face replaced Colin’s, and she could again feel his hands on her shoulders, pulling her toward him in the back office. But in the final hectic seconds before orgasm, she saw no one’s face, only the dark violet wash of pleasure that emptied her mind of all its ungovernable impressions and complaints.
• • •
After they’d gone to bed, the purple throw folded and smoothed over one arm of the
canapé
, teeth brushed, bodies showered and dried off, Laurent answered a question that she hadn’t asked. “She’s a lesbian, Jayne.”
She was drowsing next to him, but hearing his words, she awakened as if pinched. “Who? Sofia?”
He rolled his head from side to side until she heard his neck crack. “Chantal is a lesbian,” he said. “The woman André and I met tonight for dinner. In case you would like to know.”
“Oh,” she said, laughing a little. “Thanks.”
“I like her and her work very much. So does André.”
“Then I’m sure you’re both very happy that she’s interested in working with you.”
“Yes, we are.” He yawned and covered most of his face with his hand. “Chantal is three years younger than you are, but she has already been painting seriously for twelve years. You and she will be in the same show, Jayne, along with one other artist. It might be my daughter, but I don’t know yet.”
She was so surprised that she laughed in a choked burst. “Jeanne-Lucie?”
“Yes.”
“What does André say?”
“He doesn’t know yet.”
“What do you think he’ll say?” she asked.
He moved his head to meet her eyes, his own eyes dark hollows in the faint light filtering in from behind the curtains. “My daughter is very talented. It would not be an embarrassment for us to sell her work at Vie Bohème. André admires her and her work. A little too much, I think sometimes. He is the one who in the past has suggested that we put her in a show.”
“You didn’t agree?”
“No, I wanted her to find her own way.”
“You could say that about me too.”
“I could, yes, but our relationship is different from the one I have with my daughter.”
“Obviously.”
One of his hands, large and paw-like in the dark, smoothed the sheet over his chest. “I should tell you that you are not the only artist I help, Jayne,” he murmured.
She felt a hollowing in her ears. “Are there other artists you’re helping right now?” she asked.
“Yes.” He took her hand in his. “I am, I guess you could say, a patron of the arts in a way that is different from how I am a patron of certain artists at the gallery. Those relationships are not the same because I earn money from them. I might earn money from the others, with time, but that is not my only concern.” He paused. “We can talk about this when I am not so tired. I need to sleep now.” He turned onto his side, ignoring or else not seeing her look of alarm.
“Laurent,” she said. “Please don’t spring this on me and then go right to sleep. Who are they?”
He reached for the glass of water on his night table and drained it before looking at her again. “There are two women and one man, but please, let’s go to sleep now, Jayne. Je suis crevé. Toi aussi, tu dois dormir. Maintenant il est très tard.”
He wanted her to go to sleep too, despite a moment ago having done the emotional equivalent of setting off a string of firecrackers in their bedroom. She stared disconsolately at the curve of his back before she got out of bed and went into the living room. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling besides jealousy and disorientation, and that she’d somehow been duped. He was helping two other female artists. And one man, he claimed. What did they give him in return? And what did he expect from her, Jayne wondered, that he hadn’t already asked for?
From behind the dark, rippling curtain of her unease, she felt a deep weariness with herself. Who was it that had said the problem with being alive, being a person, was that wherever you went, there you were? You never had time away from your petty, roiling sackful of insecurities, your sagging body, your covetous, senseless ego. Before she’d left for college, Jayne remembered overhearing her parents arguing in the kitchen about how busy they always were, how tired her father felt after a frustrating day at work, he returning home long after the dinner hour. “What’s the point of all this?” he’d asked Jayne’s mother sharply. “I don’t know, Lloyd,” she’d replied, exasperated and exhausted too. Jayne had always thought that the point was, for better or worse, to be a success, to be able to support yourself, and to help other people when possible. Every tool she needed had been handed to her. The price was that she ignore some of the more immediate demands of her hungering ego.
Your self-respect, you mean,
she could hear her sister saying.
Abase yourself for now, and you’ll get what you want.
Put in those terms, it sounded a little like Dr. Faustus’s deal with Mephistopheles, but as was the case for Dr. Faustus, the immediate rewards were all but irresistible.
Hi Jayne,
Thanks so much for writing back. It’s okay that you didn’t tell me you were moving before you left. I’m guessing that you had a million things to do.
It looks like I’ll be coming to Paris later this summer, probably sometime in August. As soon as I know for sure, I’ll email you. Or text you? Can you get texts without being charged an arm and a leg? It’d be great to see you and maybe you could show me a couple of your favorite places.
Yours, Colin