Secrets of Paris (18 page)

“The phone bill is on my mind. How often do you have to call Julia?”

“I hardly ever call her more than once a week!” Lydie said. “I thought staying in touch with her was part of the bargain.”

“I guess so,” Michael said. “But when you put it that way, you make it sound as if you and I are on opposite sides. That I dragged you here against your will.”

“I don’t feel that way,” Lydie said, taking Michael’s hand. He squeezed hers back, but he wasn’t smiling. This was a perfect example of how Lydie missed Patrice. She wished she could talk with her friend about Michael’s distance. She was in the mood to trade crabby husband stories with Patrice, but Patrice was on vacation.

Lydie crossed the days of August off the calendar. As the days fell away, a warehouse in Neuilly filled with objects for the ball. Every day Lydie walked miles, searching for props. Her outings took her up the funicular to Montmartre; through covered passages, all frosted glass, wrought iron, and tile, off the rue des Petits-Champs; into the leafy village square behind the Panthéon; along the crowded market streets of Mouffetard and Cité Berryer. So many shops were closed for August, the façades blank with lowered steel shutters.

An air of laziness pervaded Paris; Lydie noticed but did not feel it. She walked fast, urgently, as though the next destination was the most important one. She tried to keep the ball in mind. She thought of the countryside and pictured guests dancing to an orchestra outdoors. She saw the ball as a play, herself as the director. In this vision, she stood off to the side, not dancing. She was watching everyone, even Michael, whirl across grass wet with the night’s dew.

She felt uneasiness coming from Michael. Sometimes she caught him watching her. Quiet, holding something back, as
though he had a secret or a gripe and was waiting for her to wheedle it out of him.

Stopping in her apartment between forays to the warehouse she would relax. She would sit on her terrace, tilt her face toward the sun, drink a glass of iced tea. She would think of her frenzy of activity, wonder what she wanted it to obscure.

“We haven’t even gone away for a weekend,” she said to Michael when he came home one night. It was late; work had kept him at the Louvre and they had eaten separately.

“This is my busiest time—yours too,” Michael said.

“Somehow I had thought our summer in France would be a little more fun,” Lydie said. “We bought all those guidebooks back in New York, and we’ve hardly even used them.”

Michael laughed.

“What?” Lydie asked, her feelings hurt.

“It just sounds funny—as if we can’t have fun without a guidebook. I can just see us, on a train through France, reading about, I don’t know, World War II battles, instead of looking out the window.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Lydie said, and she thought Michael’s comment was strange, coming from a man who went through museums reading the information cards tacked to the wall before standing back to look at the paintings. “You sound grouchy,” she said. “Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“That’s all you have to say? ‘No’?”

“I’m not mad.”

“But you don’t seem exactly happy.”

“I’m fine, Lydie,” Michael said in a tone that infuriated her. She imagined that he sounded amused that she would be so worked up over, apparently, nothing. She stared at him, reading some report. His brown hair looked lighter, as though it had been bleached by
the sun. When had that happened? she wondered. She looked away, blinded by the halogen lights of a passing tour boat.

“Patrice keeps inviting us to Saint-Tropez,” Lydie said.

“I know—Didier sent a note to my office.”

“You didn’t tell me!”

Michael smiled at her. “I just received it. I’m telling you now.”

And suddenly Lydie had the terrible, electric feeling that she was not only nagging him, but turning into a
nag:
a harpy with a perpetually downturned mouth, with frown lines between the brows, with a caw instead of a voice.

“Let’s go to Saint-Tropez,” she said, lowering her voice an octave. “I’ll go topless on the beach.”

“You don’t have to,” Michael said. Lydie, who had so far been too modest to bare her breasts or even wear a bikini at any French beach, suddenly smiled and began to slowly roll up her T-shirt. They lived on the top floor; who besides Michael could possibly see her? She walked around the table toward him and sat facing him on his lap. Michael held her away, so he could look down at her breasts. Then his hands covered them and he kissed her lips. Lydie began to shiver. His kiss was soft and lazy, off to a slow start, and his arms went around her as Lydie began to unbutton his shirt.

He was pressing against her so hard she couldn’t move her fingers. The kiss stopped; they rested their heads on each other’s shoulders. It took some time for Lydie to realize that they were no longer hugging, but clutching each other. Michael whispered “Lydie,” but he didn’t seem to want her to reply.

The atmosphere in Paris turned close, unstable. Every morning the sky was white, and nothing relieved the heat until late afternoon
when thunder would rumble east from Brittany, rain would pour down, and lightning twice struck the Eiffel Tower. Lydie caught a summer cold. She spent two days sitting in her living room, a washcloth and a bowl of ice water on the floor beside her, watching the weather change. The tableau of blank sky replaced by violet storm clouds seemed malevolent, biblical, like an Old Testament scene painted by Géricault.

Michael would call to see if she was okay. “I’m fine,” she would say, and that was all, even when her fever was 104. Something had passed between them, that night on the terrace, and now his solicitous inquiries for her health reminded her of a man calling his ailing ex-wife: it cost him little and meant nothing.

Or was she delirious? She didn’t really know. Her throat was parched, her skin dry. She didn’t have the energy to get to the bottom of anything. She was a cool, uncurious observer. Lying on her back she let herself drift into a trance where she and Michael didn’t love each other. What was “falling out of love,” anyway, but a mystical phrase for something painfully mundane: you stop caring about each other. You no longer ache for each other. You don’t mind being alone; perhaps you prefer it. Falling out of love: it didn’t happen overnight.

Then the shock of the notion roused her from her trance. Do you really have to work so late? Why don’t we make love? Why had she never asked the questions? She knew why: Lydie did not want to hear the true story. She had been raised in a house where you kept your troubles, no matter how awful, to yourself, where you were told to stop crying, where things, bad and even sometimes good, were willfully ignored until they went away or blew up in your face.

Patrice called. The sound of her voice made Lydie cry, but she did not let Patrice know.

“In less than an hour someone will appear at your door bearing gifts,” Patrice said.

“What are you, the Delphic Oracle?” Lydie asked.

“No, I’m a fortune cookie. How are you?”

“Sick. I have a cold.”

“You poor thing! I must have gotten vibes, because I’m having Kelly bring you a little something.”

“Really? What?”

“You’ll see.”

“Well, thanks in advance. How’s the beach?”

“Fantastic. I’m tan, and I mean
all over
. No bikini lines. Why haven’t you and Michael come yet?”

“Work. They’ve started construction at the Louvre. Michael is thrilled.”

“I’m very proud of him,” Patrice said. “Why don’t you come alone?”

Lydie didn’t answer for a second. “I’m busy too. Getting everything ready for the ball. By the way, I had invitations printed. Will you ask Didier to send me his guest list?”

“You sound strange. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about me. I always get sick in August. It’s an annual event.”

“Well, if you say so,” Patrice said, sounding unconvinced. “Get yourself some decent medicine and sleep around the clock.”

“Okay. I miss you.”

“Kisses!” Patrice said, and broke the connection.

Hanging up the phone, Lydie had the strangest feeling that nothing bad would be happening if she and Michael had not left the United States. They would be happy together, she would not be sick, he would not be acting like a jerk. Her mother’s guardian angel was punishing her for transferring loyalties to Patrice. She
closed her eyes and saw the angel, an avenger: hooded, black-winged, straight from God. She knew she was superstitious, but then, she had been raised by Catholics from Ireland. She fell asleep.

Kelly stepped off the number thirty-two bus carrying the present for Lydie. This was the moment she had been waiting for! All August she had worked alone at the d’Orignys’—polishing silver, cleaning closets and cupboards, wishing for a chance to speak with Lydie. She had Patrice to thank for it. Her lips moved, rehearsing the words she would say. Her palms sweated. She wiped them on a tissue. She wanted them to be dry, because she knew Lydie would shake her hand in greeting. She looked around.

Lydie’s neighborhood was so different from Patrice’s: every single woman on the street looked like a fashion model. The shops and restaurants had brilliant red awnings with gold lettering: Chez Francis, Bar des Théâtres, Marius et Janette. The Place des Vosges was so drab, so ancient, in comparison. And Kelly’s own neighborhood, behind Clichy, could not even be compared. It was dirty, grimy, full of Arabs. The shops sold rice and beans, cheap shoes, sex toys. She wished her sisters and brothers could see her now, walking through the Place de l’Alma, ringing the bell of an American who was not her employer.

“Hello, Lydie, hello, Lydie,” Kelly said to herself, walking up the stairs. She remembered to wipe her palms.

“Kelly!” Lydie said, standing in the foyer of her apartment. She was wearing a robe. In the middle of the day! Kelly was so surprised by this, she forgot her greeting. But then Lydie stepped forward, shook her hand. “I’d give you a kiss,” Lydie said, “but I’m sick and probably contagious. Come on in.”

Kelly remembered to hand her the present, some homemade strawberry preserves that had actually been sent as a thank-you present to Patrice from her mother.

“My favorite kind,” Lydie said, examining the jar.

Kelly stood in the entranceway and looked around. Tall windows overlooked the river. The furniture was beautiful! Very contemporary! The couch was covered in a wild pattern; there was an entertainment center complete with TV, VCR, and stereo; pole lamps were everywhere. She thought of Patrice’s lamps: old things covered with gilt that flaked every time you touched them.

“Is that a Barcalounger?” Kelly asked, unable to help herself. She had seen pictures of reclining chairs in Patrice’s magazines.

Lydie laughed. “Yes. It’s not my favorite thing, but Michael’s father gave it to him for his thirty-fifth birthday. Why don’t we sit over there? You can try it out.”

The sweat behind Kelly’s knees bonded with the vinyl. “I’ll get us some iced tea,” Lydie said. Before leaving the room, she showed Kelly how to work the levers. Kelly made her feet go up and down and her head go back. She made herself comfortable, with her feet about six inches off the ground and her head back, not far, just a little.

Lydie rejoined her. At that moment, Kelly realized what she had done: allowed Lydie to serve her.

“Oh, Mum!” she said, scrambling to get out of the chair. This wasn’t what she had planned! She had intended to offer to work a little for Lydie, for free, before proposing her idea.

“Sit back and relax,” Lydie said. She smiled at Kelly, then sat on the sofa. “Are you enjoying August without the d’Orignys?”

“Oh, yes,” Kelly said, holding her head up. Her comfort put her at a disadvantage. She wished she could trade places with Lydie.

“I really miss Patrice, that’s for sure,” Lydie said. “I don’t know what I’ll do without her when I return to New York.”

“Will that be soon?” Kelly asked, forcing her voice to be steady.

“In October. Has Patrice done anything about helping you to get there? To the United States?”

Kelly could hardly believe it; Lydie was making it so easy for her. “No, not really. It is very hard for her to do, living forever in Paris, married to a Frenchman. It would be much easier for someone who was returning to the United States—to take me with them.”