Secrets of Paris (28 page)

“No, really—” Lydie said.

“I promise not to laugh. I shouldn’t have said anything to you—you’ll think we’re terrible. But you do get hardened. Give me a peek.”

Anything for the cause. Lydie handed it over. “Um, what do you do here, Dot?” she asked.

“I’m in charge of all the secretaries. I used to be personal secretary to Ambassador McGovern.” She scrutinized the petition.

“It
is
a little excessive,” Lydie said, embarrassed.

“Not so bad,” Dot said. She looked up. “I notice you’re filing individually. Your husband’s not cosigning.”

“Well, that’s true,” Lydie said. Was it her imagination, or did Dot wear an expression of sympathy? The world of Americans in Paris, at least those connected with the government, was a small one, and she supposed it likely that people would have heard about the separation by now. “Kelly is my assistant—I figured I should file alone.”

“Oh,” Dot said, continuing to watch Lydie’s face. “It’s just that an additional signature can carry weight. Two people taking responsibility for the alien instead of one. This is one of my little tricks of the trade.”

“I think it’s better this way,” Lydie said.

“Whatever you say,” Dot said. “By the way, I sneaked in to see Michael’s work at the Louvre. Brilliant! Everyone will say so.”

“Thank you,” Lydie said.

“I tell you what,” Dot said. “Leave this petition with me for an hour or so, and I’ll punch it into shape.”

“Dot!” Lydie said, at once grateful and uncomfortable; she felt sure the only reason Dot would volunteer was because she knew about the separation and felt sorry for Lydie.

“It’s a formula, honey. That’s all it takes to fill this out, and no one knows it better than I do.”

Killing time, Lydie decided to buy a book and have tea at W. H. Smith. But walking down the vaulted colonnade of the rue de Rivoli, she changed her mind, crossed the street, and headed through the Tuileries toward the Louvre.

She hadn’t yet seen Michael’s information center. She knew it was nearly finished, but she hadn’t been able to force herself into the museum to look at it. How could she stand to view it amid tourists instead of alongside its architect? If she didn’t see it today, she knew she never would. Dot had made it possible. Because somehow Michael was responsible for Dot volunteering to do Kelly’s petition. Either out of pity for what he had done to Lydie or awe for the mark he had left on the Louvre: it didn’t matter which it was. All Lydie knew, walking through the forest of chestnut trees, was that she had a burning desire to see her husband’s work.

Coming into the sunlight by the stone pond, she stopped dead. There was Michael, sitting in a metal lawn chair, his feet propped up on the pond’s rim. He was reading the newspaper. And beside him, writing in a notebook, was Anne Dumas.

Michael believed in neither the powers of darkness, nor the powers of suggestion, but it seemed a combination of the two that made him turn around. He had to pivot nearly 180 degrees to see
Lydie disappearing into the chestnut woods. He caught just a glimpse of her: red-gold hair, blue linen jacket, big straw bag. But the same powers that had made him turn around told him that she had seen him and Anne.

“Hell,” he said.

“Hmm?” Anne said, continuing to write.

He did not reply. He stared at the spot where Lydie had been, wondering whether she stood just out of sight, behind a tree trunk, watching them now.

“I cannot do my work with you saying ‘hell,’ ” Anne said.

“Why not?” Michael asked.

She rested her forearm on his knee. “Because if something upsets you, you should tell me what it is.”

“Oh,” Michael said. “What are you working on?” He knew it had to be historical; he had learned that Anne was easily distracted from the present by anything in the seventeenth century, the period in which she wished she dwelled and actually, it seemed to Michael, sometimes believed she did.

“My articles for
Figaro
. You know, their Sunday magazine is so popular, this project is really a headache. Six articles, two lectures. Will all those readers care anything about my work? They are not scholars.”

“Anne, French people love their own history. The entire country was practically raised on it.”

“Exactly my point. What can I tell them that is new without seeming pedantic? So I’ve decided to write about the rivalry between Madame de Sévigné and Ninon de Lenclos.”

“You hardly ever mention Ninon de Lenclos.”

“She discovered Voltaire. Also, she screwed the husband
and
the son of Madame de Sévigné. It will be a dramatic tale.”

“I’m sure,” Michael said.

Anne’s eyes crinkled as she smiled into the sun. Her streaked
hair had grown since Michael had known her. It curled softly around her ears. “She was the sexiest one in
Three Women of the Marais
,” Anne said. “I always have fun writing about her. Let me tell you a story …”

Michael turned away, to stare at the hole in the trees. His romance with Anne felt like homework. He had begun to be diligent about it: see her at work, sleep with her now and then, talk dirty to her, take her to dinner. What had been breathtaking as fantasy was boring, even oppressive, as reality.

The truth was he loved Lydie.

But could he say he was still in love with her? “In love,” he had learned during his time away from her, covered more than a state of long-term commitment. It covered more than gentle contentment. Michael still wanted passion and lust, and he had learned that he wanted them with his wife.

“
Chéri
,” Anne said. “Why aren’t you listening?”

“I’m a little distracted,” Michael admitted.

“The separation has been hard for you. I have seen that.”

“Yeah.” Michael, who had told Anne about leaving Lydie one night when he had really needed comfort, hated to talk about it. He saw how happy it made Anne. Then he felt guilty for leading her on. Was he using her? He didn’t exactly know what she wanted from their relationship, but he had some idea. The last night he had stayed at her apartment, she had whispered that she loved him.

“It is always like that,” Anne said. “No matter how bad the problems are, it is always hard to leave a person you once loved. My friend Jean called me last night, and ah!”

“He’s back from Brittany?” Michael asked. He wondered where Lydie was now. Probably shopping for props in the rue de Rivoli. Didier’s ball was just two weeks off.

“Yes. Of course he claims to have been miserable there without me. I adore Bretagne.”

“Do you wish you had gone?” Michael asked, hoping for her to say yes.

“Not with Jean. With you, perhaps. Yes, I think I would see a different Michel in Bretagne.” She giggled. “Maybe next year. When the critics review your construction, they will never allow you to leave France.”

“I leave in six weeks,” Michael said.

“We shall see when the time comes.”

Michael planned his meeting with Lydie carefully. He would show up at the apartment, unannounced, so she would not have the opportunity to decline. If she refused to let him in, he would use his key.

Climbing the stairs to his floor, he felt as nervous as a boy on a date, or a slasher. The key in his hand felt like a weapon. He rang the doorbell.

“Who is it?” came Lydie’s voice.

“Me.”

She opened the door instantly, surprising Michael. Seeing her face-to-face for the first time in—how long? Days? Weeks? He noticed her pallor, normal for Lydie in the middle of winter, but not the end of summer. A black velvet headband held back her burnished hair. She wore the dangling gold earrings their friend Holly had brought her from Egypt. But to counteract the elegance of her headgear, she wore a baggy T-shirt over jeans.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

She stepped aside, glaring, saying nothing. He wasn’t used to seeing her wild, out of control. The look in her eyes alarmed him. He thought that look was the last thing you’d see in the forest as the panther tore your throat.

It felt strange and good to be back in his apartment. Michael looked around the living room, saw nothing had changed. Lydie stood behind him, her back against the door; he wondered whether he should wait for her to invite him to sit down or to just take his regular chair.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

“I want to kill you,” she said, and Michael flashed, not to the panther, but to Neil Fallon.

“Lydie—” he said, stepping toward her.

She held out one hand, like a traffic cop. He stopped dead.

“You saw me in the park?” he asked. Maybe she nodded; he couldn’t quite tell. “Can we straighten this out? Do you want me to tell you about it?”

“Go to confession if you want to talk,” Lydie said.

“Lydie …” Michael said.

“You just can’t stop yourself—the sins feel so good, right?” Lydie asked.

Well, she’s right about that, Michael thought, feeling disgusted with himself and with Lydie for pointing it out. “I love you,” Michael said. “I’m sorry about everything.”

“I thought you loved her. Anne Dumas,” Lydie said. For the first time, her tone seemed less aggressive, a little quizzical.

“No. I don’t love her,” Michael said. He felt dizzy. He wished they could sit down.

“I knew you were seeing someone, but Anne
Dumas
?” Lydie said, her voice trembling. “Watching you with her. In the sunshine, you both looking so tan, so comfortable with each other. You haven’t even known her that long …”

What difference does that make? Michael wanted to ask, although he already knew the answer. Lydie set great stock in longevity. She believed the person you loved longest you loved most.
Birthdays and anniversaries overjoyed her; they represented the accumulation of affections. But right in the midst of her sentence he reached for her, drew her against his chest. In such a little time Anne had become his measure, and Lydie felt tall, unfamiliar.

“I forgot what I was going to say,” she said.

“That’s good,” he said.

“Everyone knows about you and Anne Dumas, I suppose?” Lydie said, stepping away. “Arthur Chase? Dot Graulty?”

“Who’s Dot Graulty?” Michael asked.

“That woman from the embassy. The one who can accomplish anything.”

Michael remembered. He had seen her recently, at a press reception at the Louvre. She had carried on about his project—how wonderful it was, how proud Americans could be of him, her eyes constantly clicking between him and Anne. Later Anne had called her
la maternelle
—the mother figure. “She doesn’t know anything about it,” Michael lied. “Why do you care about her?”

“She’s been wonderful to me. Today she helped me file that petition for Kelly,” Lydie said.

Michael had to admit that Lydie really knew how to stick with something. Better, perhaps, than he did: look what he had done to his marriage. For weeks, since leaving Lydie, guilt had been booby-trapping him left and right. What had once made sense, his desire for happiness, now mocked him. Especially now, in the presence of Lydie, whom, he realized, he wanted more than anything else. He grabbed her wrists, held them hard. Their eyes locked and they stared at each other for a few seconds until Lydie closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and let him kiss her.