Miracle

by Deborah Smith

  Jeff made a dramatically derisive sound. “Domestic or imported?”

  “Imported. And a de Savin label. What more is there to consider?”

  “My man, I should take you to the wineries in California sometime. After you sample a little of the home brew you’ll lose that arrogant French attitude.”

  “California pretensions do not make classic wines.” Sebastien included the girl in the repartee, nodding to her.

  She grinned at him, abruptly open and unabashed. “We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.” She spoke as if reciting.

  Sebastien actually laughed, the unusual sound aimed solely at her. “You remembered. La Rochefoucauld.”

  “I was listening real hard when you read that to me.” She chuckled, and they shared a private look that hinted at intimate conversations. Jeff sighed. God, this was ludicrous.

  Jeff plunged ahead. “Well, Amy, if you and I are going to be housemates for a few days, I guess I better warn you. I’m bringing my collection of Ray Charles albums over here. I hope you can stand to hear ‘Hit the Road, Jack’ three or four times a day.”

  She looked startled. “House … mates?”

  Sebastien’s expression became dark. He shot a rebuking glance at Jeff. “Let’s go outside and talk.”

  The girl’s cheerfulness faded. She seemed to contract, and by the time they reached the courtyard and sat down in wrought-iron chairs, she appeared ready to disappear into the plush gray pillows.

  Sebastien held her gaze with unwavering, though not angry, eyes. “After I leave on Monday, Jeff will stay here with you. He’ll help you make arrangements to attend school. He’ll make certain that you find a place to live on campus.”

  She studied Sebastien in silence, her mouth an anguished line of control. “You think I’ll waste your money, Doc? You think I need a chaperone?”

  “No. I think you need a friend. There’s a lot you don’t know. Jeff will make certain you don’t have any trouble.”

  Jeff restrained a sardonic smile. Of course this babe could waste the money if nobody kept her under control. Women had that inclination anyway, regardless of age. His ex had left him owing twenty-thousand dollars in credit-card charges.

  Jeff lifted a ladybug from its struggle on the slick tile floor to a safe spot on the leaf of a philodendron. That was the limit of his compassion for a female of any species.

  “All right,” the girl said. She looked at Jeff, having regained enough of her dignity to eye him with a frown. “But I want you to know … I want you to understand, Dr. Atwater, that I don’t need much help. I’m not some kind of charity case you gotta feel sorry for.” She looked at Sebastien. “I want you to be proud of me someday.”

  He was visibly moved. “I’m very proud of you already. I know you’ll do well.”

  “And maybe we’ll meet again.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Jeff gave them both a sympathetic smile, the one he used on delusional patients. They couldn’t see how pathetic this situation had become, and how dangerous. No wonder Sebastien’s father was concerned enough to send Pio Beaucaire in search of professional help. The fact that Sebastien had asked him to take care of the girl eased Jeff’s guilt. This duty promised the perfect blend of personal and professional satisfaction.

  The two hundred thousand dollars, of course, was merely a fringe benefit.

  Sebastien placed the green silk scarf next to her face. “See? This is your best color. Exactly the color of your eyes.”

  Amy stared into the oblong mirror atop a display case. She was too distracted to concentrate on her face, with its frown and stitched-up chin. Instead she looked at the reflection of a fantasy world behind her. Neiman-Marcus. She’d heard about this place. It was like being in church and made her want to whisper.

  Sebastian, even dressed simply in charcoal-gray trousers and one of his white polo shirts with a tiny de Savin crest on it, radiated style in a way that said his money was old, very old. Sales clerks had stared pointedly at him, then at her, when they’d entered the store.

  “Are you listening?” he asked.

  “Sure.” She looked at herself reluctantly. “Green. Okay. I’ll remember.” She chuckled.

  “What is it?”

  “I never knew a man could be so good at picking out clothes.”

  “The best clothes designers in the world are men.”

  “But they’re gay.”

  “Not all.” He looked at her wickedly. “Perhaps I’m gay.”

  She burst into laughter and covered her mouth. Amy shook her head at him emphatically. “You’re not even cheerful.”

  He sighed and laid the scarf over the shoulder of her T-shirt. It looked silly against such an ordinary background, she thought. But then, she looked silly shopping in Neiman-Marcus. “This feels wrong,” she told him, her humor fading. “Can we go now?”

  He gestured at the bags piled around their feet. “We’re not finished.”

  “Doc, I can shop by myself … later.” She pointed to the green scarf. “Don’t worry. I’ll buy everything in green. Even my underwear.”

  “I thought you enjoyed getting out of the house.”

  “I can get out all the time after you leave. I’ll want to get out.”

  Subdued, they stood in silence, sharing a bittersweet look. He tossed the scarf onto a counter, then reached for her hand. “I hoped to postpone the inevitable. When we return I have to begin packing.”

  A long, ragged breath slid from her throat. “Oh.”

  “I can’t put it off any longer. It’s fairly simple—I’ll only take clothes and personal items. Pio—Monsieur Beaucaire—will arrange to close up the house and sell everything.”

  “Just like that? You won’t keep anything?”

  “There’s very little that’s important to me here.”

  Including me, she thought sadly. “What about your cars?”

  “The Cord will be shipped back to France.” He shrugged, unconcerned. Amy knew she’d never understand what it felt like to be that rich. He reached into a pocket of his slacks and removed a set of keys, which he placed on her palm. “I thought perhaps you’d like to have the Ferrari.”

  He led her out of the store, while two clerks trailed them carrying her new clothes. Amy said nothing after his announcement about the car. When they reached it she gave the keys back. “I can’t drive it. Not right now, anyway. You drive.”

  He nodded. After they were seated inside the Ferrari’s plush interior, with the bright, hot sunshine of the August day beaming through the open top, he took her face in his hands and looked at her carefully. “Don’t you want the car?”

  She shrugged, finally. “Sure.”

  “Don’t overwhelm me with excitement. Try to control yourself.”

  Amy took a deep breath. “I’d rather have a one-way plane ticket to Africa.”

  She watched the impulsive words register on his expression, making his eyes turn cold. “That’s impossible.”

  “Why?” She had to ask. She had to know, even if the question made him furious. “I wouldn’t cause any trouble. I’d do anything you wanted—”

  “I want you to stay here and attend school.”

  “But if you care about me so much, why—”

  “The subject is closed, Amy.”

  “No, no!” She shook her fists at him. “How can you be so wonderful to me … how can you give me all this stuff and take me to bed and touch me the way you do and not ever want to see me again?”

  “I told you from the beginning it would be this way. Nothing has changed. Don’t ruin our last two days with this childish questioning.”

  “Don’t call me a child! You can’t—you can’t screw me like I’m a grown woman and then talk to me this way. I don’t care if you’re eleven years older than me. You’re not even thirty!”

  “I am an eternity older than you are. And I’m not taking you with me to Africa. Now do you want to hate me and be angry for the next forty-eigh
t hours, or will you accept reality?”

  “Doc, why?” She was pleading with him. “Am I so awful that I’d embarrass you?”

  He grabbed her hands and jerked them lightly, his expression strained. “No. I promise you, it’s not that. If I took you to Africa you’d be bored and restless. You would resent me for the hours I work. You’d feel homeless in a strange country—you can’t speak French, which is all you would hear in that part of Africa, except for the native languages—and you’d have no friends.” His voice curled around her like a whip. “You’d come to hate me.”

  “Tell the truth. I’m too young. I’m not educated enough. I’d never fit in with the kind of people you come from.”

  “You are too young. You do need more education … you deserve it. And yes, you’d never fit in, but I don’t want you to fit in with other people. I want you to be what you are, because it’s wonderful. I’ve seen what happens when someone who has a unique spirit is forced to change.”

  “You’re trying to make it sound like you’re leaving me for my own good.”

  “I am. Listen to me, Amy. You’re an adult. I’m treating you like one. Now act like one. Do what’s best for your future: Stay here and go to school.”

  Her defiance sagged. It was useless to argue with him. She’d make a complete fool of herself and ruin what was left of their time together. But Amy asked grimly, “Do adults sleep together and then deliberately forget they ever met? Is that what it means to be an adult?”

  He sat back in his seat, drained of fight as well, and rubbed his forehead. “Sometimes.”

  “Does your mama know about this?”

  “My mother is dead. I told you that the other night, remember?”

  “It was a joke, Doc. You missed the point.”

  “You see? Half the time, I don’t even understand your humor. You’d get tired of explaining it to me.” He fumbled the Ferrari keys, dropped them, and cursed viciously under his breath. Amy watched him in dull surprise. He wasn’t angry with her, he was angry with himself. The realization made her reach over and grasp his hand. “I’ll act like an adult,” she assured him. “But I’m never gonna forget you.”

  He sat still, his eyes burning into hers. “You will. I promise.”

  “I won’t.” She took the key and jabbed it into the ignition. “Let’s go. And be careful driving my car home.”

  She stood in his bedroom helping him pack, smoothing her fingers over each shirt, stroking each book, studying the family photographs in their simple sterling silver frames because each was a lifeline to his world. His sister and brother looked a great deal like him, though both were younger and his brother had a cocky, almost insulting smile.

  His mother, standing in front of a flower garden in an old, faded picture, gazed out at the world with a shy smile, dark eyes peeking from under arched brows. She was such a delicate, whimsical-looking person that she could have been an elf who’d just popped out of the marigolds for a second to have her picture made. Amy felt immediate empathy with her. Here was someone who seemed out of place. Must have been a trick of the camera.

  She turned the picture frame in her hands, reluctant to put it down. On the back was written, La comtesse de Savin. 1957.

  “What do you find so fascinating?” Sebastien asked gruffly, moving over to her from his dresser.

  She pointed to the name. “What does La comtesse mean?”

  “It’s one of the old titles. No one pays any attention to them now. My mother never used it.”

  “But … you mean, this is like a royal title?”

  “Something of that nature, yes. But it’s worthless.”

  “You—you’re royalty?”

  “Only in the most pretentious circles,” he said with a sardonic smile. He placed shoe boxes in a trunk.

  “Do you have a title?”

  He clicked his heels together and bowed. “Viscomte de Savin, at your service.”

  “Should I curtsy, or just get in my pumpkin and ride away?” At his puzzled scrutiny she explained, “Like Cinderella. You know, when the party’s over, the coach turns back into a pumpkin?” She wrapped his mother’s photograph in a sheet of bubble plastic and placed it into a box, her hands trembling.

  Sebastien put his arms around her. “Come with me. The party isn’t quite over.”

  He guided her to the courtyard, and they shared a lounge chair, holding each other and watching the sun set in a balmy, purple-streaked sky. A little while later they undressed and she made love to him there, sitting astride his thighs with her knees buried in the chair’s thick cushions.

  He gripped her hands tightly and held them against his chest as she rocked over him, her eyes half-shut. Amy felt him moving inside her like an ache of sadness. She wasn’t interested in pleasure tonight; closeness would do, being as close to him as she could get. She bent over and put her arms under him, held him to her as his hands went to her hips and stopped her.

  “Be still,” he told her gently. “Put your head on my shoulder. Yes. Like that. The other need is unimportant.”

  Later she lay beside him and he cupped her breasts in his hands. He watched his fingers move over skin still imprinted with the fine pattern of his chest hair. He lifted her right hand and kissed the lopsided heart tattooed on her wrist.

  “I’m gonna have that tattoo taken off someday,” she assured him.

  “No. It’s not shameful.” He kissed the line of stitches under her chin. “Not shameful.”

  She touched her forefinger to the more prominent scar on his chin. “Will you tell me how you got this?”

  He nodded. He related a very brief story about the accident that had killed his family and injured his face—how their van had slid off an icy mountain road when he was ten years old—and Amy listened with sad fascination. He spoke of the deaths unemotionally, and she decided that he hardly remembered them, it had all happened so long ago.

  She helped him finish his packing. He stacked the suitcases, boxes, and trunks in the hall foyer. The town house seemed unchanged. He’d taken a clock here, a few special books there.

  He cooked dinner for her, but neither of them ate much. Amy cleaned the kitchen, wearing only his white undershirt. He sat at the counter, checking notes he’d made about his travel plans, but sometimes when she glanced his way she found him watching her. Amy finished at the sink and stood, gazing blankly at the line of ceramic pots filled with herbs on the window ledge.

  “These’ll die,” she said wretchedly. She realized that she was clenching her hands together until her knuckles ached.

  Sebastien came to her and stroked her hair. He wore nothing but snug blue jogging pants, and when she rested her head against him she smelled the scent of her inexpensive perfume on the bare skin of his chest.

  “Why don’t you take the plants?” he said.

  “Thank you.” She put her arms around his waist and held him tightly.

  “Put on some clothes. Let’s go for a walk. It will help.”

  They walked in silence through the summer night. Amy’s senses were dull with misery; she could barely stand the poignant sweetness of the air, filled with the scent of flowers and newly mown grass from manicured lawns. The lights of the town houses shone through expensive draperies, happy and bright, and so much in contrast to the dread inside her that she couldn’t look at them.

  “Jeff Atwater will come by in the morning at nine,” Sebastien told her. His hand tightened around hers, but he looked straight ahead. “Before I leave for the airport.”

  “Okay.”

  “My flight leaves at eleven. I’ll only be taking two of the suitcases. Pio Beaucaire will send someone for the rest tomorrow afternoon.”

  She halted him with an urgent little motion of her hand and looked up at him wearily. “Please, don’t talk about this anymore—”

  “You should stay busy. Jeff and one of his many ladies will be taking you places … to dinner, to concerts. And you’ll be getting ready to attend school in less than a month.�
��

  “Okay, Doc, okay. And what will you be doing?”

  “Working. I report to the hospital as soon as I arrive in Abidjan.”

  She met his gaze somberly. “And in a couple of years you’ll be going back to France?”

  “Yes.”

  Amy nodded but said nothing. She was learning when to speak up and when to keep quite. A small plan began to burn inside her, making tomorrow seem less terrible: In a couple of years, when she was older, better educated, and respectable enough, she was going after him.

  Morning came too soon, bleak and unrelenting. Sebastien showered slowly, hating to lose the scent of her body. What would Amy bring to his life, if he gave her the chance? Was he foolish to turn his back on the one person who made him feel capable of love?

  But how could you bear to condemn her to your lifestyle? She should be in college; she should be developing her own independence and self-worth, now that she was away from that bastard of a father who’d cowed her.

  As he dressed he stared into the mirror over the bathroom vanity, seeing his haunted eyes clearly. In two years, when I leave Africa, perhaps I should come back and see her.

  He’d leave her alone until then. He’d let her decide if playful, light-hearted boys her own age were more appealing. He’d let her get a taste of what her newly expanded world could offer, how many choices. And then, if she still thought that she loved him, and was seasoned enough to understand the pitfalls, perhaps.…

  He went into the bedroom. She sat on the side of the bed hugging a pillow to her chest, her head down. She was dressed in her jeans and a new light, pink blouse and new jogging shoes, unspoiled white. She looked like a college student, and that helped him keep his resolve. He crossed the room and sat down beside her.

  Suddenly there was a lump in his throat. He was glad when he didn’t have to speak right away because she dropped the pillow and put both arms around him, pressing her tear-streaked face against his neck. “The last time was wonderful,” she murmured. “I wanted to say so before you went to take a shower, but I was afraid I’d cry again. I look like I’ve got frog eyes, as it is.”

  “But they’re beautiful frog eyes. And you have lovely green skin.”