Christmas at Tiffany's

by Karen Swan

  ‘So don’t get all . . .’

  ‘I’m not getting all anything on you,’ she said quickly. ‘Like you said, I was the one that left. It’s your prerogative to pick up with . . . with her.’ She looked away. Why did it have to be her, of all women?

  ‘I’m not going to apologize for it,’ he said, his voice tight.

  ‘I’m not asking you to,’ she said, whirling round quickly. ‘God knows you’re not capable of it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Well, your behaviour has made it pretty clear just how limited your emotional span really is,’ she said angrily. She sank down into the red sofa again, the cushions mushrooming up around her.

  He sat down next to her, just as quickly, just as furious. ‘Hey! Don’t put all this on me. I was serious about you, I asked you to stay with me – and you just left without a second look.’

  ‘That is not how it was, and you know it,’ she hissed fiercely. ‘And besides, from the looks of things you didn’t even wait long enough for a second look. I bet the bed wasn’t even cold before you got her into it. I was probably still sitting on the tarmac, wasn’t I?’

  ‘You know, I don’t know what the hell I was doing, thinking that maybe you . . .’ He tsked and looked away, his jaw clenching and unclenching like a pulse. He looked back at her. ‘Well, it’s clear that you’ve moved on anyway. Just look at you. It’s like I’ve never seen you before – like the other Cassie, the one I loved, never existed.’

  She stalled at his mention of the L-word. ‘It’s a hairdo Luke. Not a personality transplant.’

  ‘Yeah, well . . . you look like you’re doing okay from where I’m standing. Didn’t get too burned after all, huh?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she muttered, and looked away, her eyes prickling with tears, horrified to be having this argument in the middle of the Crillon. Quite a few of the other guests, also over for Fashion Week, seemed to recognize him, and were staring.

  They sat in tense silence. She sighed – with exhaustion and disappointment. ‘You’d better go. Bas will be here any second.’

  He didn’t reply, but also didn’t get up to go, and the miserable silence stretched between them.

  ‘So you’re staying with Anouk?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘In the fourth.’

  ‘Nice.’ His voice was flat.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Another silence. Where, oh where was Bas? She was going to need something stronger than PG Tips when he got here.

  ‘Look, I’m here for two more days.’

  ‘Fine. I’m sure I can manage to keep out of your way.’

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ he said, and she heard the frustration biting in his voice. He pulled something from his coat and handed it to her.

  She looked down at it. It was a glossy invitation, printed with an image of Selena – who else? – reclining on a black suede sofa. His black suede sofa. She was nude, one arm slung casually over the side, the other resting against her temple.

  ‘If that’s supposed to be some kind of olive branch, you’ve missed the point.’

  ‘It’s my new exhibition. It’s tonight. It’s called Muse.’

  ‘Congratulations.’ She made as if to hand it back to him.

  ‘Keep it. You might want to come . . .’ He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Seeing as you’re in it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry. You look beautiful. And anyway, no one’s going to recognize you now.’ His hand instinctively lifted towards her hair before he pulled it away quickly. He stared at her. ‘Maybe we could have dinner after. Talk things through.’

  ‘I’m out tonight.’

  ‘Where? Who with?’ he asked quickly, and her heart skipped at the possessiveness in his voice. ‘With Bas?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s got a dress rehearsal with Isabel Marant tonight.’

  ‘So who?’

  ‘Claude.’ She saw his mouth harden. ‘He’s just a friend,’ she added.

  ‘Yeah, right.’ His voice was instantly flinty.

  ‘He is. He’s teaching me to cook.’

  ‘You can already cook.’

  ‘No, I mean really cook – like professionally.’

  There was a short silence as he struggled to believe her.

  ‘It’s my thing,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Really?’

  She nodded. He cracked a relieved smile and she couldn’t help her stomach turning over at how his eyes stood out against his tan, the way they roamed hers for the truth. ‘Well, okay then. So bring him too.’

  She paused for a second, not entirely sure that Claude was the best person to bring along to this. ‘I guess I could ask,’ she said finally.

  ‘Okay.’ He gave a boyish grin. It was charming, infectious . . .

  She felt her own eyes smile back. ‘So go.’

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Go then.’

  ‘I’m gone . . .’

  Chapter Thirty

  Cassie opened the door, beaming all over her face. Claude looked her up and down, gobsmacked surprise written all over his as he took in the vision of her. He was used to seeing her with flour on her cheeks, purée on her whites and her hair in a hairnet.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked, planting one hand on her hip and posing. She was wearing nude stacked platforms so that she brushed the six-foot mark – his height – and a champagne-coloured wool dress with a slash neck that fell into a deep V down her back. The front sections of her hair were tonged into laissez-faire ringlets, and she had a smudge of ruby-red lipstick on her generous mouth.

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ he murmured.

  Cassie preened at his response.

  ‘So you like it, then?’

  ‘You’ll freeze,’ he frowned. ‘And how are you going to walk in those?’

  ‘Oh.’ She sighed. She supposed she should have known better than to expect any kind of complimentary response from Claude. Her text message, asking whether he’d come with her to the exhibition before their class, clearly hadn’t infused him with the same excitement, as he was wearing dirty jeans and a dark brown parka with the hood up, and seemed to have steroid-boosted his stubble into an established beard that very afternoon.

  She grabbed her coat.

  ‘Thanks so much for agreeing to this,’ she said as they walked down the stairs, horribly aware that actually he hadn’t agreed to anything. He’d simply not responded and she had bullishly decided to take his silence as an affirmative. Stopping by a photographic exhibition was most probably the last thing he wanted to do. If it had been a truffle convention . . .

  The bracing air hit her immediately as they stepped into the courtyard, and she shivered. He had been right on both counts – she was going to freeze; and there was no way she could cross the cobbles in these shoes.

  ‘Claude, would you mind?’ She motioned for his arm.

  It took him a moment to understand what she meant. His hands were stuffed deep into his pockets, but rather than pull them out, he swung his elbow out like a hinge. She held on, grateful.

  ‘Thanks,’ she smiled.

  They walked painfully slowly over the Pont Saint-Louis to the Ile de la Cité, where they could more easily catch a cab. They didn’t talk. For once, she couldn’t. She could scarcely believe the butterflies in her stomach. Of course, Bas had wound her up into a frenzy when he’d arrived just minutes after Luke had left, telling her that of course he wanted her back, but she had to play it cool, get him to dump Selena immediately, wear the stockings and suspender set that she’d bought with Anouk, tong her hair from this section . . . And Bas had promised to pop into the exhibition after the dress rehearsal so she wouldn’t be completely at sea.

  ‘So, this photographer . . . is he any good?’

  ‘Yes, he really is. He’s probably one of the three most influential photographers working right now.’

  ‘And
he has taken pictures of you?’

  ‘Well, we lived together in New York, so . . .’

  ‘You did?’ Claude stopped and looked at her. ‘But I thought your husband only just left you?’

  Cassie cringed. Would she ever get it right here? Her walking away from the situation was regarded as an over-reaction, and now it was being implied that her new relationship was considered too hasty . . .

  She’d deliberately not told Claude about Luke as she chattered away prepping food. She had confined the summaries of her recent life history to the bigger events – cheating husband, backstabbing best friend, continent hopping to escape the pain . . .

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said tonelessly. It was better not to pontificate on the matter. She sensed she’d disappointed him somehow, that she hadn’t been victim enough.

  They walked on slowly in silence, and Cassie began to regret the shoes. She began to regret bringing Claude along – he wasn’t exactly a happy-go-lucky girlfriend interested in the on–off dynamics of her relationship with her ex. She began to regret saying she’d go to the exhibition full stop. If she could just go back to this morning, when everything had been simpler – a site visit to the catacombs with Florence, coffee with Bas, cooking with Claude this evening. Her disappointment at Luke’s silence had gnawed away at her – silently, privately – but at least it had been manageable. It was so much harder trying to control her excitement, to stop her imagination from racing ahead to the what-ifs – what if he smiles with his eyes again, what if he pinches his bottom lip with his fingers whilst he listens to me talk . . .

  They were over the Pont Notre Dame and on to the Voie Georges Pompidou before they caught a cab. Claude got in first – chivalry was completely lost on him – and she bent down to get in behind, leaning in to him.

  ‘Look, Claude – are you sure you want to come with me to the exhibition? I don’t want you to feel that you have to do this. You hadn’t bargained on coming with me. I could always come over after if you prefer?’

  ‘Non,’ Claude said, buckling up his seat belt. ‘I will come.’

  The driver – clearly suicidal – deposited them outside the gallery five minutes later, and Cassie anxiously checked her appearance in the window as Claude paid.

  Inside, it was heaving. Every single member of the fashion glitterati was in attendance, and they were all in black – the men in sleek Armani suits, the women in architectural black dresses that owed more to Mies van der Rohe than to Yves Saint Laurent.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Cassie said to Claude quietly as she recognized the impact her nude-coloured dress would have amidst the all-black crowd. ‘I not only stick out like a sore thumb, I look like a thumb.’ She had grown used to Anouk’s sophisticated palette of ‘off’ colours and had forgotten the uncompromising uniformity of the passing-through fashion pack.

  Cassie noticed that Claude was regarding the crowd with even more unease than she was, and she instantly threw off her embarrassment. They couldn’t both flounder. ‘Come on, let’s get a drink and go and find me,’ she smiled.

  It was Mojitos only, but Claude, not finding the ice crushed to his liking, asked for water.

  They wandered round slowly, studying the pictures on the wall, though Cassie couldn’t stop herself from scanning the room, trying to find Luke. After five covert scouting missions she found him leaning against a wall, a drink in his hand, his ankles crossed as he listened to a petite brunette in an Erdem minidress with ankle boots – Alexa Bourton, she realized with horror – extrapolating on something to do with the picture they were standing by. It was of Selena again, nude again. She was sitting up on the roof terrace, a large straw cowboy hat on her head, legs up on the wall as she lay back on the Adirondack steamer chair, her face basking in the sun.

  Selena herself was only a few people away from him. She was still wearing her hair in the severe chignon she’d favoured earlier. Quite how she could bring herself to be in the same room as all these people when they were looking at pictures of her in the buff, Cassie didn’t know. She might as well walk around here naked.

  She turned back to Claude. ‘So what do you think?’ she asked, waving a vague hand around the room. ‘Do you think he’s worth all the noise?’

  Claude looked at her, and she thought that in spite of obscuring his face with hair – like reeds over a pond – he looked like he’d lost weight. ‘Do you?’

  Cassie shrugged. ‘Well, I can’t claim to know much about photography. I’m of the “point and click” school myself—’

  ‘Non. I mean do you think he’s worth all the noise?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Claude looked her up and down. ‘I see you dressed up like this for him tonight. Not like you have dressed since I have known you in Paris.’

  ‘I dressed up for Anouk’s birthday dinner,’ she contradicted.

  ‘Not like this, you didn’t. Tonight, you dress for a man. That night you dressed for friends.’

  Cassie paused, then shrugged. She supposed it was true. Her lingerie tonight was certainly making her feel different, stand differently. At Anouk’s dinner she’d just been wearing a T-shirt bra and Spanx.

  ‘I see you dressed up for him,’ Claude continued. ‘But I see on the walls a man who has many women dressing – or, more to the point, undressing – for him.’

  Cassie stared at him, not much caring for his point. ‘He’s a photographer, Claude. They’re models, not lovers.’

  ‘But you’re on the walls somewhere in here.’

  ‘Well, that’s different. We lived together. “Muse” was his nickname for me. And that’s what he’s called the exhibition. It’s just about inspirations, not women he’s taken to bed.’

  She saw Bas clock the two of them and make a beeline across the floor. He shook Claude’s hand and flirtatiously ran a ticklish hand up her bare back. ‘You look divine,’ he said proudly. ‘How could he possibly resist you?’

  Claude gave her a pointed stare, but she looked away, pretending to study the picture in front of them instead.

  ‘So have you seen yourself yet?’

  ‘Only in the mirror.’

  Bas chuckled. ‘Well, come this way,’ he said, guiding her by the elbow. ‘I must say, it’s very clever of you to hide in plain sight.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the contrast dress, the dark hair. Nobody would guess you’re the girl in the pictures.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’ She was amused.

  ‘Well, your modesty, your naïveté – and I say that with love, dear thing – are among your most defining characteristics.’

  ‘And . . . ?’ The three of them plaited their way through the crowd.

  ‘And there’s no trace of them here,’ he winked.

  What did he mean? Cassie felt her blood begin to pulse at her temples. She stepped around some large columns, and as she saw the run of huge black-and-white prints, she stepped straight back in time. It was early morning; the leaves were still on the trees but turning coppery, hinting at their intention to fly; sleep still rested upon her like a sheet – light and warm; Luke was straddling her, she could feel his weight, pinning her down. And she was as naked as a baby.

  Bas turned back to her – and the smile slid off his face like jelly off a plate. ‘Oh God, Cass!’ he said, in horror. ‘Don’t say you didn’t know?’

  She shook her head, her eyes shining with tears as she took them all in, snapshots of their brief happy life together – sexy, vital and deeply private. Her eyes rested on the one he’d taken of her running towards the bathroom. Her butter-blonde hair was lifted and dynamic, her legs long in mid-stride, her breasts partly obscured by her arm, an impish smile on her face as she made eye contact through the lens . . . She looked down to the ground, feeling humiliated and every bit as exposed as she had expected Selena to feel.

  Bas rushed to her, throwing his arms around her like a blanket – protective, covering, warm.

  Claude didn’t move. His
face was as set as concrete, and his eyes burned darkly from beneath his shaggy hair and furred hood. Then suddenly he moved forward, put his arms around the nearest print and lifted it off the hooks. He pivoted it round and set it down on the floor, facing in towards the wall.

  Then he walked down the length of the wall doing the same thing to all the other pictures of her, regardless of whether she was clothed or not.

  ‘Hey!’ Luke called out furiously as someone alerted him to what was happening. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled, running towards Claude looking threatening, even though Claude was taller than him by several inches. Luke didn’t seem to care, but perhaps he should have, for as Luke reached him, Claude landed a powerful left hook on his jaw that sent him sprawling at his guests’ fashionable feet.

  ‘Claude, don’t!’ Cassie cried, just as Luke got back up and Claude sent him flying back down with another punch to the nose.

  Claude didn’t hear her. He was bent over from the effort, his breathing heavy with adrenalin, his expression lightening as he vented some of the anger that consumed him. He dragged Luke up by the collar of his navy shirt.

  ‘She was a gift to you,’ he growled contemptuously. ‘A rare bird to cherish. Not some thing to humiliate by parading her naked like a slave.’

  Luke put his hand to his nose to try to stop the blood. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he spat. ‘I loved her.’

  ‘Non. You love how she made you feel – important and central and needed. It is different. If you knew her at all, you would not have done this.’ He released his grip and let Luke fall to the ground.

  A bundle of security guards – overweight and too late – ran up, clustering around Claude and trying to manhandle him into a headlock, but he was too big. One of them managed to pinion his arm behind his back, and they rushed him towards the doors. He put up no resistance. Honour had been satisfied. The crowd – scandalized and delighted – parted as they passed.

  Luke, still on the ground, looked up at Cassie, who was still being held by Bas. She was pale with shock. ‘That’s your friend?’ he spat. ‘Gimme a break!’

  The security guards started replacing the prints on the walls, some of them off-plumb, ruining the harmony of the severe lines.