The Keeper of Happy Endings

by Davis, Barbara

  His face softens a little, but his eyes are chilly as they take me in, inch by painstaking inch. My hatless head and oft-mended dress, my worn shoes, scarred handbag, and ringless finger. Like Maman assessing a potential client, he misses nothing.

  “Yes,” he says dryly. “I should think you must. What else did Claire tell you about me?”

  I frown, not sure what he’s asking. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing about why I lost both my assistants?”

  I shake my head, unsettled by where he might be going.

  “I assume you’re not married?”

  “No.”

  “No, I thought not. And you’re what—eighteen?”

  “I’m twenty-one.”

  “And little acquainted with the world, I imagine.”

  “I am well acquainted with the world, monsieur. Much more than I would like to be.”

  “Well, then,” he says, wandering to a small bar in one corner and picking up a glass. “That makes two of us. Perhaps I should tell you my story before we go further.” He splashes a few inches of clear liquid into the glass, stares at it a moment, then turns as if suddenly remembering his manners. “Forgive me. Might I interest you in a drink?”

  My eyes slide to the clock on the mantel. It’s not yet ten. “Thank you, no. I generally prefer coffee at this hour.”

  “Suit yourself.” He lifts his glass in a mock toast, then takes a deep swallow, wincing as it goes down. He turns away, topping off his glass, and I wonder if he’s forgotten me again.

  “You were going to tell me your story,” I remind him.

  “Yes, yes, my story. All right, then. I cater to a very affluent clientele, Miss Roussel—or did. The Brahmin, as they style themselves. Important men in important jobs. Men with money and power and names that go back to the bloody peerage. They also have secrets. But not from me. I see my customers in every state of undress—like a doctor. It’s a relationship that tends to lead to certain . . . confidences. I know whose health is failing, who’s in financial difficulty, who’s had a bit of luck in the market, who’s leaving his wife for his mistress—and who’s cheating on his mistress with the handsome new instructor at the tennis club.”

  He pauses, waiting for me to blush or become flustered. When I don’t, he continues. “As you might guess, I’m seldom in social settings with the kinds of men I dress. They’re well above my station. But a few weeks ago, I was at the bar in the Statler Hotel with friends and happened to run into a new client of mine, a political type with a society matron wife and plans to move up.”

  He pauses, striking a melodramatic pose and a voice to match. “Lawrence Tate, of the Mayflower Tates, thank you very much. Needless to say, I was surprised to see him there. Though not nearly as surprised as he was to see me.”

  “Why?”

  He regards me with open amusement, his smile blatantly sexual, and I realize he’s handsome, or was not so long ago. “Because, my pretty girl, as a rule, the club I’m talking about isn’t frequented by ivory-tower types seeking young ladies of good breeding. They like their lovers on the masculine side and rarely bother with last names.”

  I say nothing.

  “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Oui,” I say evenly. “I do.” I glance at the clock again, growing impatient. I came for a job. If the answer is no, I need to get back out on the pavement. “Will you hire me or not, monsieur?”

  He empties his glass and turns once more to refill it. His hand shakes as he pours, and for the first time, I see through his bluster to the frailty beneath. He’s shattered, and quite possibly ill. The last thing he needs is more alcohol.

  “Don’t drink that,” I say, capturing the glass before he can lift it. “Let me make you something to eat instead, and you can tell me about the job.”

  “I am a homosexual, Miss Roussel.”

  I blink at him, my face blank. “Are you hoping to shock me into going away?”

  He rakes a hand through his hair, exasperated by my response. “Do you know the word? What it means? What I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you know what people do to men like me when they find out? They ruin us. With lies and accusations. Until we’ve lost everything. And I have, my dear. I’ve lost everything. My clients. My reputation. Everything I’ve worked for, gone. That’s why my assistants left. No one will even work for me.”

  “I will.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? There is no work. Maybe it’s different where you come from, but here, men like me are pariahs.”

  I tip up my chin, eyeing him squarely. “Where I come from, monsieur, men like you are rounded up and put in camps, where they are beaten and starved and murdered. No one has arrested you. No one has killed you. If you’re alive, you can start again.”

  “How?” He shakes his head slowly, his pale eyes vacant. “There’s nothing left.”

  I make a show of glancing about the elegantly appointed room, mentally comparing it with my last glimpse of Maman’s shop the morning I left Paris, and suddenly I’m furious.

  “You have no idea what nothing is,” I reply coldly. “But I do. In two weeks, my money will run out, and I’ll be on the street. Do you have a job for me, yes or no?”

  He glares at me, his face flushed with annoyance. “There is no job—for you or anyone—because there is no business. Do you want to know why?”

  I don’t, but I see that he’s going to tell me.

  “The day after our chance meeting, Mr. Tate came to the shop claiming to need a pair of trousers altered. I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I’d been wondering how long it would take him to call on some pretext or other, to explain away his presence at the Statler. I had no idea it was that kind of place when I went in. I feel so silly; I was there to meet a friend. How could I know? I brought him to the back, to one of the fitting rooms, and asked him what it was he wanted done. He answered by pushing me against the wall and shoving his tongue down my throat.”

  My mouth drops open. There isn’t a woman alive who hasn’t been on the receiving end of an unwanted advance, but I’ve never thought of a man being accosted in that way.

  He barks out a laugh. “So you can be shocked after all.”

  “I’m not shocked. I just expected the story to end differently.”

  He waggles his brows wolfishly. “So did he, my dear. He had an arrangement in mind. Very discreet, of course, and lucrative if I played my cards right. When I declined, he went home and told his wife I’d made an advance. Me! As if I could ever be interested in such a parasite. Word spread like a brushfire. That woman he married, blabbing to anyone who’d listen. Myles Madison is a lecherous old queen who can’t keep his hands off his customers.”

  He pauses, running his fingers over his mustache. “Mark me, one day the joke will be on that mouthy old cow. Men like her husband invariably embarrass themselves in some public way. And then we’ll see who the pariah is. This puritanical town will turn on him like a pack of dogs.”

  He’s swaying slightly, and his words have become slurred. I run a chilly eye over him. “Cold comfort, I should think, if you’re broke when it happens.”

  “I’ll never be broke. Money may be the only thing I have, but I have plenty of it.”

  “How very lucky for you,” I reply coolly and start for the door. “Good day, monsieur.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to look for a job. Because, unlike you, I do not have plenty of money.”

  “Is it your habit to knock on a man’s door at the crack of dawn, start an argument, then simply depart?”

  “It is not the crack of dawn, which you would know if you were not already half-drunk. And I did not come to start an argument. I came because I need to work, but not here.” I glare at him openly. “Claire said not to take no for an answer, but I think I will. Self-pity is a luxury I cannot afford, and I’m afraid yours might rub off on me. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “You’re a child
,” he growls. “What do you know?”

  “I am young, but I’m not a child. I’ve seen things no one should see. Countries overrun with evil. Entire families imprisoned and murdered. Men shot to pieces and women who have lost everything they hold dear. There are many tragedies in the world, monsieur. I do not count gossip among them. You boast that you will never be broke, but you are clearly broken—because you choose to be.”

  And with that, I tuck my handbag into the crook of my arm and head for the door, eager to be gone. My hand is on the knob when he finally speaks.

  “Fine,” he sighs with a pained air. “But if I hire you, you must promise to stop calling me monsieur. I loathe the French.”

  My heart gives a little gallop. “What shall I call you, then, instead of monsieur?”

  “My friends call me Maddy.”

  I make eggs and strong coffee, and we eat together in his small, sunny kitchen. While he smokes, I tell him my story, leaving nothing out. Because I know somehow that I can trust him with my secrets and that nothing I say will ever shock him. I tell him about Maman and Anson and the Resistance. He tells me about Richard, the love of his life. How they fell in love the night they met. How Richard died in his arms after a ravaging bout with cancer. And how Richard’s family barred him from attending the funeral. I tell him about Dorothy Sheridan and Assia, how they took her away to bury without telling me. We cry, holding hands over our empty plates, and we become family, kindred spirits bound by loss and loneliness.

  The clock on the mantel chimes softly, tugging me away from my memories. But I’m not ready to let them go. I tip back my wineglass and reach for the framed photo at my elbow, taken the day my name was stenciled below Maddy’s on the front window. He’s grinning for the camera, looking especially dapper in navy pinstripes, shoulders back, chest out, proud as punch of his little bird, as he called me.

  It had been a happy day with cake and champagne, followed by dinner at Marliave, a swishy French restaurant Maddy claimed to detest, though he seemed to know the name of every waiter in the place. We drank too much wine and danced until dawn, in celebration of Madison’s resurrection from the ashes.

  The turnaround had been swift, thanks in part to the addition of a line of women’s evening dresses. Maddy had been shameless, touting me as a couturier from Paris who has created wedding gowns for some of the most discerning women in Europe. I didn’t care that it wasn’t true, because in my heart it was. Finally, I was making the kinds of dresses I always dreamed of.

  He referred to himself as my fairy godmother, a private joke between us, but it was true. I learned so much from him, about clothes and business and life. How to merchandise and accessorize, how to charm suppliers and manage cash flow, how to create an illusion of exclusivity that would have clients clamoring for my designs. I soaked up his lessons like a sponge.

  And then came the day that changed everything. Mrs. Laureen Appleton came in for a fitting and happened to announce that her granddaughter Catalina had just gotten engaged. Maddy, never missing an opportunity to expand our business, casually suggested that an honest-to-goodness couture gown would make her granddaughter the envy of Boston. He also whispered, just loud enough to be overheard, that word around Paris was that a Roussel gown virtually guaranteed the bride a happy ending.

  Once word spread that one of the season’s biggest weddings would feature a Roussel gown, orders began to trickle in. There was no magie in the beginning. We needed the work too badly to turn anyone away. I designed gowns for anyone who could pay and had just enough luck with my brides to perpetuate the rumors Maddy shamelessly continued to spread. Soon, I had a waiting list of brides willing to submit to a reading if it meant going down the aisle in one of my dresses. Like Maman and her rosary, they wished to hedge against malchance. Somehow, without meaning to, I had become la Sorcière de la Robe—the Dress Witch—and I was strangely glad. Perhaps because I’d come to understand just how rare happy endings truly are.

  Eventually, Maddy set up a small salon for me on the second floor, along with my very own workroom. A year later, the salon took up the entire second floor, and I had to hire two girls to handle patterns and fittings. In a small way, at least, I was living both my dream and Maman’s.

  Then, a few years later, Maddy developed a cough, the result of smoking nearly two packs of cigarettes a day. I had picked up the habit, too, by then. It relaxed me and gave me something to do with my hands when I wasn’t working. Maddy’s cough grew steadily worse, and soon his beautiful suits began to hang on him. I saw Maman when I looked at him, and I knew what was coming. Not that knowing made the truth easier.

  I did what I could to keep him comfortable toward the end. I bought him a television, which he claimed to hate, though he watched it incessantly. I read him the paper each night after supper. I even smoked for him now and then, when he would beg me to share a smoke. I would lie beside him in the dark, blowing pillars of blue smoke into the air above his head, so he could enjoy it secondhand. His doctor would have had ten fits, but I didn’t care. I owed him everything, and he deserved some enjoyment in his last days.

  He died on a Sunday, leaving me the shop and every cent he had in the world. He also left a note containing a few scribbled words. It’s your nest now, little bird. Time to spread your wings and fly, fly, fly. Two months later, only my name remained on the window, along with the words L’AIGUILLE ENCHANTÉE in pretty gold script.

  I still miss him terribly.

  He was my champion—father, mentor, and a dear, dear friend. I knew his secrets, and he knew mine. I drove him crazy, and he made me laugh. I gave him back his will to fight, and in return he gave me a future.

  THIRTY-TWO

  RORY

  September 7, 1985—Boston

  Rory set her purse on the dresser and sagged onto the bed, aware of Hux’s eyes on her as she began to unlace her boots. She reached for the framed photo on the nightstand and laid it in her lap, seized by a pang of loneliness so sharp it nearly took her breath away. Was this all she was to have of him now? An image trapped behind a rectangle of glass?

  He’d been missing nearly nine months, without a scrap of news. What was the appropriate length of time for giving up on happy endings? A year? Two? And what then? What shape did her life take when Hux was no longer a part of her hopes and dreams?

  She would have the gallery and an ever-changing stable of artists to promote. But could she make a life out of that? Or would she end up like Soline, walled off from the world with her grief? Hux wouldn’t want that. He’d want her to move on—in all aspects of her life. But was that what she wanted? She couldn’t imagine anyone ever filling the empty place Hux’s disappearance had carved in her. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Her heart belonged to Hux and would for a very long time. For now—for a very long now—the gallery would have to fill her days. Like Soline with her shop.

  And things were finally beginning to take shape on that front. The painters had started work today, and she’d stayed late, eager to see how the slate gray she had chosen for the walls looked after the second coat. She’d ended up covered in paint after bumping into a ladder and knocking a roller out of its tray, but the color was perfect. And to top it off, she’d set up a meeting with Kendra Paterson, an artist whose stunning sea glass sculptures had caught her eye last year at an art fair in Portsmouth. If all went well, her pieces would be the focal point of the opening.

  Unfortunately, she was going to have to call her mother and explain why she couldn’t make brunch. Again. She stripped off her paint-spattered clothes, started the shower, then grabbed the cordless on the way to the laundry room.

  “Hey, it’s me,” she said, cringing when Camilla answered. She’d been hoping for the machine.

  “Let me guess—you’re not coming tomorrow.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m heading to Freeport first thing in the morning to meet with an artist.”

  “Is there a shortage of hippie artists here in Boston?”

>   “She’s not a hippie, Mother. It’s 1985. No one’s a hippie anymore.” She paused, measuring detergent into the washer with her free hand, then dropped the lid with a hollow clang. “She works full time and teaches classes on the side. This is the only time she could do it.”

  “What on earth is that noise?”

  “The washer. I was a klutz and got covered in paint today.”

  “You do know there are people you can pay to do that sort of thing, Aurora. It’s not as though you have to do this on a shoestring.”

  “I am paying someone. Several someones, in fact. But I wanted to see how the color turned out. I’m afraid I made a nuisance of myself, but they were great about it.”

  “So things are coming along?”

  “Swimmingly. It’s actually starting to look like a gallery. You could come by sometime, you know, and see for yourself.”

  “I know, and I will, but I’ve been frightfully busy. I’m glad things are on schedule.”

  “Ahead of schedule, actually. I’m hoping to set the date for the opening next month. That reminds me, I promised to invite Vicky and Hilly. I’ll need their addresses for the invitations. And for anyone else you think I should invite.”

  “I’d include Maureen Cordeiro and Laura Ladd. Oh, and Kimberly Covington Smith. They’re younger and have loads of connections. They’ll be good allies.”

  “Thank you,” Rory said, pleasantly surprised. “And what about you? Do you want to be invited?”

  “Well, of course I do. Why would you even ask?”

  “I was giving you an out. I know you’re not crazy about the idea. I didn’t want to put you in a position of either having to grit your teeth and go or find a polite way to say no.”

  “What a thing to say. I’m your mother, Aurora. Of course I want to be part of your big night. Speaking of which, have you given any thought to who might cater? I could make a few calls, maybe work out a finger food menu. It’s one less thing for you to worry about. Also, there’s entertainment to consider. The right entertainment can make an event—or break it. There was the time Laurie Lorenz made the mistake of hiring a pianist, sight unseen. The man crooned Barry Manilow tunes all night. I offered to contact a wonderful harpist, but she insisted on doing everything herself. It was a disaster.”