Second Chance

by Linda Kepner

  Bishou showed her the blue dress. “I don’t know this fabric.”

  “A silk-cotton combination, and rather nice. You have a good eye,” Mme. Ross said approvingly. “And this style, yes, this is exactly what I meant. Venez. Their dressing rooms are over here, and we can look in the mirror in the back room.” She took down the hanger, and moved to the back without consulting either saleswoman. Bishou followed meekly.

  “Now, slip into one of the booths and put it on, then come out and let me see. Your underwear will show, but no matter. You’ll need new underwear, anyway, for these types of dresses.”

  “Mon Dieu!” said Bishou, “I can’t even get them to fit a dress on me. Do you think they’ll fit lingerie?”

  “I will do it. For that, I will charge.” Mme. Ross smiled wryly. “Remember, the special man.”

  “Je me souviens.” Bishou entered the booth, undressed, and realized that the blue dress hooked — not zipped — up the back. “This has no zippers!”

  “Zippers are so American,” said Mme. Ross. “Come out here and I will hook you up.”

  Bishou stepped out of the booth and into a bare backroom with empty tables and a cheval mirror. Nonetheless, she felt like Cinderella. She stared in the mirror while Mme. Ross hooked and pulled. Bishou stood on tiptoe before the mirror.

  “Yes,” said Mme. Ross, interpreting her move, “it requires high heels. But it does look elegant. And it is sized for you.”

  “I know. I was surprised. Most of those dresses are so tiny.”

  “Compared to you, many Frenchwomen are tiny. You are a healthy, well-exercised Americaine.”

  “How are you doing, Madame Ross?” said a strident voice. The cold-eyed saleswoman regarded Bishou.

  “Things go well, thank you, Madame Nadine,” Mme. Ross replied. “Allow me to introduce Mademoiselle Bishou, who bought some things at my shop and then realized she needed more formal clothing as well.” Mme. Ross’s tone was brisk, courteous, and professional, Bishou realized approvingly.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle.” Nadine stepped into the area, and eyed the dress. “Did I hear Mme. Ross say that you are Americaine?”

  “Oui, Madame.”

  “And you are visiting the island?” Being American was obviously not a point in Bishou’s favor.

  “Non, Madame, I will be living here.”

  The questions came like bullets. “Do you have a job here, or are you getting married?”

  “Oui, et oui.”

  “Explain, please.”

  Bishou reined in her temper. “Yes, I have a job here, and yes, I am getting married.”

  “Change back into your own clothes, please,” Mme. Nadine demanded.

  Bishou pulled the curtain shut, and felt the heat of her face. She could hear Mme. Ross murmuring to Nadine, and caught the words, “She paid cash. She is not une pauvre, Nadine.” Not a pauper.

  “I am not a dressmaker to American working girls, or rich Americans,” was the haughty reply, “nor will I be. The women of France and Réunion Island, these are for whom I make my fashions.”

  Bishou changed her clothes and opened the curtain, aware that her face was still red with anger. She laid the blue dress upon a worktable. “This is very nice fabric, it is comfortable, and the dress is well-designed.”

  “Do you want to have a fitting, then?” Mme. Nadine demanded, almost unpleasantly.

  “By no means,” Bishou replied, looking her in the eye. Then she turned to Mme. Ross. “I am sorry to embarrass you, Madame. I thought that my discomfort was due to my ignorance. The ignorance, alas, was not mine. Au revoir.” She gathered up her purse and other parcels, and left the shop.

  And almost cannoned into a gentleman in the street.

  “Whoa!” said Louis Dessant, grasping her in surprise, “Gardes-toi, Bishou.” Then he saw the look on her face. “What is the matter?”

  “I hate shopping for women’s clothes,” she growled.

  “So do I,” he quipped. Louis scooped the packages out of her arms. “What are these? Réunion fashions?”

  “Somewhat. There would be more if it weren’t for chauvinistic, pig-headed anti-Americans.”

  “Ah. That was Nadine?”

  “You knew?”

  “I’d heard it mentioned in passing. But that is only for w-wedding dresses, and …” Louis halted, his arms full of parcels. “Oh.”

  “Non.” She answered the question he did not ask. “I was just looking for a nice dress for the université reception, and got snubbed in the grand style.”

  His car was parked across the street. He opened the trunk and dumped in the packages, willy-nilly. Right now, she didn’t really care. She saw a picnic basket in the trunk, and glanced at him questioningly.

  Louis closed the trunk, and smiled at her. “I came looking for you because the ladies at the pension told me you had gone downtown. I thought we would tour the coast road. Bettina and Madeleine made us a picnic lunch for later. D’accord?”

  Bishou smiled up at him, and her bad mood disappeared. “D’accord. I hope there’s no mayonnaise in those sandwiches.”

  “What do you take me for? It’s fruit, cheese, and peasant bread. There is red wine, but it is quite all right at room temperature — or car-trunk temperature. Viens.”

  “One more thing.” She took his hand.

  “Oh mon Dieu non, don’t drag me into a woman’s dress shop.”

  “Non, non, not you, nor me either. I just want you to look in a shop window.”

  “I can bear that,” he admitted, and allowed her to lead him to the shoe store.

  “Now,” she said. “Which shoes did you have in mind for me? Just point.”

  With his dark eyes showing that he expected a bad reaction, Louis pointed to a pair of tiny high heels that might have fitted Cendrillon nicely, but were nothing like her normal style.

  Bishou merely sighed, said, “I thought so,” and disappeared into the shop.

  A waiting shoe salesman was smiling at her as she entered the otherwise-unoccupied shop. “Is that Monsieur Dessant?” he asked.

  “Certainly it is,” she answered. “Do you have those shoes in my size?”

  The beaming salesman obligingly measured her feet, disappeared into the back of the store, and returned in a moment with the shoes. She slipped them on, and stood up. Immediately she felt four inches taller.

  “Oh, my,” she said, and the salesman’s smile broadened.

  “They might take practice, Mademoiselle,” he told her.

  “I think they will,” she agreed. “And also, a pair of casual shoes, those cloth ones with the rope soles, if you have them in my size.”

  He glowed at two sales on a slow day, wrapped up the packages, and was rewarded with a cash payment. “Merci, Mademoiselle … ?”

  “Madame Bishou,” she supplied her name, and he made out the receipt as such.

  She emerged from the shop to see Mme. Nadine, of all people, chatting with Louis, while he plainly looked like he wished to be elsewhere. Mme. Ross and her assistant watched from the door of her shop. Likewise, others along the street had emerged to see the notorious, reclusive Louis Dessant in daylight. He spotted Bishou with evident relief, and swooped down upon her to seize her packages.

  “Au revoir, Madame,” he said hurriedly to Nadine, and then to Bishou, “Tu es prêt?” as informally as possible, as emphasis.

  “Oui, cherie, je suis prêt.”

  She had never before called him darling. He dumped the shoes into the trunk with the rest of the packages. Louis did not raise dust, nor burn rubber, getting out of town, but the intention was there.

  “Nom de nom!” Bishou exclaimed. “How do you ever go shopping?”

  “I send Bettina,” he said sourly. “It takes half the day for me to get a haircut and my shoes shined.”

  “I should show you this,” she said, as he slowed down to a reasonable speed. “It’s my first receipt given to Madame Bishou.”

  “Put it in the glove box,” he told her.
“We’ll add it to our wedding album.”

  “Do we have one?”

  “We will.”

  Chapter 19

  Louis drove through little coastal fishing hamlets and into the countryside again, gaining altitude as they traveled around the coast. At last, he turned off the road into a grassy area where a steady breeze blew. From here they had a magnificent view of the Indian Ocean.

  Louis pulled a blanket out of the trunk, as well as the picnic basket. Together they laid out the blanket on a grassy meadow near the car. Bishou watched, amused, as Louis unpacked the basket. Bread and cheese and fruit, sure enough. A bottle of wine, with a corkscrew and two glasses. Napkins and butter knives and a cheese slicer. It was a genuine French picnic. She sat, docile and amused, and allowed him to organize everything.

  “I must ask you,” he said, as he sat down at last to eat and drink, “if you will accompany me to church on Sunday. I do not know if Père Reynaud will have time to speak to us afterward, but it might be good if we were both there. He must tell us oui ou non, if we can be married Friday in the church, or if we must choose the Prefecture Office instead.”

  “Who gave you permission to travel to America?”

  “The Prefecture.” Louis concentrated on his bread and cheese and did not look her in the eye. “As I said, I have not yet made things right with the Church. The Père owes me nothing, truly, and I have not asked forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness?” she said in surprise. “For what?”

  He shook his head and waved away her words. “I murdered someone, ma cherie. Nothing takes away that sin.”

  “Did Père Reynaud marry you?”

  “Oui.”

  “Was there premarriage counseling, what they call pre-Cana?”

  “Non.”

  “Then, Louis, how can you — ”

  He cut her off. “This is Réunion, Bishou! That’s all fine to talk, in France or in America. But not where a wife comes on a boat, alone, to bed with a strange man she had met only in correspondence. It is no more his fault than mine that we didn’t understand why the wedding band didn’t fit her, why she left me no notes, why she had no messages from family, why she didn’t even have her own rosary — because she would have to open the trunk that was not hers, to look for one.”

  “D’accord, d’accord,” she said, in a conciliatory tone. “I understand.”

  “Do you? It took me years to understand.”

  His voice was sharp, and he drank the wine as though he needed it to calm his emotions. She understood the gesture, having seen Bat do the same with many a beer. She placed her hand over the hand that held the glass, and guided it down to the basket. His expression and voice gentled.

  “No handwriting except her signature on the bank forms, so I could not compare it with the letters. Family photographs in the trunk, none of her. A ring that was sized for someone else.”

  “You have my ring,” she said gently. She grasped his left hand, the hand with the ring.

  “That,” he began again, “is part of the reason I wanted it. To feel it. It is real.”

  His features showed pain, as she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. He clasped her hand.

  “What upset you? Thinking about visiting the church?” Bishou asked. She wanted to bring this discussion down to its roots.

  “Oui. It brought back so many bad memories. I almost would rather have a registry-office marriage, except … I must see if I can fight this battle.”

  “You do not fight it alone, Louis.”

  “Oh, Bishou.” He gathered both her hands in his, and looked earnestly into her eyes. “You could go anywhere and do anything, with any other man. I am the problem. Don’t you think I know that by now?”

  “Anywhere and do anything, hmm?”

  “You are strong. You are intelligent. You get your own money; you are not some man’s parasite.”

  “Then — if I am all that — why am I here?”

  He was silent.

  She persisted, “Why am I here, Louis?”

  Silence. He stared at their clasped hands, not at her face.

  “Tell me. You must know.” Bishou felt his grip tighten, and saw the tension in his lips.

  Louis closed his eyes. He shook his head slightly. He did not know, or — more likely — he needed to hear her say it.

  Quite clearly, with her grip firm, she said, “I am here because I love you with all my heart, Louis. Je t’aime.”

  Barely loud enough for her to hear, Louis mumbled, “She never called me cheri.”

  “Did she call you mon amour?” My love.

  “Non.”

  “Or mon treasor?” My treasure.

  She saw a smile break through. “Non.”

  “Bon. The good names are left for me.” Bishou kissed his hands. “Mon cheri.” Kiss. “Mon amour.” Kiss. “Mon treasor.” Kiss.

  His smile returned. Bishou almost expected him to protest that she was teasing him, but he did not. He really needs this, she thought, a demonstration of my love. Here, seated on the blanket, hands entwined, Louis Dessant was finally hearing words he desperately wanted to hear.

  “What a dream world this is,” Bishou mused. “A French picnic on a beautiful island, with an attractive, sexy man, all the world and time.”

  “Soon to be your husband,” Louis added, still smiling.

  “What joy,” she agreed.

  He scooped everything back in the basket, brushed crumbs from the blanket, and slipped off his jacket. He rolled it into a pillow for himself, and lay back. He hadn’t worn a tie, his discreet concession to Saturday casual. Bishou realized that the shirt he had on was the same one he had worn that day when they visited the tobacco plantations with the American conventioneers.

  “I remember that shirt.”

  “You liked it. That is why I wore it.”

  “It was not the shirt,” she admitted, “but what was in the shirt.”

  With his head pillowed on the jacket, he raised a dark eyebrow in question.

  “It was so hot that day,” she explained. “You were falling asleep from the heat. Watching you, asleep beside me, I fought the greatest temptations I have ever faced.”

  “And what did you desire that day? Show me.” He shut his eyes.

  She realized he was deliberately seducing her. She loosened the cuffs of his silk shirt with the little colored squares, and rolled up each cuff a couple of turns. Her hands stroked the bronzed forearms, a man’s forearms. She leaned over him and unbuttoned one, two, three shirt buttons, from the collar down. She stroked his jaw, his throat, his lips — felt his lips kiss her fingers — and gently stroked down his chin and throat, toward his unbuttoned shirt. Her fingers stroked his chest — no, no undershirt — and she bent and kissed the place where she had stroked, smelling a slight scent of cologne.

  His eyes still closed blissfully, he sighed, “Ah, ah oui.”

  Bishou caught her breath, startled by a powerful emotion that she had never felt. “Louis,” she sobbed. “Someone to love me. Someone to keep me from being alone forever. I just don’t want to be alone all my life. It hurts so much. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drop this load on you. I wanted to be strong, for your sake.”

  “Pfah,” said Louis softly. “Don’t you think I know? How many Saturday nights have I spent in my darkened front room, drink in hand, watching car lights go down the roads? Listening to people happily calling to each other? And aching, wishing I was one of them? Knowing I must stay home, keep my reputation tres correct? Why do you think they call us white men zoreils, cherie? Because we listen helplessly. It is all we can do. Listen, and ache inside.” He wrapped his arms around her firmly. “Love given freely, to dispel loneliness, is the greatest gift. But — it is a horrible feeling, if one knows it is a bond of slavery.”

  She spoke to his ear and throat, not moving her head. “You knew this would happen to me.”

  “Non. But I understood when it did, ma Bishou.” His arms still gripped her body. “You
are only learning what I learned. But how could I have explained that to you?”

  “And other men have learned this as well?”

  “Oui. And, thank God, they were merciful to me when I had fallen.”

  Bishou saw a glimpse of this unspoken world, a world that Louis and other men shared, that had no place on any map or church roll. There but for the grace of God go I. Please, Lord, give me to a woman who won’t make me a slave in hell. Please, instead, make me petted and loved. In either case, I will give everything to her.

  That, thought Bishou, is passion.

  “Qu’est-ce que tu regardes?”

  “Un bel visage,” she answered.

  “Hah, there is no handsome face here, only mine.”

  “An attractive one, then.” She watched his brown eyes open suddenly, as they always did — a trick she suspected he learned in prison. “I wonder if you know you are handsome, and only want to hear me say it.”

  He laughed. “Non. It is nice to hear, even if untrue. I know that women have said I have nice eyes, though.”

  “Oh, oui. They are the first thing I noticed about you, the first thing that made me think, Wow.”

  “Really?” Now there was a light in his eyes that was not a trick of the sun. “In that classroom?”

  “You remember that day. I thought your glance was only surprise that I was not a man.”

  “Well, that too. ‘Bishou’ is not a feminine name. And you may say it means ‘unexpected,’ but I have not found that in any dictionary.”

  “Oh? You looked?” At his blush of admission, she laughed. “I will tell you a secret, if you promise not to share.”

  “I promise.”

  “My name is Japanese.”

  “What?” He burst into laughter, and sat up.

  “My father found it in his studies. It is the character in drama who is the unexpected love interest, and who often has the sympathy of the audience. The hero often wins the girl — or the boy — away from the angst-ridden main character, just by being there and being himself or herself.”

  “Your father is a wise man,” said Louis.

  “Yes, he is. But often the Bishou doesn’t get the girl — or the boy. He just provides contrast for the main characters.”