By contrast, I have on a billowing white knee-length tent dress with shoulder pads, a vintage item of Margaret’s lent to me for the evening. As a matter of fact, I now see I am the only person in the entire place not dressed all in black. And I’m definitely the only one here who is pregnant.
But the woman takes no notice of me or of the modest belly flaring out my white dress. She leads us toward a round table the size of a large pizza. “Voilà,” she says.
The Bach piece has ended so I decide to give the place a chance. Besides, the guitarist is hot—tall, lanky, dark hair, blue eyes, one slender loafer-clad foot hooked behind a rung of his stool. He embraces that guitar like it’s a woman, like I wish someone would embrace me.
Whoa. Down girl.
“You are très belle.” Hervé reaches across the table to squeeze my fingers, and I let him—because all of a sudden I am yearning for the warmth of a human touch, of skin on skin. But when I catch the scowl on Manu’s face I pull my hand away.
“Very gallant,” I say to Hervé while smirking at Manu, who should know that Hervé’s not only too young for Margaret but too old for me. In any case, I have no interest in prehistoric Hervé, and he surely has no interest in pregnant moi. I would know, as my sexual antennae are finely tuned these days, thanks to hormones, and I guess, deprivation.
Anyhow, I don’t feel beautiful. I feel as enormous and conspicuous as a harvest moon. Though I realize I’m not supposed to care about my size anymore, a lifetime of fat phobia isn’t that easy to drop, not totally, not even during pregnancy. I guess I’ll always be fighting those encroaching pounds one way or another. If not physically, then mentally.
Manu is shifting his chair closer to mine when his phone rings.
“Is it Margaret?” I ask as he unpockets his phone, glances at it, hops to his feet, and hurries away.
Of course Margaret would be my first thought. She’s special to me, despite the fact that last April she purposely attempted to prevent me from leaving Paris—and her—by lacing my evening cup of herbal tea with what I found out later was a bit of her insomnia medicine.
Yes. That happened. The sequence is complicated. When William figured out (from credit-card charges) that I came to Paris for my “break,” he followed me. We had a nasty fight. He returned to Phoenix. I wanted to follow him but was temporarily thwarted by Margaret and the aforementioned sleepy tea. When I did get back to Phoenix, William and I promptly had a second fight, the big one, the one where he told me he never wanted to see my face ever again. Literally minutes later, I boarded a plane and returned to France, where I’ve been ever since.
All of which is to say, I guess, that Margaret’s sleepy tea plot was ultimately successful. I forgave her long ago. She is easy to forgive. She is a darling.
Just as Manu slips out of the room, phone pressed to the side of his face, he turns back toward me and shakes his head. Ah. So it isn’t Margaret. It’s probably one of his computer clients. They need help at all hours. Manu may not be ambitious in the way Margaret thinks he should be, but when he works, he works hard. His single-minded ability to focus is amazing.
“At last,” Hervé murmurs, and for yet another moment of sheer ridiculousness I wonder if he engineered this phone-call interruption to get rid of Manu.
Yup, the day’s events are definitely turning me paranoid.
“Un Cognac, s’il vous plaît.” He’s addressing a waiter who, like the hostess, seems to materialize out of the ether. “And for you, Amy? What shall you take?”
“Um—”
“Et pour madame, une tisane,” Hervé instructs the waiter, and for once I’m grateful for his overbearing ways.
In some aspects, Hervé reminds me of William, who also likes to be in charge. When it comes to our marriage, William has always seen himself as the CEO and commander in chief. Not to mention the holder of the majority stock options, the signer-off on the budget, and the wielder of the absolute veto. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that at first I liked this nineteen-fifties-sitcom approach to domesticity. It made me feel safe. Normal. Not like the orphan I was. And am.
Our drinks arrive as the guitarist launches into a soft slow flamenco. Hervé takes a sip, leans back in his chair, and looks down his nose at me. “Amy,” he says, “I ask myself, why does not Margaret leave the washing up to her servant?”
“What?” I have been busy feasting my eyes on the guitar player. “Her ‘servant’?”
Hervé rubs his palms together, again reminding me of a praying mantis. “Just so. She should not have to concern herself with washing crockery. To prepare a meal is an art worthy of any lady. But to scrub and clean—”
It feels good to laugh out loud. “You think we should have employees to wash up after us?” I say this like it’s a crazy idea, even though it’s likely Hervé has servants. Maybe he can’t imagine life without them. Maybe they are incontournable, as the French say. Something you cannot do without.
“Why not?” he asks.
I shrug and squint toward the door. Manu’s taking a long time with his client.
But Hervé is not to be put off. “Tell me, Amy. Is Margaret quite well?”
“Of course she is,” I reply, hoping this is true. “She just gets tired a lot.”
“I am aware she lost a daughter.” He lets his voice trail off suggestively. “But does she not have other family? In England, perhaps?”
I wonder how much he knows about the daughter, whose name no one has ever told me, and shrug again. “Not that I’m aware.”
“Or friends?” he persists. “Surely she has connections in Paris?”
I sip my drink.
Hervé is undaunted. “I inquire, because I know how very important Margaret is to you. She is a most dear lady.”
“She is,” I agree. He’s right about that at least. “You know that after her daughter disappeared she had a sort of breakdown, right?”
I pause, not wanting to go into too many details, though Hervé makes a good point. It’s weird that Margaret is so isolated in Paris. So alone. She’s lived here most of her life. Why doesn’t she have a string of devoted friends or at least relatives on her husband’s side? Why is it only Manu and me?
Of course, I’m not one to talk. In Phoenix, aside from William, I only had Kat. The rest of my acquaintances, from school and work, were just that—acquaintances. They started to slip away when I got married, William being even more solitary than me, and during the years that Kat battled cancer, they disappeared entirely. I haven’t tried to get in touch with any of them since. In a way I’m angry with these people. Not because they disappeared in my time of need but because they’re still alive when Kat is not. How dare they? It’s so unfair.
Hervé smiles his feline smile. “Ah well. You and I must therefore be her family, n’est-ce pas?”
“You and me?” I say this way too loudly for a French public place.
Hervé scowls. “I mean simply that we ought to care for her.” He has lowered his voice to a whisper, as if to compensate for my American-style volume. “For example, we can help her manage her apartment. It is magnifique.”
He’s right about that too. Margaret’s apartment is indeed magnificent. Even though I’ve been inside only one other apartment in Paris—Manu’s tiny studio—I’ve come to realize that a place with two full bathrooms, a washer and a dryer, hand-blown eighteenth-century glass in the windows, a working fireplace, and an entire wall of exposed stone that is who knows how old is very likely extraordinary.
Hervé perseveres. “Perhaps she has other properties as well? Investments? Holdings?”
I glare at him. “Holdings?”
This isn’t the first time Hervé has pumped me for information about Margaret. Sometimes it even seems he asks questions to which he—as a friend of her husband—should already know the answers. I really wish Manu would finish his phone call. He could help me deal with Hervé.
“But of course. I assume she keeps a country home. Perhaps more than one.�
� He picks up his snifter, swirls it, and puts it down again. “Amy, my dear child, it is not uncommon for people of Margaret’s class to possess considerable fortunes. I am just proposing that we could perhaps assist with her affairs.”
I peer down into my tisane. The waiter brought not verveine, which is my favorite, but citronnelle, which is just OK. Hervé’s questions are ridiculous. If Margaret has a “considerable fortune,” she’s never mentioned it. Nor would it occur to me to ask. I’m about to tell Hervé that Margaret’s so-called affairs are none of his, or my, damn business when Catherine baps me in the bladder.
As usual, her timing is excellent. I leap to my feet and catch the eye of the elegant hostess, who nods toward a hand-lettered sign at the far end of the room: Toilettes.
I hurry away without excusing myself to Hervé. I don’t like him much right now. I’m not sure I ever did.
five
I squint to read the tiny Roman numerals on the egg-sized Waterford crystal clock Margaret recently gave me to keep on my bedside table.
Eight o’clock. William has been in Paris for fifteen hours. More or less.
It’s more than past time to make my move.
First, I power up my phone. When I got back last night, I retrieved the phone from its hiding place under the bath towels but did not turn it on. It was past two a.m. I was exhausted. Disgusted. The final portion of my “special day” had been spent parrying Hervé’s questions about Margaret’s private affairs and waiting for Manu to return from his phone call, which took ages. When he did appear, he announced he was leaving and suggested I do the same. In short, the “members-only nightclub” was kind of a bust. I ended up going home in a cab, alone.
I should’ve fallen asleep right away. Instead, I tossed and turned and considered the idea that William chose to arrive on September 4th on purpose, as a kind of birthday surprise. Which would mean that now, in addition to being mad about not getting an immediate response to his text messages, he’s mad his surprise flopped. I worried for hours, yet I was still unwilling to risk phoning and waking him.
So this morning I’m glad to see no fresh texts from William. Also no voicemails or emails. I guess he’s waiting for me to respond. Maybe he’s evolving. Just as I am. Or maybe, and perhaps more likely, he’s zonked out. A long flight east makes waking up in the morning a real bear.
I set the phone next to the clock, hop out of bed, and head for the bathroom. The apartment is hushed and still. Margaret, who normally brings a morning cup of milky English Breakfast tea to me in bed, is not yet up.
This also makes me glad. With the excitement of my birthday dinner passed, she might now have the bandwidth to notice something going on with me. Margaret may be capricious, but she’s also observant. She was the one who insisted I take a pregnancy test, only days after we met. However, the wand she provided was out of date, weirdly showing up as both positive and negative. I didn’t even know pregnancy wands could go bad. But, apparently, they can and do. Either way, I was convinced I couldn’t possibly be pregnant, which is why it took me so long to go to a doctor.
In a funny way, I’m in Paris because of a defective pregnancy test. Because if it’d been accurate I never would have gotten on an airplane after that final fight with William. I would have come clean about my situation, and we would have reconciled. Probably.
At the very least I would’ve stayed put in Arizona, where I’ve got health insurance and citizenship. No sane woman would flit off to a foreign country, alone and pregnant. Fortunately, the cost of health care in France is remarkably reasonable, and so far, I’ve been able to pay for my doctor’s visits out of pocket. But as for a long-term plan, well, guess what. I don’t have one. The confirmation of my pregnancy still feels so new. I’m still in the reeling stage.
And who knows? Maybe the whole issue is about to be resolved for me. Maybe it’s the right thing.
I pull on yoga pants and my favorite long sweater, and let myself out of the apartment. Catherine flutters like a hummingbird as I thump down the three flights of stairs and burst out into the brisk morning air. Most babies fall asleep when their moms are in motion, but Catherine does the opposite. She perks up. She’ll be an athlete. Or a dancer. Something physical.
Minutes later, I’m hurrying up to the door of the Hôtel du Cheval Blanc, quivering with apprehension, fatigue, excitement, and hope. Also hunger. I neglected to eat breakfast, or even to grab a slice of leftover birthday cake on my way out the door. But this morning my plan—my sane, adult plan—is to meet up with William and invite him out for a proper French breakfast. Buttery croissants. A steaming hot café crème. A good way to start the day and maybe the rest of my life.
I’m reaching out to open the smudged glass hotel lobby door when I spot William. Like yesterday, I shiver all over. Like yesterday, he’s standing at the reception desk, though this time with his back to me. He seems to be waiting to speak with the deskman, who’s on the phone.
This wasn’t the plan. I never dreamed William would be up and out of his room so early. I assumed I’d have time to get here, station myself in the lobby, and be waiting for him to come down, a smile on my face and a baby in my belly—the element of surprise, for once, belonging to me.
I pull back my arm. I’ll just wait for him to come out. It’s better this way—after all, it would be weird to have a deskman witness my first meeting with William after so long. Awkward. A public sidewalk is, paradoxically, much more private.
Meanwhile, I get out my apricot lip gloss and apply it while studying William from behind. Odd. His hair is unwashed, his shirt is wrinkled, and his shoulders are slumped forward. Slovenliness is not like him. Slumping is especially not like William, who as a former military man is known for fabulous posture.
He must be even more exhausted than I am. The bargain Hôtel du Cheval Blanc is located right next to a busy bus stop—even now a pair of turquoise and white city buses is huffing and puffing in the street behind me—and from my own brief stay here I remember how the rumbling of engines kept waking me up every ten minutes. Poor William. Buses combined with jetlag may have made his night at least as restless as mine, if not more.
I tuck my hair behind my ears and straighten my own posture. Any second now he’ll turn. He’ll stop short when he spots me. His eyebrows will shoot up. Then he’ll smile (a little), cross the small lobby, and step out onto the sidewalk. Where I’ll be ready and waiting. “Hello, Will,” I’ll say. “Long time no see.”
As for what comes next, well, I don’t know. My future, including my relationship with William, is a big fat question mark.
The deskman finishes his phone call. William steps forward. His back is still to me, so I clearly see him pluck a rectangle of white printer paper from his hip pocket. But I can’t tell what it says on the paper because when he unfolds it and holds it up his shoulder blocks my view. All I can see is the deskman shrugging. William, who obviously doesn’t know that a shrug is French for “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” flattens out the paper on the desk and begins to gesticulate with both arms.
This is another oddness. William isn’t the kind of person who gestures while he speaks. All his movements are controlled and intentional. It’s one of the qualities that attracted me to him. William is a brainiac, but he’s also very physical, graceful, and I’ve often thought how Catherine must get her athleticism from her father.
When William’s gesticulating elicits nothing but a second shrug, he refolds the paper, jams it back into his jeans pocket, and turns around to face the glass lobby door.
He’s not smiling. His forehead is creased. His jaw is clenched. As he moves toward the door I shrink to the side—I can’t help myself—so that when he steps out I’m standing off to his left, about six feet away, yet close enough to smell the vanilla of his aftershave and see the individual hairs of his new stubble beard.
This is it. William should be spotting me. Right. About. Now.
But, incredibly, he doesn’t.
Instead, his eyes sweeping right over me, he turns and stalks away, shoulders hunched, hands plunged into the pockets of his jeans.
I’m about to open my mouth to shout his name when I recall that not only has William failed to get whatever information he was seeking from the deskman (strike one), he is operating on little sleep (strike two). Worse, he hasn’t yet had his coffee because the Hôtel du Cheval Blanc doesn’t serve breakfast (strike three).
He’s clearly in a black mood, a black-enough mood that he doesn’t even notice me—his own wife—standing in plain view.
I follow. He moves at a rapid clip, as if he knows where he’s going. Two blocks later I realize his destination is the Café de la Poste. It’s the café nearest the hotel and therefore the logical breakfast destination. Still, this is yet another thing that feels odd. The Café de la Poste is where I ate my first meal in Paris. It’s where Margaret and I first met, last April, when she came to my rescue after my purse was stolen, another one of my little misadventures. We often still come here to grab a cup of coffee or eat lunch. It’s a little annoying. William is retracing my steps, sleeping in my hotel, breakfasting at my café. All of this is probably accidental, but still.
At least he doesn’t sit at my table. That would be too weird. He chooses a spot near the bar, his back to the door.
While he waits to order, I conceal myself behind a card rack outside the bookstore across the street. Yes, I do feel silly. “What does it mean,” Kat would certainly ask, if she were around to ask anything, “that you find yourself tailing your husband down the street like a cartoon detective? What does it mean that you don’t just walk up and talk to him?”
It’s a pretty good question. It most likely doesn’t mean anything good. But I have Catherine’s welfare to think of. William always needs a jolt of caffeine before he’s fit for human companionship. Besides, my plan is totally to “walk up and talk to him.” I just want to do it in my own time and in my own way. Not haphazardly, how I used to do things.
William is speaking to the waiter—in English, I’m sure. Unlike me, he isn’t burdened by years of French lessons and therefore feels no compunction to try to speak it. He addresses everyone in English and assumes he’ll be understood. And, apparently, he is, because a minute later the waiter appears with a basket of croissants just as delicious-looking as the croissants I order in French.
Paris Ever After Page 4
