She was still thinking about Tony when she called Darcy on Skype a few minutes later, after Tony’s call. It was 6 A.M. in Zimbabwe, and she was happy when Darcy answered. She was loving her time in Africa and had already been there for almost a year, since she graduated from college. She looked healthy and tan when Olympia saw her on the screen. Her hair was in a long dark braid down her back, she had big blue eyes, and she looked like a younger version of her mother. Josh was fair and looked more like his father.
They talked for a little while about what Darcy was doing. They were working on a water system for the village she was assigned to, and planting crops with farm machinery that had been donated from around the world. Olympia was very proud of her, and of Josh too. Both were determined to improve the world and make it a better place. And neither had any interest in politics. Darcy had already decided to stay in Zimbabwe for another year, and Olympia had promised to come and visit her, although she didn’t know when. It was a big trip for her.
“So what are you up to, Mom?” Darcy asked her, sounding easy and relaxed.
“I’m still working on the book. It’s slow going. I want to do justice to all of Dad’s ideas, so it’s going to be a much longer book than the last one.”
“Isn’t that depressing for you, Mom?” Darcy looked worried on the screen. But Olympia said it was just the opposite. It still made her happy to write about him. No one could interfere or take him away. “You should get out more, go to some exhibits, go shopping, have some fun, see friends. You should give a dinner party.” Darcy listed all the things her mother used to enjoy and no longer did.
“Tony is coming up to have dinner with me on Tuesday,” she said, trying to mollify Darcy.
“That’s nice of him, Mom, but I wish you did other things too.” Darcy had been saying it for years and Josh agreed.
“I’m working on the book, I see Tony every week, I have Jennifer here with me during the week. What more do I need? Except to see you and Josh once in a while.”
“You need a lot more than that, Mom. You need a life of your own.” Darcy was frustrated. They had the same conversation every time they talked, and it was part of why both her children had left New York. They couldn’t watch their mother buried alive anymore, living on her memories of their father and nothing else. She only wanted to be the keeper of the flame. “You’ve got to get out more, Mom,” Darcy said, sounding desperate. “You’re too young to give up on life. Do something. Charity work, or a sport, or get a dog. Why don’t you stop working on the book for a while, and have some fun? When are you coming to see me here?” She knew her mother never would. She no longer had a life, nor wanted one.
“I want to get a better handle on the book before I come to Africa. How’s your romance with the French doctor?” she asked, and Darcy appeared discouraged when she answered.
“Fine. But I really worry about you.” She knew her mother was depressed, and Darcy had begun to lose hope that it would ever turn around. She had realized years before that Tony was in love with her mother, but she wouldn’t open her heart to that either, and Darcy couldn’t understand why she had let him slip through her fingers and marry someone else. Whenever Darcy spoke to her, she felt as though her mother had become a ghost, but Olympia was happy in her cave, clinging to her memories of a man who was gone.
Darcy could no longer imagine what would bring her mother back into the world, and whenever she talked to her brother about it, he said the same thing. She was just going through the motions of living. It made Josh cry sometimes after he talked to her, and Darcy always tried to jolt her mother awake, to no avail. Being with her was so upsetting that neither of them liked to come home to visit anymore. Olympia told herself they were just busy. She didn’t realize that her bleak outlook on life had driven them away. She had not only lost her husband, but her children, which made life even lonelier for her.
They talked for a while longer on Skype, and then Darcy said she had to go, she had work to do in the village, and she was going away for the weekend with Jean-Louis. She was having fun with him. He was ten years older than she was. She had told him about her mother, and her father’s death, and he agreed that her mother sounded seriously depressed, and he applauded Darcy’s healthy decision to get away from her, but it upset Darcy nonetheless. All she wanted was her mother back. It seemed like a dim hope now, dimmer with every passing year. She wondered if it was too late, and all she could do now was save herself. At times, she felt as though both her parents were dead.
Olympia sat looking out the window, thinking about Darcy after they hung up. She knew what her daughter wanted from her, but Darcy was young and had no idea how hard it was to lose someone you loved that much. Olympia couldn’t imagine letting go of Bill, even now. Her children had their own lives and paths to pursue, and all she had left was the memory of the happy times before he was killed. And when she saw Tony, he helped keep the memories alive. He was part of that time, and she clung to him like a life raft so she didn’t drown. He was all she had left, and the book that she never wanted to finish. She was holding on by a thread.
Chapter 7
The trip to Paris to cover the French President’s scandalous affair felt lighthearted to both Ben and Alix, and like fun. No one had died, no tragedy had occurred, no one would be shooting at them. The President had made a fool of himself with a young stripper, and the country was incensed at his lack of dignity and good judgment, but she was a pretty girl, no state secrets had been divulged, no harm had come to anyone. The trip was more like a holiday to both of them.
They had to attend an official press conference where he was going to try to explain what had happened, which Alix thought would probably make it all worse. It had been suggested that he might get married, which Alix thought unlikely. He would just flimflam around, while the country and the media shamed and criticized him, and then the waters of disgrace would recede and he’d play with her some more, and find another one, and hopefully be more discreet next time. Sooner or later, life would go back to business as usual, and the stripper would be a dim memory, until he slipped again, as he had before. Men in power seemed to have a penchant for that kind of thing, and women found them irresistible, no matter how unattractive they really were. The story was as old as time. Alix had a hard time taking it seriously. This was going to be a walk in the park for them. Ben was looking forward to it too. He said that Paris was his favorite city, and he was going to take a brief driving trip after he dropped her off with her mother in Provence.
They checked in to the hotel the network had booked for them, had dinner and shared a bottle of wine at a bistro nearby. Alix’s French origins showed in the things she ate when she was back in France. She loved kidneys and brains, blood sausage and pigs’ feet, and all the food that made Ben wince when she ordered it and explained to him what it was.
He ordered a steak and French fries, and felt very daring having mussels to start with, while she settled on kidneys in mustard sauce and looked delighted. The wine was good, and they didn’t have to work until the press conference the next day at the Elysée Palace, where the President was going to attempt to justify his actions and acknowledge the child he had had the year before, with the stripper who had posed nude for a French centerfold, and had a porn video distributed worldwide on the Internet. Local reporters claimed it all would only help her career, which had been negligible anyway. His own children, who were older than she was, had denounced him too. He had never married their mother and they were irate at the idea of his marrying the stripper. As they walked back to the hotel, Ben and Alix laughed about it.
Ben had a live and let live attitude. “At least he’s having a good time, and he’s not hurting anyone. I don’t know why, but Americans always expect their politicians to be virgins or celibate, and are shocked when they turn out to be human. Europeans are a lot more realistic about the vagaries of their elected officials. Their American counterparts are forced to resign, their wives divorce them, the accused cry
publicly on TV and apologize. Here, people are just annoyed she was a stripper and a porn star, and think she should have been classier, which is probably true. But by next week, it’ll be all over and no one will care. Can you imagine having this happen in the States? He’d be resigning tomorrow. Instead, he’s probably in bed with her tonight, and will meet her for a quickie tomorrow afternoon.” His description of it and assessment of the situation made Alix laugh. He wasn’t wrong, and listening to him made her feel French again, or half anyway. She said as much to him, and he reminded her that the Brits could be pretty racy, and had their share of scandals too. “What made you stay in the States instead of coming back to Europe?” She had grown up in London, her mother lived in France now, and Alix spoke perfect French. She could easily have moved to England or France. Sometimes she wondered about it herself, and why she hadn’t.
“I went to college in the States, I had a baby there, I got a good job right out of college, which I couldn’t have done as easily here. And it turned into a career I couldn’t have had, or not as quickly, in Britain or France. You have to put in a lot of years before they take you seriously in Europe. America has always been wonderful about giving young people a chance, and I got a green card eventually from marrying Faye’s father, which was like gold. And I have an American daughter. There seemed to be good reasons for me to stay, so I did. And it was exciting, and I knew my mother wanted to go back to her own roots then, and I didn’t want to be alone in Paris, or in Provence with her.”
“So you opted to be alone in New York. I think I’d have gone to Paris instead. I’ve always loved it here. I think it’s the most beautiful city in the world.” He was happy as he looked around him.
“So do I,” she said. It was still light at ten P.M. in April, the sky was slowly filling with stars, the bridges leading across the Seine were brightly lit, and the Eiffel Tower was sparkling on the hour. It looked like a movie set, and always warmed her heart being there. Ben thought she was a lucky woman and liked being in Paris with her. “Faye says she wants to live here one day, but if she goes to law school in the States, it’s unlikely. It’s hard to decide where to be and where to live if you have a choice of nationalities. I always felt torn between my father being British and my mother French. I might have stayed in London if my father were still alive when I grew up. I like it there too.”
“It’s an exciting city, but Paris is special,” he said, under its spell.
Being in Paris distracted them both from the realities of their jobs and the death threat she had received and would have to face again when she went back to the States. But in the warm night, as they strolled to their hotel, all was well with the world, and there was something beautiful everywhere they looked.
They were staying at a small business hotel, and had decent rooms. They said good night in the hallway and agreed to meet for breakfast in the lobby the next day. Alix lay on her bed thinking about where they’d been and everything they’d been doing in the past few weeks. She wondered when the story about the Vice President would break, when the CIA would give them the green light, after they had conducted their own investigation. She was glad they had some peaceful time in France before that happened. Breaking the story about the Vice President was going to be a major coup for her. She fell asleep thinking about it, and woke up the next morning before her alarm. She was in the lobby reading Le Figaro and drinking café au lait when Ben came downstairs and helped himself to two pains au chocolat and a brioche that tasted homemade, but were actually baked in a bakery nearby and delivered to the hotel every morning.
They took a cab to the Elysée Palace on the Faubourg St.-Honoré, and filed in with a hundred members of the press who were admitted for the press conference. There was a respectful silence when the President walked in a few minutes later and addressed them. He made a brief statement, which explained, but did not apologize for, his recent indiscretion, and he assured the French and international press that he had every respect for the office of the President. And he did not promise it wouldn’t happen again, which an American would have, and then done it anyway the next time an irresistibly pretty young woman crossed his path. It seemed more like an obligatory formality than a sincere confession. He took a few questions from selected members of the group and ignored the others, and Alix suspected he had made a deal in advance for whose questions he would take. And then he thanked them for coming and left the podium, and everyone shuffled out, grumbling at the uselessness of it, and laughing. One of them said to the others, “See you next time,” and the others chuckled. It had been a formality and nothing more, and no one really cared who he slept with. If the porn video hadn’t been circulated, probably nothing would have been said about his affair. Fortunately, he wasn’t in the video. She had supposedly made it five years before, in her teens.
“Well, that’s that,” Alix said easily as they stood on the most elegant shopping street in Paris, other than the Avenue Montaigne. She wanted to shop for Faye, but not here. They walked for a while, and she suggested a bistro on the Left Bank for lunch, where she ate another startling assortment of food that Ben said he would never touch, blood sausage among them, and tripe, even worse.
“Remind me never to ask you to cook a French dinner for me,” he said solemnly and she laughed, although she had suggested a dish for him made of duck and mashed potatoes called hachis parmentier, and he loved it. But anything else she described on the menu she translated for him sounded alarming. They had reservations at a fish restaurant she had recommended on the Avenue George V for that night. There was already a holiday atmosphere between them, and they were leaving for Provence in the morning. They were the first days off she had taken in months, and Ben too, since they were always assigned together and joined at the hip.
They’d sent in their feed from the presidential press conference, and Felix sent them a funny email about it and wished them a good vacation. He said there was no further news about Tony Clark, or from the CIA, and Alix was relieved. She didn’t want to think about it for the next few days. She wanted to enjoy her time off without interruption and frantic calls from Felix. She hoped no crisis would occur in Europe for several days, so they wouldn’t be dragged into service to report on it. She was really looking forward to the days in Provence with her mother, and to introducing her to the work partner she had told her so much about for the past four years. They had never met, and Ben was never seen on-screen since he was behind the camera. But her mother knew she liked working with him, and that he was an ex–Navy SEAL, which made Isabelle feel that her daughter was safer when they were in a war zone. At least Ben could protect her.
They walked around Paris all afternoon, much to Ben’s delight, and sat on a bench at the Tuileries, looking at the Louvre, and dinner was excellent that night. It had been a perfect day in Paris. They talked on the drive south about their childhoods, which they rarely did. His had been very American and more mundane, in Michigan. Hers seemed more interesting to him, in London, but she said it wasn’t. Being a kid seemed pretty similar to her, wherever you were, she commented, and he disagreed.
“Not if you’re eating brains and blood sausage instead of a Big Mac,” he said, making a face and she laughed at him.
“Aside from that, it’s the same,” she insisted, “except that I didn’t have a father, because he was as crazy as we are, and got himself blown to smithereens in Northern Ireland by the IRA.”
“So why did you go into this line of work? You’d think that would have taught you something.” He was puzzled by what she said.
“I wanted to be like him, smart and brave and reporting the news from scary places. It sounded like a hero’s life to me, especially for a woman. I couldn’t see myself as a writer or a poet, or a teacher or a secretary. That all sounded so boring, and I wanted to see the world, just like him.”
“What did your mother say?” He guessed that she must have objected, but he was surprised when Alix shrugged in a very French way. She seemed more French h
ere.
“My mother just said to do whatever I wanted. She said working is a lot more fun if you love what you’re doing, and she was right. She was a pattern maker in a French couture house before she married my father, and she didn’t love it. That’s complicated work, but she made beautiful clothes for me when I was a little kid, and for Faye. I was the best-dressed child at school, and then we moved and I went to a school where you had to wear a uniform and I hated it. But she always made my party dresses, and my really nice clothes, before I left for college. She worked for Saint Laurent,” she said proudly, and he was impressed.
They stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant, and reached Provence in the late afternoon. She directed him down a long country road outside of town, and told him which turns to take, and then told him to stop in the driveway of a neat house that was freshly painted yellow with white shutters, and had a colorful garden. Her mother heard a car stop, and came out on the porch smiling and waved to them. She had gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, and other than that she looked like Alix and was wearing jeans and a bright pink sweater and ballerina flats. She looked youthful and still had a good figure. Alix had said she rode her bike everywhere and almost never used her car, except in bad weather.
As soon as Alix stepped out of their rented car, mother and daughter put their arms around each other, and her mother beamed at her with pleasure and then smiled at Ben. She held out a hand to him and introduced herself and invited him into the house. She spoke English with a British accent after living in London for so long and being married to an Englishman, and she spoke it fluently. Ben followed both women inside to a cozy living room with fine old country furniture, a big fireplace, and beyond it a big rustic kitchen, where they sat down and she made them all tea. She put Ben at ease immediately, and said she had made a cassoulet for them, which was a kind of French stew with beans.
Dangerous Games Page 10
