French Coast

by Anita Hughes

  Serena stood in front of her closet, deciding what to wear. She wanted to feel smooth silk or crisp cotton against her skin. She remembered the old movies she used to watch with her parents: Audrey Hepburn singing after she kissed George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Grace Kelly falling in love with Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief.

  She selected a turquoise Nina Ricci dress and white slingback sandals. She tied her hair with a turquoise ribbon and grabbed her notepad. Her phone rang and she picked it up.

  “Would you like to have dinner tonight on the boat?” Nick asked. “I’ll pick up tomato basil pizza and peaches and chocolate éclairs from the market.”

  “We just had breakfast,” Serena giggled.

  Nick’s voice was low. “For some reason, I’m still hungry.”

  * * *

  Serena walked down the hallway and knocked on the door of the Sophia Loren Suite.

  Yvette opened the door. “Serena!”

  Yvette wore black cigarette pants and a cropped red sweater. She carried a wide straw hat and oversize sunglasses. Her cheeks were lightly powdered and she wore bright red lipstick.

  “I had breakfast at La Plage, they make the most delicious egg-white omelets,” Yvette said as she walked into the living room and pulled back the turquoise silk curtains. “Sometimes it’s lovely to be on the beach early and watch the fishing boats push out to sea.”

  “I’ll have to try it.” Serena nodded, sitting on an upholstered chair at the bamboo dining-room table.

  “You look luminous this morning,” Yvette said, eyeing her carefully. “I was talking to Chelsea, she told me why you’re not wearing that stunning engagement ring.”

  “She shouldn’t have done that.” Serena’s eyes flickered.

  “I agree, but editors do talk,” Yvette replied. “She was worried about you.”

  “I’m much better, thank you.” Serena bit her lip. She unscrewed her pen and opened her notepad.

  “Love is the most interesting emotion,” Yvette mused, gazing at the shimmering Mediterranean. “When our heart breaks we think it will never heal, but it can be quite resilient.…”

  * * *

  Yvette didn’t mention leaving Henri again for the rest of the summer. The last week of August was so hot, they had to keep the windows open. Yvette lay naked on the mattress, listening to children playing on the sidewalk, and wondered what she was doing. Then she would feel Bertrand’s mouth on her breast, his hand gently parting her legs. and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

  “I don’t know why I let Edouard talk me into going to New York,” Bertrand grumbled, reaching over Yvette for his packet of cigarettes. “At least Hollywood has palm trees and the Pacific Ocean. In New York it’s impossible to get a taxi and they leave the garbage in the street.

  “Pays de Cocagne is going to be performed on Broadway.” Yvette felt his palm brush her skin. Even though they had just made love she wanted him all over again.

  “I’m going to spend six months listening to actors destroy my words,” Bertrand moaned. “Americans all sound like cowboys.”

  “I wish I could come with you,” Yvette said. She pictured the long winter in Paris without Bertrand. She saw dinner parties where she had to make sparkling conversation, business functions sitting next to Henri and feeling his thigh pressed against her leg.

  Bertrand caressed her nipples. He moved down her body and buried his face between her thighs. He inserted his fingers deep inside her, pressing one hand on her stomach.

  He lowered himself into her and came so violently she was afraid the plaster might crack. Then he rolled off and thrust his fingers in her again until she thought the waves would never stop.

  Bertrand stood up and walked to the window. He grabbed his singlet from the chair and wiped his brow.

  “That’s what I’ll remember when I’m stuck in a dark theater drinking weak American coffee.”

  Yvette felt her body shudder and closed her eyes, wishing it were already spring.

  * * *

  It rained all winter and Yvette spent afternoons in Grand Magasins trying on items from their spring collections. She bought Courrèges culottes and brightly colored swimsuits and silver sandals. She imagined strolling along the beach at Juan-les-Pins and making love on the white sand.

  She helped Pierre with his math, pinned Camille’s hair in a bun for ballet, let Lilly pour the flour into the cake mix. She fixed Henri’s martini and listened to him talk about the bank, counting off the days in her head.

  * * *

  Yvette arrived in Antibes in the last week of May and felt like a bird let out of its cage. The villa Henri rented was a small castle with high ceilings and dark wood floors and rich velvet sofas. Yvette ran from room to room pulling back curtains and opening windows like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.

  The second weekend of the summer they were invited to a party by Robert Evans. He had won the Palme d’Or for his latest film and it was the most coveted invitation of the season. Yvette had her hair done at the Carlton-InterContinental and spent the afternoon shopping in Cannes. She wanted to wear something different from all the movie starlets with their gold mesh dresses and platform shoes.

  * * *

  Yvette walked around Robert Evans’s villa to the swimming pool and searched the lawn for Bertrand. She saw elegant men and women with bronze skin and heavy gold jewelry. She smelled the sweet scent of marijuana mixed with floral perfume.

  “I thought I’d find you here, I saw Henri surrounded by skinny actresses,” Bertrand said as he came to stand beside her. He wore a striped shirt and a white blazer. He held a shot glass in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.

  “How was New York?” Yvette tried to keep her voice steady. “Did you acquire an American accent and a love of baseball?”

  “I stayed in a place called Greenwich Village, where the women go braless and the men don’t cut their hair.” Bertrand ground the cigarette into the grass and looked closely at Yvette. “I missed French food and wine and perfume.”

  Yvette leaned against a marble column and surveyed the scene. A band played soft jazz and couples danced barefoot on the lawn. A few women stripped off their clothes and jumped topless into the pool.

  “Do you remember when I first saw you at Ryan O’Neal’s party?” Bertrand asked. “I said you didn’t belong in such a den of iniquity.”

  Yvette felt Bertrand’s hand brush her back and was almost dizzy. She wanted him to take her into the house and find a spare bedroom. She wanted to unzip her Hervé Léger black dress and slip off her lace panties. She wanted him to fill her up so that the long dry months of waiting would be over.

  “I was wrong.” Bertrand pulled out a gold cigarette box and tapped out another cigarette. “You proved more wanton than I imagined.”

  “We could leave now,” Yvette murmured, glancing at Bertrand. The sexual energy danced on his skin like an electric current. “I could tell Henri I have a headache and have to go home.”

  “And miss all the fun?” Bertrand shrugged, gazing at the waiters carrying trays of caviar and foie gras. “There is no rush, we have all summer.”

  Yvette tried to concentrate on Bertrand’s descriptions of Times Square and Fifth Avenue and the theater district. She suddenly spotted Henri walking into the pool house. She excused herself, telling Bertrand she had to use the bathroom.

  Yvette stood at the window and saw Henri talking to a small blonde with big breasts and a full red mouth. Yvette recognized Suzy Meadows, a young American actress who wanted to make European art films.

  She watched Suzy perch on a billiard table, her skirt playfully arranged around her legs. She saw Henri hand her a drink and put his hand on Suzy’s breast. She stood, mesmerized, as Henri unzipped his slacks, fumbled with Suzy’s panties, pushed himself against her.

  Yvette let out a little gasp and thought she would vomit. She watched her husband’s face crumple the way it did before he came. Then she heard him call out and saw him collapse
against Suzy’s pink cotton dress.

  Yvette ran around the garden to the front of the villa. She stumbled into the entry and asked the valet for her coat.

  “Where are you going?” Bertrand stood in the foyer, still holding a shot glass.

  Yvette turned around but her eyes were blurry and she couldn’t focus.

  “I’m going home, I have a headache,” she mumbled, running down the stone steps to the driveway.

  * * *

  “I’m leaving him,” Yvette announced.

  It was Monday morning and Henri had returned to Paris. Yvette waited till Françoise took the children to the beach and rushed to Bertrand’s new rooms in Juan-les-Pins.

  “Let’s not spoil our first day together,” Bertrand said as he looked up from his morning coffee and newspaper. “We have a real bed, and a hot plate so we can make coffee and fried eggs.”

  “I saw Henri having sex at the party.” Yvette’s voice rose. “In the pool house with Suzy Meadows.”

  “Are you jealous?” Bertrand raised his eyebrow.

  “Of course I’m not jealous! I don’t need to stay with him,” Yvette continued. “I can tell the judge what I saw.”

  “Henri will say it was dark, you were drinking.” Bertrand shrugged. “You mistook him for someone else.”

  “I saw his face, I saw her blond hair!”

  Bertrand took her hand and led her into the bedroom. He unbuttoned her blouse and buried his face in her breasts. “We’ll talk about it another time. Let’s try out the bed, the old mattress was murder on my back.”

  * * *

  Yvette chose a red Yves Saint Laurent linen dress with white buttons. She paired it with gold earrings and Gucci flats. She sprayed her wrists with Dior and grabbed her purse. She was going to tell Bertrand she had made up her mind. Then she was going to see a solicitor and ask Henri for a divorce.

  Yvette stopped at the Marché Provençal and bought a basket of strawberries and a carton of eggs and a loaf of French bread. She selected a bunch of purple daisies and a box of chocolate éclairs. She climbed the narrow staircase to Bertrand’s room and knocked on the door. Bertrand wore white shorts and a black singlet. His hair was slicked back and he smoked a thin cigarette.

  “I was shopping, I brought you some eggs.” Yvette held up her shopping bag. She glanced in the room and saw a woman perched on the sofa. She wore a white halter top and a pink skirt. Her blond hair was tousled and she wasn’t wearing lipstick.

  “Let me introduce you,” Bertrand said as he ushered Yvette inside. “This is Suzy Meadows, a delightful young American actress. She is interested in playing Gigi in La Femme; we were going over some lines.”

  Yvette glanced from Bertrand to Suzy, her heart beating like a drum. She saw Bertrand inhale his cigarette deeply, the way he did after they made love. She glanced through the door and saw the sheets to the bed lying in a heap on the floor.

  “I forgot I have an appointment, enjoy your breakfast.” Yvette dropped the carton of eggs on the wood floor and heard them crack as she stumbled down the stairs.

  chapter twenty-one

  Serena strolled through the Marché Forville admiring the selection of fruits and vegetables. She filled her shopping bag with endive lettuce, French green beans, and baby peas. She added ripe peaches, a basket of raspberries, and a jar of fresh whipped cream.

  She stopped at the patisserie counter and asked for dark chocolate truffles with a cherry filling. She flashed on dinner last night in the Cary Grant Suite. She remembered Nick kissing her while her mouth was full of buttercream and saying if she stayed at the Carlton-InterContinental much longer she’d acquire very expensive tastes.

  She bit her lip, thinking about the previous week. Zoe had insisted that Serena share her suite, and so she had canceled her own reservation. After her last session with Yvette, Yvette called and said she had urgent business in Nice. Serena wondered if she was telling the truth or if she needed a break. She remembered Yvette’s face when she recounted seeing Bertrand with Suzy Meadows. Her elegant facade cracked and she was suddenly a wife and mother betrayed by two men with the same woman.

  Serena wished she could tell Zoe about her feelings for Nick. But Zoe texted that her father hadn’t heard from Laura, and she was running out of ways to distract him. She signed up for a four-day excursion to Provence and promised to bring Serena a bottle of perfume from Grasse.

  Serena e-mailed Chelsea that she needed more time and allowed herself to enjoy Nick’s company. They took a boat to the Îles de Lérins and saw the prison where the Man in the Iron Mask was imprisoned for eleven years. They drove to Monte Carlo and ate blue lobster at the Hôtel de Paris and drank limoncello and lime in the Bar Américain.

  They made love in Nick’s apartment and in the Cary Grant Suite and in the cabin of the catamaran. Whenever she thought about her father’s secret family her eyes misted over and her throat closed up. Nick would sense a shift in her mood and suggest they sail around the harbor. Serena watched Nick at the steering wheel and the tightness in her chest was replaced by a small burst of happiness.

  * * *

  “I brought salad and dessert,” Serena said, standing at the door of Nick’s apartment.

  It was late afternoon and they had decided to spend a quiet evening cooking and playing backgammon. Zoe had taught her the basics and Serena discovered Nick owned an ivory backgammon set.

  “Your mailman asked me to bring up your mail.” Serena set a pile of envelopes on the wooden coffee table.

  “Alec should have been made to retire years ago.” Nick wore khaki shorts and a blue T-shirt. His cheeks were freshly shaved and his dark hair curled around his collar. “I feel terrible that he has to climb three flights of stairs. I always think I should ask him to come in and have a glass of water.”

  “Like the birds you used to rescue when you were young,” Serena said, grinning.

  “I never believed the bad boy gets the girl,” Nick replied. “I’d rather rescue a damsel in distress, like Sir Lancelot and Guinevere.”

  Serena glanced up and saw his eyes were playful and a smile danced around his mouth. He put the raspberries on the counter and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed her slowly and slipped one hand beneath her skirt.

  “Then you won’t take advantage of me until after dinner.” Serena laughed. “I’ve been writing all day and I’m starving.”

  “I thought Yvette was away,” Nick said, frowning.

  “She is, but I have to send Chelsea something,” Serena replied. “The advertisers are breathing down her neck.”

  Serena remembered Chelsea’s growing impatience and her demand to see some copy. She pictured her return plane ticket, leaving Cannes, going home alone to San Francisco.

  “Then we need to feed you.” Nick put a slice of peach in her mouth. He kissed her again and touched her chin. “But I’d be happy to skip dinner and go straight to dessert.”

  * * *

  Nick set the round dining-room table with a vase filled with yellow sunflowers and a basket of sliced French bread. He added a pot of olive oil and a jug of raspberry vinaigrette dressing and ceramic salt and pepper shakers.

  “I received a postcard from my mother,” Serena said as she buttered a piece of bread. “They are on safari in the Serengeti.”

  “What did she say?” Nick asked.

  “That for the first time in thirty years she hasn’t worn perfume, that the sky at night is like Space Mountain, that my father is driving everyone crazy with his descriptions of jungle animals.”

  Serena sipped her wine and thought about her last meeting with her parents. They wanted to take her to dinner at the Carlton Restaurant, but she couldn’t imagine sitting on the balcony eating roasted chicken cutlets and braised asparagus. She flashed on the photo of her father with Jeanne and the two children, the family portrait that hung in the Presidio Heights mansion, and knew she had nothing to say.

  Serena said she had plans and they had a drink at the Carlton Bar. Cha
rles ordered a bottle of Chateau Rothschild and they talked about the latest Woody Allen movie and the political climate in France.

  Serena gazed at her father’s green eyes and her mother’s strawberry-blond hair and wished they were home in San Francisco. She pictured Sunday dinners at the cherry dining-room table. She remembered eating Niman Ranch steaks and talking about Vogue and Chase’s run for mayor and the foggy San Francisco summer.

  “We’ll be home in three months,” Kate said when they stood in front of the Carlton-InterContinental waiting for their town car.

  “I’ll water the orchids,” Serena mumbled, furiously blinking back tears.

  She watched her father talk to the driver and remembered her first year at summer camp. For months she looked forward to horseback riding and tennis and swimming in Lake Tahoe. But when she stood in front of her cabin and watched her parents drive away, she could barely stop herself from running after the car.

  * * *

  “It’ll get easier,” Nick murmured, ladling spinach leaves and Camembert and orange slices onto a plate.

  “I’m a grown woman and I’m acting like a ten-year-old.” Serena put her napkin on the plate and pushed back her chair. “I’m sorry, I’m not hungry.”

  Nick took Serena’s hand and led her to the sofa. He kissed her slowly, tasting of olive oil and sea salt. He kissed her harder, drawing her tightly against his chest. He slipped one hand under her skirt and slid his fingers deep inside her. His fingers moved faster until her tension was replaced by an exquisite release.

  He kissed her on the lips. “I told you we should skip dinner and go straight to dessert.”

  * * *

  Nick cleared the dishes and Serena set the backgammon board on the coffee table. She knocked the pile of mail on the floor and reached down to pick the envelopes up. She noticed a thick envelope with a San Francisco return address.

  “I thought I was the only girl you know from San Francisco,” Serena said as she held up the letter.