44 Charles Street

by Danielle Steel

  Marya left for France on the tenth of July, so she could spend Bastille Day there. She was stopping in Paris for a few days before Provence, to visit her cooking buddies, some of whom ran the best restaurants in Paris. She had trained there in her youth, and still had friends she loved there. And then she was planning to wend her way to Provence and get to work with Charles-Edouard.

  The house was deathly quiet after the others had left. Francesca used the time to get some repairs done, and unwind. She closed early every day—the gallery was dead in the summer. They never sold anything in July, and she closed for most of August. She used the time to clean out her files, and go through slides of new artists. And it was tomblike when she went back to the house. She made the mistake of going out with one of her artists out of pure boredom. They got blind drunk together, and he wound up crying over the girlfriend he’d just broken up with. And all the evening did was depress Francesca. He called her to apologize the next day. The evening had been a total bust and reminded her not to go out with her artists. It was always a bad idea.

  Eileen was seeming a little more cheerful, although she didn’t have a job. She was still mourning Brad, which Francesca refused to discuss with her. She didn’t want to feed her sickness. They had a few quiet dinners, before Francesca left. They always seemed to connect at a deep level, and Eileen’s innate innocence and sweetness always tore at her heart. She was so trusting and loving and open. She seemed to have none of the defenses she needed to protect herself in the world. Francesca wished she would harden herself a little and be less vulnerable, but that just wasn’t Eileen. Francesca was feeling guilty about leaving her alone for three weeks, and even offered to take her to Maine with her, but Eileen insisted she’d be fine. She was making friends on the Internet again, which made Francesca uneasy, but she didn’t feel it was her place to say so. The Internet was the epicenter of Eileen’s life and how she made all her friends. Meeting men was just part of that. She was part of a generation that was linked to their computers by an umbilical cord. She was either online or sending texts, something Francesca rarely did. She’d rather pick up the phone and call people, and hear their voice. But Eileen’s generation communicated by e-mails and texts. For most it worked, as did the Internet. For Eileen, it seemed to make her a magnet to the wrong guys.

  Francesca took her out to dinner on her last night in New York. They went to the Waverly Inn, and it was fun. There were still plenty of people in New York. And Eileen’s mood seemed lighter and brighter than it had for a while. Francesca commented to her that their house felt like a boarding school where everyone went home for the summer. It reminded her that only Eileen had nowhere to go. The others all had family, friends, or other homes. Eileen said she was planning to go to the beach when she wasn’t job hunting and she’d be fine. She was looking forward to some time alone. And Francesca felt a tug at her heart again when she left her the next day. Eileen looked like a little kid as she stood on the top step and waved with a big smile as the cab drove away to take Francesca to the airport to fly to Bangor to meet her friends. Eileen was wearing pigtails and shorts, and after Francesca left, Eileen walked back inside. Her cell phone was ringing, and she answered it. It was Brad.

  Chapter 13

  THE SUMMER FLEW by for all of them. Marya covered the most ground. She drove from Paris to Provence, then down to St. Paul de Vence, and spent a weekend with friends in Antibes. She flew from Nice to Spain to visit her friend Ferran Adria, at elBulli in Roses with all his innovative creations. He had invented “molecular” cooking, where he broke the food down and reconstituted it. He had closed the restaurant for a while, and was planning to open again after doing more research. Marya was always fascinated by his ideas and creative genius. And from there she went to Florence, Bologna, Venice, Padua, down to Rome, and back to Paris again for a few days, before she flew to Boston, and then home to Vermont. Marya had friends everywhere, and everyone welcomed her visits. She had a fabulous time, and was happy to be in Vermont again, in her own bed, and cooking in her own kitchen, although she felt her husband’s absence more there. He’d been gone for a year. She still missed him, but she was busy and had a full life.

  She and Charles-Edouard had traveled extensively in Provence, and discovered new recipes for their book. They were ready to submit the outline to the publisher, and were planning to write it in September. She added two new chapters while she was in Vermont, and then left for New Hampshire. It was already chilly at night, and fall was in the air. Some of the leaves were already turning as she drove through the countryside. She stayed longer than she intended with her friends in North Conway, and then she slowly drove back home. She’d had a good time all summer, and was starting to think about going back to New York after Labor Day, as she drove up to her house, and was startled to see Charles-Edouard standing on her porch. He looked impatient and relieved as she got out of her car.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked him in amazement. His hair looked longer and wilder than ever, and his eyes were the same blue as the Vermont sky. “I thought you were in St. Tropez.” He had a house in Ramatuelle, which was just behind it, and had planned to spend August there. She hadn’t heard from him since Provence, and didn’t expect to. They had agreed to call each other when she got back to New York. And she had no idea what he was doing in Vermont.

  He started talking the moment she stepped onto the porch. “She left me for one of my sous-chefs. Can you believe that? Just walked out, packed everything.”

  “Who did?” She was sure he was talking about the chef who ran his restaurant in Paris. They’d had a stormy relationship for years, and she threatened to quit every three weeks.

  “Arielle. My wife,” he responded with a look of outrage, and then he burst into a broad smile as he looked at Marya. He was happy to see her, and it showed.

  “Your wife left you for the sous-chef?” Marya looked stunned.

  “She’s divorcing me. I got a letter from her lawyer five days ago. He filed the papers. I got on the first plane here, but you were away.”

  “Why didn’t you call me if you wanted to talk to me?” She looked totally mystified about why he was there.

  “I wanted to talk to you in person,” he said insistently as she fished her house keys out of her bag and unlocked the door.

  “What about? Our publisher is still on vacation. I added two more chapters last week, by the way. I think you’ll like them. One is entirely on spices, and how to use them, and the other is fish.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk to you about fish,” he said, looking annoyed.

  “Then why did you come here?” She looked vague as he followed her around the house, and she finally sat down on the couch, and he sat down next to her and looked her in the eye.

  “I came to tell you in person that I’m a free man. For thirty years, you refused to take me seriously because I was married, and so were you”—a mere detail to him in the scheme of things, but neither of them was married now. “I’m not married anymore, or I won’t be. She wants to marry that idiot, but I don’t care. I haven’t loved her in years. I’ve been in love with you since the first time I laid eyes on you, Marya. I’m not going to let you brush me off anymore. I love you. You’re a great woman, a great chef. You’re the only woman I’ve ever met that I would be faithful to. I’m not leaving here until you agree to marry me. That’s what I came here to say.” And with that he kissed her, totally stunned her, and took her breath away. For a moment she didn’t know what to say, and then she laughed.

  “Charles-Edouard Prunier, you are completely crazy. You’re insane. I don’t want to get married. I adore you too. But I don’t want to get married again at my age. I’m going to be sixty years old. Sixty-year-old people don’t get married. I’d be a laughingstock, and so would you.” She felt a flutter over what he was saying, and she had always loved him as a friend, but had never let herself be attracted to him. Now suddenly everything was different, and all obstacles had been removed.


  “I don’t care,” he said firmly with a ferocious look in his eye. “L’amour n’a pas d’âge. Love has no age. I don’t care if you’re turning a hundred. I’m sixty-five, and I’ve been in love with you since you were thirty. And I’m not going to wait another thirty years.” And with that, he kissed her again, and much to her amazement, she kissed him back, and felt all the feelings she had ignored for years. And she had been deeply in love with her husband while he was alive.

  She looked at him with a horrified expression then. “Oh my God, now what are we going to do?”

  “You’re going to do the right thing after all these years, and marry me,” he said firmly, and she laughed at him again.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are,” he insisted. “I won’t relent until you do.”

  “You’re crazy. We’re too old to get married,” she insisted.

  “We are not. Besides, I want to have a baby with you.” She laughed even harder at that. “Or write books together. Or do whatever you want to do. I’m giving her the house in Ramatuelle, by the way, and the flat in Paris. I think we should get our own. I’ve never liked the neighborhood. I’ll buy a flat for you.”

  “Wait a minute,” Marya said seriously. “Let’s slow down. Are you serious about all this?” She looked utterly amazed. She had no idea if he was kidding or not.

  “Do you think I sat on your porch every day for a week for no reason? I’ve waited a lifetime for this, Marya.” She loved him too, as a friend. He was one of her closest friends, and she loved working with him and spending time with him, but she had never allowed herself to think of him as more than that. She had loved her husband deeply, and they had a wonderful marriage. But Charles-Edouard was certainly crazy and a joy to be with, and they got along wonderfully, and always had.

  “I need time to think about this, if you’re serious. And I don’t know if I want to get married.”

  “Why not? And don’t tell me you’re too old. That is not a reason I will accept.”

  “I don’t know if we need to get married. You’re French. Frenchmen have affairs. We can have an affair for the next thirty years. Maybe that’s enough.”

  “You’re not that kind of woman,” he said, pretending to be shocked.

  “Maybe I am at this point in my life. I don’t know.” She had never intended to be with another man, and now she was talking marriage and affairs with Charles-Edouard. “Can we try this out for a while, and see how it works?” And then she looked at him seriously. “I don’t want to be married to a man who cheats on me, and I know you’ve done that all your life. You were never faithful to Arielle.”

  “My parents made me marry her. She didn’t love me either. And I solemnly promise that I would be faithful to you.” He looked as though he meant it, but she wasn’t sure if he was capable of it.

  “Prove it to me. If you’re faithful to me and don’t cheat on me, I’ll marry you. Maybe,” she added, and then laughed. She was being coy. This was suddenly a delicious moment in her life. At nearly sixty, a handsome Frenchman was in love with her, and proposing to her. She was beginning to like the idea. “Who’ll do the cooking if we get married?” she asked with interest, and he thought about it. It was an intriguing question.

  “We both will. Together.”

  “Who will be the sous-chef? Me or you?”

  “You will. You’re the girl.”

  “You’re a chauvinist,” she said, looking delighted. She was having a great time, and so was he. She suddenly felt very young.

  He took her out to dinner that night, and they talked about their plans, about whether to live in Paris or New York. They both thought they’d prefer Paris. Marya had wanted to all her life. He thought they should find a flat on the Left Bank, in either the sixth or seventh arrondissement.

  By the time they got back to her house, they still hadn’t settled the matter of whether to get married. But she was serious about wanting to see if he could be faithful. He certainly never had been in his entire life. She wanted to give it a few months to find out. She was talking about moving to Paris with him, if he behaved, by the end of the year. They could decide whether to get married after that. And in the meantime, they could enjoy each other. He offered to stay in New York for the next few months, where they could work on the book together.

  He walked her into the house, and everything happened naturally after that. They wandered into her bedroom, their clothes seemed to disappear, and they wound up in bed in each other’s arms. And as he reached out to her, they felt as though they had been together all their life, and would be for the next hundred years. She felt like a girl again in his arms.

  Chris’s time with his family was just what Ian needed, and it did Chris a great deal of good too, especially this year. Ian got to be a child again, playing with his cousins, and swimming every day. He learned to water-ski, and he made lots of new friends. It was so easy and carefree and normal that he almost forgot his mother was in jail. She called him once a week. And Chris dreaded the calls. They brought Ian back to reality and reminded him of all the pain he’d been through, all of it because of his mother. Chris was still furious with her for dragging Ian through it. But at the Vineyard, their wounds seemed to heal, although Chris’s conversations with his parents about Ian’s mother were always difficult for him. They thought Ian should be entirely removed from his mother, even if that meant sending him to boarding school, which Chris refused to even consider. Ian was far too young and Chris wanted his son with him. His parents didn’t agree.

  “You’re not providing a proper home for him,” his mother said sternly one afternoon after lunch, after Ian scampered off. “I don’t understand why, but you’re not. You’re living in a house full of people, with ‘roommates,’ or a commune of some kind, like a student. You have a child, Chris, and if you can’t provide a proper home for him, you should send him away to school. Or at least get your own apartment and a nanny to take care of him. And the farther away you get him from his mother, the better off he’ll be. He should see as little of her as possible.” Chris didn’t disagree with that, but he was violently opposed to all the rest, and Ian was his son, not theirs. It was easy for them to sit on the sidelines and criticize him. They weren’t the kind of grandparents to want hands-on involvement, but they felt they had every right to comment on how Chris was bringing Ian up, and they didn’t approve.

  “I don’t live in a commune,” Chris said hotly, “and my housemates are wonderful, intelligent people, who add a whole other dimension to Ian’s life, much more than any nanny. I moved in for convenience before Ian came to live with me, because I wasn’t ready to set up an apartment, but now I see what these people add to Ian’s life. It would be a real loss to both of us if we moved.” He believed it profoundly, but his mother wasn’t convinced.

  “It’s all a bit too modern for me,” his mother said bluntly. “Children need a mother and a father and a proper home. In a case like yours, with a mother like Kimberly, Ian is certainly better off alone with you, but only if you can give him a sane, normal life in a real home, not living in a room in someone else’s house. I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand that, Chris. It’s not like you can’t afford to get your own place. This is sheer laziness on your part. And Ian will pay the price for it later on. What does he tell his friends at school? Who does he say those people are? You’re too old to live with roommates, Chris, and you have a child.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Mother,” Chris said coldly. His father had made similar comments to him several times. He referred to Chris’s “alternate lifestyle” as unsuitable for a child. They were both very conservative people, and Chris renting a room in a house in the West Village, and having Ian live there with him, seemed like a very bad idea to them. His father said it was irresponsible, and his mother was saying much the same thing. It was impossible to explain to either of them the kindness of Francesca, Marya, and Eileen to his son. Ian lived in a very special world, with four adults who
doted on him, and even Charles-Edouard, the French chef, had been kind to him. Ian wasn’t living alone with a single father, he was living in a tribe, and in some ways Chris felt it was the best possible antidote to the agonies his mother put him through. The fact that Kim was entirely unsuitable, no one could deny. But Ian loved her, and she was his mother, so he had a right to some contact with her too, as long as it was in a safe setting for him. Chris knew that his parents were sorry Kim hadn’t died when she OD’d, and thought Ian would be better off just putting all that behind him and moving on. But the reality of their life wasn’t as simple as that, and Kimberly was still alive.

  “I hope you’ll reconsider about boarding school,” his mother reiterated as Chris frowned. He hated having conversations like this with either of his parents. Their ideas were rigid and old-fashioned, and they were more concerned about what was “proper” and traditional than about what was good for the child. They had brought him up that way too, and all it had done was give him a profound dislike for their lifestyle and everything it represented. He had a deep respect for family traditions, and summers at the Vineyard that brought all the generations together, which was why he came here every year, but he couldn’t tolerate their clinging to traditions out of habit, or old-fashioned ideas that didn’t work in the complicated situation he was in. He never would have sent Ian away to school. At least this way, Ian had one loving parent with him, and for the moment, a house full of people who genuinely cared about him, and spent time with him. Chris’s parents never did. They enjoyed their grandchildren, and liked having them around, as long as their parents or a nanny were present, but his parents stayed at a distance, and observed them without ever really connecting with them, or finding out who they were. He never saw his mother with her arms around a grandchild, and the only thing his father ever asked any of them was how school was, and what sports they played.