“Ah, Monsieur Necker,” he said in French. “Did Monsieur Jean report to you the safe delivery of the bonheur-du-jour of Madame de Pompadour to Mademoiselle Loring? I had the pleasure of accompanying the piece to New York myself—four days waiting for that blizzard to clear up, what a history!—but I promise you, I never let that precious crate out of my sight, except during the flight, naturally, until Mademoiselle Loring herself personally signed for it. Oh, yes, I insisted on that. I hoped she liked it, Monsieur, such a superb work of art.”
“Yes, of course, thank you very much,” Necker said, hastily, on a dismissive note. The courier disappeared as suddenly as he’d arrived, leaving a silence in the room that was very different from the silence that had filled it before his entrance.
Justine and Necker! So that was it, Jordan thought, holding her breath in shock. So that was the reason all three of them had been picked to come to Paris. A writing table that had belonged to the mistress of King Louis XV—millions of dollars! He must be insanely in love with her … it explained all his questions about Justine at the Petit Trianon. She made herself take shallow breaths as a wave of pain replaced her first amazement. But why pain, she asked herself, why this terrible pain in her heart? What real difference did it make to her that Justine and Necker … oh no, oh shit no! This could not be! She was jealous, Jordan realized, as she’d never been jealous in her life. Jealous of Necker? But Necker was merely a man she’d been able to talk openly to, a good man, a decent man, a kind man who’d listened to her with honest interest. His power, his wealth, his possessions—was it that? Oh, if only it were, if only it were, Jordan lamented. It was the feeling of his big, warm hand on her elbow, it was the way his grey hair curled at his temples and vanished into the blond, it was the very sound of his voice, a sound so different, so much more pleasing than any other voice she’d ever heard, it was his rare, quick boyish smile, his look of melancholy when he thought she wasn’t watching, it was—oh fuck—everything about him, from head to toe, and she was the worst fool on the planet Earth. Girl, you’ve fallen into it big-time, she thought, but you can’t sit here forever. At least, thank the good Lord, she’d resisted the temptation to show off her French. Now all she had to do was pretend that she hadn’t understood a word of what that delivery man had said. Nothing more complicated than acting out total ignorance while she was in a state of shock, and jealousy and other more impossible and impermissible emotions she mustn’t begin to think about until she was safely back in her hotel room.
“I think it’s time to go,” Jordan said, rising in a liquid movement. Necker stood riveted to the parquet. “So many wonderful things … it’s been a great afternoon.”
“Of course, if you’re ready …” Necker said, recovering himself. He trailed her out to the entrance where they said farewell to Monsieur Jean and returned to the car.
“Henri,” Necker ordered the chauffeur, “take us to the Ritz, please, the Vendôme entrance.”
“The Ritz?” Jordan asked in surprise. Hadn’t he taken her where he’d promised to take her? Wasn’t this horrifying afternoon over?
“We can both use a drink,” he said grimly.
“I suppose so … I need something to counteract all that fine French furniture. Perfection makes me thirsty.”
Babble on, Jordan told herself, babble on, because Jacques Necker can’t say anything I’m ever going to believe again, and a few minutes more with him won’t kill me.
Once inside the small lobby of the Ritz, they turned left into the main bar, all amber velvet banquettes, with a view of a wintry garden with high walls covered with a white wooden trellis on which realistic, but imitation, green leaves and flowers had been cleverly intertwined.
“Let’s sit in the corner,” Necker said, taking Jordan by the elbow. “What do you take at the twilight hour? Champagne? Please don’t say tea.”
“Champagne sounds fine.” Flight sounds fine, Jordan thought, good-bye sounds fine, let me out of here sounds fine, I’m no Meryl Streep sounds fine.
The waiter quickly brought two flutes of champagne and Necker raised his glass. “To your health,” he said formally, his face grave.
“It’s quiet in here,” she remarked nervously after a half minute of silence. “Where are all the people?”
“Dressing for dinner. They’ll be down in the next half hour. The hotel’s still fairly empty. All the fashion journalists are in Milan. Nevertheless in an hour from now you won’t be able to hear yourself talk. Jordan, I’ve been thinking—”
“Now, that’s always a bad idea,” Jordan rushed in to interrupt him. “Never think when you can drink. Could I please have another glass of champagne?”
“Of course. I’ll join you. Waiter, two more glasses and some of those nuts. Jordan, I know you speak French.”
“How … I mean, what makes you think—?”
“Jordan, don’t say anything. Just listen to me. I saw the way you reacted to what the courier said. You understood every word, I could see the surprise on your face, but your first instinct was to be tactful and play dumb and your second instinct was to get out of there as quickly as possible. You know I sent Justine a desk, don’t you?”
“It’s none of my business,” Jordan insisted hastily. “There’s nothing you have to explain to me, nothing I need to know or want to know. There’s nothing I intend to repeat, ever. I give you my word on that.”
“Jordan, please be my friend. I have to have someone to talk to about her.”
“Look, Monsieur Necker—”
“How many times have I asked you to call me Jacques?”
“I don’t intend to talk about Justine, if that’s why you brought me here. I’m sorry, truly sorry, and I am your friend, Jacques, but there’s no way I want to hear about it. You’ll resent me for it eventually, I’ve never known it to fail. No matter what happens between the two of you, you’ll be sorry for anything you tell me now. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and learned something that’s none of my business. Let’s leave it at that.”
“I don’t blame you for jumping to conclusions.”
Jordan sipped some champagne, looked into the garden and prevented herself from raising even one eyebrow. She’d said her piece. Jacques Necker took the glass out of her hand and set it down on the round table. He leaned toward her and turned her chin toward him so that she had to look him in the eye.
“Justine Loring is not my mistress, Jordan. She’s my daughter.”
“That’s impossible!” Jordan exploded. Necker sat perfectly still and continued to look at her, merely offering his face to her disbelieving gaze until she clearly recognized the resemblance that Frankie had noticed immediately. The spikes of ice in her heart vanished but there was no relief, only an emptiness that hadn’t been there before.
“Yes,” Jordan said at last, after she’d processed the undeniable information. “Yes, I see. Of course. If I’d been using my eyes.…”
“Will you let me talk to you now? Please Jordan, I implore you. No one in the world knows except Justine herself and possibly, I believe almost certainly, Frankie Severino. But she has steadily played ignorant and I can’t force her to be disloyal to Justine. I’ve been going mad, Jordan. I don’t recognize myself. I can’t sleep without the most unspeakable nightmares, I’m not functioning rationally, I’m in absolute despair, at the breaking point. I need you, I need to talk to you. Remember when you asked me if I had children and I said my wife and I hadn’t had any? That was only half the truth … please, Jordan, may I tell you about it?”
Jordan looked clearly at Jacques Necker and saw another human being in trouble, a man whose eyes begged her for the basic, necessary mercy of a listening ear. He might indeed hate her in the future because of what he wanted so desperately to tell her now, but she’d have to take that chance. She could not turn away from someone in so much pain, it was as simple as that.
“So what is the other half, Jacques,” she asked softly, “what happened?”
“
I didn’t know Justine existed until a few months ago,” Necker said with a great sigh. “I had no idea I had a daughter, none! I thought I was childless, I’d resigned myself to it. Helena, Justine’s mother, had kept me in ignorance. I abandoned Helena when she got pregnant. Left her alone, on her own. I was a totally worthless young shit, a disgrace, a sickening rotten little coward—we were both nineteen but that’s no excuse. Helena didn’t want me to have anything to do with her child and who can blame her? When she knew she was dying, she finally decided to send me photographs of the only child I’ve ever had. Oh, such photographs, Jordan! Scrapbooks of pictures dating from Justine’s birth, all the way until she stopped modeling. Helena had a rich revenge.”
“Revenge? How do you know she wasn’t giving you a second chance, a very late second chance?”
“Because Helena had turned Justine against me. Completely, thoroughly, over a lifetime, I imagine. Of course the first thing I tried to do was to contact Justine but she wouldn’t have anything to do with me. She sent back all my letters, unopened. I understood that too. So I organized the Lombardi contest and sent Gabrielle d’Angelle to New York. I knew that as a business-woman, Justine’s agency would have to become involved in it, there was no way to hold out. In the contracts she signed she was supposed to come with you … my God! Damn me for a total fool! Why didn’t I realize that the contest was the worst possible way to deal with her? What the hell put that idea into my head?”
“Only the devil himself,” Jordan smiled. “To say that Justine does not respond well to pressure is an understatement. I imagine you’re the same way.”
“I am, I certainly am. So, at the last minute she pretended to be sick and sent Miss Severino instead.”
“So that famous ear infection—”
“She’s not going to come, Jordan,” Necker cried. “Not ever. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, nothing, no contact at all.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“I couldn’t stick to a decision like that myself,” Jordan said, thoughtfully, “but Justine? She’s one of the most strong-minded people I’ve ever known, and if her mother worked on her since childhood, I can understand her holding out, at least so far. I know how stubborn she can be. We all take her seriously, believe me. But this whole thing’s crazy! Mad! You can’t possibly let it go on, for God’s sake. You’re her father! Why aren’t you in New York, confronting her?”
“How do you think she’d react to that? It was my first impulse, and my second and my third, but would it have worked? Justine hates the thought of me, the fact of me, the idea of me. I can’t make her accept me as her father, it’s much too late for that.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure … maybe, just maybe a confrontation would have been a good thing to do. There’s something entirely different about knowing you have a father, even one you believe is an unworthy, low-life son of a bitch, and meeting the reality in flesh and blood. There’s a limit to how long she could have resisted you. You’re pretty persuasive, Jacques. I think kicking in her door would have worked eventually, when you first found out, but you blew it, lost the momentum.”
To soften her words, Jordan allowed herself to touch his hand. She drew back quickly … one more major mistake like that, she told herself angrily, and I’m out of here. She spent a reflective minute before she could continue. “I don’t think it’s too late … it’s only been a few months. You shouldn’t let yourself get in such a state. This isn’t a situation that can possibly last. It’s much too unnatural.”
“I’d leave her alone,” Necker rushed on, barely listening to Jordan’s last words, “if only I could meet her once and talk to her, if she wanted me to I’d leave her alone after that.”
“You just want to meet her? Is that all? I don’t quite understand.”
“See her and talk to her. I know so little about her life. I’ve had her investigated, of course, but all I could really find out are the facts; why is a beautiful woman of thirty-four unmarried, living alone, without a husband or children? How much of that is my fault, Jordan? It could all be my fault!”
“Whoa! Wait up, take ten, Jacques. You have one hell of an imagination! Think of it another way. Listen to me. I envy Justine. She’s terrifically successful on her own, she’s built a highly respected agency from a modeling career, she has a tremendous personality, plenty of friends and an interesting life. I’ve never thought of her as unhappy or unfulfilled. And she’s young and beautiful. A whole heap of women would trade places with her. I’ll bet she could be married tomorrow if she wanted to be, and pregnant the day after that, if not before. Justine gets what she wants. Now, did you ever stop to consider those possibilities while you were so busy feeling guilty for the imaginary sorrows of someone whose life you don’t know anything about, even if she is your daughter?”
“No, I didn’t.” Necker smiled at her, almost reluctantly, yet unable to hide his lightening of spirit. “There’s nothing like an intelligent woman’s point of view to make a man feel a bit of a fool. A lot of a fool.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Jordan agreed, relieved to see the smile change his tragic look, the desolation of his eyes. She tried to imagine him as a kid in a panic, deserting a pregnant girl, and failed. There was so much strength in him, even when he appealed to her, even when he found himself forced to turn to her to unburden himself because of an accident of timing. How alone did a man have to be to tell his deepest secrets to a girl he hardly knew and didn’t care about? Very alone, she realized. More alone than any man should ever be. As alone as she felt right now, sitting at his side … or did being with him in this context of confidante make her feel worse than she would if she were truly alone?
“Jacques, I have an idea,” she said impulsively. “Don’t do anything more at a distance, it’ll just get screwed up in the transmission or translation. Don’t talk to anyone else. Wait till the Lombardi collection is over and there’s no more pressure. Then get yourself to New York. You’ll manage to see Justine, one way or another. It’ll work out, I know it in my bones.”
“That’s good advice,” he said, after a minute’s thought. “I’ll take it, on one condition—”
“Listen, you don’t have to take my advice! I’m just offering it for what it’s worth,” Jordan flashed at him. “I don’t have to give you any conditions to get you to do the right thing, at least what I think is the right thing. I’m not your reader and advisor, just a friend.”
“Damn, I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I just want to be able to talk to you again, talk to you when I get discouraged … that’s the condition, only I don’t mean condition, I mean … please? Can I see you when I need you?”
“Well …” She couldn’t bring herself to say no and she knew she shouldn’t say yes. It was going to be hard enough to forget him without another word between them. Hard? It was going to be fucking impossible … who was she kidding? Deal with it, Jordan, deal with it!
“Thank you,” he declared, taking her hesitation for agreement. “End of discussion. All right. How does Chinese food sound? Frankie told me you were all afraid to eat French cooking. I can promise low-fat Chinese food.”
“You don’t have to feed me again,” Jordan said. God damn it to hell, didn’t she even have the gumption to clearly resist a dinner invitation? She was like some crazed rodent storing up poison nuts for the winter.
“But can I, if I want to?”
“You can,” she sighed, giving up, “and you may. An important distinction, Jacques. I’ll explain at dinner. ”
20
Peaches Wilcox had made polite noises about giving a party for us when we first arrived in Paris, but I hadn’t put any confidence in it. She didn’t strike me as a female who would willingly entertain three glorious creatures less than half her age, much less like someone who’d actually plan a party in their honor. But Peaches surprised me; her cocktail party is set for tonight.
Maybe when you have as much money as she do
es, you’re beyond feeling threatened by youth and beauty; maybe it’s like being Elizabeth II and knowing, deep beneath any level of consciousness, that no matter who else is in the room, you’re the Queen of England and they’re not. Something as profound as that would approach the feeling of unutterable specialness I’m walking around with, which could be roughly translated as Mike and I are in love and every other human being in the world is living only half a life, but, fortunately for them, they don’t know it.
There’s Tinker of course, who’s in love too, or at least so she tells me. But how can her born-yesterday infatuation with this Tom Strauss compare to the unrequited love I’ve nourished for Mike since I was fourteen? Of course I’m gloating, but can you find it in your heart to blame me? Justine phoned me the morning after she got my letter and raved on in a most deliciously satisfactory way. She knows Mike slightly, and she’s always liked him and admired his work.
I promise you that even as she uncharacteristically burbled at me about the happiness and joy she felt, I could hear her mentally planning the wedding, deciding on what particularly becoming shade of off-white I should wear and beginning to worry about my leaving work as soon as I gave birth to our first child.
I didn’t tell Justine not to worry about something that hasn’t even been mentioned yet. I’ve had the same thoughts myself, I have to admit. Then I catch myself up short and change to the take-each-day-as-it-comes plan that Mike and I seem to have mutually adopted. This tacit agreement must have been made at some moment when I wasn’t quite myself, because it doesn’t sound like me, it doesn’t ring even the faintest inner bell. However, I’ve learned that I can’t trust myself to be myself lately. Thinking straight is getting harder and harder, and my job of keeping the girls under close surveillance, if not house arrest, has become as impossible as herding cats.
Spring Collection Page 30
