“Did anything happen with this Frenchman you met?” She wondered if Brigitte had fallen in love, but she didn’t look it. She looked peaceful and happy. She didn’t have the anguished look of someone who had left a man she loved in Paris. But her mother sensed that she was different.
“No, I didn’t let it. There’s no point starting something, and then leaving. It would have been a mess. Long-distance relationships never work. I just had a good time with him. That’s all it was. But I’ll admit, it’s too bad he doesn’t live in Boston. You don’t meet guys like him too often. He tried to talk me into coming to Paris for a year to write the book. I’m not going to do that. I doubt I’ll ever do it. I have a book to finish. And I have to find a job in Boston, that’s where I live.” Her mother nodded and thought that everything Brigitte was saying was so pat and sensible that she wondered if it was real. She was beginning to wonder if Brigitte had fallen in love with this man and didn’t even know it. But she didn’t say that to her daughter. She just nodded, and listened, and watched her, and pretended to believe her, since Brigitte appeared to have convinced herself of everything she was saying.
“Do you think he’ll come to visit you in Boston?”
“He said he might. Although I’ll probably never see him again. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Not everything makes sense, sweetheart. Or not always,” her mother said gently. “Feelings aren’t sensible. Sometimes you fall in love with people who don’t make sense. And the ones who do make sense turn out to be the wrong ones.” Like Ted, where their six-year affair went nowhere. “Is he in love with you?” Marguerite asked, curious about him.
“He doesn’t know me well enough to be,” Brigitte insisted, and she had told herself the same thing. “He likes me. Maybe even a lot.” Marguerite sensed that there was more to it than that, on both sides, but she didn’t push. And for the rest of the evening they talked about Wachiwi, who was an inexhaustible subject. And Brigitte’s mother agreed with Marc, although she didn’t know him. She thought Brigitte should write a book about her in some form. She obviously had a deep attachment to the subject. Far more than she did for her book about suffrage, which seemed to have died on the vine, or in the research years before. Her mother thought she should shelve it for the time being and do this one, and she said as much to her daughter when they went back to the apartment. Brigitte still didn’t look convinced, any more than she was when she and Marc talked about it. She was scared.
And then both women went to bed at a decent hour. It was six hours later for Brigitte, but she seemed to be in good form and great spirits. They both lay in bed that night, thinking, Marguerite about the Frenchman her daughter had met, wishing she knew more about him. And Brigitte about the book everyone thought she should write and was afraid to. It was such a big subject that she was frightened to tackle it and not do it justice. She didn’t want to write a bad book about such an extraordinary woman, or to take the risk that she would. It would have been a sacrilege to screw it up and botch the story of Wachiwi. It seemed much safer to her to continue working on the book about women’s voting rights, and let someone else write the book about Wachiwi. She didn’t feel capable of it, no matter what Marc and her mother said. She was going to stick with her book about suffrage and write the definitive book about it she always said she would. Wachiwi was far too big, complex, and volatile a subject. It was a book she felt she couldn’t control, and much scarier than the vote.
Brigitte spent two days in New York with her mother, and they had a great time together. At some point Marguerite asked if Brigitte had heard from Ted, and she said she hadn’t. It seemed strange to both of them that six years had ended in one night, fizzled into nothing and died in silence. It showed how little had been there, and they both agreed that it was disappointing.
She flew back to Boston on Saturday night, and took a cab to her apartment. She hadn’t heard from Marc either since she got back, and she didn’t expect to. She reminded herself that he owed her nothing. And she hadn’t contacted him either, nor would she. It would just confuse them. She told herself that the romantic moments that had happened in front of the Eiffel Tower on the last night were a pleasant interlude and an aberration. She convinced herself that it meant nothing to either of them. And it was nice to know that even at her age, you could do something silly and romantic.
When she unpacked that night she put the little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower on her dressing table, and smiled at it for a minute, and then finished unpacking. She had half a dozen messages on her machine, none of them important. The dry cleaner had found her lost skirt. The library at BU said she had failed to return two books and was being charged for it. Amy had phoned to remind her to call the minute she got home and that she loved her. Two telemarketers. And a call offering to renew the guarantee on her oven. They were not exactly the kind of calls that anyone wanted to come home to, with the exception of Amy’s. And when she looked around, she could see that the apartment was looking dusty and forlorn. She realized that she needed to spruce it up a little and throw some things away, maybe move some furniture around before it got seriously depressing. With Ted gone, now was a good time to do it. She needed to do something to spice up her life. And she tried not to panic over the fact that not one of the places she had sent her résumé to had responded. Neither by phone nor e-mail. They were probably still busy processing the applicants that had accepted. Things wouldn’t lighten up for them till June. And this was only the end of April. And the deadline for acceptance was mid-May. She told herself it was too early to hear anything.
She called Amy when she finished unpacking. She was putting the boys to bed but invited Brigitte to spend the afternoon the next day. She was delighted to do it. She promised to come at noon, and when she did, she could hear screaming in the kitchen. It sounded like someone was being murdered. Before she could ring the doorbell, Amy had yanked open the door, tossed Brigitte the car keys, and told her to drive them to the emergency room. Her three-year-old had bumped his head on the corner of the table, and it was bleeding profusely through a wet towel she was using to apply pressure to it. She had been holding her one-year-old under one arm, and all he had on was a T-shirt, diaper, and sneakers, and he was crying now too. She got them both into the car seats in her backseat, and was sitting between them as Brigitte drove them to the university hospital. The screaming was so loud it eliminated all possibility of conversation. All she said was, “Thanks!” as she shouted it to Brigitte from the backseat and then, “Welcome home!” as they both laughed. It was a good thing Brigitte had shown up at that moment—it would have been an even bigger mess if she hadn’t.
They waited two hours in the emergency room, while her injured son sucked his thumb on her lap and Amy was covered with blood. And the younger boy fell asleep on Brigitte’s lap as the two women had a conversation in whispers.
“So how was Paris?” Amy asked her.
“Terrific. I got some fantastic information for my mother.” Amy nodded. She hoped she did more than that.
“Did you have a fabulous time?” she asked pointedly.
“Yes,” Brigitte reassured her.
“Any guys?” Amy always went right to the point, and for a minute Brigitte didn’t answer, which her friend found suspicious.
“Not really. I met a writer at the library who helped me with my research.”
“How boring.” Amy looked disappointed to hear it.
“No, he wasn’t. He’s a very bright, interesting guy. He wrote a book I read in English a few years ago. He’s a writer and teaches literature at the Sorbonne.”
“Still boring.” It didn’t sound to her like he made the cut. She was hoping Brigitte would have had a wild affair in Paris. It would help her get over Ted. Spending her vacation in the library doing research didn’t sound good to her.
“He came to Brittany with me for the weekend. It was great.”
Amy looked hopeful again. “Did you sleep with him?”
�
��Of course not. I’m not going to be some guy’s one-night stand and never see him again. How depressing.”
“Not getting laid in Paris sounds even more depressing to me,” Amy said bluntly. “Of course, sitting in the emergency room for two hours on a Sunday afternoon isn’t high on my list of fun activities either.” She went to see what was happening then, complained about the long wait, and a half hour later they took them in. Her son had to have four stitches, and he was exhausted from screaming when they left. It had been a stressful afternoon. Amy put both of them down for a nap when they got home, and she and Brigitte sat down for a glass of wine in the kitchen. Amy said she needed it, and Brigitte sipped hers to keep her company. She never liked drinking in the afternoon, and hardly drank at dinner.
“Okay, so tell me again,” Amy continued. “No mad passionate affairs in Paris, just some schoolteacher you spent the weekend with. What a waste of a ticket to Paris! You couldn’t do better than that?”
Brigitte laughed at how she said it. “He’s a nice guy, and I like him. He’s just geographically undesirable. He lives in Paris. I live here.”
“So move. There’s nothing special about Boston.”
“I live here. I like it. I’m looking for a job here.”
“Anything new on that score, by the way?” Brigitte decided not to tell her about the interview at AUP. They didn’t have anything for her anyway. And Amy would have pounced on it. She was desperate for Brigitte to have a life, a guy, a baby. It was too much pressure for Brigitte.
“I’m going to start calling around tomorrow. This is a busy time of year. They probably haven’t had time to get back to me.” Amy nodded agreement, but she also knew that her friend didn’t have much to show for her ten years in the admissions office at BU. Being number three after ten years was hardly impressive. But it had been what Brigitte wanted. And it was going to hurt her now, looking for a new job. What it would show any prospective employer was either a lack of ability, or a lack of ambition. In her case, it was the latter, but how were they supposed to know?
They talked until the boys woke up, and then Brigitte left and went back to her own apartment. And once she got there, she didn’t know what to do. She thought about going to a movie, but she hated to go alone. There were people she could have called, but she didn’t want to explain what had happened with Ted or that they had broken up. It made her feel like such a loser. Uh, yeah … after six years, he dumped me and went off to do a dig. Wouldn’t he have taken her along if he loved her? The way it had ended would tell everyone that he didn’t really care about her, and what did that say about her? Lately her ego was more wounded than her heart. But either way, she didn’t want to call anyone and have to explain.
She wandered around the apartment, got out the vacuum cleaner, and did her laundry. It made her think of the comfortable Sunday nights she had spent with him for six years, at the end of the weekends. They usually cooked dinner together. Just as she had feared, the reality of her solitude was beginning to hit her now that she was home. It reminded her of what Marc had said, that if she had loved Ted, she would have missed him when she was in Paris, not just when she went back to Boston. This was about what she didn’t have in her life, not about whom she was missing. Reminding herself of that helped, and she cleaned the apartment thoroughly before she went to bed. It had been an uneventful day, and a far cry from the weekend before, when she’d been in Brittany with Marc, going to fish restaurants, visiting the château, and staying at the cozy little inn. She laughed to herself as she put her flannel nightgown in the dryer. There was certainly nothing exotic about her life. She thought about calling Marc just to say hello, but she didn’t want to do that either. She needed to let go of that connection and not hang on too tightly, and by then it was four in the morning for him. And he hadn’t called her since she left. He was doing the right thing. She was just lonely and bored on a Sunday night.
She went to bed early and called all the universities she had sent résumés to, the next morning. Everyone was pleasant and polite. Yes, they had gotten her CV, they had no openings at the moment, but they would keep it on file. Some suggested she call back in June, others in September. It seemed incredible that at nine universities, there wasn’t a single opening. But there was nothing remarkable on her CV. She’d had a very standard job for ten years, and had done nothing to distinguish herself. She had published no articles, taught no classes, had organized no special programs. She had done no volunteer work. She had worked in the office, spent weekends with Ted, and researched her book. She was embarrassed now when she thought about it. How could she have challenged herself so little, and asked so little of herself?
It made her sit down at her desk with real determination and get back to her book about the women’s vote. She reorganized all her research, weeded through it, and took some things out, and by Tuesday, she started to write again. She had written a whole chapter by the end of the week. And then she read it. When she had finished reading it, she burst into tears. It was the most boring thing she’d ever written. Even academics wouldn’t want to read the book. She didn’t know what to do.
She was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands, when her mother called her on Friday night. She sounded excited. She’d been reading everything in the folder Brigitte had brought back from the trip.
“The material on our little Sioux relative is incredible. And the marquis sounds like quite a guy too. The stuff on her is riveting, and she was barely more than a girl.”
“Yes, it is.” Brigitte sounded lackluster, and her mother could hear it.
“Something wrong?”
“I’ve been working on my suffrage book all week, and it stinks. I don’t know what made me think anyone would care about this. It’s like reading cereal boxes, or tax forms, or prune juice labels. I hate it, and everyone else will too. And I’ve invested seven years of my life in it. I should just throw it away.” Her mother had never thought it an interesting subject, but Brigitte had always argued hotly for it, as an anthropologist and a woman. As a reader, and a retired editor, Marguerite had always thought it sounded pretty dull, but she didn’t want to be rude. “What do I do now?”
“Maybe your friend in Paris is right. Maybe you should write about Wachiwi. I agree with you. I don’t think you need to fictionalize it. It’s terrific the way it is. What about doing something with that?” Her mother was trying to be helpful.
“Maybe,” Brigitte said, sounding depressed.
“Have you heard from him, by the way?” her mother asked her with interest.
“No.”
“Then why don’t you write to him? You can send him an e-mail.”
“I don’t want to muddy the waters, Mom. We left things pretty much the way they should be. Friends who would get in touch from time to time. If I start writing to him, it’ll confuse us both.”
“What’s with all the shoulds? And what’s wrong with a little confusion between friends?” Her saying that reminded Brigitte instantly of the night they had kissed under the Eiffel Tower. The confusion had felt good that night. But that was then, this was now. And she was home. Paris was like a distant dream. And so was he.
“I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself. It’s kind of a letdown to come back from Paris. What I need is a job. No one seems to be hiring right now.” She had enough to live on until the end of summer, or longer if she was careful, but more than anything she was bored. And her mother could hear it in her voice.
“Well, come back to New York anytime. We can play. I’m in a bridge tournament next week, but after that I’m free.” At least her mother had bridge. She didn’t have that. She had nothing to keep her busy right now. And every time she thought about the material on Wachiwi, it scared her to death. And she didn’t want to tell Amy how she was feeling, or she’d tell her to go back to therapy. Amy suggested that when Ted left, and Brigitte didn’t want to do that right now either. She didn’t know what she wanted, or who.
She watched old
movies on TV until late that night, and then, for lack of anything better to do, she sat down at her computer and wrote Marc an e-mail. She wasn’t sure what to say. Hi, I’m so bored I could scream … I still don’t have a job, my social life seems to have gone down the tubes … my book is the most boring piece of crap on the planet … and I’m thinking of burning it, and how are you?
Instead, she wrote him a short e-mail, saying that she was thinking about him, that she’d had a wonderful time with him in Paris and Brittany, and the little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower was sitting on her dressing table. And she said that her mother was thrilled with the material she brought back, and thanked him again for his help. She said she hoped everything was fine with him. And then she sat staring at it, wondering how to sign off … “Bye” sounded juvenile, “All the best” too businesslike, “Warm regards” ridiculous, “Fondly” pathetic, “Love” misleading. Finally she came up with “Thinking of you. Take care,” which sounded honest and real. She read it about six times to make sure it didn’t sound mushy, romantic, or whiny. And then she hit the send button, and it went. She gulped when she sent it, and was sorry instantly. There it was. The risk thing again. What was she doing? The guy lived three thousand miles away. What was she thinking? She finally told herself that she was sending an e-mail to a nice guy she had met in Paris, to say hello.
“Okay. I can live with that,” she said out loud, trying not to feel stupid or anxious. She read it again, even though it was too late to do anything about it. And then she went to bed. And for a second as she climbed into bed, she decided she was glad she’d sent it, and hoped he’d write back.
Chapter 21
When Brigitte woke up in the morning, her heart pounded when she saw she had an e-mail from Marc. She felt like a kid, when a boy slipped her a note in class. She felt excited, and guilty, and scared, and she wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t felt like that in Paris. But this was different. It seemed strange writing to him from here, and a bigger commitment, or a bigger statement. But she had written to him, so she had to deal with the consequences now. She opened his e-mail, and took a breath, and then sighed with relief when she read his. It was fine. Friendly and nice.
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