Love Story

by Janine Boissard

  Love Story

  Also by Janine Boissard:

  A Matter of Feeling

  Christmas Lessons

  A Time to Choose

  A New Woman

  A Different Woman

  Love Story

  JANINE BOISSARD

  TRANSLATED BY MARILYN ACHIRON

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2003 by Editions Robert Laffont

  English translation copyright © 2012 by Marilyn Achiron

  All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Love Story was first published in 2003 by Editions Robert Laffont as Histoire d’amour. Translated from French by Marilyn Achiron. Published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2012.

  Published by AmazonCrossing

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781612183091

  ISBN-10: 1612183093

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011963454

  Table of Contents

  PART I Her

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  PART II Him

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  33.

  34.

  35.

  36.

  37.

  38.

  39.

  PART III Them

  40.

  41.

  42.

  43.

  44.

  45.

  46.

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  PART I

  Her

  Keeper, will the night end?

  Mendelssohn, Second Symphony

  1.

  We’re not going to the woods anymore, the laurels are cut.

  The beauty there will collect them…

  The beauty was me.

  I was eight years old, with long, chestnut hair, a corolla of lashes around green eyes—no, not green, “yellow,” as my older sister, Agatha, teased—an overbite that would be fixed by braces, and a matte complexion that protected me from sunburn. Ah, I was really my father’s daughter, he who was a distant descendant of Mediterranean Spaniards.

  Agatha took after Mom, a girl of the North, blue eyes and blonde hair, long and fine, like her. White bread, whole wheat bread, laughed those who saw us standing next to each other. I should mention that Daddy was a baker.

  We lived between the sea and the apple trees in Normandy, a village of seven hundred souls that multiplied by three during the tourist season because we were so close to Deauville. With the storms that sometimes stole a fisherman from us, a black tide, crumbling cliffs, and the loves of the postman and those of Mrs. Pointeau for the numerous cats and dogs that one day would devour her, one was never bored in Villedoye. Everyone knew everyone else, and wasn’t the bakery the place that every self-respecting Christian went at least once a day?

  I grew up, envied by my friends, in the warm aroma of bread dough and pastry for tarts and éclairs, never deprived of candies for the good reason that I no longer looked at them.

  Each morning, a bus took Agatha and me to primary school. Then it would be high school and, if we pursued our studies, the university in Caen. Mom saw us as teachers, the ideal profession when one had children: work that was both secure and, thanks to the schedule and vacations, convenient.

  Normandy was certainly a land of rain, but we loved it because the rain suited it.

  I’m thirteen and it’s summer. Agatha left for the beach with some friends; I preferred to stay and read on my bed. In the kitchen, Mom is chatting with Jeannette, one of my many aunts. They laugh when talking about my sister, who doesn’t know what to do with all her boyfriends. The older ones came in three cars to take her to swim at Deauville.

  “And each one wanted her in his car, did you see? They fought over it for a little while. There’s one you’ll have no difficulty settling,” says my aunt.

  “It’s no longer us who settles them. They manage just fine by themselves,” says my mother.

  I listen because the subject interests me.

  “It doesn’t hurt the little one too much, all of that?” asks Jeannette in a lower voice.

  “The little one”; that’s me. We’re distinguished like that. What could one do about hurting the little one?

  “On the contrary,” Mom replies. “They adore each other. And don’t forget that Laura is better in school.”

  It’s true. There I sparkle, and it’s Agatha who becomes “the little one,” even the miniscule one, the day when we bring our report cards home to be signed. Besides, she was left back. There’s just one grade between us now. Me: “Excellent pupil, serious, gifted, bravo!” Her, a “could do better” on every line, except on that for physical education, because she likes to wear shorts so people can admire her body. Agatha and work are two different things. She prefers to dream, twirling one of her long, blonde curls around her finger. The day of the report card, it’s up to me to console her.

  “That’s true,” says Jeannette. “At least there she shines. In a certain way, it all balances out. And I didn’t say that Laura is ugly; she’s not bad at all. It’s only when one compares…”

  The noise of a chair being violently pushed back indicates that there is a storm in the air. Mom’s voice is full of anger when she says, “But what are you comparing? Does one compare a lily with a wildflower? I think it’s just fine to have two daughters who are so different.”

  Compare. Until then, I had never really thought about it. Everyone would tell you that at thirteen years old you were in the middle of metamorphosing. The little girl was just becoming herself; you couldn’t judge the final result. What was important at that age was to have a good atmosphere at home, a sister to plot with, and friends. I had all that, even more friends than Agatha had. She put on airs and didn’t know how to keep secrets.

  When she returned from the beach and took a shower, sand everywhere, door open to admirers, I compared.

  Agatha: five foot five, slim but round where it counted. White skin, blue eyes, hair always blonder, thanks to chamomile shampoo. Tender wheat, spring wheat.

  The little one: five feet even, but—wait!—it wasn’t lost, yet. You grew until your period arrived and you could even grow an inch or so after. Green eyes, with a splattering of yellow, deep brown skin with the first kiss of sun. “Good enough to eat,” Daddy said, diving toward my cheeks. Thick rye, brown bread.

  Agatha was the beauty.

  But what, exactly, was beauty? What made the difference?

  According to my family, I had magnificent eyes, my nose was straight, and my mouth perfect, after the braces. As for my hair, it was ten times thicker than Agatha’s golden flax.

  “Your sister, she knows how to use it!” a friend once exclaimed.

  I didn’t. It was for that reason that in D
eauville, when we strode the boardwalk, the boys turned toward her and whistled, even if I was more tan and did my best to be noticed. It was for that reason that they wanted to take her everywhere—to clubs, to the movies, bowling, to dances—borrowing their fathers’ cars to seem more important in her company.

  In the end, it was also maybe a little because of that that I preferred to read on my bed rather than go out with them and pay for their drinks.

  It wasn’t a big deal.

  Besides, Aunt Jeannette had said I wasn’t bad at all, and even a bit better when I smiled in front of a mirror and my “yellow” eyes sparkled. And, in Villedoye, there were some real ugly ones: Babeth, who walked with her ass on her heels; poor Joséphine, the harelip; and Irene, whom no doctor had succeeded in straightening out her eyes.

  Enter into the dance, see how you dance.

  Leap, dance, kiss whomever you would like.

  Waiting for the “whomever you would like” was easier to sing than to do.

  Without a doubt, it was because of the day of the lily and the wildflower that I decided to make myself more important in my way.

  I didn’t become a teacher; I got a degree in English, and because I preferred to read on my bed rather than go parading on the beach, I got another degree, in literature. Then, diplomas in hand, I left the sea and moved to Paris, where I work in music and dance with the great ones.

  2.

  That morning, I arrived at The Agency with a hangover. The night before, I had celebrated my twenty-sixth birthday with some friends. The evening ended in a nightclub. I went to sleep at three o’clock in the morning, not great for the middle of the week, but a date is a date and I had, after all, grown more than an inch since my thirteenth birthday…you should celebrate that.

  The Agency: that was what we affectionately called our six hundred square feet of office space near the Champs-Élysées, where our pool of publicists worked assiduously to promote the singers whom we hoped would have a bright future. Record companies came to us, as did individual musicians who thought that glory was taking too long to arrive. To help them, we laid siege to newspapers, radio, and television. We organized interviews and press conferences; we planned their tours and sometimes accompanied them. I liked this work; you forgot to look at your watch and you could be close to these curious people who called themselves artists, who were often temperamental but rarely uninteresting, ready to do anything to be recognized.

  I’d always loved classical music and variety music, from the cello to the accordion. It transforms sorrow into poetry, unhappiness into opera. You can’t live without it. Imagine a world without birds…

  The day after my birthday, I was on the telephone, a little bleary despite a strong coffee, harassing a journalist, when the boss’s assistant rapped on the window of my office and signaled that the boss wanted to see me.

  Henri Desjoyaux, the founder of The Agency, was only thirty-five, a handsome, ambitious man. He insisted that we call him by his first name, and we worked “American style”: in transparency, all doors open.

  A small man was with him: in his fifties, three-piece suit, a full shock of salt-and-pepper hair, and a withering gaze behind his thick eyeglasses.

  “Laura, I want to introduce a great friend of mine: David May.”

  A short, plump hand crushed my fingers.

  “Call me David, because it seems that you are going to save us,” said the small man with a jarring accent.

  I turned toward Henri.

  “David is Claudio Roman’s agent,” Henri explained.

  Claudio Roman was a tenor as well known in France as abroad. There was no need to lay siege to the media for him; he was in great demand. The rumor was that he was a great seducer with the character of a pig. If I was not mistaken, he was around forty. Apart from that, he was blind.

  “We have a big problem, Laura,” said the agent. “Claudio must be in Auxerre immediately, where he’s going to inaugurate the festival tonight and give a recital at the city hall. His publicist and guide, Corinne Massé, just left him. He needs someone urgently. Henri thought of you.”

  Me? Me for Claudio Roman? I was amazed. He could have whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted. People did anything to assist him. Why me?

  “According to Henri, you would be exactly what he needs,” David said. “Discreet, efficient, and…available.”

  I laughed. “You’ll easily find all these qualities in someone who’s there. And I forgot one detail: I don’t know anything about classical music.”

  “You appreciate it; isn’t that the most important thing? And you don’t have to do anything about the press. Everything has been done.” The short man sighed. “To tell you the truth, after Corinne Massé left, Claudio had decided to manage by himself. Given his state, that would have been the most hazardous. He would only accept a replacement on the condition that I chose him or her.”

  “But I’ve never worked with blind people.”

  “He manages very well with the daily things. You would keep an eye on his schedule, accompany him tonight to his concert—Mozart’s lieder—help him with the dinner that follows, in case he needs something, and guide him to his bedroom at the end of the festivities.”

  “Tuck him in?”

  I had barely spoken those words before I regretted them. Bad taste. It was just that all this seemed to be a farce, and how was I to defend myself other than by laughing?

  “Tucking him in will be unnecessary,” the agent replied dryly. “But tomorrow you will have to take the train with him to Paris in the early afternoon. Claudio wanted to spend the morning in Auxerre. You will be at his disposal.”

  “Understand: you won’t have to come back to The Agency,” said Henri. “You can give yourself a long weekend.”

  “And my work?”

  “Elodie will take care of it.”

  I shared Elodie with another publicist; there were only women at The Agency. Elodie was a young, pretty, and enthusiastic assistant who knew and loved rap and techno.

  “So can we count on you?” asked David May with, it seemed to me, some uneasiness.

  In agreeing, I felt a sudden burst of anxiety, like a warning from the sky. In Normandy, you didn’t look at anything but the sky, and you could always tell when the tempest was near.

  But David was already on the case, drafting a list of names and numbers, including those of his two cell phones, preparing my agenda. My train would leave at four o’clock from the Gare de Lyon and take a little less than two hours to get to Auxerre. I had enough time to go home to have lunch and pack my bags. I would take a taxi to the station and add that bill to all my other expenses in Auxerre.

  Henri disappeared. While the agent took my train ticket from his pocket, I wanted to laugh again. And if I had refused? It was true that someone else, even from here, would have been chosen to take care of the master, someone more representative.

  Yes, so why me?

  The withering look enveloped me one more time, passing over my clothes: pants, sweater, and moccasins. David May cleared his throat.

  “If I may, Laura…bring something more dressy for this evening. The ‘beautiful people’ will be there, as we say. And pardon the question, but do you ever wear heels?”

  3.

  Posters announcing the music festival were plastered all over the Auxerre train station. A woman in her thirties was waiting for me at the exit, brandishing a piece of cardboard with my and Claudio Roman’s names. I approached her.

  “I’m Laura Vincent.”

  “I’m Mrs. Morin,” said the woman with a smile that seemed to be relieved. “Welcome to Auxerre.”

  She offered to take my baggage, as if working as a guide for the grand tenor raised me to a higher social level. Not to mention the cozy first-class train seat. I stopped myself from laughing. The minute of anxiety was forgotten. In the end, this adventure amused me. And wasn’t it exactly for this kind of unexpected event that I had chosen a career as a publicist?

  Rather t
han that of a teacher.

  Mrs. Morin opened the door of her car.

  “Excuse me if it’s not very clean. I drive my children in it.”

  Mine was filthy, and I only drove myself in it. I didn’t think those details were very important.

  “The hotel is nearby. You can relax there. Do you know the city?”

  I didn’t know Auxerre and very little of my own area. My parents had hardly ever left their Normandy, and as soon as I’d had a little money I had preferred to travel elsewhere.

  With its wings deployed over the colored roofs, the cathedral was impressive. Here and there, other steeples sprouted between the russet splashes of the trees.

  “You see, it’s like that here: steeples everywhere,” my father had said with pride.

  Here meant France.

  The hotel, surely one of the best in the area, was situated on the Yonne. In the entryway, I noticed a poster like the others that had welcomed me at the train station and another, the same size, announcing the recital by Claudio Roman at the city hall the same evening, Thursday, October 6, 8:30. The reason why I was here.

  Mrs. Morin took me to a long counter, behind which several people bustled.

  “Here is Miss Vincent, who is replacing Miss Massé,” she said.

  A man came eagerly forward.

  “We were waiting for you. I hope you had a good trip. Mr. Roman returned just a little while ago from his rehearsal at the city hall. He asked that we bring up a lemonade with ice at seven o’clock. If you would like, it can be delivered to your room, which adjoins his. Mr. Roman wishes not to take any calls. Would you like us to forward calls to you, or would you prefer that we keep a list of calls here?”