The Glittering Life of Evie Mckenzie

by Delancey Stewart

  *****

  Evie was like a ghost for several days as her strength returned. Buck and Janie visited with her, and Janie would fall into the other small bed in her room each night, but Evie saw little of Paris – or even of the house – for four days. On the morning of the fifth day, she awoke, finally feeling clear enough to rise, bathe, and dress. When she arrived downstairs, she found her hostess seated in the garden with Janie. They were entertaining a man in a light-colored suit with broad shoulders and silvering hair. Evie could see only his back, but when he laughed – a warm comforting sound, and one she’d known since she’d been a small girl – shock flooded her. It was Buck!

  ‘Why Buckie, look at you!’ she said, stepping out to face him on the small patio.

  ‘Look at you,’ he returned. ‘You’re upright! I’d say you’re finally feeling better, then?’

  ‘I am.’ She smiled at her hostess as Janie bounced to her side, taking her hand.

  ‘Oh good, then we can finally set out and do some exploring! I have so much to show you!’

  Evie smiled at her friend, feeling her heart lifting on the gentle breeze that moved the fragrant vines around them as the sun warmed her shoulders. ‘Definitely. But first, I would love a bite if it isn’t too much trouble.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Madame Arnaud said. ‘Jane will help you.’

  Evie looked around the first floor of the house as if seeing it for the first time as Jane led her to the kitchen. The space was sparse and clean, far different from her home in New York. Where Evie’s mother had swathed every available surface in some kind of ornate fabric, paper, or painting, squeezing in as much furniture as she might fit, Madame Arnaud had left many of her home’s features plain. The walls were white, and the lines of the furniture were clean and simple.

  ‘I’m so sorry I’ve been sick,’ Evie told Janie as her friend piled meats and cheeses on a small plate.

  ‘We’ve been worried,’ Janie said. She pulled off a big piece of baguette and handed the plate to Evie. ‘In fact, Buck cancelled his return trip. He wouldn’t even think of leaving until you were well.’

  ‘He’s always looked out for me.’

  ‘I think he’s sweet on my aunt.’

  Evie laughed. ‘Really?’

  ‘And I think she likes him, too. They went shopping together two days ago, and were out all day long. He’s been wearing the most divine suits since they returned.’

  ‘What in the world do they talk about?’

  ‘I have no idea. But I think my aunt has been lonely, and I have always wondered about Buck.’

  ‘Wondered?’

  ‘If he was in love with your mother.’

  ‘What?’ Evie rolled her eyes at her friend.

  ‘Why else would he be willing to stay with your family, with no hopes of finding anyone of his own?’

  ‘He’s not in love with my mother. He’s loyal.’

  ‘Well, he deserves a life, too.’

  ‘Of course he does.’ Evie felt as if Janie was blaming her for something, and she didn’t want to stand and argue about it. ‘I just want him to be happy.’

  Janie smiled. ‘I didn’t mean anything, Evie. Let’s go back out.’

  They seated themselves on a low bench and Evie ate, her plate balanced on her knees. She’d had bites since they’d arrived, but nothing substantial, and she felt as if she were eating her first real meal in years. ‘This is wonderful!’

  The small group remained on the patio through the morning, and finally Janie stood, reaching out a hand to Evie. ‘Are you ready to see Paris?’

  Evie felt weak, still, but was in no mood to remain cooped up. ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘You girls be wise,’ Madame Arnaud said.

  Buck nodded, looking worried.

  ‘We’ll be fine.’ Evie smiled at Buck. ‘Thank you for staying until I was better. Will you stay a while longer?’

  Buck and Madame Arnaud exchanged a glance that Evie couldn’t decipher.

  ‘I am trying to convince him to stay a while yet,’ Madame Arnaud answered.

  ‘And she is pretty convincing,’ Buck said.

  Evie smiled at them. There was warmth in Buck’s eyes as he looked at Janie’s aunt, and it appeared to be mutual. It made Evie’s heart lift to see Buck looking so happy. She followed Janie out to the street with a smile on her face and her heart feeling lighter than it had in months.

  *****

  Janie pulled Evie out into the streets of Paris, and Evie immediately realized just how far from home she was. Everything felt different here, and the changes that Evie felt were welcome and wonderful. But the thing that was most different in Paris was her friend Jane.

  ‘You look positively incredible,’ Evie told her as they walked arm in arm toward the river.

  ‘I feel incredible,’ Jane told her.

  ‘What have you been doing here, Janie?’

  ‘Just working for my aunt and exploring the city, mostly. She likes to go to the clubs sometimes, so I’ve been out with her a little bit, meeting some new people.’

  Evie watched Jane talk. Her entire face was transformed. She looked happier than Evie had ever seen her, and it made Evie’s heart swell.

  ‘There’s so much going on here.’ Janie indicated the street around them as she talked. ‘The Olympics, obviously, but so much more. I’ve met writers, poets, musicians, and painters. Agnes is friends with some people who are going to change the world. They’re so open-minded and free. It makes New York feel like some little backwater town.’

  ‘Wow,’ Evie said. ‘That’s saying a lot.’ Part of her wanted to defend her city, but since she felt like New York had basically chewed her up and spit her out, she bit her tongue.

  ‘Let’s go in here and get a coffee.’ Janie pointed to a cafe with tables spilling out over the sidewalk. The river was just across the street, and people thronged the sidewalks and bridges around it. They found a small table outside and sat down. ‘Do you remember your French?’

  ‘A little,’ Evie said. ‘I can try.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  The girls ordered coffee and caught up, watching people and enjoying the warmth of the sun on their faces. They returned home in the late afternoon, and Agnes met them in the living room.

  ‘I am glad you have returned. I am expecting some friends this evening and would like you to meet them.’

  ‘Are we staying in for dinner?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Non,’ Madame Arnaud said. ‘I think we will go out later.’

  ‘Let’s go get dressed,’ Jane said, pulling Evie along with her.

  Evie smiled at Madame Arnaud and at Buck, who sat in a chair in the corner, reading a book. He looked strangely at home amid Madame Arnaud’s modern things.

  The girls dressed and reappeared downstairs as a knock came at the door.

  ‘Louis!’ Madame Arnaud cried. Evie and Jane stood in the middle of the main room, watching Jane’s aunt hug and kiss a tall slender man who could have stepped straight out of a Hollywood picture. He was handsome in a refined way, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. His dark eyes were fringed with lush black lashes, and as his eyes fell on Evie, she felt a strange thrill.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, crossing the room. ‘You must be the lovely American girls I have heard so much about. I am Louis.’

  ‘I’m Evie.’

  ‘And Jane.’

  Louis took each girl’s hand and placed a soft kiss on the top. As he released Evie’s hand, a warmth flushed her that made her give more attention to the tall Frenchman before her. He seemed to be watching her, too, an amused smile on his sculpted lips.

  More friends arrived, and Evie learned that Agnes Arnaud ran a small gallery near the Gare du Nord, and many of her friends were the artists she featured.

  Soon, the small sitting room in Arnaud’s house was filled with guests holding glasses and talking, and on the patio many of them smoked. Evie looked around for Buck, and found him standing outside with an arm around Agnes’s w
aist, holding a glass of scotch in his hand as he laughed with a short bespectacled man who held a cane. Buck looked so natural here, in his new clothes. If Evie hadn’t spent her life under his watchful eye and known him so well, she wouldn’t have recognized him here.

  It was an odd collection of people, and Evie felt out of place. She watched Jane move among the friends of her aunt, most of whom she seemed to know, and realized just how far she was from home. She poured a glass of wine for herself in the kitchen and was just about to find a corner to hide in when Louis entered the room.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘You are not enjoying the party?’ Louis asked, refilling his glass. His big dark eyes were on Evie’s face, and she felt exposed.

  ‘It isn’t that. I’ve only just arrived, and I don’t know anyone,’ she said. ‘And I left some … situations back at home unresolved.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Louis said. He lingered, seeming to want to hear more as he watched Evie fidget nervously.

  ‘I was sick on the way over,’ she babbled, feeling silly. ‘I feel like it’s been years since I was in New York, but it’s really been just over a week. And I left so quickly, and …’ She trailed off, unsure what she’d been trying to say.

  ‘I understand,’ Louis said, his face full of concern as his warm eyes remained on Evie’s. ‘I left home to come here also. And there was a girl at home. She believed I would return.’

  ‘Where is home?’

  ‘A small town in the west. Challans.’

  Evie shook her head. She was no wizard at French geography.

  ‘Far enough to stay away,’ Louis said.

  ‘Why did you leave?’ Evie asked.

  ‘Many reasons.’ Louis looked thoughtful as he sipped his drink. He waved toward the two chairs positioned at a small table, and raised his eyebrows in an invitation to sit.

  Evie followed him and sat down.

  ‘I am a writer,’ he said. ‘I had heard of the community of artists in the city, and wanted to be a part of that. To see if I could make my way if I knew the right people.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But also,’ Louis inclined his head and looked momentarily ashamed as his face darkened, ‘my parents had arranged a match for me.’

  Evie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘They still do that here?’

  ‘Do they not do that in New York? Find the best suitors for you?’

  As he spoke, Evie recalled the men who her mother had marched through their parlor just after her debut. Didn’t her parents practically force Roger on her? ‘I suppose they do, actually.’

  ‘It is much the same here, I think. And the match that my parents arranged did not suit me at all.’

  ‘Not pretty?’

  Louis smiled. ‘She was a beautiful girl. But small in the mind. She had no dreams. She wanted nothing more for herself, and nothing more for me.’

  Evie wasn’t sure his message was coming across clearly, though his English was very good. She nodded. She thought she understood what he meant.

  ‘I would have had to find work. Stop writing. Give up.’ Louis looked pained as he spoke the last words, and Evie saw his passion for his art. There was something wildly intriguing about a man willing to pursue a dream so steadfastly.

  ‘So you left. Did you break her heart?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Evie sat back and wondered if Jack or Roger was brokenhearted about her departure.

  Louis seemed to sense her thoughts and leaned in to say, ‘I am sure there are broken hearts in your path as well.’

  ‘Maybe just mine,’ Evie said.

  ‘You have been hurt?’

  Evie shook her head slowly. ‘Not intentionally. And maybe I’ve done it to myself. I just didn’t expect things to be so … hard.’

  ‘You expected the world to stand to attention for you.’

  ‘No …’ Evie thought about that. Maybe she did. ‘Maybe things have always been easy for me,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘My parents made everything easy, I guess. But this – love, I mean – they can’t do it for me, or stack the odds in my favor. I have to figure it out. Maybe I’m not equipped.’ Evie looked around the small room, feeling sad and somewhat desperate. ‘And here I am, pouring my heart out to a stranger.’

  ‘Not a stranger. Louis.’ Louis pointed to himself with a wide grin on his face.

  Evie laughed at the dazzling smile that Louis manufactured as he spoke those words, and Louis laughed along with her. It was easy being with him, Evie realized. She didn’t expect anything from him, and so he didn’t disappoint. She felt her heart lighten. Wasn’t this why she had run away? So that she could cast off some of the heavy expectations she was under in New York? So that she could throw off some of her own expectations of others?

  ‘Hey you two,’ Janie said, her head appearing through the doorway.

  ‘Hello, Jane,’ Louis said. ‘Your friend has been offering me new perspectives on life.’

  ‘How very deep,’ Jane said, her eyebrow raising at Evie in question. ‘I thought you might want to go out. See Paris in the evening.’

  Louis smiled. ‘Might I accompany you? I can take you to one of my favorite little restaurants for dinner. Maybe a club later?’

  Evie and Jane both agreed. Evie found that she was eager to spend more time with Louis – he was so open and free. So different from the men she knew in New York.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tug

  Tug had spent countless evenings with Chuck behind the bar at Evie’s, but as Sunday afternoon approached, she found herself becoming nervous and jittery at the thought of going on a date with him. What would he be expecting of her? He was upper crust, no two ways about it. And she had once aspired to the life that Chuck was born into, to the same easy dreams as Evie. Her life had been mapped out to some degree, by her mother, and she hadn’t given it much thought.

  But now she was way, way off her mother’s map. Tug stared at herself in the mirror. What would her mother think of this brazen redhead, she wondered. Would she be shocked by Tug’s chosen occupation? Tug sure as hell hoped so. But Chuck, he was another story. Tug didn’t want to shock him. And for the first time in a long time, she might be willing to admit that the life she’d once imagined still made her heart squeeze just a bit to think about.

  She tried on several dresses, but found that she didn’t want to dress the part of the gutsy bar manager with Chuck. She just wanted to be pretty. And that was a desire she hadn’t felt in a long time – she’d always had something to prove, someone to try to be. But Chuck already knew her. He knew where she’d come from and what she’d lost – at least he knew some part of it. And he knew what she was now. And so today she just wanted to be herself. If Chuck was looking for something more refined, he’d have to look back in his mother’s high-society parlor.

  Chuck appeared on the doorstep as promised, bearing a basket and a shy smile that lit up when Tug pulled the door open. She’d pushed to the back of her closet to find a slim pink dress with a drop waist and demure neckline. Pink was probably not her color, but it was one her mother had always tried to put her into. Tug had barely gotten over the fresh hurt of her mother’s abandonment, and was inclined to do everything exactly the opposite way her mother had wanted her to do it. And yet, here she was, wearing pink. Maybe her mother had known something after all.

  ‘You look amazing,’ Chuck said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tug blushed and wondered what was happening to her. It was as if some younger, more innocent version of herself was taking over and pushing brusque, confident Tug away.

  ‘I thought we might go to the park.’ Chuck held up the basket he carried. ‘Have a picnic?’

  Tug looked around the street, and realized that it was a perfect day – warm but not sweltering and sticky. ‘That sounds wonderful.’ She pulled the door closed behind her and walked down the stairs in front of her house. As she reached the bottom step, the door above her opened again, and she an
d Chuck both turned. Tug was surprised to see her father appear in the open door.

  ‘Hello, Chuck,’ he said. ‘Please have her home at a decent hour.’

  Tug tried not to laugh. Her father knew that she was rarely home at a decent hour. She smiled up at him. ‘See you soon, Daddy.’

  ‘I will, sir,’ Chuck called.

  The older man lifted a hand and then closed the door again.

  ‘That was strange,’ Tug said.

  ‘He’s just looking out for you. It’s not so strange.’

  ‘It’s strange that he’s conscious. Sober.’ They walked in silence for a few seconds, their steps falling in unison as they moved up Park toward Central Park. ‘He’s not usually around in the middle of the day. Or he is, but he’s in bed. In fact, he’s been drunk for years. It’s strange to have him suddenly being a father again.’

  ‘Maybe he realized that you need him.’

  ‘I know a lot of drunks, Chuck. It seems like it would take more than that.’ Tug smiled a wry smile. She’d talked to enough of her customers to know that many of them were out when they shouldn’t be, making choices that were hurting the families they left at home. She knew that for some people, once alcohol took a firm grasp of them, it became almost impossible to escape. She had long since resigned herself to the idea that her father was one of those people. ‘I just never expected him to come back.’

  ‘You’ve both had a hard road. It takes time to find your way out.’ Chuck looked down at her, sympathy on his face.

  ‘That better not be pity in your eyes, Merriweather.’

  Chuck laughed. ‘Don’t call me that!’

  ‘Then don’t give me your “poor Liz” look. I’ve done just fine.’

  ‘I know you have, Tug. That’s one of the things I like so much about you. But just because you’ve done fine doesn’t mean you weren’t given a pretty heavy load.’

  ‘Not that heavy. Plenty of folks lose a parent.’

  ‘You lost both for a while.’

  ‘Can we talk about something else?’ Tug asked, taking Chuck’s hand in an effort to focus his energy elsewhere. Tug’s mother leaving was not a topic she discussed, not even with Chuck.