“Actually, Maman,” Alain quickly countered, “I haven’t yet asked Jane to marry me. Not formally anyway.”
“But it’s all agreed, no?” Martine insisted. “You mean, you’ve still to meet her parents … go through all the niceties? I understand. Just don’t let any grass grow under your feet, darling, she’s a lovely girl. And I’ve been doing a bit of research on the Penrods—just to satisfy my curiosity. They are enormously well connected, for Americans that is. And the fortune? It seems to be as solid as Fort Knox. I was talking to the minister’s wife just yesterday, and she told me that the Penrods own most of downtown Boston, one way or the other. Guillaume?” Martine interrupted the flow of her own conversation to turn to her husband and command, “Don’t nod off, darling! Come, we’ve dinner to get through yet, you know. You’d better give me that champagne glass.”
Dinner had been one of Martine’s usual masterpieces of planning. The chef’s chilled lobster bisque with garlic croutons was perfectly set off by a warm salad of duck confit. A main course of veal croquettes smothered in a light cream sauce of fresh morels was followed by a tart lemon sorbet that rejuvenated the palate for Alain’s favorite dessert: profiteroles—tiny puff pastries filled with ice cream floating in a warm pool of bittersweet chocolate sauce.
“How you spoil me, Maman!” Alain exclaimed, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “Coffee—and cognac, too!” he added, as a tray of liqueurs was rolled into the dining room.
“For you, yes,” Martine replied, “but not for your father. Darling,” she added, shaking Guillaume’s arm. “I think it’s time for bed. You dozed through most of dessert. That’s right. Now give me a kiss and say good night to your son. Dormes bien!”
“What a good wife you are, Maman,” Alain said as his father left the room. “I hope Jane will listen to you … become close to you. In many ways, you know, she’s a rather shy girl. Somewhat estranged from her family, a bit of a loner. I feel she needs nurturing … and a sense of direction. I think she can learn a great deal from you.”
“Interestingly enough,” Martine replied, “that’s not how I found her at all. Gentle, yes, perhaps a bit shy. But she knows her own mind, Alain. She has very definite attitudes and ideals. Don’t misunderstand me, darling, I’m thrilled with your choice in Jane. I just hope you understand—fully and clearly—who she is.”
“Don’t be absurd, Maman,” Alain retorted. “I love Jane. She’s everything I want and need in a wife. Who else could know her better than myself?”
“And she adores you, too, Alain,” Martine replied soothingly. “But sometimes, darling, all this adoration—infatuation—whatever you want to call it—can be a dangerous thing. Nobody, Alain, is perfect, except in the imagination. Be careful that you don’t build Jane into something she isn’t. Encourage her to be herself—not whom you want her to be.”
“But, of course, Maman,” Alain replied dismissingly. “I don’t intend to play Pygmalion, if that’s what you mean.”
“Since I’m already being an interfering old woman,” Martine added, “there’s one other thing I’d like to say.”
“Please,” Alain said, smiling across the table at her, “you never interfere … and you, Maman, will never be old.”
“Rubbish!” Martine responded, trying to hide the pleasure his ridiculous compliment had given her. “I try to see the world for what it is, Alain. You are such a romantic! Such an idealist! Try not to set too high a standard for your marriage, Alain. Or for yourself.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Alain replied, rolling a sip of excellent cognac around on his tongue.
“All men have certain tendencies … needs,” Martine began. “You’ve been a bachelor for many years. You’ve been able to indulge yourself to the fullest. Finding Jane, loving Jane, even adoring Jane, none of this will alter those basic … desires.”
“Maman,” Alain interrupted with a laugh, “if you are saying that it is all right for me to cheat on Jane, forget it! I have absolutely no intention of even looking at another woman again. All that is over now. And good riddance!”
“Oh, darling, don’t be too sure…” Martine tried to warn him.
“Now you listen, Maman,” Alain said. “Just as I gave up my footloose roaming around the globe to settle down and run Chanson, so I’ve given up my … well, my playing the romantic field. I’ve resolved to run Chanson in the most efficient way possible. And I’ve decided to marry Jane and start a family. The two are very much the same thing. They are things I’ve decided to do, and I intend to do them to the absolute best of my ability.”
“That’s what you’ve resolved intellectually,” Martine replied, nodding her head sagely. “I understand that and, believe me, I appreciate it. You’ve worked this all out in your head. But what is your body asking? Your impulses? Your deeper desires? Don’t ever think you can lock them out, Alain.”
“Maman.” Alain sighed, reaching across the table and taking her hand. “Please trust me a little, all right? Now—shall we talk about something more entertaining? The wedding, perhaps? What was this marvelous idea of yours?”
“The Bagatelle, Alain,” Martine replied promptly, “in the beginning of September. The roses will still be lovely … and the summer crowds mostly gone. I’m sure we could arrange for the entire garden to be ours for a few hours at least for the ceremony. Then we can all come back here for the reception. I’ll have Rene Fortibier do the catering. He handled the minister’s niece’s wedding and…”
“Maman!” Alain interrupted with a laugh. “Let me get a ring on her finger first, please! Then you and Jane and her mother can sort all these things out.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Martine said. “Wait a moment, darling, I’ve something to give you.” She hurried from the room to return a few moments later with a small, square, velvet antique box. She slid the box across the table and he opened it up.
“It’s stunning,” he said simply, looking down at the diamond band. He picked it up and examined it more closely. The flawless diamonds were skillfully set in an intricate platinum casing. “Whose is it?”
“Mine,” Martine replied proudly, “and my mother’s before me. I believe it was first set during the Empire. My mother always claimed that it was created by Josephine’s personal jeweler, but who knows if that’s so? In any case, let me assure you it’s priceless. I give it to you with the hope that Jane will pass it on to your daughter … when the time comes.”
“Thank you, Maman,” Alain had said gratefully.
As the attendant cleared away the last of the lunch trays, Alain reached into his jacket’s inner pocket and pulled out Martine’s velvet box again. He held it tightly in his hand as he gazed out the window, trying to resolve how to manage the dilemma facing him in New York. The problem was simple, of course. He had been avoiding Melina—both figuratively and otherwise—ever since Jane had entered his life. Melina had quite quickly become unimportant and unnecessary to him. But now that he was going to marry Jane, he knew that something had to be said to Melina, something resolved between the two of them. Melina was aware, of course, that Alain and Jane were seeing each other. No one who read the newspapers these days could miss the fact. But it was clear from various things Jane had said that Melina had the good grace—or the good sense, he wasn’t sure which—not to tell Jane about their earlier affair. Well, Melina was a smart girl. She knew which side her bread was buttered on, and she probably deduced that Alain’s interest in the agency was assured now that he was seeing Jane. And yet no one, including Jane, seemed to realize just how deeply his feelings ran for her.
Once again, though he tried to concentrate on how he should handle Melina, he found his thoughts turning back to Jane. She puzzled and enthralled him so! He recalled the last time he saw her. Almost two weeks had passed since that tediously long awards dinner, and yet he could still so vividly conjure up the way she looked as his limousine carried them downtown to her apartment.
“
You’re very quiet,” he had told her, taking her hand and gazing across at her classic profile silhouetted against the bright lights of midtown. Her brow was set, her gaze fixed, her full, lovely mouth slightly sad.
“Just tired, I guess,” she’d answered, turning to smile at him. Often he felt she was not totally honest with him, that she kept things back or hidden to spare him some minor inconvenience. He usually let those moments pass, grateful for her tact and thoughtfulness. She was the first woman he had ever known who automatically put his needs, however small and momentary, before hers.
But that night, prompted by an unexpected stirring of concern, he squeezed her hand and replied, “What is it, Jane? Something really is on your mind, yes? Did you not get the award you wanted? Should you have walked off with more little gold trophies? Tell me, please?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” she said, laughing softly and shaking her head as if to wish it away. “I just sometimes regret … I mean, I sometimes feel so badly about how I left things with Zach. And Michael, too, of course.”
“Darling girl!” Alain replied. “You are overly sensitive, did you know that? I saw how Zach was tonight. He was perfectly cordial to you. And wonderfully diplomatic considering one of his biggest accounts is waltzing around town with his competition. For Zach, I’m sure, it’s all water under the bridge. Men, successful businessmen, don’t dwell on such things, darling. They make their decision, they stick by it, they move on.”
“You don’t think he looked…” Jane turned her head to gaze out the window, and then went on, “Angry with me? Holding something back? I kept sensing undercurrents I couldn’t fathom.”
“He was absolutely normal, Jane,” Alain assured her. “Like me, he was probably just itching to have the ridiculous affair over with so that he could bundle his pretty redheaded friend home to bed. Just as I am hoping to do.”
“Oh, Alain…” Jane had mumbled. “Tonight I’m just so exhausted. Would you despise me if…?”
He pressed his finger to her lips, and said, “Of course not, darling. We will wait.” But it had been difficult for him to rein back his desire. And more than a few times in the past two weeks he’d felt a wave of longing—almost nauseatingly intense—pass through him at the sight of an attractive woman. He slipped open the ring box and stared down at it. Tonight he would give it to her. Tonight he would ask Jane to be his wife. And then, Alain assured himself as he reached toward his business papers, he would never, ever look at another woman again.
Chapter 37
Janie hadn’t intended to go back to the office after her meeting at Ramona International. Alain’s flight was due in from Paris early that afternoon, and he had made arrangements to take her out for dinner. She had been hoping to go directly back to her apartment, shower, and change into something worthy of Alain’s expensive restaurant tastes. In the month since the two of them started seeing each other, Alain had taken her to Lutece three times, Chanterelle and Aurora twice, and the Four Seasons more times than she could count. She would have preferred to stay in, cook him something simple, and relax in her large if still shabby living room. But each time she suggested it, he made a face and invented some excuse why going out was preferable.
“I adore seeing you dressed up,” he would tell her.
“I could put on high heels,” Janie would counter, “and walk around the living room for you, Alain.”
“I like New York’s nightlife, Jane,” he would add, looking disgruntled. “The lights. The excitement. The people. Don’t be a potato couch.”
“The term is couch potato, Alain.” Janie laughed. “All right, if you insist, I’ll allow you once again to squander ridiculous amounts of money on a tiny plate of creamed rice with cheese.”
“Risotto, darling,” Alain would say, coming up behind her and kissing her neck, “is hardly rice. Now put something lovely on—something that will match this.” And he’d present her with an onyx bracelet or a pair of beautiful pearl earrings. Yes, Alain was romantic. And demonstrative. And demanding. And Janie, who was still half paralyzed by the force of Alain’s personality, would run into the bedroom to change into something appropriate.
“Damn,” Janie muttered aloud as she hurried down Lex toward Grand Central after her disturbing meeting with Anna. It was already past four o’clock, and she knew she should go straight back to her apartment. Only she didn’t. Against her better judgment, she was heading to the downtown subway that would take her back to the office. And Melina. If she confronted her now, while her unhappiness and suspicions were at their height, Janie knew she’d have a better chance of getting at the truth—something Melina had an amazing talent for avoiding … and for getting Janie to ignore.
“So we pad the City Slickers production bill a bit,” Melina would tell her. “They take so fucking long to pay, the way I see it, the little extra I charge is like interest on their past due invoices.”
“But, Melina,” Jane would try to argue, glancing down at the figures again, “this is more than thirty-five percent above cost! That’s not padding, that’s … that’s almost thievery.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” Melina would reply with a smile, “it falls under the category of creative bookkeeping. Loosen up, Janie, honey. I’d have thought someone like Alain would melt down your metal backbone a bit … soften that stiff upper lip.”
“What would you know about someone like Alain?” Janie would demand with uncharacteristic force. Since Janie’s return from France, and throughout the last month, Melina had been unusually quiet on the subject of Alain. What had Janie imagined? she asked herself now as the doors to the Number 4 subway swished shut behind her. That she and Melina would gossip like schoolgirls about Janie’s new love? That she would at last be able to break down the professional and personal barriers that separated the two women and confide in Melina? Had she hoped that now that Janie, too, was beautiful and desirable, they would stop being just partners—and start becoming friends? It hadn’t happened. Melina skillfully avoided each of Janie’s tentative approaches. Melina stayed friendly but cool. Interested but aloof. She remained the consummate professional she had always been.
With her usual aplomb, she had rebuffed Janie’s question about Alain by saying, “Lordy, you’re touchy, honey. I was only kidding around. And from now on, Janie, I think I’d better keep these little ole invoices to myself. They just end up getting you all hot and bothered.”
Maybe it was the oppressively humid subway car. Or the tensions of the afternoon. Or the unsavory task ahead. But as Janie collapsed onto the hard plastic subway bench, she realized she felt like never getting up again. She’d been unusually tired in the last month. Her limbs often felt like lead, and she was prone to frequent headaches. She was usually too busy to think about it, but every once in a while she faced the fact that she hadn’t really felt well since her weight loss. It was odd and ironic that she now felt more weighted down than she had when she was fat. She contemplated the evening ahead and realized with a silent shudder that she wasn’t even looking forward to it. God, she must be losing her mind! she chided herself. One of the most handsome and eligible men in the world was flying halfway around the globe to take her to dinner—and she wasn’t even excited. What the hell was going on? The more thrilled everyone around her seemed to be about her relationship with Alain, the more oppressed she seemed to feel.
Her mother, usually so staid and restrained, had practically screamed into the phone when Janie told her that Alain wanted to meet her family.
“You mean the Frenchman? The one Cynthia told me is so handsome?” Faith squealed. “And your father saw some piece about the two of you in Liz Smith’s column last week. Oh, Janie, I’m so thrilled!”
“Since when has Dad started to read gossip columns?” Janie had demanded. “I thought he considered the Wall Street Journal his light reading for the day.”
“Don’t be fresh, dear,” Faith had replied sweetly. “We’re all just so pleased f
or you. And you looked stunning in the photo, Jane, just stunning! When are you coming to visit?”
She had been avoiding setting any definite date for the trip to Baldwin, just as she was avoiding all of Alain’s hints about setting the date for another, far more lasting event. Though Janie knew the question was looming, she just couldn’t manage to come to terms with it. How very strange life was! Now, at last, she had everything she had ever longed for, ever dreamed about within reach … and she just kept pushing it away.
She got off the subway at Union Square and made her way through the crowded Farmer’s Market at the north end of the park, lugging the portfolio behind her. Despite the earlier brief storm, the air was still heavy. Janie’s dress clung to her, and her hair felt damp and curly. As she turned down the side street to the converted fire-house, Janie heard a low rumble of thunder. Damn, she mumbled to herself again, it was nearly five o’clock and Alain was expected at seven. How in the world was she going to get back uptown in the middle of a thunderstorm? Trying to work out the logistics for the evening ahead, Janie took the small elevator up to the fourth floor.
Tina, the receptionist, had left for the day. The night-light on the switchboard cast a hazy, red glow over the embossed letters of Bliss & Penrod on the wall and backlit the vase of tulips on the counter so brightly that they looked almost unreal. She pushed through the swinging door to her office, and there, too, the early evening light that flooded the large room seemed highly artificial. Perhaps it was the angle of the summer sun, or the effect of the oncoming storm, but the once familiar studio suddenly looked like a stage set to Janie. It seemed impossible to her that she had worked in this room for nearly half a year already—had left it just that morning. She felt no affection for it, no frisson of accumulated experience and memory. It was just as she was running her hand along the top of her drawing board, trying to stir up some emotion, that she heard the voices on Melina’s floor above. She walked to the foot of the open spiral staircase and was about to start up when she heard Melina say, “Spare me, please, Alain. You’re as likely to give up lovers as you are polo ponies when you marry. If you want to drop me, just say so. I despise phony excuses.”
Changes of Heart Page 29