Changes of Heart

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “Wise man,” Zach said. Henry Penrod saw straight through me, for one thing, Zach reminded himself. He took one look and knew just how I felt about his daughter. Though perhaps, Zach thought, only a fool these days wouldn’t know at a glance. Zach rose to leave.

  “Zach … before you go,” Janie said as she, too, stood up, “I want to ask you what I didn’t have a chance to ask earlier tonight. I … I don’t know what it is, but I can’t help but feel something’s been out of whack between us. Off kilter. You know, you’ve been more than your usual abusive self with me. And I just wanted to know … is something wrong?”

  Zach looked down at her pale, perfect face—like moonlight reflected on water. The hair, loose around her shoulders, so soft and fine he yearned to run his hands through it. Her lips just inches away, that had forever dimmed his desire for any other woman. The eyes, where a man could lose himself forever. Was something wrong? she had asked him. If he weren’t so tired, so sad, he would have laughed aloud. And what—perhaps told her the truth?

  Instead he said what angry and jealous men had been saying since the beginning of time, “Why is it that all beautiful women begin to think the world revolves around them?”

  She took a step back, stung by his words and tone. Knowing he had hurt her, that he forced her to feel something—even just raw anger toward him—he couldn’t help but go on.

  “It never occurred to you, did it, that I had other things on my mind besides you? Other worries, other concerns.”

  “Of course, it did, Zach,” Janie started to protest. She could feel a wave of self-righteous indignation flood through her. Christ, he was so unfair! So unpredictable. She would never understand him, never know what he would say or do next. Why was it that he was so capable of hurting her at the drop of a hat? Alain never did. She thought now of Alain’s cool European manners, his graciousness and tact. Now wasn’t that the kind of man she wanted in her life? Someone who was always courteous—a gentleman? Except in bed, of course, Janie reminded herself. Odd. When it came to making love, Alain was as selfish and greedy as a little boy. And Zach … Oh, God … she looked up at him and realized that she had been longing to touch him all night. Just his lips. Just to kiss him—once, quickly … No, that would never be enough.

  “I’ve got to go,” Zach said abruptly, knowing that if he didn’t leave right then, he would do something foolish. He stopped at the door and turned back toward her.

  “Thanks for being there tonight, Janie,” he said stiffly.

  “Sure,” Janie replied, holding her arms tight across her chest, trying to stop her heart from pounding. Surely he could hear it across the room? A roaring noise, like the ocean. She could feel it crashing through her now, a deafening wave that swept everything else before it. She watched as Zach closed the door behind him, then she crossed to the door and locked it. The tide rushed out, leaving a cold, bright shore of emptiness and a terrible realization. Love could be something that ate at you, like anger. It could feel like hatred. It could make you blind.

  Chapter 44

  “Zachary.” Alain held out his hand. “How have you been? Janie tells me business is booming.”

  “I guess you could say we’re scraping along,” Zach answered with a shrug. He’d been hoping to avoid Alain, had in fact begged off the creative meeting Alain was having with Michael and the staff that afternoon. Just his luck to run into Alain in the reception area after he thought everyone had gone home. He used to like Alain. He had once admired his drive, his sophisticated business sense, his willingness to take risks. The fact that he despised Alain now, thought him egotistical and elitist, Zach knew to be a ridiculous change of heart. And yet he couldn’t help it. He found himself disliking everything about Alain at the moment: his elegantly tailored Italian suit, his closely cropped hair, the thin, slightly smiling lips.

  “And you?” Zach asked, fighting back his distaste. “Things going well?”

  “On all fronts,” Alain replied proudly. “It’s not official yet,” Alain went on in a lowered voice, drawing Zach off to the side of the room, though nobody was there to overhear them. “But my father is stepping down as Chanson director next week. I have been assured election in his place.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Zach said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Though I never for a moment doubted you would eventually take over. You’ve really been running the show for as long as I’ve known you, Alain.”

  “Well, yes,” Alain admitted. “But there are several people on the board—relatives of mine—whose combined votes could have cost me the permanent position. There was a time when many of them didn’t approve of my … life-style.”

  “But now that you’re getting married,” Zach suggested, “and settling down … all is forgiven?”

  “Exactly,” Alain said. “You see the point. My timing was perfect. And this will also mean that I will not have to travel the way I did as marketing director. Janie and I can settle down in Paris.”

  “In Paris?” Zach asked blankly. Of course it hadn’t really occurred to him, but Janie would be living in France after her marriage. Why hadn’t he thought of that? She would be leaving D&D in less than two months. Why hadn’t she said anything?

  “And Bordeaux as well, of course,” Alain went on expansively. “I’ve been giving some thought to renovating the hunting lodge at the chateau. You must come visit us, Zach.”

  “Of course,” Zach replied, trying to recover from the news. What the hell had he and Michael been thinking of? Janie hadn’t come back to the agency—she was merely visiting until the rest of her life began.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting.” Janie came up behind Zach to stand beside Alain. She had changed in her office from her working clothes into one of the short, silky evening gowns Alain had insisted on buying for her. It was a draped navy blue chiffon off-the-shoulder dress by Scaasi. A double strand of pinkish pearls circled her neck. Tiny pearl earrings glistened on her lobes. Her skin looked startlingly pale against the soft crush of fabric, her eyes dark, somehow troubled. Zach felt something like anger rising in him. He longed to grab her bare shoulders, shake her until she cried out. He hardly heard what she was going on about.

  “… That was Faith on the phone wondering about hotel reservations for the wedding. The guest list is growing by the minute, and Cynthia can’t put everybody up, and…” Janie knew she was rattling on, but Zach’s icy stare was making her nervous.

  “We’ll talk about all that later,” Alain interrupted her. “Right now we’d better hurry if we’re going to make the curtain.” They were going to a piano recital, then on to dinner. Since Alain’s arrival in New York three days before, they’d been out every night. Though Janie was tired after the long days she put in at the office, Alain insisted that they keep up a frantic social pace. It was important for business, part of his job, he told her. But she often found herself nodding off in the middle of the second act. And when it came to entertaining the wine distributors and chief importers and their wives whom Alain invited as guests, Janie often felt at a loss for intelligent things to say.

  “It doesn’t matter, darling,” Alain had told her just the night before. “All you need do is look halfway interested and smile your lovely smile.”

  Alain tended to do the talking for both of them, anyway, making a point of introducing her as “my fiancée, Jane Penrod of the Boston Penrods.” She tried not to let it grate on her nerves, tried hard to forgive Alain for the little things that bothered her. Only important things—love, mutual respect—mattered in the long run, Janie kept telling herself.

  “Who’s joining us tonight, Alain?” Janie asked as he helped her into the stretch limousine that was waiting for them in front of the office. Alain insisted on traveling in style. He stayed at the Plaza when he wasn’t spending the night at Janie’s apartment. And he was already doing his best to upgrade Janie’s standard of living. He sent fresh flowers to her office twice a week. When he was away, little blue Tiff
any boxes arrived on her desk with regularity. And then, of course, there were the evening clothes: complicated affairs created by Givenchy, Valentino, and Laroche, and the Scaasi she had on that night. Louella and the other secretaries at D&D saw all this as the height of romantic excitement. Louella lovingly arranged the flowers on Janie’s desk, carefully wrapped Janie’s evening wear in protective tissue, made sure her heels were back from the shoe shine in time. And Janie? She frankly felt embarrassed by it all, but could admit the truth to no one but herself.

  She hated swirling down the hallways at Dorn & Delaney, looking like some fairy tale princess. She lived in dread of running into Zach on her way out, though she’d somehow managed to avoid that confrontation until this evening. His look of total disdain stayed with her, staining her cheeks a bright red, even as the limo eased its way into the uptown traffic.

  “Nobody actually,” Alain told her, caressing the back of her hand. “Tonight it’s just the two of us. After the concert I thought we might have dinner at Café des Artistes. How does that sound to you, darling?”

  “We could also just go home,” Janie interjected hopefully, “back to my apartment and relax. I could make omelettes or something.”

  Alain laughed aloud, obviously thinking she was joking, and brought the back of her hand to his lips. “Or … or we could go swimming in the Central Park Reservoir, yes?” He laughed at his own joke and smiled at Janie. “Have I told you yet this evening that you look absolutely stunning?”

  “No,” Janie replied quietly, “you haven’t. Thank you.” She looked, she added to herself silently, exactly as Alain wanted her to look. From the way she wore her hair, to the color of her fingernail polish, she had slowly been remade in Alain’s vision of the perfect woman. He told her which designers he preferred. He made a surprise appointment for her at Manhattan’s most luxurious beauty salon, and then arranged weekly sessions for her there. He selected her jewelry. But what was wrong with that? Janie asked herself as they made their way slowly uptown to Lincoln Center. Why should she object to Alain’s attention and concern? At least she knew, without ever having to think twice, that Alain would approve of the way she looked. But did Janie? That was the question.

  The pianist was a young Romanian man who played with a passionate abandon that riveted Janie’s attention. Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin—it was a virtuoso performance that left Janie exalted and somehow renewed.

  “Darling, you were crying, no?” Alain asked indulgently as they walked the few short blocks to the restaurant. It was a mild August evening, the city in the quiet hazy thrall of deepest summer. The concert and the restaurant, both usually booked, were only half filled.

  “I was moved,” Janie admitted, taking Alain’s arm as he led the way into the Café des Artistes. They were seated at a secluded back able, under one of the florid nude murals that had helped make the restaurant famous. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

  “But no,” Alain said, ordering champagne. “You Americans send to wear your hearts—what is the phrase, please?—on your sleeves.”

  “And you French?” Janie countered. “Where are your hearts, Alain?”

  “Tucked neatly inside our impeccably tailored suits,” Alain replied, smiling, “where they belong. But please understand, I really have nothing against this frankness, this openness. I find the rough and tumble aspects of your family, for instance, quite interesting. Though, it is true, I was perhaps expecting something a little bit different.”

  “I tried to warn you,” Janie reminded him, recalling the many times she had attempted to explain Faith and Henry’s slightly eccentric ways. “Were your parents terribly shocked? What did they really say?”

  It would never do to tell her the truth. Maman had been most bitting in her appraisal of the Penrods’ manners, though she showed her usual respect toward their beautifully behaved possessions. “They said it was quite an adventure,” Alain replied judiciously. “Maman had never ridden in an open Jeep before. They’ll not soon forget the whole weekend, and Maman in particular is looking forward to returning the hospitality next month.”

  Actually, Martine had declared, “I can’t wait to show those people the meaning of civilized entertaining. I never saw such slipshod service. Such totally relaxed standards of dining. Did you notice that they didn’t even give us butter knives? Really, Alain, it was all terribly vulgar.”

  “I wish I could help more with all the preparations,” Janie replied, sighing, as she repeated the sentiment she had expressed to Alain several times since they had agreed to have the wedding in Paris. But in the same way Alain had taken Janie in hand and shaped her appearance to his liking, Martine Chanson had held on firmly to the reins of the wedding preparations. The only thing Janie seemed to have any control over was the design and creation of her wedding dress, and Janie suspected that if Martine could have been fitted for it herself, even that would have been out of her hands. It seemed to Janie that all that was expected—and in fact wanted—from her and the rest of the Penrod clan was to show up at the Bagatelle in time for the ceremony. It was Martine’s affair, really, and Janie was simply the guest of honor.

  “You could, if you liked,” Alain said suddenly, refilling Janie’s champagne flute.

  “Oh please, Alain,” Janie scoffed, “you know your mother would hate my meddling at this point. And how could I from over here? It’s hard enough getting through to a caterer when you’re in the same city with them, let alone on different continents.”

  “So?” Alain said with a shrug. “Go be on the same continent. Come back to Paris with me, darling, at the end of the week.”

  “But … Alain,” Janie gasped, “you know I can’t. I have commitments to the agency. Zach and I are in the middle of two very important presentations. It’s going to be hard enough to get away for the wedding.” Because of their busy schedules they had decided to put off the honeymoon until the following spring, opting to spend the long weekend following the ceremony at the hunting lodge in Bordeaux.

  The subject was dropped as Alain ordered dinner—fresh Gravlax with dill, grilled halibut served on a platter of wilted mâche, and a bottle of chilled Sancerre—but as soon as the waiter had left to fill the wine order, Alain reached across the table and took Janie’s hand.

  “It’s time to face facts, my darling,” he said, his intense gaze drilling into hers. “It’s one thing to have a long-distance love affair, quite another to try and conduct a marriage across two continents. Now, I know…” Alain said, squeezing her hand when Janie started to object, “that we agreed that we do just that. Keep your apartment in New York and mine in Paris, and commute back and forth. But, Janie, darling, that’s now totally out the question.”

  “Why?” Janie demanded woodenly. Hadn’t she really known this was coming? Hadn’t she somehow sensed that, once he had molded her looks into his image of the ideal he would start to reshape her life as well? “I don’t understand why it was just fine before,” she went on, her voice starting to rise, “and now suddenly impossible!”

  “Jane, please,” Alain said, “keep your voice down. I’ll tell you why it’s out of the question now. I meant to make this a surprise, a celebration. Obviously, I’ve gone about it all wrong. In any case, darling, it looks as though I’m about to be elected the new director of Chanson International.”

  “Oh,” Janie replied.

  “Which means I’ll need to be headquartered in Paris,” Alain went on expansively. “I won’t be traveling nearly as much as I did before. And we’ll need to entertain more, so I’ll have to let go of my apartment and look for something much larger, perhaps out near Maman’s. In any case,” he went on, squeezing her hand and smiling at her expectantly, “how would you like to go back to Paris with me at the end of this week and help search for your new home?”

  “But what about Zach?” Janie floundered. “And the agency? They’re going to be devastated to hear about all this…”

  “Oh, Zach already kn
ows,” Alain told her dismissively, smiling with pleasure as a white plate covered with fleshy pink Gravlax was placed in front of him.

  “He does?” Janie said. “When did he find out?”

  “I told him this evening,” Alain replied, picking up his fork and knife, “just as we were leaving.”

  “And what did he say?” Janie asked softly.

  “Why, he said congratulations, of course,” Alain told her as he sliced through the delicate layers of fish.

  It was at that moment that Janie felt something dark and heavy give way within her. It thrashed through her mind like a dangerous animal through underbrush, sweeping aside the fragile reality she had been constructing over the past months. She felt her future wobble, then shatter like the silly glass-covered artificial arrangement she now knew it to be. She put her fork down slowly and stared out across the softly lit room, seeing nothing.

  “Jane, what is it?” Alain demanded, turning to her in alarm. “You are so pale suddenly … are you ill?”

  “No…” she told him gently. “No … I just finally realized that I can’t come to Paris with you.”

  “What?” Alain demanded, disturbed more by her sad, determined tone than by what she was actually saying. “So? I understand. You have commitments you feel you must meet. We will look for the apartment after the wedding—”

  “No,” Janie interrupted him, her luminous gaze meeting his. “That’s the problem, Alain. You see, I’m afraid there isn’t going to be any wedding.”

  Chapter 45

  Janie was not the only person who wanted to change the face of her future. A few days after Janie’s dinner with Alain, Madame Ramona looked down into her hand mirror and winced. She should have known better. After a certain age, one should never look down at one’s reflection, only up. Her sallow skin sagged, showing every crease and pore and wrinkle. Her lips were puckered unpleasantly together as if she had just tasted something sour. Her eyes drooped, lizardlike, tired and old and slightly jaundiced. She raised the silver, antique mirror, patted her perfectly coiffed hair, and then returned the mirror to the open drawer of her ornate French Imperial walnut desk and pushed the brass handled drawer in. She sighed heavily, and tapped her long manicured fingers against the top of her highly polished inlaid desktop.