Paris, He Said

by Christine Sneed

  Why had Jeanne-Lucie invited her?

  Don’t be so eager to believe the worst, Liesel had advised in an e-mail that morning. I bet they’ll be nice enough. They’re probably just curious about you. At the end of the note, she added: A kindly reminder: don’t flatter yourself. Isn’t that what you always say to me when I think someone’s talking about me behind my back?

  Laurent, however, had seemed uneasy before she set off for his daughter’s apartment. “I hope you will not reveal anything too personal,” he said.

  She laughed, shaking her head. “You mean about our sex life?”

  He showed her what she called his sad-dog face, a smiling grimace. “No, I am not thinking you will speak of that, nor will my daughter ask you to.”

  “Will your ex-wife?”

  He snorted. “No, she won’t either, at least I do not think she will.”

  “What are you worried I’ll tell them?” she asked.

  “I am not sure, but whatever you say, my ex-wife will remember it.”

  “I won’t embarrass you,” she said. “I’m not a child who goes off and tells all her parents’ secrets to the neighbors.”

  His face reddened slightly. “I am not your parent, Jayne. Please do not say that.”

  The front door buzzed, the lock releasing with a quiet click. No voice called through the intercom to make sure the person ringing was welcome inside. Jayne pushed open the heavy exterior door and made her way into the unlit stairwell. She sneezed twice and wondered if someone had just swept the stairs. Above her on one of the landings she could hear someone opening an interior door.

  “Jayne, c’est vous?” a woman called. It didn’t sound like Jeanne-Lucie. Anne-Claire?

  “Oui, c’est moi,” Jayne called back. She was five minutes late but wondered if she was the last to arrive. How prompt were the French? Laurent liked to be on time and grew impatient if she was slow getting ready. She looked at the bouquet in her hand and wished she had also stopped for a small box of macarons; the colorful, chewy cookies were as beautiful as they were delicious.

  She glanced down at her hemline to make sure her slip wasn’t showing before remembering that she wasn’t wearing one. She also realized that she didn’t know Anne-Claire’s last name and wondered how was she supposed to greet her. Laurent had said that Anne-Claire had not remarried, but this did not help Jayne with the last-name problem.

  On the third-floor landing a thin, glamorous woman in a knee-length taupe skirt, matching heels, and a silk blouse the color of orange sherbet awaited Jayne. She had the defiant air of an actress who had not yet accepted that younger women were being chosen for all the better roles. Her skin looked soft as a child’s. She was blond and wore false eyelashes, expertly applied, along with creamy coral lipstick and pearls, her expression more impassive than welcoming. She was used to being listened to, Jayne sensed, to having the last word, though this desire had likely cost her allies.

  “Madame Moller?” asked Jayne, offering her hand.

  “Non,” said the woman, with a brisk shake of her silken head. “Madame Parillaud. Mais tu peux m’appeler Anne-Claire.”

  “Bon, d’accord,” said Jayne. The older woman was using the familiar form of address, tu instead of vous, which Jayne had been taught was inappropriate between strangers, unless one was a child, the other an adult.

  With a faint smile, Anne-Claire stared at Jayne for a moment before stepping aside to let her into the apartment.

  As soon as she crossed the threshold, Jayne smelled something delicious—a stew or a roast, its scent rich and heavy. She wondered how Jeanne-Lucie managed to keep the apartment cool with the oven on. Did she have that rare object, an air conditioner, somewhere in her home?

  “Follow me,” said Anne-Claire. “Nous allons boire un apéritif dans le salon. You will have a drink, yes?”

  “Yes, but a small one please,” said Jayne, not sure why Anne-Claire hadn’t yet acknowledged the flowers. Surely she wasn’t annoyed that she hadn’t thought to bring some herself—her daughter could hardly expect her own mother to appear with a bouquet or some other hostess gift. At least Jayne didn’t think so. She still knew so little of practical value about the French, and she had all but squandered her semester abroad by staying with her American classmates instead of befriending French students; going to the movies, bad American ones in most cases; mooning over the boyfriend she had left on campus in D.C. before he dumped her and she leaped into bed with a guy named Cédric who turned out to be married, although he claimed to be her same age and had looked and acted it too.

  Jeanne-Lucie still had not appeared, and Marcelle was nowhere to be seen either; she was likely keeping an eye on her mother. Or else she was somewhere with her father, whom Jayne was curious about. Laurent liked his son-in-law but had told Jayne that Jeanne-Lucie was more than Daniel could probably handle. What Laurent meant by this specifically, he hadn’t said.

  “Yes, me too. Un tout petit apéritif.” Anne-Claire turned to look at her and finally nodded at the bouquet. “Les fleurs sont très jolies. My daughter will like them. Très gentil aussi. You are kind to bring them.”

  “Merci,” said Jayne, embarrassed now, though she had been waiting for the compliment.

  Anne-Claire took the bouquet and motioned for Jayne to sit on a leather armchair, one very similar in design to the pair in Laurent’s salon. In front of the chair and its mate was a glass-topped table with four long-stemmed glasses, a highly polished silver ice bucket, and one bottle each of Perrier, crème de cassis, and white wine. The room with its armchairs and matching sofa was bright with the midday sun. On the wall adjacent to the streetside windows hung a large faded tapestry of a unicorn in a forest, a good copy of The Unicorn Defends Itself. Jayne had seen the original at the Cloisters in New York two or three times, once with her sister, who had pronounced the tapestries boring. (“Medieval art,” Stephanie had said with visible irritation. “Sorry, but who cares about a fucking unicorn when people were dying at thirty back then from TB and impacted molars?” “That’s probably why they put unicorns in their tapestries,” said Jayne. “To forget how miserable they were.” “No,” said Stephanie. “They were just repressed guys who drew horses instead of naked women because the church forbade it.”)

  The room’s built-in bookshelves housed a colorful jumble of French and British novels, biographies of politicians, scientists, and writers—the ones Jayne would have asked to borrow if she had known Jeanne-Lucie better were fat volumes about D. H. Lawrence, George Orwell, the Curies, and Winston Churchill, and slimmer biographies of Sylvia Plath and Camus. There were many art books too, ones heavy enough to smash all ten toes if dropped from the height of the middle shelves. She spotted the first volume of Maus, primly encased in a cellophane jacket. The room did not look like the kind of space where Marcelle would be allowed to spend much time. No toys were scattered about or tucked into a basket, though it was probable that Jeanne-Lucie had had someone in to clean before Jayne’s arrival. She remembered Laurent shaking his head over his daughter’s housekeeping abilities; surely she had a cleaning woman too.

  Maybe she also used Pauline, and Pauline reported back to her about what was going on in her father’s household. What would she say? Judging from the wrappers in the trash, the American girl, or maybe it is Monsieur Moller, seems to be eating a lot of chocolate. Or, Your father bought a new bread knife and threw out an old pair of running shoes last week. Or, Someone has been making frequent trips to Galeries Lafayette.

  Anne-Claire disappeared with the flowers, leaving Jayne alone to wait for whatever arrived next. Jeanne-Lucie’s apartment was larger than any place she could imagine herself ever being able to afford. Whatever her husband did, he made a good living, unless like Laurent’s pet artists, it was Laurent’s money that financed their lifestyle too. The revelations of Thursday night had threatened her sense of her role in his life, in part because there seemed to be so many people he had relationships with who she would probably never meet or
have more than a passing acquaintance with.

  Marcelle appeared in the doorway and stared at Jayne with a shy smile. She was wearing a pink sundress, satin ribbons tied into bows at her shoulders, and matching pink sandals. With Marcelle as an example, Jayne could see why most women wanted children, though she could not imagine herself as a mother. (“Good thing,” Liesel had teased her. “Because unless he’s lying, Laurent won’t ever be up to the task of impregnating you.”)

  “Bonjour, madame,” said Marcelle.

  Jayne smiled. “Bonjour à toi, mademoiselle.”

  “Maman est dans la cuisine avec Martin et Grand-mère.”

  “Bon,” said Jayne. “Should I stay here? Je dois rester ici?”

  The little girl nodded. “Oui, restez là.”

  Maybe Jeanne-Lucie had burned the roast, and that was the reason behind her continuing absence. A burned beef roast might be one step removed from a catastrophe in France. Jayne remembered her Strasbourgeois host mother spending several hours on Sundays preparing a midafternoon meal for the family, one frequently as elaborate as a Thanksgiving feast.

  And who was Martin—Jeanne-Lucie’s husband? Jayne had thought his name was Daniel. It didn’t seem likely that Marcelle would call her father by his first name, but Jayne hadn’t expected to find a man at their luncheon, only a small gaggle of women, one or two of them inspecting her through their lorgnettes, as if she were the poor relation, still dusty and rumpled from her trip in from the vulgar countryside.

  Martin, the mystery guest, materialized before her a few minutes later, Marcelle trailing after him, Grand-mère a few paces behind, the roses trimmed and now in a crystal vase that Anne-Claire set on a small cherrywood table next to the leather sofa (canapé! Jayne chided herself), its back low enough not to block the windows it hulked beneath. The way he held his chest lightly forward, his shoulders pulled back, Martin looked like a dancer just past his best days. Jayne guessed he was thirty-five, maybe a year or two younger. He stared at her long enough, half smiling, to make her look away. He was wearing slate gray pants and a blue dress shirt that matched his eyes. She wondered if he was Anne-Claire’s boyfriend.

  “You’re Jayne from Grandpa’s gallery, Marcelle tells me,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

  He sounded American but didn’t look it, not with his fashionably disheveled dark blond hair an inch past his collar, his manicured hands, the tailored shirt that might have been plucked from one of the men’s boutiques in the seventh and eighth arrondissements where Laurent shopped.

  “Yes,” she said, offering her hand. From where she stood mixing their drinks, Jayne could feel Anne-Claire watching them. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Very nice to meet you,” he said, squeezing her hand twice before letting it go.

  “Martin knows Laurent,” said Anne-Claire. “He used to work at Vie Bohème when he was still in art school.”

  “Really?” said Jayne. “Were you one of his assistants?”

  “Yes, he put up with me for two years.”

  “You speak such good English,” she said.

  “My father’s American. I was born in a suburb of D.C. It’s my mother who’s French.”

  “Which suburb?” asked Jayne. “I went to college in D.C.”

  “Bethesda. Did you go to George Washington?”

  She shook her head. “Georgetown.”

  “Well, good for you,” he said with a smile. “I didn’t even bother applying. I didn’t think I’d get in.”

  “I liked it there,” she said. “I like D.C. too. I stayed and worked there for a couple of years after graduation.”

  “Before moving to New York,” said Anne-Claire.

  “Yes,” said Jayne. She wasn’t sure how Anne-Claire knew this. She didn’t remember talking about it with Jeanne-Lucie when they’d had dinner the other night, but maybe she had. Or else Laurent had told her.

  Anne-Claire had moved over to the table with the drinks and was pouring crème de cassis and white wine into four glasses.

  Martin settled into one of the armchairs and crossed his legs; he had chosen the same chair Jayne had been sitting in before he’d come from the kitchen.

  “Where’s Jeanne-Lucie?” Jayne asked. “Does she need help with anything?”

  He shook his head. Anne-Claire gave a small burbling laugh. “Ma fille est très têtue,” she said. “Comme son père. Et son frère.”

  “She’s stubborn,” Martin translated. “Like her father and brother. She doesn’t want our help, but I’m pretty sure she could use it.”

  “I told her to order everything from a traiteur, but she refused,” said Anne-Claire.

  “She’s making roasted quail,” said Martin, “with grilled potatoes and carrots, and a tarte aux abricots for dessert.”

  “Et un bouillon aux champignons pour commencer,” said Anne Claire.

  “I love mushrooms. It all sounds delicious,” said Jayne. “It must have taken her hours and hours.”

  Anne-Claire handed Jayne a kir. The glass was almost full, her earlier request for a small apéritif forgotten or else ignored. “Yes, it has taken her all morning and some of last night too,” she said.

  “She must be an excellent cook,” said Jayne.

  Anne-Claire smiled. “She tries. She is sincere, I think you could say. Not everyone who tries to cook is.”

  Jayne noticed that Martin had turned to look at the unicorn on the wall; she wondered if this was his way of disagreeing with Anne-Claire. The older woman gave him a kir too, her fingers brushing the back of his hand. “Merci,” he said, his glass also filled nearly to the rim. “Jeanne-Lucie is a good cook,” he said, looking at Jayne. “But it’s hard to compete with Anne-Claire. Aside from my mother, she’s the best cook I know.”

  “Your mother? I thought I was the best,” said Anne-Claire. She smiled. “I am joking, Martin. Je sais que ce n’est pas un concours.”

  “Tell that to my mother,” said Martin, returning her smile. “She thinks everything’s a competition.”

  “Most women feel that way,” said Anne-Claire. “But I am sure you know that already. Jayne does, yes?”

  “Maybe, but I would like to think that it’s not true,” said Jayne.

  “I would too, but in my profession,” said Anne-Claire, “it is never a good idea to ignore the truth.”

  “She’s a psychologist,” said Martin.

  Jayne nodded. “Yes, I heard.”

  “Did Laurent tell you?” asked Anne-Claire.

  “I think it must have been him,” said Jayne. It had been him, but her perverse instinct was not to admit it to this disconcerting, feline woman.

  “You think,” said Anne-Claire with a trace of a smile. “Ah, oui.”

  “J’ai faim,” said Marcelle, “Et tu dois parler français, Grand-mère. Je n’aime pas parler anglais.”

  She didn’t feel like speaking English. Jayne looked at her and smiled; she didn’t always feel like speaking it either. How precocious, a little pugnacious too, Marcelle was in her own home, very different from the subdued little girl of the other night.

  “Marcelle,” said Anne-Claire sternly. “Sois sage, s’il te plaît.”

  The little girl gave her grandmother a mulish look. Jayne hadn’t thought Marcelle was behaving badly, but she was used to American parenting, where children routinely bossed their parents around, choosing their own diets and bedtimes. Here, from what Jayne had seen, children were mostly children, and parents were the adults in full command of the family rule book.

  Anne-Claire continued to look steadily at her granddaughter. “Le loup aime bien manger les enfants gâtés,” she said.

  Marcelle’s expression darkened further.

  Jayne blinked, wondering if she had heard Anne-Claire correctly. The wolf liked to eat spoiled children?

  “Don’t say things like that to Marcelle, Maman,” said Jeanne-Lucie, who had at last appeared in the salon. She looked so sleek and pretty in her sky-blue sleeveless dress, waist cinched by a matc
hing belt. Her hair was pinned into a bun at the nape of her neck, and tiny silver hoops adorned ears. She seemed to have just stepped off a cloud. “She’ll have nightmares.” She glanced at Jayne and smiled. “Bienvenue chez nous, Jayne. I’m sorry that I have been in the kitchen for so long. Our luncheon is finally ready. Please come into the dining room.”

  “Moi aussi?” asked Martin.

  “No, you must wait for our scraps,” said Jeanne-Lucie.

  “Comme un chien,” said Martin. He winked at Marcelle and barked once. “Your mother told me that I can only have the scraps.”

  “Maman, pourquoi tu es méchante à Martin?”

  “In English, Marcelle.” Jeanne-Lucie looked at Martin and made a face. “Don’t encourage her.”

  “Marcelle doesn’t like to speak English?” asked Jayne. “If her father’s British, does he mind?”

  “He doesn’t, not really,” said Jeanne-Lucie, “But I do. She’s being lazy. She speaks French at her nursery school and Daniel speaks French with her too, though I wish he would always use English to help her practice. He’s fluent in both English and French.” She glanced at Martin. “Like Martin.”

  “And me,” said Anne-Claire.

  “Oui, Maman,” said Jeanne-Lucie. “Toi aussi. Et moi.”

  Anne-Claire gave Jayne a tart look. “Always forgetting her mother.”

  “No, Maman,” said Jeanne-Lucie. “Never. How could I?”

  The older woman laughed, but Jeanne-Lucie did not.

  “Your husband isn’t joining us?” asked Jayne.

  “No,” said Jeanne-Lucie. “He’s in Manchester until tomorrow. For his business.” Her skin glowed from her work in the kitchen. She had a kind face. Here in her home she was a much softer version of the aloof, slow-to-smile woman who had introduced herself to Jayne at Vie Bohème four days earlier.