Paris, He Said

by Christine Sneed

  How pretty you are, Jayne wanted suddenly to say, but was too shy with their audience of Martin and Anne-Claire.

  CHAPTER 15

  A Critique

  When they sat down to lunch, Jayne had trouble forming a sentence for the first few minutes: the meal Jeanne-Lucie had prepared was better than any of the entrées and plats principaux in the restaurants Laurent had taken her to, the best she had eaten since coming to Paris. Although the restaurant meals had all been delicious, Jeanne-Lucie’s cooking was extraordinary and personal, the flavors so refined, almost symphonic in their layering, the game hen and sautéed vegetables melting in Jayne’s awestruck mouth. How lucky the absent Daniel was! Did he even realize it? she wondered. When she found her voice again, she could not stop complimenting Jeanne-Lucie, which incited Anne-Claire to skewer her and her daughter with sharp little glances as she ate her food in dainty bites and chewed each forkful far longer than seemed necessary. Jeanne-Lucie kept her eyes on Marcelle or Martin or else on Jayne instead of engaging in a contest of tacit one-upmanship with her mother. Along with her culinary skills, Jayne silently marveled over Jeanne-Lucie’s self-restraint, especially when her mother took a bite and murmured, “Not bad” or “A little too salty, chérie” or “Not enough garlic” or “My bird is fine, but next time, you should roast them for one or two minutes more.”

  Whose idea had it been to invite Anne-Claire? Or was it she who had planned the luncheon and used her daughter as the decoy to lure in the ex-husband’s unsuspecting new girlfriend? The conversation was desultory for much of the meal, touching on the rumors of a postal workers’ strike, of the best variety of apples for tartes, and an accounting of the artists Martin admired most—de Chirico and Dalí, and lately the protean Gerhard Richter and another German artist, much different from Richter, Anselm Kiefer. Jeanne-Lucie also liked Richter and Cézanne and Bonnard, because they were geniuses, and why did it matter if they were popular? She also admired one of Martin’s former art-school classmates, a realist painter who had been featured in the most recent Venice Biennale, Émile Tôti-Frère. Martin rolled his eyes over this, but Jeanne-Lucie ignored him. Jayne thought of her own former classmate and the next Biennale, but kept quiet.

  “I admire Kara Walker’s work,” said Anne-Claire. “It is so political and striking.”

  Jayne looked at her in surprise. “I like her work too.”

  “I was in New York in the spring, and I visited the gallery that represents Madame Walker. Just marvelous.”

  “You were in New York?” asked Jayne, wary.

  “Oh, yes, I was there in late March. Laurent must have told you?”

  For a second Jayne felt as if she’d been splashed with cold water. “I think he did,” she lied. “But I don’t remember.”

  Anne-Claire paused, seeing through her subterfuge, Jayne knew. “You don’t?” she asked. “Interesting. We met for dinner at an Italian restaurant that is on Prince Street. I always—”

  “Maman was there for a conference,” said Jeanne-Lucie, cutting her off. “She goes to New York often. I do not, not with Marcelle now. Daniel has so much travel for his own work too, and he doesn’t like us to take Marcelle out of her little school now that she is used to going to it.”

  Martin smiled, his wineglass raised to his lips. “There are worse places to be than in Paris, in any case.”

  Jayne looked at her plate with its tiny bird carcass and streaks of rosemary-laced butter from the spring carrots and grilled potatoes. Why hadn’t Laurent told her about meeting his ex-wife for dinner? Did he not think that she would want to know these things? This was the same tendency, she believed, that had kept him until last night from revealing his patronage of other artists. But why he seemed to believe that she wouldn’t find out some of these things on her own, especially if he was permitting her access to the people who knew him best, she couldn’t guess.

  “No, I agree, but it is nicer when we did not to have to stick to such a strict schedule,” said Jeanne-Lucie.

  “Your life is not so bad,” said Anne-Claire. “You can take Marcelle on shorter trips.”

  The little girl hiccupped. Martin looked at her and raised his eyebrows comically. She giggled and covered her mouth.

  “Marcelle,” scolded Jeanne-Lucie. “Don’t be rude now.”

  “Le loup mange les enfants qui ne sont pas sages,” said Marcelle.

  “Maman,” said Jeanne-Lucie. “See what you’ve done? She’s going to have nightmares for sure.”

  Anne-Claire shook her head. “No, she is too smart for that.”

  Jeanne-Lucie gave her mother a frosty look. “I still have nightmares,” she said. “And I’m smart.”

  Anne-Claire opened her mouth, but it was Martin who spoke first. “Jayne, I’d love to see your work sometime. I’m sure we all would.”

  “Have you studied formally?” asked Anne-Claire.

  “I did, but after college I was so busy trying to pay my rent that I didn’t have much time to get my paintings into galleries.”

  “Now you have much more time, yes? And with my ex-husband and his two galleries, not to mention the fact that he must be taking care of the bills, nothing stands in your way now but yourself,” said Anne-Claire.

  A hush came over the table, an expectant, awful silence that in the kinds of films Jayne didn’t like usually preceded the moment when the storm felled the house, or the masked madman leaped from behind the door. She could feel Martin, Jeanne-Lucie, and Anne-Claire all staring at her. Jayne looked at Anne-Claire. “Yes, nothing but my own limitations,” she said. “By the way, you have such amazing eyelashes. Are they real?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Martin look down, hiding a smile. Marcelle was pushing a piece of carrot around her plate, oblivious to the tension at the table, or else already having learned to ignore adult bickering. Jeanne-Lucie was still, watchful and alert. Jayne wondered if she had offended her, but talking back a little to Anne-Claire had felt so good that she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  Anne-Claire’s smile wavered but was quickly restored. “My ex-husband has always had good taste,” she said. “For as long as I’ve known him, he has been very skilled at picking talented women for his lady friends.”

  Jayne didn’t reply. The only thing she could think to say was “Fuck off.”

  “Maman,” said Jeanne-Lucie, fatigue in her voice.

  Anne-Claire laughed in a short burst. “He’s a funny man. He has always thought of his women as projects. Even me. Maybe especially me. His daughter too, more so than his son. Men are supposed to find their own way, but women need to be shown, according to Laurent.”

  “Maman,” Jeanne-Lucie repeated, her anger a sudden hot wind sweeping across the table. “Don’t say that about Papa. That’s ridiculous.”

  Her mother shook her head, her face fixed with a fierce smile. “No, it isn’t. Your father should have become a teacher. It is his natural mode.” She paused. “But there are worse things that he could be, of course. He can be very restless, which I’m sure Jayne already knows.”

  Jayne said nothing. She knew that if she spoke, she would tell Anne-Claire to fuck off, which she was certain would please the older woman.

  “What do you think, Jayne?” asked Anne-Claire. “Is my ex-husband trying to educate you?”

  With effort, Jayne forced herself to bite back the words she wanted badly to say. “I don’t think of him as a teacher,” she finally said. “He doesn’t act like one either.”

  Well, sometimes he did. But it was no one’s business but her own how Laurent treated her.

  “Isn’t he telling you what to wear and what to think?” Anne-Claire asked sharply. “I’m guessing he’s also lecturing you about art and politics and the way you should look at the world, as if it is a canvas on a wall.”

  “Maman, arrête,” said Jeanne-Lucie.

  Anne-Claire turned to her daughter with an expression of feigned innocence. “Why should I stop? Jayne can speak for herself.�
� She looked again at Jayne. “You can, yes?”

  “Laurent has been very kind to me,” said Jayne. She refused to be baited. Whatever Laurent’s ex-wife was after, she would not give it to her.

  Anne-Claire’s eyes glittered with exasperation. “That’s excellent for you, but you are not answering my question.”

  “Maman, arrête,” repeated Jeanne-Lucie, raising her voice. What followed was said too quickly for Jayne to understand. Martin picked up his water glass and hid most of his face behind it as he drank. Marcelle was still pushing food around on her plate and singing softly to herself.

  “I think we learn from anyone who’s important to us,” Jayne finally said.

  “All right,” said Anne-Claire. “That is a good answer.”

  Jeanne-Lucie stood up and snatched her mother’s plate from the table, almost knocking her fork to the floor, before turning to Martin, who shook his head. “I’d like a few more potatoes,” he said. “If that’s okay.” He reached for the serving platter where several tiny golden potatoes remained, small, still-fragrant islands in the congealing butter.

  “Yes, of course,” said Jeanne-Lucie. “Have the rest.”

  “Moi aussi,” said Marcelle. “Deux pommes de terre.”

  “Please, Martin,” said Jeanne-Lucie, looking at her daughter.

  “Please, Martin,” Marcelle repeated.

  He forked two onto her plate and the remaining three onto his own.

  “Let me help you,” said Jayne, standing up, her own empty plate in her hand.

  “Thank you,” said Jeanne-Lucie. Jayne picked up her silverware and followed her out of the dining room and into the kitchen, where afternoon sunlight and heat from the oven had made the room several degrees hotter than the rest of the apartment. She had had the same problems in her kitchen in New York. Throughout the summer, she had gone as long as she could without using the oven, making do with the microwave and stovetop, but stir-fry, pasta, and Lean Cuisines quickly became monotonous, and she always broke down to roast a chicken breast and bake a potato, sweating and dehydrated, dressed only in her underwear as she ate them, but so happy for the more flavorful food. She could picture Kelsey, her left-behind roommate, and the woman who had taken over Jayne’s part of the lease, one of Kelsey’s classmates, sweating in their fraying bras too, waiting for their frozen pizzas to come out of the probably now-filthy oven.

  For a moment she felt homesick for the life she had left there—her friends, her reliable nightly fatigue, the Joe café near her office’s subway stop where she had guiltily treated herself to cappuccinos that she couldn’t really afford until she met Laurent. When he’d found out how much she looked forward to them, he had given her a large gift card. His thoughtfulness, his willingness to spoil her, from the beginning, was almost breathtaking, but he did not think it so remarkable. If you could afford to be generous, why was there even a question? “Once you get into the habit, and it should not take long, it is second nature to give gifts to the people you care about,” he said.

  “How did you learn to cook like that?” Jayne asked Jeanne-Lucie, surprised to see the other woman’s flustered look.

  “I’m not very good,” she said, embarrassed. “But most of what I know comes from cookbooks. Some of it my mother taught me too.”

  “However you’ve learned it, your cooking is amazing. I don’t think I’ve had a meal that good in years.”

  “You’re so kind. But my mother was right. It could have been better.” She paused. “She isn’t usually so unpleasant. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her today.”

  “It’s okay,” said Jayne. “I’ve been having a good time.” She stood a few feet from Jeanne-Lucie, who was at the sink, rinsing dirty plates beneath the gushing stream of hot tap water. Jayne gently touched the skin beneath her eyes; her fingertip came away clean. She was surprised that her makeup hadn’t run in the heat of the kitchen or the argument at the table.

  “Next time, it’ll just be you and me. Marcelle too, unless she’s at the crèche.” She glanced at Jayne. “If you’d like to have lunch with me again.”

  “Yes, for sure,” said Jayne, flattered. “It’s kind of you to suggest it. I know I’ve only been here about a month, but I don’t really know anyone in Paris yet except for you, Laurent, and André.”

  “Now you know Martin and my mother too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry about anything my mother said today. She can’t resist saying things that she knows will upset my father.”

  “I probably won’t tell him what she said.”

  Jeanne-Lucie looked at her levelly. “I don’t see how you couldn’t. I would.”

  “Do you think she’s right? That he thinks women are projects?”

  Jeanne-Lucie exhaled softly. “Yes, to some extent, but I think many women think of men in the same way.”

  “I don’t know if I do,” said Jayne.

  Jeanne-Lucie glanced at the window next to the sink. It overlooked a sunny, dusty courtyard where Jayne could hear a little dog barking bossily. On the outside ledge a gray-and-white pigeon was roosting, its beady, unblinking eye trained on her through the glass. “I understand why you were drawn to my father,” said Jeanne-Lucie. “He enjoys his life, and he treats the women he spends time with very well.”

  “Yes, he does treat me well,” said Jayne. How many women are there? she wanted to ask, but she knew the question would make her sound desperate, possibly unstable. She watched Jeanne-Lucie loading the lunch plates into a small dishwasher that smelled of lemon detergent, a hard knot in her stomach now. “What can I do to help you?” she asked.

  Jeanne-Lucie shook her head, dumping dirty silverware into the utensil basket. “Nothing at all. You can go back to the dining room, Jayne. I must serve dessert. Marcelle will be waiting for it.”

  “I’d be happy to help you serve.”

  “No, no, you’re my guest. I’ll serve you at the table. Please go ahead. Do not worry about me.” She smiled and shook her head again, a wisp of dark hair falling into her tired eyes. She hastily pushed it back.

  Later, as Jayne walked home from rue Merlin, the subway too crowded and claustrophobic for her unsettled mind, she worried that she’d behaved tactlessly in the kitchen with Jeanne-Lucie, and again during dessert when Anne-Claire asked her daughter if Laurent had been to his family’s vineyard since he’d come back from New York. Jeanne-Lucie said no.

  “I’m sure it’s beautiful,” said Jayne. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t want to go.”

  “What has he told you about it?” asked Anne-Claire, turning from her daughter to meet Jayne’s inquisitive gaze.

  Jayne took a bite of the apricot tart Jeanne-Lucie had served her a large slice of, bigger even than Martin’s. She didn’t know if she could eat it all, but it was as delicious as everything else Jeanne-Lucie had already set before her. “That Vie Bohème keeps him too busy for much leisure travel,” she said, “and that his sister comes up to Paris a couple of times a year. He said that he usually sees her then.”

  “That’s partially true. They have a—” She paused. “I suppose you would call it a complicated relationship. Perhaps he will tell you more if you ask.”

  Jayne had asked him, but he had never spoken at real length about his sister or their family’s winemaking business.

  Martin poured more dessert wine into Jeanne-Lucie’s glass and offered to refill Jayne’s glass too. She shook her head. “Thank you, but I’d better not,” she said. She wanted to be clearheaded enough to defend herself against Anne-Claire’s insinuations.

  Laurent’s ex-wife only unsheathed her sword one more time, but it was then that she delivered the deepest cut of the day. Jayne was at the door saying good-bye and exchanging cheek kisses with Jeanne-Lucie when Anne-Claire said, “You might not want to hear this, but it is my nature to offer help to other people, especially to women. You should not expect much from my ex-husband, beyond his financial support. You can enjoy his home and his money, but other t
han that, I wouldn’t be—”

  “Maman,” said Jeanne-Lucie, quietly fierce. “Leave Jayne alone.”

  Jayne stared at Anne-Claire, awed by her rudeness. She opened her mouth to reply, but only a brittle laugh of affront emerged. Probably sensing that the luncheon was about to plunge at last into disaster, Martin thrust his hand toward her and said, “Jayne, it was so good to meet you.”

  She could feel everyone looking at her. “Thank you, Martin,” she said, smiling mechanically. “Nice to meet you too.” She needed to escape into the fresh air and quell her angry, bewildered thoughts.

  As Jayne descended the stairs toward the hazy sunlight of midafternoon, the apparently indomitable Anne-Claire called down with her final parry: “Mind your step, ma chérie!”

  What she meant by this, Jayne could not bring herself to speculate.

  CHAPTER 16

  Bach Suite

  Her mother and sister had both sent e-mails during the luncheon at Jeanne-Lucie’s. She stopped a few blocks from rue Merlin to read them on her phone.

  J, her sister wrote,

  I’m coming to see you in August, I hope! Just have to get the dates set and buy my ticket. Cannot wait to get out of here, even if it’s a long, long flight and I can only be gone for a week. Are you sure that your old man won’t mind if I stay with you?

  Love, your (much) cuter little sister

  P.S. Do you want me to bring you some peanut butter? I heard that the French don’t have it.

  After the verbal abuse Anne-Claire had just inflicted on her, Jayne thought it would be a relief to spend time with someone whose abuse she at least understood the reasons for, even if she wouldn’t be able to get as much work done in the studio as she wanted to during Stephanie’s stay.

  Her mother’s note was briefer, and slower to arrive, than her usual e-mails:

  Hi sweetie,

  Sorry that it’s taken me a few days to get back to you. I’m glad to hear you’re doing lots of painting. You of course know that Paris has a long history of inspiring young artists, writers, and composers to create their most marvelous work (e.g. George Gershwin, one of my favorites). But don’t let yourself get as fat as Gertrude Stein did. (Just kidding—you know that, I hope.)