More Lipstick Chronicles

by Emily Carmichael

  “The president is only doing this to score points with the media.”

  A long pause.

  “And what part of this surprises you?”

  The two women shared an unexpectedly companionable laugh.

  “Mabel, do I get on this plane or not?”

  “Get on the plane. After all, the president will shoo everybody out the door just as the evening news starts. Mitch’ll do that talking heads thing on the drive and be on the next flight. And Carole? Were you the one who got Todd sent to Duluth?”

  “Only indirectly.”

  “Bless you, doll. It’s been a very peaceful afternoon.”

  “Anytime, Mabel.”

  She hung up. Miffed. Really miffed. Not that there hadn’t been dates she had canceled or been late for because of business. Not that the president was somebody to whom you said, “Hey, sorry, can’t make it, got a date tonight.” Not that she’d want Mitch to bail out if there was a crisis in the Middle East. She didn’t mean to be insensitive, but there would be a crisis in the Middle East tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that.

  Jeez Lou-eez, how could a woman consider herself in a relationship with a man if a romantic weekend away started off like . . .

  “Champagne or orange juice?” the flight attendant asked. She presented a tray of short glasses and flutes.

  A glass of champagne was exactly what she shouldn’t have right now. Precisely because it sounded so good.

  “Orange juice,” Carole said sullenly. And it was good champagne. “Sorry, bad day.”

  “We get that all the time. If you’d like me to hang up your jacket . . .?”

  Business class Air Canada was very nice. Soothing, really. Canadians have such a competent, civilized air. Like the British, but less judgmental. Like the French, but not so high-strung. Carole sat down in an unexpectedly comfortable window seat and pulled out her cell phone for a last check. One message from Mitch: Sorry.

  Gggrrrrr!

  And then another from Pepper January. Sorry she hadn’t returned Carole’s phone calls. Busy. Very busy.

  Carole didn’t think of herself as a phobic flyer. She flew two or three times a month for business and a phobia would just get in the way. But she didn’t like flying.

  And she missed Mitch. Mitch held her hand when the engines roared and the plane careened over the bumps on the runway, at the first stomach-bobbing lurch into the air.

  She sipped her orange juice and waited for the preflight instructions. She had never felt this kind of lonely. Not even when her father left home. Not even when she gave Hal the keys to the car and told his new chippie to drive him . . . anywhere. Not ever this lonely before.

  Chapter 4

  Quebec City was dark when the plane touched down. Carole retrieved her jacket and bag from the flight attendant and headed out of the somewhat bleak, industrial terminal. There was black snow on the curb and a damp, coal-infused scent on the air. She hailed a cab and used her careful high school French to ask to be taken to Rue des Carrieres en de Vieux-Quebec.

  “Sure, have you there in a jiffy,” the cabbie said, flipping on his meter.

  “I thought . . .”

  “Everyone does. Don’t worry—people speak English here. French, too. Well, I mean the Quebecquois. Most of the people in my building speak Thai.”

  “You’re not from . . .?”

  “Thailand? Nah, I’m from Brooklyn. So, whatcha doing here?”

  “Romantic weekend.”

  He glanced back at her.

  “Some romance.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  In forty-five minutes, after following a tortuously convoluted path through the Basse-Ville, the industrial and port section of the city, they entered the walls surrounding the Haute-Ville. Carole felt transported a hundred years, maybe more, back in time and across the Atlantic to a Paris that no longer existed—to a France of the Old Regime. The cab stopped in front of the Hotel D’Accord, the oldest continuously operating hotel on the continent. Not nearly as elegant as its cousin across the street—Le Château Frontenac—but every bit as charming in its own way.

  Carole paid the cabbie, who wished her luck and suggested a restaurant around the corner. Carole checked in at the desk and followed the narrowest of hallways to her room. It was a cozy, dark wood-paneled room with a large leaded pane window overlooking the square. A fire was blazing, with logs stacked beside the iron acanthus-leafed screen. On the dresser was an arrangement of roses and eucalyptus in a vase. The attached card was from Mitch and reiterated his earlier apology.

  An apology that felt hollow as she unpacked her things and changed into a comfortable gray fleece skirt and matching turtleneck. She put on warm boots and picked up her bright red pashmina. It might be out of fashion according to the best and brightest of New York style editors, but it was warm and easy to pack. As a thin layer between her tweedy jacket and the cold—in a word, heavenly.

  The streets were crowded in a friendly way. Horses’ hooves clip-clopped on packed snow and cobblestone. A folk band played violin-heavy holiday favorites beneath the softly glowing streetlamp. The church bells pealed in celebration of the end of five o’clock mass. The air was heavy with the scent of pine, bakery goods and the coal from the shipping concerns on the St. Lawrence River.

  Carole stopped at a newspaper kiosk to pick up the Wall Street Journal—an acquaintance from college had just gone bust-up and his story was the top story in the left column. She thought she’d have a problem paying in American money, but the kiosk owner didn’t seem to mind the Washingtons. Moving on, she stopped only to watch a dozen children pulling sleds with their younger siblings urging faster and faster. She passed couples who were so entranced with each other they barely heard her excusez-moi’s. She stopped at the restaurant the cabbie had recommended, negotiated a table by the fireplace and made a point of opening the paper. She looked up only briefly to order a glass of white wine and not at all to order an appetizer of escargots en croutes. She lost herself in the story of the roller-coaster ride of her college contemporary.

  “Perhaps you would be so kind . . .?”

  Carole looked up. Fortyish, handsome, a certain Gallic charm. Since a Russian beaver hat and a well-lined trench coat aren’t de rigeur for a maitre d’, she guessed him to be another diner.

  “Yes?”

  “Perhaps I could sit down.”

  She glanced around the dining room, which had filled up. But not completely so. A few tables near the kitchen . . .

  “The maitre d’ suggested that if I shared a table with you, he could seat a few more . . .”

  He bowed fleetingly so that she could see behind him the podium where the maitre d’ was lodged between two couples, a ringing telephone and a white reservation book covered with scribbles. Carole had a mild pang of guilt—she had been quite firm that she wanted the table-for-four so she could spread out with her paper. That wasn’t an issue when the restaurant was empty but now . . .

  “Sure, no problem,” Carole said. She picked up the discarded sections of the Journal. “I’m from New York and we take up a lot of room when we read a paper.”

  “But of course.”

  He took off his hat, revealing thick, mink-colored curls. As he shrugged off his coat, a waiter rushed to take it. Her new dining partner wore an impeccably tailored charcoal gray suit and an ecru silk shirt that was a welcome continental relief from the preppy oxford button-down cottons of Washington. She noted the barely-there scent of a sophisticated men’s cologne—she guessed Ferragamo.

  He hadn’t brought any reading material, which was mildly awkward. She didn’t have any obligation and yet, it felt rude to jump back into the paper. It had reached a low point, anyhow, as she had finished the True Hollywood Story article about her classmate and was now reading about monetary policies in Kenya.

  “No, no, please, feel free to go back to reading. I am the one who has imposed. In fact, if you’re finished with this section . . .?”

 
; “Absolutely.”

  Just as they opened their respective sections, the waiter appeared.

  “The maitre d’ wishes to offer you this champagne with his deepest thanks,” he said to Carole.

  “Veuve Clicquot,” her table partner said. “The beautiful war widow Clicquot. I believe we should accept.”

  Aw, hell, it was very difficult to feel sorry for one’s self—or at least, put on a good pity party—in the face of good champagne. Good free champagne.

  “Only if we share it,” she said.

  “It will be my pleasure.”

  That French accent! Lord, a woman could fall in love, she thought, with just the faintest sense of guilt. Mitch was only missing that one thing to make him the perfect man.

  The waiter quickly undid the foil wrap and popped the cork. Carole tasted and approved the sip of wine. The waiter filled her flute to the top and produced another one for the gentleman.

  “Jacques Chancet,” her table partner said, holding his hand across the white damask expanse.

  “Carole Titus,” she said, watching his dark brown eyes for a flicker of recognition. None, thank goodness.

  Instead, just the slightest smile of pleasure.

  “To your kindness,” he said.

  The champagne tickled her throat and left just the faintest taste of grape in her mouth.

  “First time in Quebec City?”

  “I came here on a high school field trip once. A long time ago. I remember the Citadelle and having to write a report on the French-British conflicts.”

  “But now you are here for business,” Jacques guessed. He tapped the first section of the Wall Street Journal.

  “I should be—I do a lot of business travel. But no, this is supposed to be a romantic getaway.”

  Being a gentleman, his face betrayed only the slightest puzzlement.

  “My boyfriend didn’t make the flight,” Carole explained. “Not that he didn’t want to. He got tied up.”

  “Will he be joining you later?”

  “Much later. He’s catching a plane that will get in around midnight.”

  He smiled, but the faint lines around his eyes betrayed the slightest disappointment that Carole found intriguing.

  “Then we should construct an itinerary—so that when he arrives, you waste not a moment deciding on the best places to go.”

  At last. Jacques had found a safe, comfortable topic that two strangers could discuss over dinner. She appreciated his discretion in never asking more than the bare minimum of personal questions. Yet, he exuded such warmth and charm that she felt a chat with her dearest friend—Elyssa, or her sister, maybe—could have been no more intimate. Europeans are very much like this, she thought, remembering her too few trips to the continent. Americans rush to free confessions while Europeans wait in sly, sophisticated reserve. And enjoy themselves.

  She shared the escargot en croutes as an appetizer and he returned the favor by enticing her with a pâté. He declared that she must revisit the Citadelle, but there was also the Terrasse Dufferin for shopping, the Rue de Tresor where the artisans sold their wares and the Cathedrale Catholique Notre-Dames’ light show. He didn’t seem to think the light show held in a church was totally appropriate and advised, instead, that she consider Eglise Notre-Dame-des-Victoires and its relics.

  “Saint’s nightgowns, fingernail clippings and locks of martyr’s hair,” he said. “It’s all very amazing. I was raised in the Catholic Church, and I don’t tell my parents that I’ve never been to St. Patrick’s although it’s just around the corner from my flat.”

  She could not resist investigating the personal reference.

  “You live in New York?”

  He nodded. The waiter offered him a wine menu.

  “On Park Avenue—when I first moved in, I lived next to a Ladies Who Lunch restaurant. Now it’s where yuppies buy ‘restoration’ supplies for ten times what they’d pay in a regular hardware store.”

  She giggled.

  “I grew up in New York,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “I went to St. James the Lesser. The Episcopal school.”

  “On Sullivan Street.”

  “My mother got a tuition break because the headmistress watched The Beautiful and the Damned. My mother was a recurring character.”

  “The Beautiful and the Damned—you mean the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel?”

  “It’s a soap opera. No relation. My mother’s been in it for nearly twenty years.”

  “And so you are an actress?”

  “Absolutely not. Unless you count acting like I’m reading the Wall Street Journal over dinner in a lovely restaurant in a lovely city like Quebec . . .”

  “Ah, then put your newspaper away. Could I interest you in sharing the Chateauneuf-du-Pape? They have a Domaine Du Vieux Telegraphe.”

  “I really shouldn’t.”

  “Some people object to that year because of the July temperatures the vines endured,” he said mildly. “I could suggest an alternative . . .”

  “No, I don’t have any quibble with the weather, it’s that I’m getting a little tipsy.”

  “Telegraphe does run high in alcohol. Perhaps we shouldn’t.”

  “No, let’s try it. You seem to know your stuff.”

  “I am French. That’s what we like. I couldn’t order a decent beer if my life depended on it.”

  He ordered a bottle and returned the menu.

  “You live in New York now?”

  “Washington,” she said.

  He did not give way to a flicker of recognition. This was interesting. And great. Now she knew why she wanted to get out of DC so badly.

  “It’s a terrible atmosphere right now,” she said. “Republicans and Democrats won’t speak to each other even though they all say bipartisan and civility as if they mean it. It’s a crazy town.”

  “I am not a citizen, so I have no right to an opinion. But still, this last election made me think your Founding Fathers should have given an American monarchy a little more thought.”

  “But the British monarchy’s no great shakes either.”

  “That’s because the British are so pompous,” he said, with just enough of a twinkle in his eyes to let her know he was joking.

  “My boyfriend is a senator.” She didn’t know why she blurted that out, just when she was enjoying a little anonymity.

  “I hope I did not suggest that elected officials are the problem.”

  “Oh, he’s never been elected. He was appointed just a few months ago.”

  Jacques’s puzzlement gave way to intrigue.

  “From Colorado, yes?”

  She nodded. The waiter poured their wine and retreated.

  “You are so very young.”

  “I’m not much younger than you. He is the one who is young.”

  “And he has been given a difficult job.”

  “That’s part of our problem. His work, his ambition, the whole Washington scene. It’s very difficult.” Now she’d gone from being happily anonymous to spilling all the beans on her feelings about being with Mitch. Blabbermouth, she thought with a tsk.

  “Be gentle with him. He has a lot to prove. All men do, even if it is only to establish that they are the best butcher in town or the bravest fireman. It is not something women feel to the very core of their being. Because they define themselves by who they are and men define themselves by what they do.”

  She bristled at the inherent sexism and yet, she had to admit that he was not too far off the mark. As ambitious as she was, she could still walk away. Maybe. But Mitch walk away? Never.

  “What have you had to prove?”

  “That I was the best jeweler of Baie-Comeau. And when I became the jeweler who sold the wealthiest merchant his wife’s anniversary ring, I was free to really be myself. Now I am a jewelry designer in New York. Not the best, not the worst. But I enjoy myself because I have already proved everything I needed to prove.”

  “So you think if Mitch bel
ieves he’s shown he’s the best senator from Colorado, he can kick back, relax and be himself?”

  Jacques shrugged.

  “We have grown too serious,” he declared. “And since I do not know the man and he is not here . . .”

  As if his words were a signal to the waiter, their plates were put in front of them. Carole, never having ascribed to the lettuce leaf and diet Coke mode of life, was impressed with the tender filet mignon with coarse pepper and mushroom sauce.

  She was grateful as Jacques effortlessly steered talk back to “safe” topics and she found herself laughing at his charming stories of growing up in a poor, rural village in French-speaking Canada.

  “. . . And then the priest told him that he was forgiven of his sins but to never, ever bring a pig in church again. Especially one wearing a hat.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “Oh, true, true,” Jacques protested, with overdrawn indignation. He crossed his heart. “Carole, this has been a wonderful evening. Just as wonderful as this dessert—can you imagine the amount of chocolate that went into making this soufflé?”

  She looked around. The dining room was empty, save for a couple smooching in a booth by the kitchen and a waiter laying out napkins for the next day’s customers. A glance at her watch confirmed that it was nearly midnight. Mitch would be coming in soon. . . .

  “Oh, my gosh. I’d better go,” she said. She lifted up her hand. “Check, please.”

  “Non, non, Cinderella. The bill’s been taken care of. Let’s get your coat. I’ll walk you back to your hotel. The Quarter is very safe, but I have developed such New York habits.”

  “Let me pay my half of the bill.”

  “Oh, no,” he said firmly. “You have done me the most delightful favor. Your company saved this lonely man from a Friday evening all by himself.”

  “But I’m not . . . I’m not . . .”

  He sensed her trouble at putting thoughts into words.

  “The evening’s pleasure is not diminished because it ends now or because it will not be repeated. Flowers are beautiful in their vase almost precisely because they are so briefly with us.”

  Carole sensed it was time to gracefully accede.