by Hilary Reyl
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Thanks for this.” I slipped the envelope into my bag. It seemed to me that he partook of my new code, that just as it would have been tacky of me to ask Christie to pay, it would have been negligent of him not to make sure I didn’t either. It all made sense. My newfound ethics were confirmed. “Really, thank you. It helps a lot.”
“Please, never mention it.”
I thought he would leave me to my typing, but he stood there looking at me, eyes beginning to water.
“Can I—do you need something, Clarence?”
“It’s not for me,” he spoke under his breath. “She’s—I’m worried about her.”
“About Lydia?”
He shook his head.
“About Portia?”
“God, no.”
“Oh, then, it’s—”
“Yes.”
“You want me to go and see her?”
“Your friendship means the world to her,” he mumbled. “Day after tomorrow, at ten A.M. She’s still in the same place. She’ll be waiting.”
forty-six
Lydia’s opening went off with barely a hitch, the only off-note being Joshua’s drinking too much of the Taittinger, vomiting on the sidewalk outside the doorway, and categorically refusing to attend the celebratory dinner of intimes at the Truite Dorée.
Lydia was delighted. Sally and I had both been assigned to eavesdrop on the various invited journalists for her, and we were able to report nothing but praise. Even Clarence said that, despite the “unfortunate” Rushdie element, the show was a triumph.
• • •
The following morning, I left Lydia, Portia and Clarence at the breakfast table, half-joking about the hangover Joshua was sleeping off and his insistence that he wasn’t going back to high school because it was bullshit and he had passed the equivalency test and no one could make him.
I set out with Orlando for the Île St-Louis, promising myself I would carry no missives, play no further active role. I wanted to see how Claudia was doing. And I had to tell her that Clarence had sent me, that he was staying with his wife because that was what one did, but that he was not a heartless bastard. Mostly, though, I was going because I missed her.
In the streets, I had the impression that someone was shadowing me, a guilty phantom wafting through the budding trees and silk scarves that brightened the city. It was a windy day, alive, rustling.
To make matters stranger, Orlando kept sniffing the air and craning his neck backward as if he were catching something disturbingly familiar, the rush of odor released by the thaws of late March. Newborn rats and turning soil and the pee of a million nervous poodles. Spring fever.
The only way to get him to move forward was to bribe him with bits of the croissants I had bought for Claudia. By the time I reached her building, there were none left.
I had to knock several times before she opened, peering drowsy and confused through a crack in the door. “Ah, it is you!” She draped me in an exhausted embrace. “Are you all right? Can you survive in that house?”
“Sure, I’m okay. What about you?”
She didn’t answer.
When she let go of me, I saw that she was wearing a lime green nightshirt that barely covered her underpants. Her hair was a mess and her eyes were stony and sunken.
“Wait,” she said. “I will fold the bed so we can sit.”
Without bothering to straighten her tangled sheets, she forced them into the mattress, then pushed the mattress into the sofa frame and closed it hard.
As she leaned over to shove, the backs of her thighs thick and curved, I saw pubic hair.
We sat, bits of bedding overflowing between our legs, as on a messy sandwich.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me what is going on. How are the children? How is the lost boy?”
“Pretty lost.” I chuckled, immediately cringing at my own meanness. After all, Joshua was the only member of the Schell family who had ever spontaneously thanked me for anything. Granted, it was a plate of Thanksgiving dinner, but he had been sweet about it, and here I was sounding cynical for the sake of hollow amusement. I tried to backpedal. “I mean, it’s not easy for a boy like him in that family. I’m sure he has all kinds of stuff going on that we know nothing about.”
“Of course he does. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t have secrets,” she said, shaking out her hair and blinking her eyes into something like alertness.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anyone’s secrets,” I said, hastening to add, “because I don’t know them.”
“When did Clarence ask you to come find me?”
“Yesterday. I’ve tried to call a couple of times, but it’s been crazy at the house with Lydia’s show. I assumed you were gone.”
“I wanted to leave Paris. But I could not stay away. And, no matter what he tells you, he does not wish me to go.”
“Oh, Claudia, please don’t take it that way. He didn’t ask me to come because he hopes to be with you. He’s worried about you, but he can’t be with you anymore.”
“So that is why he fucks me?”
“What?”
“Oh, he can be with me! Believe me.”
I had been trapped. For a second I thought to ask her if she wasn’t imagining being fucked by Clarence, but I knew she wasn’t that crazy. Clarence had had me completely fooled. I wondered if Lydia knew.
“Claudia, I can’t help you anymore. I mean, I can’t be a messenger anymore. I’m not a spy.”
“I do not need you to spy! I can see Clarence on my own. But we are friends, no, you and I?”
“Of course we are.”
• • •
I managed to avoid being alone with Clarence for two days before he cornered me in the garden again.
It was a strange time, what with the letdown after the opening. Joshua insisted with mounting vehemence that he was not returning to boarding school but staying in Paris to be “a thorn in all of your sides, and because it’s pretty here.” Lydia stopped arguing with him, which Portia interpreted as passive acceptance and yet another piece of evidence that her brother was a spoiled brat and it was “totally unfair, but I’ve learned to expect that over the years.” She spent most of her time in her room, writing in a lime green leather-bound notebook which she locked with a tiny bronze key, and changing clothes.
Clarence clucked and shook his head a lot. He and Lydia had a couple of private conversations, from which he emerged trembling and mumbling, as though he had been told in no uncertain terms to deal with the situation of his son and were testing out various threats under his breath.
When he caught me, I was typing again at the the wrought iron table. My first thought was that he would make some mock-curmudgeon comment about the threat to his bones posed by my extension chord snaking down the steps. But when I looked at his face, there was no trace of professorly twinkle, only a dour and secretive purpose.
He did not beat around the bush. “Katie,” he whispered, “I have to ask you one more favor. And I promise it will be the last.”
“I don’t mind seeing her. I’ve told her I can’t ever carry messages again though.”
“This is the final one.” He laughed in mild self-deprecation. “The message to end all messages. This is the one to tell her I can never see her again, that she has to go, that the situation is untenable.”
“But didn’t you already tell her that? And then you got back in touch?”
“She got back in touch.”
“She told me you have been with her again.”
“I had no choice.”
My grin must have betrayed a certain irony because although my answer was a simple, “I see,” he proceeded to accuse me of a sarcasm that was unlike me. He said he was disappointed.
I said I thought Claudia would be fine if he were honest with her.
He agreed, which was why he was giving me one last letter to carry to her, telling her in no uncertain terms that he could not see her again and that if she would not leave Paris then he would. He and Lydia were talking about returning to the States in a few months anyway. He would simply precede her if he had to. But he suggested Claudia go to Berkeley or to Morocco, somewhere she could stop hiding.
“Clarence, I’m not sure I should do this. I mean, Lydia . . .” I looked for some kind of sign in the budding rose vine on the garden wall, but it was a maze.
“We’re doing this for Lydia. Carrying this letter is the most important thing you could possibly do for Lydia right now, don’t you see? But if you can’t do it, you can’t do it. I’ll drop it in the mail. It’s simply that coming from your hands the letter has more meaning. You lend it weight because she trusts you. And you soften the blow, Katie.”
His face was still thin from his illness. His skin cragged around his eyes and pulled back from his pillowy lips so that he had a sort of tubercular pout which I found both repulsive and irresistible, as though I could cure it.
“Really,” he pushed out a smile, “it’s rather important, this last letter.”
“Okay,” I said.
Sadly, I watched him walk away. I had to betray his trust. I could not deliver his letter without first telling Lydia what was going on.
Was I choosing the stronger, healthier parent over the one who really loved me? Was that horrible? No, I told myself. I was learning to sort through experience, to find where loyalty lay, to be straight. From now on, I was determined to do a good job no matter the sacrifices.
Then I was hit with a further layer of compunction. The truly straight thing to do would be to explain myself to Clarence before I told Lydia. I wasn’t sure I could manage it, but I should. And Clarence, because he was a grown-up and a father, would ultimately understand my need to blossom into an honest human being. He would allow himself to be sacrificed. It would be bittersweet for him, but he would forgive and admire me in time, because that’s what fathers do.
forty-seven
Étienne did not call Lydia “Madame Papaye” anymore. He called her la salope because of what had happened with his Berlin Wall pendants.
I had brought her a few of them to look at, but she had balked at the price of two hundred francs apiece. “That much! For something so essentially junky!” She couldn’t bring herself to do it. But maybe I should talk to Sally Meeks because Sally had so many connections with stylists. You never knew. The jewelry might work in a photo shoot. Sally was doing something with Japanese Vogue these days. This kind of kitsch might appeal to the Japanese. “Actually,” Lydia had said, “let me handle Sally.”
So, Lydia had passed the “moonbeam” pendants on to Sally, and Sally had returned them to her, unceremoniously, a couple of weeks later. No interest from the magazines. Thanks, but no thanks.
“I wonder,” Lydia smirked, “if she didn’t secretly get a commission for them in Asia and pass them off as her own find. She probably told Vogue she picked them up on the streets of Berlin, where she has never set foot, by the way. I wouldn’t put it past her for a second.”
Étienne now suspected that his designs were splashed all over Tokyo, touted as “found,” as the stuff of street vendors and delinquents. “No, I found the story of the Wall and I made this. This is what I will leave behind of my life.”
He had been so dramatically angry at first that I had written him a letter of apology, which he had thanked me for.
“I don’t blame you for the sins of your salope of a boss, like I don’t blame Americans for their president, but it’s nice that you wrote to me all the same. I will remember that. Just don’t forget to bring me back the bijoux because there are people who do want to pay for them.”
A week after Sally’s rejection, Lydia still hadn’t given me back the pendants. She said she wanted to think about buying one for herself. And maybe one for Portia. Anything to amuse Portia these days. If only they weren’t so overpriced, she hinted.
I asked Christie if she thought Étienne would be offended if I suggested a discount for Lydia. After all, she knew a lot of people, and could give him publicity if she chose.
Christie interrupted me. “That’s just it. If she chooses. I don’t think Étienne should be relying on her good graces. Now if Lydia were willing to cut a clear deal, that would be one thing. But it doesn’t sound like she operates that way.”
“No, I’m learning that she’s only clear when it suits her.”
“So, I assume she hasn’t told Portia about her father having an affair yet?”
“I guess she hasn’t.”
We were on the tiny terrace of a bar on a pedestrian street near the Bastille, having blond beers late in the afternoon. Étienne was supposed to be with us, but he was still asleep after clubbing all night. He was feeling less résistant lately, not so young.
I still had Clarence’s “final” letter to Claudia, and was getting up the nerve to tell Lydia about it and avoiding the question of how to let Clarence know about my decision.
“Christie, I want you to know that I’m going to come clean in all this.”
“All what?”
“Clarence gave me another letter for Claudia. A letter telling her he can’t see her again and that one of them has to leave Paris, and I told him I would give it to her, but I’m going to tell Lydia about it, because she’s my boss and my loyalty should be to her, and I know I have to start being honest and I’m working on it. Do you think that’s right?”
“I can’t believe I ever envied you your fancy job.”
“I’m going to stop the double-dealing. I am.”
She looked skeptical but tried to sound supportive as she said, “More power to you.”
“I can’t keep lying.”
“Then why didn’t you tell Clarence you couldn’t deliver his letter when he asked you?”
“You’re right, I should have said no, but I couldn’t resist at the time, and I thought, at least this means it will really all be over soon. Besides, Clarence will understand. As soon as the skies clear, he’ll see I’ve done the right thing.”
“Are you ever going to tell Portia about Olivier?”
“That’s different. It’s private.”
She took a pert sip of her beer. “Do we know he never got back together with her?”
“Yes.” I drank. “Although I do wish he’d stop feeling sorry for her, but I can’t control everything. I’ll go nuts if I try. He’s promised to try to cut off all contact with her. He says I’ve made him see that it’s better that way. The Schells are tough though. He’s doing his best.”
“You’ve fallen hard, haven’t you? Cutting him all that slack. I thought you were going to let Bastien into your heart. After that night at Les Bains. But no dice, right?”
“I know it sounds weird after so little time together, but I feel close to Olivier. I can’t help it. I have this running dialog with him in my mind that’s comforting. Everywhere I go, I feel him picturing me. He’s the only person who gets the life I’m living now.”
“Wait a second. What about Bastien? What is he, chopped liver? You know he told me the other day he thinks you take him a little for granted. And what about Étienne and me? We’re there for you, right? We’ll make you feel grounded any time you ask.”
“I love you guys.”
“Étienne is such a doll, by the way. He’s so brave. Smell this.” She flexed her wrist under my nose. “It’s Guerlain. He stole it for me at Bon Marché the other day. He’s getting more and more brazen.”
“I know, he is.” I smiled. “He called yesterday to say he’s spotted this gorgeous Annick Goutal display for me and he’s promised to get me a huge bottle. He asked me what my favorite perfume was and all I could think of was Eau de Charlotte.”
“That’s Por
tia’s perfume.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it in her room that time you stayed there. Isn’t that a little psycho on your part to be coveting the same perfume?”
“No. Portia has about twenty bottles of perfume and my own favorite happens to be one of them. That’s not so strange. It’s not like I’m wearing white foundation and bright red lipstick or anything. It’s a random preference. Anyone could like Eau de Charlotte. That’s not weird. No, you want to know what’s really weird?”
“Sure. Tell me.”
“You know that letter I wrote to Étienne to say I was sorry about the snafu with Lydia and his jewelry? He told me it meant so much to him. He brought it up again the other day. So, I teased him that he should frame it and he told me in all seriousness that he had thrown it away. He said he needed to keep everything that was truly important to him inside his emotional memory and that he was throwing away all the important reminders in his life. He gets so dramatic. My feelings were hurt that he tossed my letter. Because of course he’s going to forget it someday long after this Zen master persona is gone.”
“You don’t get it, do you? You don’t understand your own cousin when he tries to tell you something. You know you can be so naïve sometimes, hard-knock life and all, Katie. Bastien’s right, you’ve been very sheltered.”
I was annoyed. Who was she to be calling me an innocent? If it weren’t for me and my family, she would be out on the street. I wanted to say this to her, but I bit my tongue and took a long, greedy, un-French swig of beer. I looked down at my ring. The sides of the concrete chip were beginning to wear away. There was a scratch in the paint. Maybe Lydia was right. Maybe the ring was an expensive piece of junk. I allowed this thought for about a second before I began to cry.
Christie softened, but not all the way. “Just get him his pendants back.”
• • •
Brave with drink, I went home and wrote Clarence a note:
Dear Clarence,
After a lot of thinking I’ve decided that while I want to deliver your letter to Claudia, I can’t do it unless I tell Lydia first. I’m hoping everyone will understand. You all mean so much to me.