“Something wrong? Did I forget someone?” Jade looked worried. As long as they caught it now, it wasn’t a disaster at least. They had once forgotten the most important fashion editor in the French press.
“I was just thinking,” Timmie said, gnawing on the end of her pen, and then traded it for one of the lollipops she loved. They gave her energy when she was tired.
“Someone you want to take off, or someone you want to add?” Jade looked puzzled by her expression. She was lost in deep thought.
“I’m not sure. It doesn’t really fit, but it might be nice, as kind of a gesture. I’ll think about it and let you know.” Jade nodded and they continued down their list of details. Timmie didn’t do anything about it till the following week. She left a note for Jade, and then went back and tore it up. She still wasn’t sure, but decided to make the call herself. It seemed insulting somehow, or impersonal at least, to have an assistant do it. Europeans never understood that unless they were in the business too, and this one wasn’t. She went back and forth, and then finally made the call from home late Sunday night. It was Monday morning in Paris, as good a time as any to call. She hadn’t wanted to call over the weekend, and still wasn’t sure she would. She had sat in her office at home for half an hour, trying to decide what to do, and then took a scrap of paper out of her address book, grabbed the phone, and dialed.
The cell phone at the other end rang several times, and she was about to chicken out and hang up, when he finally answered. It was Jean-Charles Vernier, the French doctor in Paris.
“Allo?” he said, sounding official and busy.
“Bonjour,” she said, feeling silly. She knew her accent was awful. No matter how many times she went to Paris and stayed at the Plaza Athénée, or dealt with French textile houses, she had only learned a few words of the language. They always spoke to her in English.
“Yes?” He had heard the American accent, but didn’t recognize the voice. Why should he? He had only known her for ten days, and hadn’t spoken to her in two and a half months since.
“Hello, doctor. It’s Timmie O’Neill.”
“What a pleasant surprise,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased. “Are you in Paris? Are you sick?”
“No on both counts.” She smiled as she held the phone, sitting in her office at home in her nightgown. It was after midnight in L.A., and just after nine in the morning for him. “I’m in L.A. But I’m coming to town next month for the ready to wear shows again, and I was wondering … I don’t know if this would appeal to you or not … but I thought … we’re giving a dinner for press and buyers, at the Plaza Athénée.” She took a breath, feeling awkward suddenly, and slightly embarrassed to have called him. “I was wondering if you and your wife would like to come. It’s a business dinner, but it’s an eclectic group and it might be fun.” She had no idea if they’d come or not, but she thought it might be nice to see him again, after all their lengthy talks the previous October. It was a good excuse to see him without having to get sick. She hoped she’d manage not to do that this time.
“How nice of you to think of me,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased, which made her feel slightly less stupid for having called him. For a minute she’d been afraid that he’d really think she was nuts, or pursuing him, which she wasn’t.
In the past two weeks since she’d ended it with Zack, she had come to the conclusion, emphatically in fact, that she was happier alone. She had entered what Jade called one of her ice queen phases. She swore she’d never get involved with another man again. She was actually loving her time at the beach on her own, and Zack had never called again. Weekends alone no longer scared her at all. The relationship with Zack was definitely over, and Timmie swore there would never be another Zack again, nor anyone else. She had announced victoriously only days before that she was through with men. Her invitation to Dr. Vernier and his wife was purely social, with no ulterior motive whatsoever. She told herself emphatically that was the case.
“I’m afraid I have a problem,” he explained cautiously, although she had not told him the date yet, except that she was coming to town in February, and it was obviously going to be then. So there was no way for him to know if he had a conflict on that date, unless he had a hard-and-fast rule not to accept dinner invitations from patients. “My problem is that I assume you want a couple, since you were kind enough to invite my wife and me to your dinner just now. But I’m afraid that she and I have had a parting of the ways, I think you call it. A fork in the road. Or an end to diplomatic relations would probably be more exact.” She had forgotten how formal he was at times, until she listened to him, frowning, not sure what he was saying. “Our marriage is on the rocks, as you say in America. We are no longer going out socially together. We are selling our apartment. And I imagine that having a single man at your dinner would be awkward. So if you wanted a couple, I’m afraid I must decline. And if you don’t mind a man alone, then I would be delighted to come. But please don’t feel obligated to have me.” She digested what he had just said to her and found it interesting. Very interesting. She didn’t want it to, but it had caused her a minor flutter, which she reminded herself instantly was stupid. She was through with men for good, and he was technically still married, but he would make a very nice dinner guest, and she was happy to hear he was willing to come.
“That’s perfectly fine if you come alone,” she reassured him. “There are actually no couples coming. All the press come singly, as do the buyers and clients. I hope it won’t be too boring for you, it’s the whole fashion scene and a few other people mixed in. But sometimes those dinners can be a lot of fun. I’d love to have you come. It’s February thirteenth. I hope you’re not superstitious.”
“Not at all,” he laughed, and made a note of it. “I’ll be delighted. What time?”
“Eight-thirty. At the Plaza, in a private dining room.”
“It’s not black tie, is it?” he inquired politely.
“Oh God, no!” Timmie laughed at the suggestion. “The press will come in jeans. We might have a model or two, and they’ll come half naked. The buyers and clients will wear dark suits. You can wear anything you like, slacks and blazer or suit. The people responsible for putting fashion together are almost never decently dressed,” she said, pleased that he’d said he would come, and wanting very much to put him at ease.
“With the exception of you, Madame O’Neill,” he said politely, and she wasn’t sure if he was teasing.
“What happened to ‘Timmie’? I liked that better.” She remembered then that his thank-you note had also addressed her as Madame O’Neill. During their long talks in the hospital and at the hotel he had called her Timmie. She missed the intimacy of that now.
“I didn’t want to be presumptuous. You were my patient then, and now you’re a very important woman.”
“I am not,” she said, sounding indignant, and then laughed at herself. “All right, maybe I am, but so what? I thought we were friends, or at least I thought so in October. Thank you for your nice note, by the way.” She remembered the sunset on the card perfectly and so did he.
“Thank you for the extravagant watch, Madame … Timmie …” He said cautiously, and sounded shy for a moment. “I was very embarrassed when I saw it. You didn’t need to do that.”
“You were very nice to me when I had my appendix out. And I was very scared,” she said honestly.
“I remember. You’re well now?” He sounded cautious and a little shy.
“I’m fine. Though I probably won’t be when I get to Paris. Those road shows are exhausting.”
“I remember that as well. You refused to go to the hospital until after the show.”
“Yes, and you were right about my appendix bursting. It’s hard to stop what you’re doing in the middle of those shows.”
“You must pay attention to your health,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry about your marriage,” she said bravely, not sure how he would feel about her comment.
&nbs
p; “These things happen,” he said, sounding momentarily somber. “Thank you for letting me come alone. I appreciate the invitation. When are you coming to Paris?” She thought it interesting that he asked her. It changed things somewhat between them now, knowing that he was getting divorced.
“We arrive on the eighth. Five days before the show. And I’m staying at the Plaza, as always.” As soon as she said it, she felt stupid. It was as though she was throwing a lure out to him, and she didn’t want it to look that way to him. They hardly knew each other, except as doctor and patient. And he obviously had his own problems to work out. She didn’t want to seem like some desperate man-hungry American woman who was chasing after him now. At least she had extended the invitation to him and his wife, so he knew she hadn’t been putting the make on him when she called. And why would he think that anyway? She suddenly felt awkward for having called, but was glad she had. After all, why not? She felt like a kid talking to him now. He sounded so serious and grown up, and as she recalled, he was, although he had a nice sense of humor too. They had been so at ease with each other three months before.
“Well, I shall see you on the thirteenth at the Plaza Athénée,” he said solemnly. He had been extremely decorous with her during the entire call. Not warm, but very correct, as he had been with her at the beginning before.
“See you on the thirteenth,” she confirmed.
“Thank you for your call,” he said politely again, and then they both hung up, and she sat staring into space in her tiny office. It had been nice talking to him again.
She sat thinking about the call for a few minutes after that, and his surprising piece of news, which had actually startled her, given his somewhat archaic and extremely European Catholic views on marriage. It had been nice of him to offer not to come, if she didn’t want a single man. But it would work fine the way it was, although she would have been curious to meet his wife. That was obviously not going to happen, and she hoped he’d have a decent time with the motley crew that came to those events. But in any case, it would be nice to see him again. She yawned, stood up, and then went across the hall to her room, and went to bed. She forced herself not to think of Jean-Charles Vernier, or even their previous talks in Paris. She assured herself that neither that nor the news of his divorce meant anything to her at all. He was a nice man, and at most potentially a friend. And nothing more. She was sure of that now.
Chapter 10
The next day, Timmie gave Jade Jean-Charles Vernier’s name for the guest list for the Paris dinner party, and had her send him a fax as a confirmation. And for the next week, their lives were insane at the office. So much so that Timmie forgot about him completely. She went to Malibu on Friday night and stopped at St. Cecilia’s for dinner on the way. The children were in good spirits, and two new residents had arrived, a little girl who had been in twelve foster homes unsuccessfully, and molested by a sibling in the last one. She was quiet and reserved, and fourteen years old. The nuns explained her situation to Timmie in detail after dinner, and were somewhat distressed to find that she had been aggressive with some of the other children since she’d arrived. It wasn’t surprising given what she’d been through, and the other children were being patient with her, although two of the girls had gotten in an argument with her in the bathroom that morning and claimed she had stolen their toothbrushes and combs. She was hoarding everything she could lay hands on under her bed, and one of the nuns was afraid she was planning to run away. They knew, as Timmie did, that her adjustment to new surroundings would take time, maybe even a long time in her case. She had been severely beaten in her original home by her natural mother, and raped by an uncle, and several of the mother’s boyfriends. Her father was in jail, as many of the children’s fathers were. Her history was a nightmare.
The second new resident at St. Cecilia’s had come in only two days before. One of the sisters had mentioned him to her in passing as they went in to dinner, to warn her not to be surprised if he exhibited unusual behavior. So far, he had sat under the table, rather than at it, and had spoken to no one. They had been told by the social worker during his intake that in his mother’s home, he had been fed scraps on the floor like a dog. He had bright red hair, the same color as Timmie’s, and he was six years old. Timmie noticed him immediately as she followed the children in to dinner, and she saw him slip silently under the table, just as she had been warned he would. He had been living in a small apartment in Hollywood, with his mother, and she had just gone to jail for dealing drugs. She claimed the father was unknown. The boy’s name was Blake, and the mother claimed as well that he never spoke. He had been tested for autism, but didn’t meet the criteria. His psychiatric evaluation in juvenile hall, when the police brought him there, said that their assessment was that he had been traumatized at some point, and stopped speaking as a result. He had full comprehension of what was said to him, but offered no response. His eyes were big and bright. The psychiatrist at juvenile hall suspected both physical and sexual abuse. His mother was twenty-two years old. She had given birth to him while addicted to crystal meth and crack cocaine. She had added heroin to the mix since, and was likely to go to prison for a long time. The current one was her fourth offense, and the DA wanted prison.
There were no known relatives, and he had nowhere else to go. They had called St. Cecilia’s from juvenile hall as soon as his evaluation was done. They thought it was the perfect placement for him, he was in no shape for foster care, didn’t belong in juvenile hall, and he was the profile of the kind of children the nuns at St. Cecilia’s welcomed with open arms. Timmie’s heart went out to him the minute she saw him, and even the nuns commented on how much he looked like her. He could have been her son, and for a moment she wished he was. His mother had refused to relinquish him for adoption, and said she wanted him back when she got out of jail, which was likely to be a very long time. Possibly as long as ten years. Very probably he would be emancipated, or even on drugs himself by the time she got out. The nuns had every intention of doing all they could to change the course of his life. And if the other nearly impossible cases they had worked with successfully were any example, they had a good chance of helping Blake.
Timmie could feel his little body curled up near her feet under the table, but she made no sign of having noticed, as she talked to the other children laughing and chatting around her. They loved it when she joined them for dinner, as did the nuns. Most of the children called her Aunt Timmie. They were halfway through their hamburgers with macaroni and cheese, when she felt Blake lean against her, and rest his head on her legs. Without thinking, she reached under the table, and stroked his silky hair, as she met one of the nuns’ eyes. She would have liked to tell her what was happening, but didn’t dare. And a moment later, she quietly slipped a piece of hamburger to him wrapped in a paper napkin. He took it without a sound. She handed him another little bit shortly after, and continued to do so until he had eaten almost a full burger. She never looked under the table at him, and when he was finished, he tugged at her skirt and handed her the napkins. She took them, with tears in her eyes. There was something so agonizingly wounded about him. She handed him a Popsicle for dessert, and he ate it all. He didn’t emerge when the others left the table. Timmie continued to sit there, as the nuns and children disappeared, and finally he came out and looked at her with his enormous eyes. She handed him a glass of milk and a cookie, and he devoured both, and then set the glass down neatly on the table in front of her.
“You ate a very good dinner, Blake,” she said quietly, praising him, with no response from him. She thought she saw him nod almost imperceptibly, but she wasn’t sure. “It’s too bad you missed the macaroni and cheese. Would you like some now?” He hesitated and then nodded, and Timmie went out to the kitchen to get him a bowl of the left-over macaroni, and set it down in front of him at the table. He took it and set it down on the floor and then sat down next to it and ate it with his fingers. Timmie said nothing as one of the nuns walked by, nodded,
and smiled. She was doing a good job with him. She felt an odd bond with this boy, maybe because he looked like her. He was locked in a prison of silence, which made her heart ache thinking about how he had gotten there. God only knew what had really happened to him while he lived with his mother, at her hands, or those of her friends. He was the ultimate casualty of her lifestyle, even more than she was herself. It was hard to imagine. He had been born in San Francisco, while she was on the streets of the Haight-Ashbury at sixteen. She had already been on the streets for two years by then. And she had moved to L.A. shortly after that, and begun her career of arrests. He had been in foster care for the first time at six months. Before that, she had left him with friends, and with her drug dealer the last time she went to jail. Blake had had a checkered career and a disastrous life by the time he was six. He ate all the macaroni Timmie had put in the bowl, and then looked at her and smiled.
“Well, you won’t be hungry after that,” Timmie said, smiling at him. “More?” He shook his head and smiled back. It was a very, very small smile, but it was one nonetheless. She reached out to touch his hand, and he shrank back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, as though having a conversation with him, which in a way she was. “My name is Timmie. And I know you’re Blake.” His eyes didn’t acknowledge what she had said, he just stared at her, and then backed away. She didn’t want to move on him too fast. He had had enough contact for one night, and apparently all he could tolerate. He went to sit in a corner of the dining room, on the floor, and continued to watch her, and one of the nuns who had come out of the kitchen to sponge the table. Timmie chatted with her for a few moments, and then turned to Blake again. “Would you like to come upstairs and listen to a story?” Timmie invited him. She wanted to get to Malibu, but she couldn’t tear herself away. She felt suddenly anchored to him, more than she had to any child who had come to the house previously. There was something agonizing for her about this one boy. She wasn’t sure what it was, but for a moment she felt as though destiny had brought them together. She wondered if her son Mark had had a hand in it from somewhere in Heaven. It would have been nice if that were the case. There had been an agonizing void in her heart in the twelve years since he had died. She didn’t expect anyone else to fill it, and surely not this child, but for a moment the empty place in her heart didn’t ache, except for Blake. She asked him about storytime again, and he shook his head. He continued to sit silently in the corner, watching them, and looking afraid. But at least he had been decently fed. He was seriously underweight and rail thin, as many of the children were when they came in, suffering from neglect and malnutrition, particularly if they came from their parents’ homes. They looked far better coming out of foster care, where they were usually decently fed. Blake clearly hadn’t been, and he had devoured everything Timmie had given him. He had eaten more dinner than she had. She turned and smiled at him again.
First Sight Page 18