I stare at him. “Stop my job? What? But no. I love it.”
Just like that, the scowl on Manu’s face is back. He knows, and I know, that by “job” Hervé is referring to the heavy crates filled with sandwiches and salads that Manu and I heft out of his delivery van every day and lug upstairs to third- and fourth-floor offices, often without the aid of an elevator. The lunchtime catering gig is the bigger of Manu’s two income streams—the other one is freelance tech support.
“Nevertheless,” Hervé persists, “you must guard the health of your child.” He lifts his chin in triumph, proud of his ability to pull off the tricky pronunciation of an English word like “health,” normally a no-go for French people. The man loves to show off his English, what can I say, and insists on speaking it whenever we’re together. Manu is the opposite. He is all about me perfecting my French. I am too. But, let’s face it. English is much easier. And it is my special day, after all.
“Hey, give me some credit for having a brain.” I help myself to a hunk of bread, tear it in two, and try to think of a way to disagree without sounding disagreeable. “The exercise is great for me. And for Catherine.”
“Mon Dieu, Amy!” Hervé arches his eyebrows into peaks and tilts his coiffed head. His grooming is impeccable. Maybe too impeccable. “You should be napping two hours every afternoon. You must avoid—”
“Two hours? Are you kidding me?”
Hervé ignores my interruption and continues to enumerate his points on perfectly manicured fingers. “You must avoid the lifting of heavy objects. For exercise, you should be making the promenades with me in the gardens at Luxembourg. You should register for new mother classes. You should drink plenty of water. Finally, you should eat less bread and more meat.” He places his cheese knife at a precise forty-five-degree angle across the top of his plate and sits back in his chair, as if waiting for applause.
“Wow. Sounds like you’ve been googling tips for prenatal care.” It’s kind of a strain to be polite here because Hervé, as a newfound friend, shouldn’t be passing judgment on what I do or don’t do. “I appreciate your concern, Hervé. I really do,” I add. “But, as a matter of fact, I have more energy than I’ve had in my entire life. Tons more. And people ought to work, right? Even mothers-to-be are allowed to work. Also, it’s a lot more fun than my old career.”
Which was human resources. Which I don’t miss one tiny bit. I’d much, much rather work with food—buying it, cooking it, thinking about it, talking about it. Eating it. I even blog about it.
Now would be an ideal time for Manu to speak up again, but he’s busy glowering at Hervé, who is frowning at Margaret, who is cutting herself a second helping of cheese. This is actually breaking a rule.
Yes, in France the cheese course comes with rules. It’s hilarious. Women are served first. Older people are served before younger people. If a cheese is round you carve out a wedge. If a cheese is rectangular you cut an even slice across the short side. Your pieces should be no bigger than the size of your pinkie finger. Do not take more than three varieties of cheese, and, whatever you do, serve yourself only once.
I love stuff like this.
Margaret lobs the illicit cheese into her mouth and chews thoughtfully. Hervé shakes his head. I take advantage of the distraction to check my phone, which throughout the meal has been resting on my knee like a snoozing kitten, in flagrant violation of Margaret’s strict no-electronic-devices-at-dinner rule. William should have contacted me by now. Before now, actually. As best as I can calculate, he’s been in Paris for six hours.
Assuming that was him I saw at the hotel.
Because, who knows, maybe I was seeing things. Even before my pregnancy was confirmed, I stewed over why he was being so unreachable, and how he could have erased me from his life so completely. I obsessed. I cyberstalked him. I considered contacting Granddad, then rejected the idea, not wanting to bring him into it. Hell, maybe my hormonal brain just conjured up a William-shaped hallucination.
Hervé, still watching Margaret, glances at me, his nostrils flaring. “Nevertheless, Amy, you cannot go on like this forever.”
Margaret bobs her head in wholehearted approval. “Just so, monsieur,” she says. “Just so. Amy is in fine fettle now. But in a month or two—who knows? All we are trying to say is that our little Catherine deserves the best start in life, do you not agree?”
I rise to the bait. “Yes, of course I agree. That is my feeling exactly.”
But I could have saved my breath because Margaret isn’t addressing me. She’s speaking to Hervé, with whom she is a little bit thrilled. I think he reminds her of her late husband, the Frenchman she fell in love with and left England for. Even more fabulous, and I bet the main reason she goes all fluttery when he’s around, is that Hervé is a baron. Or would be if France still officially had barons, which since the French Revolution it does not. His full name is Hervé de Villiers, the “de” in this case denoting former nobility.
“Just so,” he repeats, no doubt making note of this expression for later use. Hervé is always up for adding to his English phrase book.
I’m trying to think of a way to change the subject when Margaret does it for me.
“Oh, Amy, dear, by the way,” she says, her brilliant smile revealing a piece of peppercorn lodged in her teeth. “I have a surprise for you and Mademoiselle.” She means Catherine. “After dessert,” she adds.
A surprise. Margaret adores surprises, the bigger and more extravagant the better. She even adored—and unabashedly welcomed—the big and extravagant surprise of Catherine.
Unlike me, to be honest. Even when the signs were becoming unmistakable, I was unable to accept that what Margaret had been claiming since almost the day we met was true—that there was, as she insisted with absolutely no evidence, an “itty bitty baby in this teeny tiny tummy” of mine. When I did finally go to a doctor and was given the big news, I thought I would never stop crying. I was terrified. I grew up without a mother. How could I be one?
“Smashing,” says Hervé, reaching to take my hand and lift it to his lips. I can’t help laughing. Hand-kissing is the kind of eighteenth-century, courtly gesture this man is totally able to pull off. I guess when you’re a baron it comes naturally to you.
Margaret beams so hard I think she’s going to burst a blood vessel. “Right. Shall we remove to the sitting room?”
“But of course.” Hervé leaps to his feet to pull out first Margaret’s chair and then mine. Manu again snorts. “This man, he exaggerates,” he said to me not long ago. I had to agree. Everything Hervé does feels larger than life, theatrical. I’ve never met anyone like him.
We settle into the chairs Margaret arranged in a half-circle in front of the fireplace, where a log flickers even though it’s still early September. I claim my favorite spot, a nut-brown leather armchair closest to the flames, the muted phone tucked out of sight beneath my thigh. Manu and Hervé sit opposite me and as far away as possible from each other. A silver tray awaits on the hammered copper side table, laden with Margaret’s best demitasse cups, the ones so thin they’re translucent. Even Hervé would have to concede the impeccability of Margaret’s service, the vintage silver and Baccarat crystal and Limoges china and starched damask serviettes. “Presentation is everything,” Margaret likes to declare. That’s true. Beauty counts. It makes your life calmer. Sweeter.
Humming, she cuts and serves the three-layer chocolate cake that’s been standing like a jewel box on the dining table this whole time. Up to now I’ve been happy to just admire it because—and this is a true miracle—I no longer obsess about my weight. Not the insane way I used to. I can accept the plate she offers without so much as a flinch.
Like Catherine, it’s another recent big change in my life. Before Paris, before Margaret, my relationship with food was, to put it mildly, complicated. We were best friends and mortal foes at the same time. I even had a whole long list of food commandments that I not-laughingly called my “rules for the perpetual d
iet.” Some were sensible (“Never eat processed food”). Some were screwy (“Go to bed hungry”). All of them made me crazy.
I never told William, or anyone, about the rules because I didn’t want people to know how psycho I can get sometimes. I tell myself I need to start being more forthright, more trusting. But such openness feels risky. Dad passed away when I was still in high school; my mother died ten years before that. Loss makes you cautious. Wary. At least that’s how it’s worked for me.
Besides, obviously, I’m a textbook introvert.
Margaret leads the singing of “Happy Birthday,” puts her plate down without taking even one bite, hops up from her chair, and disappears into her bedroom. Seconds later she reappears holding a cardboard box the size of a small footstool. It isn’t wrapped in balloon-printed paper or festooned with a pink bow, so at first I don’t realize this is the birthday surprise she was talking about.
“Happy birthday, my dearest child,” she says, puffing as she plops the battered box at my feet.
I lean forward as much as Catherine will allow. “What can it be?” I exclaim, though I’ve just recognized this box. I’ve seen it numerous times, actually. Manu and I exchange glances.
“Come, come. Open it!” Margaret is perched on the arm of the chair beside me, her finely lined cheeks bubble-gum pink.
No one speaks, not even Hervé, as I fold back the worn cardboard flaps. I do it carefully because by this time I’ve remembered what the box contains.
“Oh wow, Margaret!”
I lift out a tissue-swathed parcel and unwrap it to reveal a pair of tiny white knitted angora booties. I blink back tears because these aren’t just any baby booties. These are the footwear Margaret’s lost daughter wore, twenty-five-ish years ago, when Margaret, after years of trying, finally succeeded in giving birth to a late-life child.
I look over at Manu, who is smiling his first real smile of the evening. He has very white teeth, which make his blue eyes appear bluer and his dark curly hair appear darker. And his look is much more put together than when I first met him. In any case, Manu is very unlike William, who is monochromatic, with brown eyes and dark blond hair and a year-round Arizona tan.
At Margaret’s behest, I unwrap and display every teeny-tiny undershirt, gown, sleeper, frock, cardigan, bonnet, and blanket. Some are designer. Some are handmade. None are pink, or blue, or even yellow or green. All are purest white and sacred to Margaret or to anyone who cares about Margaret.
Over the summer I’ve watched her sort through these items from time to time, so I should have recognized the box right away. But who could ever dream she would allow such treasures to emerge from their tissue paper shrouds and enter into the chaotic day-to-dayness of my messy life?
Which, today—if that really was William I saw, and let’s face it, I know it was—just got a whole lot messier?
“Margaret.” I swallow hard. “I can’t believe this!”
“My darling girl.” Her eyes, too, are brimming with tears.
Hervé fidgets in his chair and consults his watch, holding out his arm and pushing up the sleeve of his blazer so everyone is sure to notice the vintage Rolex. He’s bored because nothing that is happening right now is about him. Well, too bad.
Manu, ignoring Hervé with exquisite deliberation, leans forward to gather Margaret’s thin veiny hands into his own. “It is a magnificent gift, chère madame,” he says in his gravelly voice. She giggles like a girl, and he grins at her the same way he grins at me when I remember to employ the subjunctive after “il faut que.” Manu wants me to learn good French, and I do too.
“Oh, tosh,” she murmurs as she leaps up and heads to the kitchen. “It’s a trifling thing.”
Manu looks at me and shakes his head. It’s definitely not a trifling thing. One morning Margaret’s daughter left the apartment to attend class at the Sorbonne and never returned. The extensive police inquiry that followed came up empty. Margaret, already a widow, became that saddest of all things, a mother who lost her child. She had a serious breakdown, and still remains physically and emotionally fragile. Manu told me this so I could understand and forgive her occasionally erratic behavior.
This is why, while she’s in the little kitchen fiddling with the espresso pot, I wrap up all the baby clothes and return them to their carton. She should have a chance to renege on her generous impulse. Margaret already does so much for me. Taking more advantage of her than I already am would just be wrong.
I’m folding up the last diminutive cashmere onesie when my phone vibrates.
It’s what I’ve been expecting to happen all evening. On one level I’ve even been longing for it to happen. Yet when it does, I leap out of my chair as if zapped by a cattle prod, and the phone tumbles onto the carpet.
Manu tilts his head to try to read what’s on the touchscreen. Hervé, who’s rattling on about a vintage wine cellar a friend of his just inherited, doesn’t even glance at the fallen object. He’s in agreement with Margaret, or she with him, that electronic devices have no place at social occasions. “It is an insult to the host,” he said the first time he saw me take out my phone at a restaurant and place it on the white tablecloth next to my plate. You’d have thought it was a dirty gym sock.
I scoop up the phone and palm it against my thigh. It landed face up, and even by candlelight I was able to read the name over the text message: William Brodie. Not that I needed to. In my new French world, the only person who texts me is Manu. So who else could it be?
For a moment I stand perfectly still, savoring my surroundings. The butter-pat yellow walls, the chocolate and robin’s egg blue Aubusson carpet, the clove-dark beams crisscrossing the creamy plaster ceiling—how I love this place. In these last few months it has come to feel like my place. The job I have with Manu feels like my job. The life I have here, in Paris, feels like my life.
William is known for not liking surprises. But, boy, he sure likes having the element of surprise.
“Excuse me,” I mumble as I hurry out of the room.
three
As I’m locking the bathroom door behind me, my phone vibrates a second time. Then a third. In fact, I don’t think it’s stopped vibrating since it started.
I sit on the lip of the footed porcelain tub and watch in amazement as a long string of text messages downloads one after another.
Ames. Hey. I just landed in Paris.
In taxi now.
Btw, happy 30th.
Staying at same hotel you stayed in before. Room v small. Noisy buses going past every 3 mins.
You getting these?
Going out to eat now. Pizza joint around corner.
Just back from dinner. Amy, where are you?
Amy. Cut your crap.
I know you’re getting these.
WTF?
Answer me NOW. I don’t have all night.
Amy I’m warning you.
Listen. Really tired. Going to bed now. Expect to hear from you tomorrow.
I put down the phone. Whoa.
From the timestamps, and the contents, I can tell these messages were composed and sent over the course of the last six or seven hours. But for whatever reason they all arrived just now, together. William’s phone must have had trouble connecting to the French service provider.
I read through the thread two more times. It’s comical in a way. Taken as a group, these messages could form a kind of highlight reel of our brief courtship and marriage. When I met William, at an office holiday party given by the company where we both worked, he was even-tempered and friendly. Factual. Genial. Charming even.
But as time passed, he grew impatient with me. Suspicious of my activities, dismissive of my troubles. Finally, at the end, he grew angry. Cold. Withholding.
Oh William. Was it my fault? Did I drive you to this behavior?
I scroll up and down the thread. Well, at least he remembers today is my thirtieth birthday. But that’s not so terribly surprising, when you think about it. William is super good at k
eeping track of dates. He’s never once forgotten to present me with a heart-shaped box of See’s chocolates on February 14th or a dozen long-stemmed roses on September 4th, my birthday. The reason is simple: Dates are numbers, and numbers are his thing.
There’s one more text, I now see. It consists of a single emoji—a big fat red question mark.
Weird. William learning to use emojis is not a development I would have predicted. Emojis are frivolous and open to misinterpretation. Texting itself is not fun for William, who hates typing on his phone. “The user interface is suboptimal for my thumbs,” he once complained to me. I laughed at the time—he’s such a geek—and can’t help smiling a little now.
If only I had Kat to tell all this to. After all, if husband William can rematerialize in my life out of thin air, why not best friend Kat?
I get up and walk to the window, a lump forming at the back of my throat. Kat always knew the right thing to do. Even when she was wrong she was right, because Kat had a way of making me feel better about myself, my life, my everything. And then cancer came and took her away, stealing her life from her and her friendship from me.
The windowpane feels flat and cold against my forehead as I try to peer through the thick, almost opaque, glass. All summer I’ve been amazed at how late the sun stays up in Paris, which is much farther north of the equator than Phoenix. Now I’m amazed at how sunset seems to arrive five minutes earlier every day. But even if it were light outside, which it isn’t, and I could see the street from this window, which I can’t, I would never have the chance of spotting Kat as I still so often imagine her: striding along the sidewalk, a snarky grin on her face, her honey-colored hair long and thick and wavy, the way it used to be before the chemo.
Kat. Her death last spring is the real reason I snapped and came to Paris for my original “break.” All through her long illness, we talked about and planned the trip to Paris we’d take when she got better. But she never got better. So after she died, I went on the trip alone, as a solace. An escape. A time in between my life as it was and my life as it was going to be. It didn’t seem like too much to ask. William’s opinion on this would differ, of course.
Paris Ever After Page 2