A Perfect Life: A Novel

by Danielle Steel

  “Sorry,” he said apologetically. “I couldn’t sleep, and Salima said you have breakfast at five o’clock every day. I figured I’d make myself useful.” He didn’t tell her that the bed was much too small and his legs hung off the end. He didn’t want to complain. It was hard enough having him there, and he knew it. Whatever he did, right or wrong, he wasn’t Abby. For Salima, it was a felony. For her mother, an unwelcome invasion. The barbarians were not just at the gate, they were in her home, and her kitchen. He could read it in her eyes.

  “I like making my own,” she said simply, as she sat down at the kitchen table, opened the papers, and didn’t say another word. He felt as though he had committed a crime making her coffee. She never thanked him, she didn’t want to encourage him to do it again, and he had gotten the message, he wouldn’t. He planned to stay out of the kitchen in the morning from now on. He had read her loud and clear, and he had to admit it was early. And he was a creature of habit too, so he respected that in her.

  He heard the front door close when she left for work, and the apartment was silent. Salima was still asleep. The housekeeper didn’t come till ten. And Eric called him at eight.

  “How’s it going?” He sounded optimistic but concerned. He was checking on all his teachers who had gone home with kids. So far, everyone was happy, and the parents were grateful and relieved to have help at home.

  “A little rugged,” Simon admitted. “Salima is heartbroken over Abby. And I think her mother hates men, in her house anyway. She’s not used to having Salima here either. It’s a little dicey. We’re all adjusting. And Abby must have treated her like a five-year-old, more than any of us knew. She did everything for her except chew her food. She infantilized her completely. We have a long way to go here, just to get her up to speed. And no one is enthused about that project. Salima’s mother keeps telling me not to rock the boat.” Simon sounded exasperated as he explained the situation to him. He was trying to be zen about it, but it was a challenge.

  “I’m sorry, Simon,” Eric said sincerely. “I know she babied her, and they had a very close relationship, so it’s hard to make changes. And it’s very soon. And I think that her mother liked Abby’s style. She never objected to how cocooned she was when Salima went home. I think it assuages some of her guilt for not having her at home, and having a demanding career.”

  “Maybe,” Simon said thoughtfully. He was trying to figure it out and be patient. “The apartment really isn’t big enough for me. Or even for Salima. It’s set up very nicely for a single woman. Salima is in Siberia, at the end of a long hall, and pretty isolated, and I’m in a maid’s room behind the kitchen, which is fine, but there’s nowhere for me to sit without annoying someone. I made a major faux pas this morning, and made her coffee at five A.M. before she left for work. She looked pissed. I guess she doesn’t like talking to anyone before she goes to work.” He was walking on eggshells, and Eric could hear it and felt bad for him. He was such a decent, capable guy, he hated to have them make him so uncomfortable, but he’d had no one else to send home with Salima, or he would have. And Blaise was right, a woman would have been easier, in close quarters with Salima and her mother.

  “See how it goes and keep me posted,” Eric said, sounding concerned. He was wondering if he should say something to Blaise. He didn’t want Simon to quit, or just walk off the job, but he knew Simon wouldn’t do that, he was tenacious, and brilliant at what he did. Eric knew that if anyone could turn it around, he could. But they clearly didn’t appreciate his skills. He was the best teacher Eric had. He was a natural problem solver and creative thinker.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll make it work,” Simon said, trying to sound hopeful, but he wasn’t. And the day got off to a bad start when Salima woke up and found her way into the kitchen, and she gave a start when Simon said good morning. She acted as though she didn’t expect him to be there.

  “Did you sleep okay?” He tried to sound more casual than he felt. She looked ravaged, and was still in deep grief over Abby.

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said, slumped at the kitchen table.

  “What would you like for breakfast?” he asked cheerfully, ready to make her anything she wanted. He was a great short-order chef, but she had no reason to know it.

  “Poison,” she said glumly, staring into space, and not looking in his direction. With his students, he always made them look in the direction of the person speaking. It was a good habit to get into, even if they couldn’t see them. But he said nothing to her. It was too soon.

  “Sorry. I’m fresh out. No poison today. How about bacon and eggs? Or whole wheat pancakes?”

  “Abby always made me special waffles. But we don’t have a waffle iron here. My mother doesn’t believe in keeping fattening foods in the house, and she always wants me on a diet for my weight and diabetes,” Salima said unhappily. Simon was aware that Blaise was very slim, but Salima wasn’t much bigger. And he was well aware of the diet Salima needed to follow for her diabetes.

  “I can buy a waffle iron today and keep it in my room.” Maybe under the bed or in my closet, or on my head, he thought to himself. Salima looked in his direction then and smiled.

  “She’ll get mad if she finds out,” Salima warned him.

  “Then don’t tell her.” He was trying to find a way to ally with Salima, and if a waffle iron would do it, he was willing to risk her mother’s ire. “What are we going to do today? After breakfast.” He wanted to get some food into her first. She looked depressed, and he thought food might help.

  “I just want to stay here.” She seemed lifeless as she said it.

  “I have some errands to do, and I need your help. I don’t know the neighborhood, and I haven’t been to New York in a year.” She didn’t look enthused at the prospect. “Which reminds me, I need a bunch of phone numbers, and things off the Internet. I’d like you to get them for me on your computer.” It was a way to get her involved.

  “Can’t you do that yourself? I’m not your secretary,” she said tartly. He didn’t respond or react.

  “I need some new CDs too. I forgot all of mine at school.” It wasn’t true, but he wanted to buy music with her and see what she liked.

  As he chatted with her, he scrambled some eggs, cooked two slices of bacon, made some toast, and set it down in front of her. She could smell it cooking, and she looked unimpressed when he put a fork in her hand.

  “Eat, get dressed. Then we’ll go out.” She didn’t thank him for breakfast, but as she started to eat, he could see from the look on her face that she liked it. She really was a child.

  “The eggs are good,” she finally admitted. “What if I won’t go out?” He knew she was testing him, and he didn’t want to react.

  “Let’s see, what would be suitable punishment for that?” He took her comment lightly, which seemed to be the best way to handle her. “Set your hair on fire maybe? Steal your favorite CD? Lock you in your room and refuse to feed you? Make you eat brussels sprouts?”

  “I like brussels sprouts,” she said, smiling again. She almost liked him sometimes, but not quite. He wasn’t Abby. But she could tell he was smart. She had hardly ever spoken to him at school. He was in a cottage with younger boys.

  “Then that won’t work. What food do you hate most?”

  “Beans, of any kind.”

  “Good. Beans. If you won’t go out with me, you’ll have to eat beans for a week.”

  “You can’t make me,” she said, sounding belligerent again.

  “Eat beans?”

  “No. Go out.”

  “Yes, I can. I can force you to do all kinds of horrible things with me. Like advise me about what music to buy. Something tells me you know a lot about music.”

  “I just like to sing.” Her face brightened as she said it.

  “Like what?”

  “Anything. I’ve always loved to sing. It makes me happy.” He was smiling at her as she said it. He had found the key to the secret garden. She had just handed it to him. />
  “Can you play the piano?” he asked, and she shook her head in answer.

  “I never wanted to practice. I’m lazy,” she confessed.

  “I can. My mother made me practice every day. But it’s kind of fun to know how.” He didn’t offer to play for her, and she didn’t ask. And a few minutes later she got up and started to walk out of the kitchen, and left her empty plate on the table. She had eaten everything he’d made her.

  “Excuse me,” he said, stopping her with his tone of voice, and she looked surprised. “Table service, please. You need to put that plate in the dishwasher.” He sounded casual, and she looked stunned. Abby would never have said that to her, and hadn’t in five years.

  “I don’t have to do that,” she informed him in a supercilious tone.

  “Yes, you do,” he said simply. “You’re not my secretary. I’m not your maid. That’s how it works.” He didn’t mention cooking as part of the deal, but he wanted to give her good habits, and she had very few. She was polite but used to Abby waiting on her hand and foot. Those days were over, and only for her own good.

  “My mother doesn’t expect me to bus dishes. We have a maid.”

  “That’s pretty rude, isn’t it? Why should you leave that for her? It takes two seconds to rinse it and put it in the machine.” Salima hesitated for a long moment, and then she picked the plate up off the table, walked to the sink, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher. She did it perfectly. And then with a haughty look, she walked out of the kitchen and back to her room. Round one, Simon thought to himself. And she hadn’t had the guts to defy him completely, which was good. She was back in the kitchen half an hour later. She could hear him in the room, and he was pleased to see that she was dressed to go out, in jeans and a red leather jacket. She was a very pretty girl, with her long dark hair, and she had on dark glasses, which she wore when she went out.

  “You look nice,” he said admiringly. “I like your jacket.”

  “Me too. It’s red,” she said, as though he didn’t know. She was proud that she did. Abby had put a little slip of paper in Braille in the pocket, which told her the color.

  “I know. And I like your Ray-Bans. Are you ready to go out?”

  “I guess so,” she said, sounding cautious. “Where are we going?”

  “Music store first. Did you look it up?”

  “I know where the closest one is. I always stock up there. I download music, but I like buying CDs too.”

  “Close enough to walk?” She nodded, and he got up, pleased that she was willing to go out. And he glanced at her as they were about to leave. “Do you have your stick?” He meant a white one with a red tip, to identify her as blind and guide her while they walked.

  “I don’t use one.” He looked surprised by her response.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t need it. I just hang on to Abby when we go out.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather have a little more mobility than just hanging on to me?”

  “No, that’s fine.” She didn’t want to identify herself as blind, but he thought she should use a stick, since she didn’t have a dog. He wondered about that and asked her about it as they set out down the street toward the music store.

  “Why no dog?” She had her hand tucked into his arm as they walked.

  “I hate dogs. I got bitten once by a German shepherd when I was a little kid. All guide dogs are German shepherds.”

  “That’s not true. Some are Labs. They’re nice, and they don’t bite. That might give you more freedom.”

  “I don’t need freedom, or a dog,” she said, shutting down again, but she opened up the minute they got to the music store and spent two hours picking CDs. She introduced him to some bands and singers that he didn’t know, and gave him good advice. And she picked out twenty new CDs for herself, some of them old groups, and others new ones. She had very eclectic taste in music, which Simon found interesting. She had fun and so did Simon. He was getting to know her through music. Whatever worked.

  And after the music store, he took her to a lively place for lunch. She said she wasn’t hungry, but he insisted he was starving, which wasn’t true. But she went to be polite, and they talked all through lunch about what interested her, her values, her philosophies, how she felt about her father hardly ever seeing her, her mother’s career. She began to lay the keys to the kingdom at his feet.

  For Blaise, the day had gotten off to a bad start. First, she found herself face to face with Simon before she even had a cup of coffee. He was in the kitchen before she’d fully woken up. She hated talking to anyone in the morning, even if she’d slept with them the night before. Early morning was a sacred time to her. And she felt as though her life had been invaded from the moment he handed her the cup of coffee until she left for work.

  Then her usual hairdresser didn’t show up for work. Blaise was unhappy with what the replacement girl did to her hair, and she thought she looked a mess when she went on the air.

  To make matters worse, after finishing her morning segment, she saw Susie Q sucking up to one of the network executives who was on the set. Watching her made Blaise feel sick. She was so obvious it turned her stomach.

  And the rest of the day was a series of annoyances and aggravations. Tully was on vacation so she had a driver she didn’t like. By the time she got home that night, an hour later than usual, due to traffic, all she wanted was to take a bath and go to bed. Instead there was music blaring in the house, on the stereo system she never used. She could tell that it was Salima’s music. She could hear her singing. And Blaise could hear voices in the kitchen. She walked in with a scowl on her face.

  “What are you doing?” she said to Simon in a harsh voice. The day was ending as it had started, with Simon in her space.

  “Cooking dinner,” he said calmly. He was wearing an apron, and he had Salima handing him ingredients. Their day had gone very well. She was teaching him the difference between reggae and ska. And she also loved jazz and blues, just as he did. They had bought a lot of CDs. However, the one on the stereo just then was not one that her mother loved. “It will be ready in ten minutes,” Simon warned her, “or longer if you need more time.”

  “I told you not to cook dinner,” she snapped at him. “And I’m not hungry,” she said rudely.

  “We are,” he said simply. “You don’t have to join us if you don’t want.” She stalked off to her room then, and Simon put a soufflé in the oven, as Salima sat nearby.

  “What are you making?” She sounded curious, and the smells in the kitchen were delicious.

  “You’ll see. I hope you like it. It’s an old family recipe I learned from a chef in Paris. Just not my family. No one in my family can cook. My mother’s cooking would kill you, except for blood sausage, which I love.”

  “Yerghk.” Salima made a face. They had gone to the butcher after the music store, and he was making leg of lamb, “gigot,” with lots of garlic. Blaise could smell it in her room and was annoyed, but she washed her face and hands and walked back to the kitchen, just as he took the soufflé out of the oven. She looked surprised. And the table was set for all three of them. He had Salima do it. She said she hadn’t done that since she was a child. Probably before she went blind, he guessed. For the past eleven years she had done no chores at all. That was clear.

  “You made soufflé?” Blaise was stunned, and warmed up a little as they sat down at the table together. And she had to admit, the cheese soufflé was superb. They all had second helpings. And the gigot was just as good, maybe better. He had made mashed potatoes to go with it, and tossed a salad. It was a spectacular meal, with fresh fruit for dessert. “This is like eating in a four-star restaurant,” Blaise complimented him. It was an absolutely delicious dinner, which put all of them in a good mood. They sat around the table afterward, looking relaxed. And he made an infusion of fresh mint for Blaise. “Where did you learn to cook like that?” She was intrigued. He was a man of many faces, talents, and skills, and all of them ple
asant so far. She knew she had been less than nice to him. And she noticed that Salima seemed to have eased up on him that day. She hoped she wasn’t falling for him. But at least she couldn’t see his good looks. Blaise was grateful for that. He was a very handsome man.

  “I went to cooking school in Paris,” he told her, “after college and before I went to grad school. It’s something I always wanted to do. Cooking is fun.”

  “Where did you do it?”

  “Cordon Bleu,” he said shamelessly, and she laughed.

  “No wonder. You should be opening a restaurant, not teaching at a school.”

  “I like both,” he said easily. “I like cooking for my friends. It relaxes me.”

  “Well, it certainly was a spectacular meal.” She stood up, as Salima helped him clear the table, and her mother looked surprised. She suspected that was Simon’s doing too, and she didn’t comment. It wouldn’t hurt her to put the dishes in the sink, and she looked happier than she had the day before. Blaise was sure she still missed Abby terribly, but at least she wasn’t fighting Simon, for now.

  Blaise was about to leave the kitchen, when he turned from the sink to ask her something. “I see that you have a piano. Do you mind if I play?” She looked surprised again.

  “No, that’s fine. As long as you don’t play too late, or my neighbors will have a fit.”

  “I won’t.” He finished loading the dishwasher with Salima, and she thanked him for dinner and went to her room, while Simon quietly walked into the living room and sat down at the piano, opened it, and began to play. He didn’t play anything in particular, he started with show tunes, and played some of his favorites from the sixties, including a number of Beatles songs, and by the time he got to them, he saw Salima appear like a ghost. Blaise was listening in her room too. You could hear his playing throughout the apartment, and he was good. Maybe not as good as he was a chef, but it was close. And before she had reached the piano, Salima was singing to what he played. She knew all the songs, which was what he had hoped. He didn’t know her favorites yet. But once she heard the music, she couldn’t stay away. And Blaise could hear her too, and realized how clever he was. He was using the things Salima loved to establish a rapport with her.