“Why did you do that?” Charles-Edouard asked him solemnly. “I told you to hold the egg, not put it in your ear.” In spite of himself and the trauma he’d been through, Ian grinned. “Now, this is very serious. Hold the egg please. And this time don’t move. Ah, so, and a carrot in this hand. Excellent. Please listen to instructions, I’m a very important chef.” Ian was smiling by then. And this time the egg appeared to come out of his nose, and the carrot from the neck of his shirt. Ian guffawed as Charles-Edouard did his tricks. Within five minutes, he had Ian giggling, and then squealing with laughter, as another egg came out of his sweatshirt, and a lemon from his jeans. “I can’t trust you at all, can I?” Charles-Edouard said, suddenly doing a juggling act with three eggs, several vegetables, and two spoons. It was executed flawlessly until one of the eggs fell and broke on the floor, and Ian screamed with laughter at the mess. Charles-Edouard pretended to be embarrassed and then dropped the other eggs on the floor and made an even bigger mess. Everyone was grinning by then, and Ian looked up at the tall man with the white mane and told him he was really silly. But Ian was talking again and even laughing. It brought tears to Francesca’s eyes as she watched them. He was wonderful with the boy. He was as good a clown as he was a cook.
Marya cleaned up the mess before they made a bigger one, and Charles-Edouard sat down and put Ian on his knee. “Would you like to help me make dinner?” he asked him, and Ian nodded, and a few minutes later he had a chef’s hat on the boy and was showing him how to cook lobster and crab and he demanded a round of applause for his young sous-chef when he served it. And he had taught Ian how to make pizza, and tossed the dough high in the air while he did. And once again the dinner was delicious. But better than that, Ian was talking a blue streak. Chris thanked him when they shared more Cuban cigars in the garden, and Charles-Edouard acted as though it were nothing. But it meant the world to Chris. The world-famous chef had won his heart forever for what he had done with Ian. He was better than any social worker or shrink.
It was a quiet night after Charles-Edouard left. He had promised to come back and cook dinner for them over the weekend, and Marya had suggested that Francesca invite her mother, which she dreaded, but she knew that she would love it.
She called her mother the next day and invited her, and she accepted. And the following day Chris had the custody hearing, which was a media circus. His ex-wife’s lawyers made no attempt to fight it. They had their hands full trying to get Kimberly’s manslaughter charges dropped. Chris’s lawyer had already warned them that he would be seeking permanent custody of Ian, with a vengeance this time. He had no mercy left for Kim after what she’d done, and exposed Ian to again and again. And he was awarded temporary custody at the hearing. It was on the news that night, and Francesca’s mother happened to see it and called her immediately when she did.
“Do you know who that man is?” She was enormously impressed by who he was related to. Francesca was more so by his humility and discretion.
“Yes, I do.”
“He’s related to some of the most powerful people in this country.”
“I guess he is. He doesn’t talk about it. And this whole thing with his ex-wife is really hard on him, and his son.”
“She sounds like a complete mess. I feel sorry for her parents.”
“I feel sorry for her son. He’s seven years old, and he’s been through a lot of trauma thanks to her.” Her mother didn’t comment.
“I can’t believe you have Charles-Edouard Prunier cooking dinner tomorrow night. I’m looking forward to it,” she said, switching to pleasanter subjects. “How did you pull that off?”
“He’s a friend of Marya’s.”
“You certainly got yourself some interesting roommates,” her mother said, sounding amused, as though it had been her idea. That was usually how things worked with her. If things turned out badly, it was someone else’s fault. If they turned out well, she was responsible for it and took full credit. Francesca would have liked to have her father and Avery too, but she enjoyed her parents more separately than together. Her mother got competitive with Avery sometimes, which was stressful for Francesca.
Her mother arrived for dinner on Saturday night, dressed to the nines, in a short sexy black dress and very high heels. Francesca saw Charles-Edouard’s eyes open wide when he saw her, and Marya looked amused. She was wearing loafers, a black sweater, and jeans, with her chef’s jacket. Ian was wearing his chef’s hat again, and looked pleased.
They had capellini with caviar, and Chateaubriand with foie gras and black truffles. It was an exquisite meal, and her mother got a little giddy on the wines, and predictably, she flirted mercilessly with Charles-Edouard, and Marya didn’t seem to mind at all.
“He is divine, isn’t he,” Thalia commented to her daughter when the men went outside to smoke cigars, and Ian went with them. He was wearing both rings from the cigars.
“Don’t get too worked up, Mom,” Francesca teased her. “He’s married. And French. That means he won’t get divorced for you.”
“You never know, stranger things have happened,” she said confidently.
“Not in France,” she and Marya said in unison, and then they laughed. Eileen had gone out. She said she had a date with a new man. She was the busiest girl in town, and the happiest these days. Things seemed to be going well for her. Francesca was pleased. She loved her job and her roommates, and she was having fun again after the incident with Brad. He was history.
“He’s certainly a very handsome, charming man,” Thalia said admiringly about Charles-Edouard, and Francesca brought her to earth and told her he had been in love with Marya for years.
“That’s not fair,” Thalia complained directly to Marya. “You don’t even want a man. You said so. I do, and he’s in love with you.”
“He’s not in love with anyone,” Marya said easily. “He just likes women. In quantity. We’ve been good friends for years.”
“What a waste,” Thalia said mournfully, as they walked back in, and she tried her charms on the famous chef again. And even though she had always embarrassed her, Francesca had to admit that her mother was beautiful. She looked sensational in the black dress and high heels, and she had the legs of a twenty-year-old as she crossed them enticingly, but Charles-Edouard only had eyes for Marya, and was unimpressed. Her mother looked a little deflated when she left. For once, her beauty and charm hadn’t worked, although he thought her a very beautiful woman, but not for him. And besides, Francesca thought to herself, he had a wife. There were a few too many women floating in his soup.
It was another perfect evening thanks to him, with lots of interesting conversation and great food. He had a passion for history and literature, as well as food. And it was a lazy Sunday the next day. Charles-Edouard came to pick up Marya, and wanted to try a new Chinese restaurant with her. He knew the chef, and had met him in Beijing. Chris and Ian were going to the model boat pond. Francesca had things to do in the house, and Eileen hadn’t come home the night before.
Francesca was looking at slides of new artists on a light box that afternoon when she heard Eileen come in. She called out to her but couldn’t see her from where she was sitting, and Eileen headed up the stairs. Francesca got up to get more slides then, and she caught a glimpse of Eileen hunched over and barely able to move. She turned to look at Francesca with a look of devastation, as Francesca caught her breath. She had been beaten up again.
“Who did that to you?” Francesca asked her as she put an arm around her to help her. Eileen was crying, and she refused to say. “Did you see Brad again?” And slowly Eileen nodded.
“He was so nice to me. He’s so loving, and then I upset him again. He thought I was making fun of him. He said I humilated him in front of his friends.”
“Eileen, swear to me you’ll get help. You can’t see him again.”
“I know. He said he never wants to see me again. He says he’s through with me, and never to call him again. He’s gone.” Francesca kne
w now that he wasn’t and never would be. He’d be back. To do it to her again. She had to be the one to walk away. And Francesca’s worst fear was that Eileen didn’t have the courage or the strength.
She helped Eileen upstairs to bed and left her there. Francesca felt sick, thinking about her, as she went back down the stairs. Chris’s fears for her had been well founded. Eileen was hooked on the man and the abuse.
Chapter 12
THE RESIDENTS OF 44 Charles Street were less sympathetic to Eileen this time. Marya gave her a motherly lecture, after bringing her soup and soft foods for five days. This time Brad had not only blackened her eyes, and made mincemeat of her face, he had loosened her teeth. She had to see the dentist twice in three days. Marya told her that she couldn’t allow herself to see him again. Francesca was being firm with her and begging her to get help. And Chris wanted nothing to do with her.
“I’m tired of lunatics and addicts and self-destructive people,” he said harshly to Francesca. “She’s addicted to the guy, and even if you chain her to the wall in her room, she’ll sneak out to see him, and he’ll beat her up again. She’s too sick. I went through the same thing with Kim and drugs. You can’t fight people’s addictions, and I’ve gotten smart enough not to try. She’ll do anything to protect her addiction. It’s no different than drugs. You can’t fix them, or stop them, and you’ll break your heart trying.”
“I can’t just sit there and not say anything to her about it,” Francesca insisted. She thought Chris sounded very cold.
“You’re wasting your time. She has to want to get help, and until she does, nothing you do or say will have any effect on her.”
It was heartbreaking to watch, and Francesca hated to see the condition she was in. She was such a sweet girl, with no self-esteem whatsoever. That was clear now. Her father had pummeled it out of her. Abuse was what she expected and thought she deserved.
Her employers were equally fed up with her. She had to take a week off, until she could cover the bruises with makeup. And when she went back to work, they fired her. She came back to the house in shock that afternoon. She was out of a job. Brad was no longer speaking to her and had told her he wanted nothing more to do with her. He had shut her out, and she kept asking Francesca if she thought he would ever call again. It was sick.
“I hope not” was all Francesca would say to her, but she was beginning to realize that Chris was right, and the abuse was an addiction. She was having withdrawal from not seeing Brad even if he abused her. And she refused to get help. Francesca just hoped he would stay away long enough for Eileen to come to her senses and to detox from him.
And Ian’s mother was demanding to see her son in jail. Chris flatly refused, and claimed it would destroy him. Two psychiatrists who spoke to Ian agreed. He was happy with his father and leading a normal life with him. He and Chris were doing healthy, normal things.
Charles-Edouard was spending a lot of time at the house these days to see Marya, and do the preliminary work on their book together, and Ian was his shadow whenever he was there. He was teaching him French and to cook simple things. He loved the boy, and was wonderful with children, although he had never wanted any of his own. But he felt sorry for Ian and all he’d been through. Ian particularly loved it when Charles-Edouard pretended to pull an egg out of his ear, and sometimes two, and begged him to do it again, and the flamboyant chef did.
“He’s around quite a bit these days, isn’t he?” Francesca mentioned casually one day when she was alone in the kitchen with Marya.
“We’re working on the book,” she said innocently.
“Are you sure he’s so devoted to his wife?” Francesca asked, hoping he wasn’t. They were so cute together. She would have loved to see Marya with him, who always insisted that would never happen and believed it. And she had no intention of having an affair with a married man, and Charles-Edouard knew it, although he still tried to convince her, as he had for thirty years. Marya just laughed at him, and reminded him regularly of his marriage and wife at home.
He was leaving for Paris shortly, at the end of the month, and to the South after that. Marya was planning to meet him in July to work on their book there. And then she was going to Spain on her own, and Italy after that, all to visit chefs she knew and restaurants she wanted to explore. And she wanted to spend August in Vermont, before she came back to New York in September. She was going to be away for more than two months, and Francesca knew she would miss her. Francesca was trying to figure out her own summer plans. Marya invited her to Europe with her, as did her mother, but Francesca wanted to go sailing in Maine with friends as she did every summer, and had for four years with Todd. They were friends of his, but she loved them dearly and they had become her friends as well. Todd was planning to visit them too with his fiancée, but at a different time.
“That’s not healthy,” her mother pointed out to her. “You’re doing the same things you did with him. You need to do something new.” Her mother was going to St. Tropez and Sardinia, as she did every year. She was a creature of habit too. But Chris commented on it to Francesca as well.
“Are you sure you want to go to the same place he is, even if you go on different weeks? That sounds a little dicey to me.” They both knew Todd was going with his fiancée.
“I love sailing in Maine,” she said stubbornly.
“You can come and visit me and Ian in Martha’s Vineyard. We’d love to have you.” Chris would be in Martha’s Vineyard with Ian for all of July and most of August. He was planning to do work while he was at the Vineyard. His family had an enormous compound there, but she felt odd doing that. She and Chris were just friends, and now that she knew who his family was, she thought they were too high-powered for her. She would have been scared to death. She had thought about going to a ranch in Montana or Wyoming to see the Grand Tetons, but she didn’t want to go alone. Her father and Avery were going to Aspen, but she didn’t want to go there either, nor to Europe with her mother or Marya. She didn’t know where to go, and she couldn’t afford an expensive vacation. It was easier to go sailing in Maine again, on her friends’ boat. She resisted the idea that she was running the gallery she had started with Todd, living in the house they had bought together, and spending the same summer vacation she had shared with him for years.
“Maybe you need to let go of some of that,” Chris suggested gently. She was stuck in a rut. She couldn’t seem to think of anything to do that she hadn’t done with Todd. But she didn’t want to admit it, even to herself. At least sailing in Maine would be a change of scenery, relaxing, and fresh air. She had always had fun there. She was going for the first three weeks of August.
The only one who had no summer plans was Eileen, and she couldn’t afford to go anywhere now, since she was out of a job. She had enough money put aside to keep her afloat for two months, and she figured she’d have a job by then. Francesca suggested she go home to San Diego to see her family, but she didn’t want to. And after her stories about her father, Francesca didn’t insist. She felt sorry for her, she had nowhere to go. But every day was a vacation for Eileen now that she wasn’t working. She had started to send her résumé around to various special ed schools, but no one had offered her anything so far. Her references from her previous job were not good, from taking too much time off work, thanks to Brad. It wasn’t helping her find a new one. Brad had not only injured her, he had cost her her livelihood. She still hadn’t heard from him, and Francesca was relieved. Maybe he was gone for good. Chris knew better and doubted it.
“An abuser never loses sight of his prey. He’ll be back.”
“Maybe he’s found someone else to beat up,” Francesca said cynically.
“He’ll be back anyway,” Chris said. He was barely speaking to Eileen now. Her addiction reminded him too much of his wife, and he had suffered too much from it, to want another addict in his life, even as a friend. As far as he was concerned, their pathology was all the same, and he thought that Eileen’s addiction to abus
e was pathological, which made it so hard for her to give up. And with no job, she spent most of her time now in bed, crying and missing Brad, and not looking for a job as she should. Francesca could see that she was spiraling down and had no way to stop it.
Charles-Edouard was the first of the group to leave, when he went back to France, and it created a real void. It had been a lot more exciting when the flamboyant Frenchman was around, and Marya admitted she missed him too, but she was meeting him in Provence in a few weeks, to work with him on the book.
“Maybe he’ll leave his wife this summer,” Francesca said hopefully, and Marya just laughed. She wasn’t expecting him to and said she wouldn’t know what to do with him if he did.
“There’s no room in my life for a man,” she said to Francesca practically. “I like my life the way it is. I’m comfortable like this. Besides, I’m too old to find a man, and I don’t want one.” Francesca couldn’t help thinking again how different she was from her mother. Thalia’s only hope was that she was going to meet a man in St. Tropez or Porto Cervo. She was meeting friends everywhere, and planned to be away for two months, as she did every year. She was even meeting friends in Venice for an enormous party. Her summer was always much more glamorous than her daughter’s, or anyone else’s that Francesca knew.
Chris and Ian left for Martha’s Vineyard for the Fourth of July weekend. Chris’s family were planning picnics and barbecues, and family football games, and Ian would be spending the summer with his cousins, far from the agonies he’d been through with his mother. It was going to be good for him, and for Chris. And there were always lots of parties at the Vineyard and all of his old friends. It was a life that Chris assiduously avoided all year, but always gave in to in the summer. His parents would be there, although he wasn’t close to them, and they wanted to see Ian. Ian was going to visit his mother’s family too, in Newport, on the way home. Chris hated it there, it was too social, but he had promised to take Ian to see them for a long weekend. It was all he was willing to do. They were still staunchly defending their daughter, blamed Chris for leaving her, and had denial about her problems, although that was harder to do now, with manslaughter charges pending. She was still in jail, and despite all of her father’s manipulations, the judge had refused to set bail. She was detoxing in jail.
44 Charles Street Page 13