Mickey straightened the pages on the table. The letter was in Sol’s handwriting, tight and cramped.
Dear Mickey,
I hope this letter finds you well. We were all relieved to hear you came through that bloody mess unscathed. Each day as word reached us about the war we thought of you.
I’m sending this letter ahead of Bebe’s departure and hope that it reaches you before she arrives in France.
Mickey, for this favor of taking Bebe, even if it is for a short while, longer if you want, I will owe you a favor in return. Know that you will only have to ask and it will be granted. You can call me on it anytime.
As I said to you in my last letter, you are my only hope. Bebe needs a woman like you in her life. She’s become wild and uncontrollable. She’s the darling of the newspapers here. They can’t wait to print what she does next. Each escapade is worse than the last.
I’ve tried to be both mother and father to her, but what she doesn’t need right now is more indulgence from me. As it is, when I told her I was sending her to you for a vacation she only agreed to make the trip if I bought her a Russian lynx coat. I don’t know any other sixteen-year-old girl who has such a coat! Like a fool I got it for her. That’s how desperate I am to get her out of here.
The enclosed bank draft should cover all Bebe’s needs.
Mickey, listen to this foolish man’s confession and don’t think me maudlin. I love Bebe so much it hurts me to see her carrying on like some two-bit floozie. Behind my back my friends call her a tramp. This is breaking my heart. I’ve made some bad business decisions because of the affairs in my house. You will put me forever in your debt if you take care of Bebe and return her to me a proper young lady, like her mother, rest her soul.
Warm affection,
Sol
Mickey read the letter a second and third time. It sounds, she mused, like Bebe needs a keeper. Sol must be in quite a state. To admit he had failed with his daughter and had made some bad business decisions made the matter doubly serious.
For a moment Mickey almost forgot the jealousy she’d felt at having a pretty young lady as her guest. From what Sol was saying, Bebe didn’t sound like she’d be much of a companion for serious-minded Daniel. What in the name of God was she to do with her at the château? Paris and the town house would undoubtedly suit Bebe better, but there she’d need a chaperone. Mickey shuddered to think how that would shatter her present blossoming idyll.
Curious now, she turned the bank draft over in her hands. Money enough for two years! Mon Dieu! Sol must be desperate.
Her head was beginning to pound, the usual painful indication that she was upset. First Reuben with his need for a commitment, and now this. Perhaps she should settle things with Reuben first and go on from there. Reuben would be happy. She would be…happier?
With a sigh, Mickey rose from the table and stuffed the letter, envelope, and all behind a stack of heavy mixing bowls in the cupboard. Reuben would come looking for her soon, and she didn’t want him to see her agitation. She was supposed to take something to him. What was it?…Ah, yes, apples. Ripe, juicy apples.
“It’s about time!” Reuben called cheerfully as he watched her walking toward him, rubbing the apples on her sides to bring up their shine. “I was about to call out the gendarmes.”
“I had to go all the way to the root cellar for these,” she teased, holding up her gifts. “Here is your apple, darling.” She tossed one of the rosy treasures to Reuben, who caught it deftly. “You look frozen, Reuben. Look how red your hands are. Come, let’s go into the barn, where it’s warm and we can talk. Bring the lap robe from the backseat.”
Reuben’s heart thudded. Mickey was finally going to talk to him about their situation. At once he felt giddy and fearful.
Minutes later they were settled comfortably in a mound of sweet-smelling hay, the lap robe over them. Overhead the sun shot through the ceiling-high window, lacing them with streaks of pure gold. Now that her mind was made up to talk to Reuben, Mickey felt relaxed. Her features were softer, her eyes warmer, her touch more gentle as she leaned against him.
Reuben was aware of all these changes and certain now that he was making the right decision. “I want to marry you,” he blurted out.
Mickey was silent for a few moments. Idly she let her fingers trail through Reuben’s thick dark hair while she composed her answer. “Darling, there’s nothing I would like more, but it cannot be. What we have is so precious, I cannot take the chance that we’d ruin this wonderful feeling. Marriage, I’m afraid, would make all the difference in the world. The difference in our ages matters.” She hushed him gently with her fingertips to his lips before she continued. “One very special reason is the most important one to face: I can’t give you children, and one day, my darling, you will want children. Because I love you, I cannot take that away from you. Yes, you heard me right, I love you. I never thought I would say those words to any man, much less one half my age. I do love you, with all my heart.”
“I don’t care about children. I can always adopt children. I want you. I want us to grow old together.” He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t even thought about it, and now, as he read Mickey’s face, he wished he could take the words back. Old age for him was so far into the future it didn’t even bear thinking about. Mickey’s old age was…closer at hand.
“Ah, you see, it creeps in in soft, subtle ways. It will always be there, pushed far back into your mind until I do something to anger you or if I displease you and the devil will let you pull it out. In the beginning it won’t matter too much, but later, when it happens more often, you will start to pay attention and wish you had done so much earlier. It’s enough for me, Reuben, that I can admit to you openly, to say the words aloud, that I love you as I’ve loved no other man, and I’m sure I will never, ever, love this way again. Now that I’ve said the words, you don’t appear to like them. You are scowling, chéri.”
He was scowling. He felt angry, but he didn’t know exactly why. She was telling him what he had wanted to hear these past weeks. In her own way she was allowing him to see her vulnerability, the nakedness of her emotions, something she’d guarded so carefully.
“That pretty much makes me a gigolo, doesn’t it,” he said in a flat, emotionless tone. “I’m living off you, and so is Daniel. The word protégé is far too generous. I really haven’t done much now, have I? I’ve taken you to bed, made love to you, eaten your food, drunk your wine, polished your car, and lazed about. I really haven’t contributed much. In fact, I haven’t contributed anything.”
Mickey untangled herself from the lap robe and leaned up on one elbow. Her eyes were hot and smoky-looking in the sunbeam-laden shadows of the barn. “Never a gigolo, Reuben. My lover, oui. I understand why you think like this and how you must feel. I can’t change circumstances. But I can refute what you say about not contributing. Who is with me when I see to the cellars, the account books, speak with my men in the fields? You. Who helps me in a thousand and one other ways in my other administrative chores? You! Anyway, I want to give to you, I must give to you. That’s how I show my love.” Her eyes clouded momentarily. “I’ve taken your love, love that should have been saved for that special woman who will be at your side, bearing your children and walking beside you as you climb the ladder to success. I don’t know if it was wrong of me or not. Selfish, of course. What are we to do, Reuben? Think logically and help me to understand what we should do.”
It was hard for Reuben to get the words past his lips, but he had to say them. “How long am I to stay here? Till you get tired of me? No lies, Mickey. I heard the stories about you before I came here. They said when you tire of your lovers, you send them off with a fistful of francs and a jewel. Is that what you’ll do to me? I can’t even get Daniel and myself back to America. I need to earn money. I can’t just keep taking from you. For Daniel, yes; for myself, no.”
Tears burned Mickey’s eyes. “I’m not buying you, Reuben. Yes, I did that with one or two other
s. However, I never told them I loved them, nor did I pretend. It was what it was. The francs and the jewels were so they would have a nest egg. Or perhaps I hoped they would keep the jewel to remember me. I could never send you away. When it is time to leave, it will be you who will make the decision. I love you too much, I am too selfish to send you off. As for your passage to America, if you decide to return, I will lend you the money at an agreed-upon interest rate. I trust you to pay me back. If you stay, your business is helping me with the management of the wineries. I will have my ‘right hand,’ and you will have a ‘position.’ I’ll pay you a salary. If you can’t see yourself doing that, I can send you to Paris to look after several shops I have there. You can stay in my town house. Tell me what you think.”
“I think you are trying to push me away…manage a Paris shop,” he said with contempt. “And when will I see you? At your convenience?”
“I will not dignify that remark with an answer.”
“I want you to marry me.”
“I think you want too much. One never, ever, gets the whole pie. Only pieces, and some only get slivers. You see, what we have now is best. If there are to be changes, you will be the one to make them. You needn’t feel pressured. For myself, I could go on for the rest of my life like this.” Thinking about her last statement, Mickey knew it for the awful lie it was. How very difficult it was to be young.
Reuben felt as though he’d been kicked in the stomach.
Mickey could not bear to see the torment and defeat in his eyes. She pulled him to her and laid his head on her breast. “Life is never easy, chéri. I learned in my life that one must take happiness where one finds it. You don’t look back nor do you look forward. Enjoy it now because it may…Never mind, chéri. I love you and you love me. That is all we have to concern ourselves with. Ah, and we must remember our friend, Daniel. He is so happy, and we, you and I, are the cause of it. You and I together are lighting up the world for that young man. If you give him more time here, he will be better prepared to continue his studies and realize his dream. Perhaps what we should both do for now is think of Daniel and what is best for him. That way, neither of us will lose. But we must both agree. And after we agree, we must finish polishing the car.” She tickled him under the chin, her eyes sparkling, until he laughed, a deep resonant sound she loved to hear.
The bad moments were over—but not forgotten. On the other side of the car, as Mickey put her final efforts into the motions of her hands on the polishing cloth, her heart fluttered wildly. Just a few more days.
Chapter Seven
Sixteen-year-old Bebe Rosen, all ninety-three pounds of her, arrived in Le Havre aboard the SS Americus days after her father’s letter was delivered to Mickey Fonsard.
Bebe Rosen was thought to be a beautiful young lady, a consensus with which Bebe herself wholeheartedly agreed. She was just five feet tall, but gifted with those long, elegant bones that lend gracefulness and the appearance of height: of course, as might be expected in one so young and lively, she added to this illusion with outrageous high-heeled shoes. Most of her fellow passengers on the Americus thought her to be at least twenty years old, and because of the color of her hair, which could be compared to the palest sunbeam, they had dubbed her “Golden Girl,” a title she loved. Her eyes were electric, green as bottle glass, fringed with a lush double row of dark eyelashes and crowned with fine arched brows. Her high cheekbones, always lightly dusted with pink rouge, gave definition to her delicate nose. Her jaw was sharply carved and served to enhance the elegance of her incredibly long neck. Lips, full, ripe, and rouged, would part to reveal small, perfectly aligned white teeth.
Bebe wasn’t just beautiful, she was elegant and sophisticated, an ethereal, pale vision that suggested vulnerability and fragility that only heightened her charms. She demanded compliments and adoration the way a baby demands its bottle and its mother’s arms.
Her crossing had been first class, naturally, and she had let it be known from the instant she’d placed her foot aboard the luxury liner that her father was a famous American filmmaker. There was already a certain aura of glamour attached to the West Coast movie business, and this announcement provided Bebe with instant popularity and the best seat in the dining room. She also had a bevy of eligible young men flitting about like bees to a flower. In spite of her youth, Bebe already knew how to use this power to get what she wanted.
She lied about her age whenever it suited her, and on the voyage across the Atlantic it suited her perfectly. Cocktails would be served to a young woman of twenty, milk to a child of sixteen. She lied about other things, too. For example, she said her brother was a famous lawyer who ran the legal department at Fairmont Studios, the family enterprise. She lied and said she’d been in several movies herself, and these exaggerations made her listeners believe that Fairmont was a first-rate studio instead of the third-rate quickie grinder that it was. She lied about her friendships with famous actresses and actors and hinted that certain male stars had courted her with gifts too valuable to mention.
Even the stodgy captain of the Americus had fallen under Bebe’s wily charms and asked her to talk her father into making a film aboard his ship; naturally, he’d gladly play the role of captain. She’d humored him. Later, dazzling listeners with a merry smile and mischievous eyes, she had called him a fat old man with bad breath, so ugly he’d break the camera lens.
Bebe Rosen had been the darling of the crossing. It had been a gay crowd to begin with because of the Armistice and the promise of a return to normalcy at last. And if she had left any young man’s heart shattered, she could not have cared less. What she did care about were the darting, envious glances of all the other women aboard the liner.
She was already a little tipsy on champagne when she tripped down the gangplank in her high heels, waving a gay au revoir to one and all. Her eyes searched for Aunt Mickey’s solicitor, who was to escort her to the railway station to book her passage to Marseilles. First class, of course, complete with sleeping berth, which she would not need during the three-hour trip, and a private sitting room.
It was a beautiful day for late November, crisp and cold with a bright sun warming the passengers still milling about the pier. Bebe smiled, wishing she were going along with the crowd to Paris. The pier was mostly quiet now, with all of the baggage having been sent on to different hotels or stored in automobiles waiting to take the last departing passengers to their destinations. A lone gull dove low, its wings spread, but as it neared land suddenly it swooped upward again. It appeared lonely, Bebe thought, almost as lonely as she felt. Damn, where was that attorney who was to meet her? She felt foolish as she tapped her foot, first in annoyance and then in anger.
As the minutes ticked by she grew more nervous and felt more abandoned. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, not really. Back in California she thought nothing of going from one party to the next at midnight. But California was her territory, her place. This was a foreign country filled with people who hardly spoke her own language. What if she missed her train? Mickey would be worried. If Sol knew she’d been left standing on an abandoned pier, he’d have a fit, too. Perhaps she should throw a tantrum, her usual course of action when things didn’t go her way. She glanced around again at the almost deserted harbor. A family of five, obviously waiting for someone to meet them, stood in a cluster off to the side. She’d seen the plump woman on the ship eyeing her coat and probably comparing it with her own mink. She’d been dressed to the nines with jewels and shimmering dresses that did nothing for her sallow complexion and horsey teeth. The woman’s husband had flirted with Bebe every time his wife’s back was turned. Bebe snorted in disgust. Men were all alike—tomcats.
Twenty minutes later an old man shuffled toward her. Effusively apologetic, he introduced himself, saying he had experienced car trouble. He was as old as God, Bebe thought. Just like Aunt Mickey to send some old creature to take all the fun out of her travels. Mickey was acting on Sol’s orders, of course.
T
his trip was in fact a punishment for associating with the wrong type of people. Ha! If her father wanted to believe she was romantically involved with gangsters, let him. All she’d done was party and have fun. It was Eli, her brother, who was up to his neck in trouble. Perhaps it was a good thing she’d come over here now. If Eli was going to go to jail, she didn’t want to be around when the mud began to fly.
Bebe smiled in the darkness of the Daimler. Not only had she wanted a trip to Europe, but she’d also gotten the Russian lynx coat she’d been eating her heart out for. If a dashing young Frenchman swept her off her feet, Sol would have no one to blame but himself.
Closing her eyes, she conjured up an image of Mickey. The last time Bebe had seen her aunt she’d been only seven or so, just a little girl. A wealth of dark hair and laughing eyes, gold earrings, and a smile always on her face. Bebe had liked Mickey, that much she remembered. A free spirit, Sol called his cousin. A wealthy free spirit. Often, when Sol was angry, he would compare Bebe with Mickey. Secretly, Bebe accepted it as a compliment.
Squirming down into the seat, Bebe imagined the wonderful time she’d have with Mickey. They’d go to bistros, have parties, and she would be introduced to wealthy and glamorous Frenchmen. She completely ignored the trunk filled with lesson books and the promise of a private tutor. It would be easy to get around Mickey.
Back in California there were people who had unflattering things to say about Bebe. She knew the names they called her behind her back—and it wasn’t just the newspaper reporters, but her friends as well. It was her own fault. She had never bothered to defend herself against the image the reporters presented. Deep inside she wasn’t anything like the person they portrayed. She was lonely and she was bored. Going to parties and flirting with her beaux was her only fun. Eli was always off doing something or other that would eventually lead to trouble. Sol was always at the studio, often later than midnight. The housekeeper didn’t care what she did or where she went. Quite simply, no one cared about Bebe Rosen.
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