Secrets of Paris (32 page)

Anne waved her small hand in a scoffing manner. “She could have had any lover,” she said. “Men were terribly suspicious of Ninon, you know. Louis XIV had her watched by spies—a feminist in seventeenth-century France was dangerous, indeed. Especially one with as many eminent lovers as Ninon had.”

Patrice recalled an anecdote presented by Anne in
Three Women of the Marais
. Cardinal Richelieu offered Ninon nearly a million dollars to become his mistress. She declined “because if he pleased me, the sum would be exorbitant, and if he displeased me, the sum would be insufficient.” Patrice felt somewhat daring, like a spy herself, engaging Anne in a conversation about love in the seventeenth century while Lydie was over there talking with Michael. She glanced across the room, to see how it was going, but Lydie was gone.

“Oh,” she said, frowning.

“Pardon?” Anne said.

“Wasn’t Ninon racy?” Patrice asked.

“I see that you are watching the McBrides,” Anne said bluntly.

Patrice looked around, in case she had missed them. But they
definitely had left. No, there was Michael, without Lydie, talking to Didier at the buffet table. “I was thinking of joining them,” Patrice said, now feeling awkward. With her uncanny perception, Anne reminded Patrice of a cross between a mind-reader and a schizophrenic.

“Isn’t he a talented man!” Anne said, dimpling again.

“Well, she’s just as talented,” Patrice said forcefully, leaving no doubt. “She’s staging an incredible ball at Château Bellechasse, which, as you must know, is a gem of eighteenth-century architecture.”

“Well, eighteenth century,” Anne said, scoffing. Her gaze enveloped the Salle, taking everything in. “Now,
this
is a marvel. I feel all of the seventeenth century in this room, as concentrated as bouillon. I feel that I can almost drink it.”

“It is superb,” Patrice agreed. At that instant she made a wish: that Lydie’s ball would be superb, that it would outshine Michael’s triumph. Where Patrice had once thought of it only as the “d’Origny ball,” she found herself thinking of it more often as “Lydie’s ball.” What did that mean? Lydie was the artist, but Didier was putting up the money and the jewels. As an only child, Patrice had long found it hard to turn the spotlight on someone else. But she felt she was doing it now: making Lydie shine. She felt like a magician doing sleight of hand. Illuminating Lydie for Michael and the public while at the same time shielding her from Anne.

Thus, it shocked and dismayed Patrice when, twenty minutes later, Michael reported that Lydie had left. Patrice ate some hors d’oeuvres and made small talk with Pierre and Giselle Dauphin. As soon as she and Didier arrived home, she telephoned Lydie.

“You couldn’t even say good-bye?” Patrice asked, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice.

“You were talking to Anne Dumas,” Lydie said. “I’m really sorry. I told Michael to say good-bye for me.”

“Well, he did,” Patrice said, unable to define the source of her disappointment. “You didn’t have to leave, you know. It was obvious Michael wants to be with you.”

“I couldn’t stand seeing her. What were you two so intent on?”

“The seventeenth century,” Patrice said. “I was keeping her out of your hair.” Then it dawned on her: she had been distracting Anne Dumas, a woman whom she had admired for longer than she had known Lydie, in order to protect Lydie. And she felt annoyed with Lydie for not acting appropriately grateful.

“The seventeenth century, well …” Lydie said. “She must be crazy about the Salle des Quatre Saisons. Isn’t it great?”

“Great,” Patrice said. “What did you and the architect have to say?”

Lydie was silent, but Patrice could almost hear her smiling. “It’s getting better,” she said after a moment.

“Lovely,” Patrice said, now even more annoyed with Lydie for keeping her conversation with Michael such a big secret. “Should we plan tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Isn’t tomorrow our little pilgrim’s big day? Her interview?”

“Of course,” Lydie said. “Two o’clock? Near Smith’s?”

“See you there,” Patrice said. She felt deflated. She felt herself collapsing inward, like an empty corn husk. She hadn’t harbored a mean thought toward Kelly for quite some time, but here she was wondering what embarrassing thing Kelly would choose to wear tomorrow.

She stretched out on her chaise longue.
Three Women of the Marais
lay open across the tufted arm. She tried to close it, but it had lain there for so long it seemed permanently divided at page
340 into two sections. Lydie, no,
events
, had taken away her pleasure in reading it. She thought of Lydie, alone in her apartment, a thrilling little smile on her face. She could imagine Lydie reliving her meeting with Michael, her imagination listening for what he had said, fathoming what he had not. Lydie, Patrice felt sure, was in the throes of love.

“Hello, my baby,” Didier said in his soft, low voice. He sat at the end of the chaise and commenced rubbing Patrice’s feet.

“Hi,” she said.

“You look so far away,” he said. “What is bothering you?”

“Nothing,” Patrice said, then, “Do you think I’m interesting enough?”

Didier frowned. He stopped rubbing her foot, held it lightly in his hand. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, am I boring because I don’t have work like Lydie’s?”

Didier resumed his massage, and his face relaxed. “If you were any more interesting, I would have to quit my job. You are the most fascinating woman I know.”

He had said that before, but Patrice had never quite believed it. Now, at his obvious sincerity, she felt her throat tighten. Here with her husband in their ancient house, in a foreign country, for the first time in her life, Patrice felt secure. She didn’t believe that she was fascinating, but she knew that Didier believed it. She could see it in his eyes, eyes that tended to smile even in repose. She gazed at him, her Frenchman, whose tan and weathered face gave him more the look of a mountaineer than a businessman, and she let him rub her foot.

Lydie and Kelly stood on the rue de Rivoli, scanning the Tuileries. Lydie wore her most businesslike blue suit. Kelly wore a plaid
wool skirt and white blouse and a black jacket Patrice had loaned her to go on top.

“Don’t be so nervous, Kelly,” Lydie said. “She’ll be here in a minute.”

Kelly glanced over her shoulder, at the armed soldier who stood at the corner of rue Cambon. “But we must go. We should be in line.”

Lydie laughed, touched her shoulder in an attempt to calm her. “There will be no line. You have an appointment. We’re thirty minutes early.” She checked her watch. She herself was beginning to feel a little anxious; Patrice was ten minutes late. But here she came, waving, breaking into a run.

“Whew,” Patrice said, kissing Lydie’s cheeks.

“Hello, Mum,” Kelly said shyly.

“Hi, Kelly.”

“Shall we run though the routine?” Lydie asked. “Let’s sit on that bench.”

“I think we should go,” Kelly said. “We can’t be late.”

“It’s a two-minute walk,” Patrice said, smiling gently, the way a parent might smile at a nervous child. “Relax, okay? Lydie and I want to rehearse with you.”

Kelly smiled. “I have always rehearsed for this day. When I was thirteen my sister and I played American Embassy.”

“Let’s rehearse,” Patrice repeated.

Kelly pursed her lips, but she relented. Lydie had known she would, but it worried her instead of pleasing her. If Kelly could be assertive with Lydie and Patrice, perhaps she would have a better chance with the consular officer.

“Pretend I’m the interviewer, okay?” Patrice asked. She cleared her throat and made her expression very cross, making Kelly laugh a little.

“Tell me, Miss Merida,” she said. “What do you do for a living?”

“I am the assistant to Mrs. Lydie McBride,” Kelly said proudly, her spine erect.

“And what does Mrs. McBride do?”

“She is a shopper. I mean, she is a stylist.” Kelly reddened at the mistake, glanced apologetically at Lydie.

“That’s all right,” Lydie said.

“What do you do for Mrs. McBride?” Patrice asked.

“I … shop.” Kelly slumped a little, and her voice was softer, less confident since her mistake.

“Kelly,” Lydie said carefully, not wanting to spook her. “Tell the lady what we discussed. Tell her I have very specific tastes, that I get assignments from important magazines, that major companies hire me to do their catalogues and advertisements. Tell her that you are an
integral
part of my business.”

“Integral,” Kelly said almost sternly, trying to commit the word to memory. “Integral, integral.”

“Tell her that I trained you, that it would take months for me to train someone new.”

Kelly nodded fast, staccato, like a short-circuited robot.

“You’ll be fine,” Patrice said. “Maybe we should knock off the rehearsal, do some deep breathing.” Looking over Kelly’s head at Lydie, she raised one eyebrow.

Lydie could see Patrice feared that Kelly would bomb in the interview. Perhaps Lydie did too, but she tried to have faith. The three of them walked up the rue Cambon. At the gate to the American Embassy, Patrice spoke to the guard. She proffered the three passports. This was the first time an official had examined Kelly’s since her arrival in Germany. Lydie examined her fingernails, then gazed up at a flock of pigeons—deliberately nonchalant. The guard stared from Patrice’s face to Kelly’s to Lydie’s, then let them pass.

“Go through that door, take a left, take a quick right,” he said to Patrice. He cast a cold glance at Kelly.

“My enemy,” Kelly whispered to Lydie.

“You can’t think like that,” Lydie said. “This is the most important hour of your life.” She sensed Kelly shaking, saw a line of sweat above her lip. “Listen to me,” she said sharply. “You were not convincing back there. You sounded frightened, and you sounded like a liar. Keep your back straight, hold your head up. Think of how far you’ve come. Remember you’re as good as anyone else.”

“Oh, thank you, Lydie,” Kelly said.

At the door to the office, Lydie and Patrice said good-bye to Kelly. She smiled at them but said nothing; wordlessly, she followed the tall American soldier who led her inside, closing the door behind her.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Patrice asked.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Lydie said.

“We’re throwing her to the wolves,” Patrice said. “You and I can walk out the door, have tea, do anything. But Kelly could be arrested just for breathing the Paris air.”

“That’s about to change,” Lydie said with more confidence than she felt.

“When I hired Kelly, I knew she was illegal in France. I was glad, at the time, because it meant I could pay her lower wages. Isn’t that sick?”

“You didn’t know her then,” Lydie said.

“What kills me,” Patrice said, “is the thought of Kelly playing American Embassy when she was thirteen. Remember being thirteen?”

Lydie remembered. You had the greatest dreams and absolutely nothing to hold you back. You believed you could be a movie star,
or President, or just plain rich. You didn’t know how the world worked. You were blessed with a total lack of perspective. At thirteen, you thought you were
it
. “What did you want when you were thirteen?” she asked, watching the door that had closed behind Kelly.

Patrice stared at Lydie. “A checking account. My best friend got one, with her name on the checks, so I wanted one. How about you?”

“Oh, some boy, I’m sure,” Lydie said, trying to remember. “Thirteen—what was that, seventh grade?”

Patrice nodded.

“Then it was Damon Stackpole. That’s all I wanted—for Damon to kiss me in the coatroom. I hadn’t been kissed before.”

Patrice raised an eyebrow. “Let’s get the hell out of here and have a drink. Or go shopping. Chanel’s half a block away.”

“Not shopping,” Lydie said, wondering whether Patrice was kidding.

“Come on—a good bout with Chanel will do us good. We’ll duke it out with some snotty French salesgirl and walk away with a couple of new handbags. We’ll feel much better. We could be back here in twenty minutes. She’ll be at least that long.”

“Let’s just take a walk in the park,” Lydie said. “I could use a lemonade, couldn’t you?”

“I could use a new jacket,” Patrice said, sighing with mock exasperation. Then a sly expression crossed her eyes. “Are you going to tell me about Michael?”

“There’s nothing new,” Lydie said.

“The park, eh?” Patrice said. “Well, okay.”

So Lydie slid her arm through Patrice’s and they walked, arm in arm, into the Tuileries, her heart beating a little slower every step she took away from rue Cambon.