Three Weeks in Paris (21 page)

“Oh, but I have, Anya. Jack … that’s his name … Jack Wilton … he’s an artist, very talented and successful. He wants to marry me.”

“And you, Alex? How do you feel?”

“I like Jack a lot, I love him actually, but …” She
shook her head. “It’s not the same as it was with Tom. As I just said, Jack wants us to get married, and we’re sort of engaged, well, unofficially.”

She bit her lip and looked away. When she finally brought her eyes back to Anya, they were troubled. “I have too much integrity to marry one man while still yearning for another,” Alexa finished quietly.

“Yes, you always have been a very honorable young woman. But what is honor worth if it is honor without courage? Don’t be afraid, Alexa … don’t be afraid to confront Tom,
and
Jack, if you have to … take your courage in both hands and be honest in your confrontations.”

“I know, you’re right, Anya. Honesty is the only thing that works in the end.”

“Be brave … it’s not as hard as you think.” Anya smiled at her encouragingly, then glanced at the small desk in one corner of the room. “There’s the telephone.” She brought her gaze back to Alexa. “Go on, call Tom now. See how he reacts to hearing from you.”

For a moment, Alexandra was thrown off balance, and she found herself shrinking back in the chair. And then she stood up very determinedly and walked across the room. She said to Anya as she stood at the desk with her hand on the phone, “What have I got to lose?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. But you do have everything to gain, one way or another.”

Alexa picked up the receiver. She noticed her hand was shaking, but she ignored this and dialed his private line at the office.

“Tom Conners,” he answered, on the second ring.

She found it impossible to breathe. Just the sound of his voice had paralyzed her. She was shaking inside. She leaned against the desk, swallowing; her mouth was dry.

“Tom Conners
ici,
” he said again in a level tone of voice.

“Hello, Tom, it’s—”

He cut her off. “Alexa—where are you calling from?”

Momentarily startled by his instant recognition of her voice, she couldn’t speak. And then she said swiftly in a rush of words, “I’m in Paris, and I’m fine, Tom. How’re you?”

“Okay, doing okay. Are you in Paris on business?”

“Sort of,” she answered, glad that she sounded normal. “But I really came for Anya’s eighty-fifth birthday.” She glanced at Anya and saw that she was mouthing something. Leaning forward over the desk, frowning, Alexa tried to figure out what Anya was silently saying.

“Invite him if he doesn’t invite you,” Anya finally said aloud in a stage whisper.

“It’s hard to believe Anya’s going to be eighty-five,” Tom was saying, laughing. “Can we get together, Alexa? Will you have time?”

She felt herself going weak with relief on hearing these words. “Yes. I’d like to see you. When?”

“Are you available this weekend? What about lunch tomorrow?”

“I can’t, I’m afraid. I’m meeting Nicky Sedgwick for lunch. I’m going to be working on a film with him later in the year, and we have quite a lot to go over. So I can’t really change it.”

“That’s okay. What about tomorrow night? Are you free?”

“Yes.”

“Shall we have dinner?”

“That’ll be nice, Tom.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The Meurice.”

“I’ll come for you around six-thirty, is that all right with you?”

“It’s fine. See you then.”

“Great,” he said, and hung up.

Alexa stood clutching the phone, staring at Anya, a stunned expression on her face.

Anya began to laugh. “You look shell-shocked, Alexa. As if you can’t believe it.”

“I can’t,” she replied, and dropped the receiver into the cradle.

Anya said, “It wasn’t so hard after all, was it?”

“Not really, but I
was
shaking. Inside and out.”

“I know. There are men who have that effect on women, and of course they are lethal.”

“I guess I
am
still in love with him,” Alexa began, but her voice faltered.

“Perhaps you are. But you won’t know how you truly feel until you see him tomorrow night.”

Leaning back in the chair, Alexa merely nodded, once more finding it difficult to breathe. And then she thought: Tom is lethal. He’s always been lethal for me.

KAY WONDERED, AS SHE WALKED UP THE CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES
, how she could have stayed away from Paris all this time. Even though it was only an hour by plane from London, and not much longer from Edinburgh, she never “hopped over” as many people did, because Ian did not like to travel, and she wanted to be with him on the weekends.

Still, Paris was a city of fashion on all levels, and she was in the fashion business, and she realized now that she should have come more often than she had. There was so much to see here, and to learn, as she had rediscovered in the last few days. Silently, Kay chastised herself.

A moment later she thought of the happy years she had spent at Anya’s school; Anya was another reason she should have come over, because the famed teacher had been her great mentor and her truest friend.

Everyday life intrudes, she muttered under her breath, but that’s really no excuse. How often she had wanted to confide in Anya, to ask her advice, and yet she had diligently stayed away. This, too, perplexed her. But now was not the time to analyze her behavior, she knew that, and
she pushed all such thoughts to one side. There were other situations to deal with, other problems to solve.

Taking a deep breath, Kay glanced about her. Paris
was
the most beautiful city, and she noticed that it was particularly lovely this morning. The sky was a light cerulean blue filled with sweeping white clouds, and bright sunlight washed over the ancient buildings. She remembered now that many of them had been cleaned for the millennium celebrations, and the stone façades gleamed whitely in the clear light, looked as if they had just been newly built.

Staring ahead, Kay’s eyes now fastened on the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the long avenue. Underneath that soaring arch the tricolor, the red, white, and blue French flag, fluttered in the light breeze. The sight made her catch her breath … there was something so poetic and moving about that simple flag flaring in the wind.

Because it symbolizes a country’s courage and triumph, she reminded herself, thinking of the many history classes she had attended at Anya’s school.

Anya taught them, although they were not actually part of her master class. She was an expert in the history of the Second World War, having lived through that war, and she loved to teach about it, and what had happened on both sides of the Channel at that terrible time. How horrible it would have been if these magnificent buildings had been blown to smithereens by the Nazi Occupation forces, as Hitler had wanted. In 1944 the Allied armies were rapidly approaching Paris, and Hitler had commanded General von Choltitz to blast the historic monuments so that the Allied forces would be greeted by smoke and debris. Dynamite had already been laid under the Arc de Triomphe, Les Invalides, the Eiffel Tower, and the Cathedral of Nôtre-Dame, among others. But at the last minute, General von

Choltitz had not had the heart to blow up such extraordinary edifices.

Close call that was, she thought as she finally came to the Place Charles de Gaulle, where the Arc de Triomphe stood. How dwarfed she felt by this massive structure, built on the instructions of Napoleon to celebrate his greatest victory at Austerlitz. At the time, he had promised his men they would go home through triumphal arches. And ever since this arch had been completed, long after Napoleon had lost his power, it was the starting point for national victory parades and celebrations.

She had once gone up to the top, where she had stood with Anya, Alexa, Jessica, and Maria, looking out across Paris. It was then, and only then, that she had truly understood why the arch was also called the Êtoile—the star. It was at the very center of twelve avenues that radiated out to form a star. Many were named after famous generals, and had been part of the modernization of Paris by Baron Haussmann, which had begun in 1852.

As she moved through and around the arch, Kay had a sudden unexpected thought … of a woman who, like her, had been unable to give the man she loved an heir … the empress Josephine. And eventually Napoleon had had to divorce her in order to father a son by another woman. He had not been particularly happy with Marie-Louise, daughter of the Austrian emperor, even though she had eventually given birth to a boy. It had been a diplomatic marriage, and Napoleon had forever yearned for Josephine. At least so Anya had told them in one of her other history lessons. “His luck changed the day he left Josephine. Unhappiness and disasters followed him to the grave,” Anya had explained dourly.

Sighing to herself, Kay wandered away from the great arch, crossed over to the Champs-Elysées, began to walk
down this most imposing boulevard, thinking of Dr. François Boujon. She had gone to see him yesterday at his office on Avenue Montaigne to discuss her own inability to conceive. She had an examination and tests, and depending on the results of the tests he had taken, she might have to spend a few days at his clinic in Barbizon, near Fontainebleau. His reputation as an expert on fertility preceded him, and after some years in California he had finally returned to practice in his native France.

Kay had made the appointment with him weeks ago, and yesterday she had been very nervous when she had sat waiting in the reception area of his offices. But within moments of meeting him she had found herself relaxing. He was the kind of doctor who immediately put a patient at ease, at least
she
felt that way.

Dr. Boujon had asked her a lot of questions before the examination, most of which she had answered truthfully. But in some instances she had felt it necessary to lie. And now these lies troubled her, which was one of the reasons she had set out early for her appointment with Anya.

Kay knew herself, and she was well aware that if she sat in the hotel worrying she would drive herself to distraction. Better to be out and about than confined within four walls, contemplating disasters that might never happen.

After a while, she came to Avenue George V, and she walked slowly along the street, heading toward the Place de l’Alma. In the distance, dominating the skyline, she could see the Eiffel Tower, and she remembered something Nicholas Sedgwick had once told her. That wherever she looked in Paris she would see either the Eiffel Tower or the great white domes of the Sacré-Coeur, and that was true.

She wondered how Nicky was, and the others … the girls who had been her companions for three years. Once they had been close friends, and it struck her now that
their quarrels had been rather harsh at the end. Would they be able to enjoy Anya’s party if they didn’t make up? She was doubtful. For a long time she had thought of them as being bitchy and unfeeling, but perhaps she was being judgmental after all. Life was too short, wasn’t it, and there were so many other things infinitely more important than female quarrels. And quarrels that had happened seven years ago, at that.

Anya had said this to her last night when they had spoken on the phone, pointing out that they should all try to act in a mature manner. And Anya was right.

————

KAY FOUND A TABLE
at a small café on a side street just off the Place de l’Alma. She felt quite ravenous all of a sudden and needed to eat; then she remembered she had not really had breakfast, only a cup of tea, and now it was almost one.

When the waiter came, she ordered a tomato omelette, a green salad, and a bottle of sparkling water. Once her order had been taken, she sat back, watching the passersby for a moment or two, but mostly she was thinking about her life, and in particular her husband, Ian, whom she loved so much.

He, who was not at all enamored of traveling, had been forced to fly to New York the other day in order to deal with an unexpected business matter to do with the woolens they produced at the Scottish mills. He had gone instead of his partner, Vincent Douglas, who had broken an arm and a leg in a car accident. And how he had grumbled about going and right up to the last minute.

Poor Ian, she thought, stuck in a hotel in Manhattan. He was such a countryman at heart and in spirit, one who truly felt uncomfortable in most cities, and especially a great metropolis like New York.

He would be gone for ten days, and in that time Kay hoped to finish her tests with Dr. Boujon; she also planned to find the perfect premises for a boutique. Her assistant, Sophie McPherson, was arriving next week, and together they would work with the real estate agent, who had been highly recommended.

Although Paris was one of the greatest fashion centers of the world, with haute couture houses, and top-, middle-, and lower-scale manufacturers and designers, Sophie had somehow convinced her there was a need for her clothes.

But the idea of opening a boutique in this fashion-conscious and most stylish of cities had not appealed to her in the beginning; it was Sophie—young, enthusiastic, and highly committed to the running of the boutiques—who had persuaded her otherwise.

Sophie had pointed out that her clothes were selling tremendously well in Britain and the United States, and that they would find a huge market in Paris.

So be it, Kay thought, letting out a sigh. She could try, and hopefully she would succeed. She generally tended to take Sophie’s advice, trusting her judgment, knowing that her assistant seemed to have her finger on the pulse of fashion for the young woman of today.

As she sipped the sparkling water, Kay’s thoughts drifted in various directions. Soon she found herself focusing on those years she had lived in Paris. Home had been a small, cozy hotel on the Left Bank, and she had loved her tiny room in it, and the quarter where it was located, just off the Place Saint-Michel.

Maybe she would take a walk down the rue de la Huchette later in the day, and pop into the Hôtel Mont Blanc, where she had lived for three years. She wondered if Henri, the lovely old concierge, still worked there. He
had always been so kind and considerate, and concerned about her.