Chapter Seven

 

 

 

I couldn’t suppress a flinch when Ashley reached across the leather seat to take my hand. His palm was scorching hot against mine and yet I trembled. “Sorry,” I said, shamming a smile.

“Don’t be. Nervous?” City lights reflected in his eyes like fireflies against a darkened windowpane. Not for the first time, I wondered how I’d ever thought of him as average.

Because you’re shallow. I sold expensive, brand name clothes for a living. The concept of inner beauty was a direct challenge to my daily bread.

“I’m bringing a guy home for the first time since high school,” I shot back. “A guy my grandparents don’t know anything about… Yeah, I’m nervous.”

Grandmother’s phone call had been interspersed with brief moments of disbelief between needling questions. Was it serious? Where did I meet this new boyfriend? Did he have a job? I would’ve been offended by the grilling if I hadn’t given my family ample reason to mistrust my taste in men. After purveyors of cannabis, white supremacists and, on one occasion, a tattoo artist with a seven-year-old kid, the blame lay entirely with me.

Ashley’s answer remained unchanged. “Don’t be. How bad can it be? We’ll have dinner, make small talk… You can show me the famous library I’ve heard so much about. We’ll re-enact that scene from Atonement.”

“The one where you enlist and I become a chain-smoking nurse?” When in doubt, resorting to sharp retorts always kept me from looking like I was out of my depth.

Ashley squeezed my hand. He was beginning to read between my quips.

The taxi slowly eased to a stop outside my grandparents’ lavish town house. The street was as quiet as a cemetery. We were on the fringes of what I considered real Paris, secreted in the vast tree-lined stretch between Porte de la Muette and the Bois de Boulogne. To one end of the park lay luxury villas and turn of the century apartment buildings preserved like insects in amber, while to the other hookers and junkies converged in one of the seediest parts of town.

“Have a little faith,” Ashley urged me.

“You say that now,” I muttered and stabbed a finger into the doorbell.

I’d never known my grandparents to be anything less than punctual, but I still crossed my fingers that they might not hear the musical chime. Maybe they were out. Maybe we could call this a miss and try again another night.

No such luck. The click-clack of heels beyond the door gave way to a gust of warm, rose-scented air as my grandmother welcomed us in. She was wearing her hostess smile—the affable, diplomatic variety that often foretold trouble for me once the guests were gone.

I took a perverse sort of pleasure in seeing her expression freeze when she realized my plus one wasn’t a Mohawk-bearing, heavily pierced raver.

“Hello, Grandmother. This is Ashley.” I folded his hand in both of mine.

“Thank you for extending the invitation,” Ashley said in his sexy, accented French. “Laure has told me so much about you.”

“She has?” Grandmother shook herself. “Oh, do come in.” She opened the door wide, gesturing us forth into the white marble foyer.

Soft echoes of Satie’s Gymnopédies leached from beneath the door of my grandfather’s study. With no Komorovs to look forward to, he was in no rush to make his way to the dinner table. I couldn’t wait to take a seat. The sooner we made our way through the ordeal, the sooner I’d be on my way home with Ashley. I’d already promised to make it up to him.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Reynaud,” Ashley said, casting an appreciative glance over the dining room.

I tried to see it through his eyes—the gold-plated candlesticks, the ornate silverware, the ivory-white tablecloth—and knew that if I wasn’t in my childhood home, I would’ve been awed, too.

Grandmother waved the compliment aside with a flick of her bejeweled wrist and beamed a delighted smile. “Please, call me Anne-France. We’re nearly of an age. Do have a seat.”

Blood curdled in my veins. I knew at once that I’d misjudged her reaction to Ashley. She’d fooled me again—she wasn’t impressed, she was livid, and she was doing a fantastic job of concealing it. Grandfather wasn’t half as hard to read.

He actually did a double take in the doorway when he saw us.

Ashley rose to shake his hand. “Mr. Reynaud, it’s a privilege.”

“Ashley is Laure’s new partner,” Grandmother supplied, heavy on the ‘new’. “She was just telling us how they met.”

My eyebrows shot up. “I was?”

Grandmother smiled icily. Fortunately, I’d already had practice crafting a summary of our fortuitous run-in for Melanie, so disquiet didn’t interfere too much with the telling of the story. Ashley’s silent encouragement kept me afloat. He cut a gorgeous picture sat across from me, the east to my west, in his black shirt with a gray jacket and gray trousers.

The thought of taking him home and ripping his clothes off was incentive enough to play nice.

“And what do you do, Ashley?” Grandmother prompted when I didn’t crash and burn to her satisfaction.

A maid emerged from the kitchen with the starter course while Grandfather selected the wine. He was very particular about his cellar. As a child, I’d ventured inside only once. The scolding I’d borne when he found out cured me of ever trying it again.

“I’m a journalist,” Ashley replied, albeit haltingly. We’d talked a bit about his upbringing in New Mexico and, though he’d never put it in quite so many words, I’d surmised that he hadn’t grown up with household staff, much less cutting his meat with silver cutlery.

In fairness, neither had I. Wealth had found me relatively late, in a sort of Dickensian comeuppance.

“A journalist!” Grandmother smiled. “Financial news?”

“Politics.”

“Ah…” She and Grandfather traded a long, meaningful look across the table.

“Nobody’s perfect,” I quipped. “What are we eating?”

Grandmother’s tone remained frosty when she addressed me, but she put too high a premium on etiquette to pretend that she hadn’t heard. “Tuna tartare with ginger, sesame, yellow peppers and black olives… Is something the matter?”

I was grimacing. “Ashley—”

“No, no,” he said. “This looks delicious.” He tried a respectful forkful despite the olives.

I revised my take on the rest of the evening.

The tuna tartare was followed by fennel quiches, escargots in a green sauce and a plate of scallops with parsley butter. I wolfed down my dinner, barely tasting most of the byzantine dishes on offer. The white wine helped each mouthful go down, the spoonful of sugar to my medicine.

I was first to the profiteroles and cognac. Never mind giving Ashley a tour of the library—if we made it to the end of the evening unscathed, I’d blow him on the cab ride home.

“So, Ashley,” Grandfather started, in English, just as I was about to suggest that we enjoy the cognac in the living room, where the plush sofas and large armchairs didn’t lend themselves so well to interrogation. “What do you make of your new president?”

“So far?” Ashley shrugged. “Enough material for six articles. Two of which I managed to sell. My expertise is really European politics.”

“By American standards?”

“By all standards, I’d hope,” he answered with a placid smile. The polite rebuff seemed to glance off his armor without making a dent.

“You’ve spent some time here, then? Only in France or…”

“London was my first posting. Then Brussels, the Hague… I’m a bit of a nomad, I’m afraid.” Ashley shot me a tender glance. “I like Paris, though. The culture, the food—but mostly the people.” If that look didn’t say I want to fuck you, I was turning in my womanly instincts for repair.

“No plans on returning home? That’s a shame. America is so lovely!” My grandmother’s fib tugged my jaw down to the floor. She despised the States. I’d never prodded her on the subject, not even when we had one of our epic rows, because I could guess why she felt the way she did. America had taken her only daughter and given her—well, me.

I’d be pissed off, too.

Ashley shook his head. “There is a conference I was thinking of attending, but it might not be possible to squeeze it into my schedule.”

“Your family must miss you,” Grandmother insisted.

“Oh, my daughter was just here.”

“Her mother must be very permissive, to allow her to miss school to come to Paris.” More needling, that, but the way she spoke made it sound like genuine, heartfelt concern.

Ashley chuckled. “Marissa is old enough to make her own decisions. Besides, she wanted to visit the Parsons campus here. She’s been talking about a study abroad semester…”

“Is that so? What a courageous young woman.” Grandmother’s manner was nothing if not affable, but I knew her French manicure masked talons.

Our eyes met as we made our way into the living room.

I winced. No, I hadn’t had the foresight to share that tidbit with my grandparents. Not only was I seeing a man more than ten years my senior, but he had a kid. In college.

Ashley went on ahead with Grandfather, gamely playing along with the political litmus test. I wanted to warn him away from Marx. My family was socialist, like most of France, but only up to a point. Gilded candlesticks fell on the wrong side of redistribution.

As I made to follow him to the sideboard, Grandmother took my arm and steered me toward the couch like a disobedient pup. “Do you know what you’re doing, Laure?”

Rhetorical or not, the question sparked ire in my breast. “Sleeping with a man who adores me?”

“Or is using you,” my grandmother contended under her breath. “I can understand a passing fling, but, really, he’s old enough to know better.”

“Than to sleep with me?”

“Yes.” Grandmother remained unruffled. “You know he’ll disappoint you in the end, don’t you?” And with that she let go to pour the coffee.

It would’ve stung less if she’d called me easy for getting involved with Ashley. I was sure she was thinking it, but her upbringing forbade her from being crass.

The barb still stung.

I kept my mouth shut as the evening wound down, listening with half an ear to Grandfather’s tendentious questions and Ashley’s polite but ultimately noncommittal replies. The rest of me was too busy trying to decipher what my grandmother saw in Ashley that I didn’t. Was there a sign that he was being duplicitous? Had I glossed over some important character flaw in my hurry to embrace our chemistry?

We rose when the doorbell rang to announce our taxi. Had I come alone, I would’ve taken the train home, risking my neck in the Parisian underground with all the muggers and drug dealers. But Ashley insisted that we play the game to the end. We had dressed up—he in Hugo Boss, me in a form-fitting Ralph Lauren with a lacy back—and booked a Bentley for the drive over. For all the good it did us… The wealthy always noticed the little details. My grandparents were no different. They weren’t fooled.

They were contemptuous.

“I thought that went rather well,” Ashley quipped as our driver peeled away from the curb. “What do you think?”

“It could’ve been worse.” I leaned back against the headrest. Finally, I could breathe. “The tuna was fucking awful, though.”

We said little else on the way home. I insisted on splitting the fare—Ashley had covered the ride to my grandparents’ and it seemed only fair. I resented the implication that I might be unable to afford it.

“You’re a bit prickly tonight,” Ashley pointed out as we took the stairs to our respective apartments. “Did I do something—?”

“No.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ashley press his lips into a taut line of displeasure. I felt chastened, though he’d said nothing, and annoyance bubbled up inside me at the thought.

“When’s this conference you want to go to?” And why didn’t you say anything?

Ashley’s sigh echoed off the crumbling drywall. “A week from tonight.”

I froze mid-step, suddenly glad for the banister at my back as I turned to face him. “That’s some coincidence…” I’d already booked tickets for my trip to Kansas. It was our private little secret.

I didn’t know what to do now that it turned out Ashley had others.

“Can we do this upstairs, please?” he asked, lips pinched into the kind of scolding scowl I’d come to despise. It worked on me. I felt worse every time he trotted out his I’m trying to be reasonable expression.

Javier’s bore such striking resemblance, with far different results.

For Ashley, I rolled over. I took the stairs two by two, about as ladylike as a clomping cow, and left my apartment door open so he could follow at a more sedate pace. I lobbed my handbag at the couch then shook out of my trench coat. I imagined myself in some TV ad—Chanel No. 5, for when you’re about to row with your partner—the music swelling as Ashley stepped through the door.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, a pre-emptive strike.

“It’s not certain. I have a lot of work…” Ashley faced me slowly, like a sunflower chasing the bright glare of noon. “Why does it upset you?”

A good question, that, but I didn’t want to dredge up my grandmother’s venomous warning. I crossed my arms. “You know everything about me. I’m just wondering why the feeling isn’t mutual. What, I’m not trustworthy?”

Ashley quirked an eyebrow. “I know everything about you?”

It wasn’t the sticking point over which I’d expected to wage battle. I held my ground, my shrug ineffectual in the face of his scoff.

“Why? Because I follow the news?”

“If by news you mean the fact that my father’s a convicted murderer—”

“I do.” Ashley stuck his hands in his pockets. “You want this out now? Okay… Let’s have it out.”

I wanted to pretend that I didn’t know what he meant. My resolve faltered.

“You want to deny my life hasn’t been plastered all over the Internet like a fucking manifesto?” I dared him to tell me I hadn’t become a masthead for the death penalty debate. I could provide print and digital proof if he wanted me to.

“I thought I was dating the Laure who lives down the hall. Who’s funny and charming…and great in bed. I didn’t realize I was dating a reluctant celebrity.”

“They’re the same person,” I shot back, hurt.

Ashley narrowed his eyes at me. He took a step forward, then stopped, features solidifying into a frosty mask. I would’ve had an easier time deciphering Chinese. “I can walk on eggshells, constantly tiptoeing around the shit you went through, or I can be your partner and think about where we’re going. I can’t do both.”

“Why not?” I’d lost my rudder, I was capsizing, and Ashley’s hard stare kept me in thrall. I wanted to go to him, bury my face in his neck and say I was sorry for ever doubting him.

I stayed put. I buried fingernails into the meat of my forearms and I stayed there, as still as a statue while Ashley delivered the final blow.

“Because you don’t want me to,” he replied, shrugging like it was obvious.

Disbelief pitched in my chest. I chortled. “I don’t want you to understand what I’ve been through? That’s rich—”

“You’re keeping me at arm’s length, Laure. You keep everyone at arm’s length. Your grandparents have to pay you to visit. You have this strange, codependent relationship with your boss… You’ve told me so much about your best friend, but you barely see her. You let your ex-boyfriend walk all over you rather than give him a piece of your mind—”

“Stop,” I bit out. And he did. I didn’t know what to do after that, short of crumbling where I stood.

“Laure…”

I shook my head. I’d never done well with reprimands. It was why I’d quit school as fast as I could. No teachers to disappoint, no exams to fail. No one to tell me I was a screw-up.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the same with the men I dated.

“I think you should go,” I muttered, relieved when my voice didn’t quake.

Ashley heaved a sigh, a muscle twitching in his jaw. I wanted him to say he wouldn’t. I wanted to fight this out, to have blood on the walls and shouts in my ear. I wanted the cacophony I remembered from when I was a little girl. Instead, Ashley canted his head into a nod and turned on his heel.

The last I saw of him was the cut of his jacket, the back of his skull. Then the door clicked shut. If this were the commercial I’d envisioned, I would lob my Manolos at the door now. I would scream and tear out my hair while the waterproof mascara remained stuck to my lashes like printer ink.

This wasn’t fiction, so I did none of those things. My dress clung as I switched on the shower and proceeded to ruin the expensive fabric with scalding hot water.

 

* * * *

 

I’d never been happier to work Saturdays than the morning following our tiff. It was all that got me out of bed and forced my hands to grab brush and powder and start layering on the camouflage. I trooped to the subway through all-but-deserted streets.

Paris looked different without people in it. It was a rare sight, only possible in that brief pause just before hotels disgorged their tourists and locals trotted out the buggies and bikes. It was like walking through a Hollywood director’s vision of the city—surreal and a little lonely.

I took a train that was three-quarters empty and sat in a bucket plastic seat watching my own reflection in the scratched glass. Twenty minutes later I crossed Rue de Sèvres, shivering under my trench coat, and slipped inside the store. The cleaning crews were still scrubbing floors. We had an hour to go before the doors opened. I could’ve slept in.

I took the opportunity to reorganize my counter. Hangers were switched around to match the dresses and tailored shirts that dangled from their frames. Sweaters and pants were folded into neat squares, all arranged by size.

The whole thing took me fifteen minutes at most. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when trying to keep one’s thoughts tethered. Maybe productivity and denial go hand in hand.

Every time I found myself wondering what Ashley was up to, I made myself tuck a sleeve in, refold a shirt, or brush lint from a mannequin’s trousers. I went around the glass counters with a duster, then with a cloth to wipe off any fingerprints.

“That’s not your job,” Yvonne remarked when she saw me.

“I know.”

If she pursed her lips in displeasure or rolled her eyes, I didn’t see. I was too busy scrubbing at a crack in the glass, my efforts naturally in vain but bizarrely rewarding.

The receding click-clack of Yvonne’s heels told me she had decided not to bother arguing. Fair enough. I was persona non grata. Why bother scolding me?

We opened at ten o’clock and I was a picture of the model employee from the first client to the last. I lost track of how many pieces I sold. I had to replenish the stacks twice—the eggplant cut-offs flew off the shelves faster than hotcakes. I helped out at counters that weren’t under my purview, something I seldom did because the other girls were fiercely territorial and my commission wasn’t improved by selling brands I didn’t represent.

It was a good day, certainly better than I’d had in weeks.

Yvonne caught up with me as I was laying the finishing the touches for Monday’s opening. “You were Flash Gordon today… Trying to make a good impression before you abandon us for a whole week?”

“Not really.”

I doubted my performance would make any difference to Yvonne. Come the first round of downsizing—inevitable in this economy—and my name would be top of the list. I took one last look around the shelves, then went to retrieve my handbag and coat from the back.

Yvonne was still waiting by my counter when I returned.

“Do you want to grab a drink?”

I’d been turning her down for months, mostly out of some convoluted sense of self-preservation. You keep everyone at arm’s length, Ashley had said. I didn’t want him to be right.

“Sure,” I replied. Yvonne’s eyebrows shot up. “Is it okay if I pick the venue?”

Yvonne was gracious enough to allow me the privilege.

The tension between us was hardly broken, but I wasn’t looking to smooth things over. Once I’d stopped worrying that my every action could engender a direct reaction from my boss, I found it easier to function.

At my instigation, we wound up at Hôtel Lutétia—a four-star haunt two streets away peopled mostly by tourists. The glare of street lamps and billboards gave way to a smoky, dusky interior as soon as we stepped into the bar. The sound of cutlery and raised voices poured out of the brasserie next door, seeping under the smooth jazz leaking from the speakers in the ceiling. I knew it wasn’t Yvonne’s kind of venue. I was okay with that.

“So,” she started, shattering the silence as it stretched between us.

“So,” I replied. I could feel her brimming with curiosity about my newfound dedication. I was impressed that she had managed to hold back this long. Relieved, too, because I didn’t want to talk about Ashley or our falling out, or the fact that I still caught myself wondering what he was doing when I knew full well I should chase the thought out of my head. “How’ve you been?” I asked instead, before Yvonne could make me the subject of our chat.

She frowned, lips tugging down at the corners. “Oh, fine…”

“And your family?”

Yvonne met my eyes. “Dad’s forgetting things again.”

“I’m sorry.” I meant it. “Is it serious?”

“It wasn’t, at first, but now it’s not just his glasses or the car keys…” Yvonne painted a picture of elderly parents who had begun to lose their grip on reality, of siblings who didn’t see eye to eye in providing them with treatment. The more she spoke, the more I discovered how little I knew about her.

Name three people whose birthplace you know. Bonus points if they’re not related to you.

I couldn’t come up with two.

Perhaps Ashley’s chiding wasn’t as absurd as all that.

“Laure?” Yvonne worried a sugar grain on the bar with the white-painted tip of a shiny fingernail. She had already finished her coffee, but she made no move to rise. “Are you truly off on holiday tomorrow?”

My flight took off at six. I’d be chasing the sun on my way to the States.

“I’m going to visit family,” I said and it wasn’t a lie, however little that counted.

Yvonne nodded sagely, as though she understood what I wasn’t saying. “That explains the martini.”

It felt good to laugh. Almost natural.

 

* * * *

 

The cab dropped me off at around four-thirty. I shivered as I doled out the fare and thanked him. Eschewing sleep had seemed like a good idea until one o’clock, when my eyelids had begun to droop. TV had been woefully unable to distract me. I’d contemplated calling Mel as a distraction, then paying Ashley a visit, but neither of those had panned out.

I clung to my dignity like a shield as I made my way through customs. Roissy Airport was deserted, the duty-free shops locked down for the night, the night-shift personnel glassy-eyed and blank-faced. Only a couple of early-morning transatlantic flights were taking off—mine among them. I joined the thin queue of travelers being herded through the indignities of shoelessness, pat-downs and scoured belongings, and emerged on the other side with my voluminous Louis Vuitton handbag in one hand and my Uggs in the other. My first stop was the nearest coffee dispenser I could find.

The fare was as abysmally watery as I had feared, but I drank it like a drug designed to make me feel better. It did the trick. I was soon too wide awake to smother the urge to hear Ashley’s voice before I boarded a ten-hour flight. The more I tried to argue against it the more I craved patching things up.

Pop quiz! Name two rational reasons why you can’t wait to talk to your maybe-boyfriend until you’ve put an ocean between you.

I came up with one—if the plane crashed with me on it, I didn’t want the last thing I said to Ashley to be Please leave.

He picked up with a drowsy catch in his voice. “Laure?” He must have entered my number into his phonebook. Why did that made me feel giddy? It was probably just the journalist in him—never lose a contact and all that.

“Hey… Did I wake you?”

Ashley groaned. “It’s five-thirty in the morning. You okay?” Then, too quick to be an afterthought, he added, “Do you want to come over?”

My ribcage seemed suddenly too narrow for my lungs. “I’m at the airport.”

“Oh.” I heard the sound of bedsprings creaking, then the click of the lamp—Ashley, sitting up against the pillows, scrubbing grit from his eyes. “It’s Sunday already, huh?”

“Yeah,” I echoed, though it wasn’t a question. “We’re boarding soon.” A more or less orderly queue had already formed. Families with children were being given priority. I was in no rush to join the scrum. “Looks like the plane is going to be full,” I mused, for want of anything to say.

“Aisle seat?”

“Sadly, no,” I murmured. “Window. But maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll bump me up to first class…”

“I’ll cross my fingers,” Ashley promised. We were both silent for a long moment, the static on the line creeping in as a disembodied voice on my end announced that boarding was open for passengers flying to Chicago. “That’s you.”

“I know.” Me and the other hundred-something passengers shuffling slowly to the gate.

“Nervous?”

I couldn’t deny it. “I’ve never flown alone before. It’s a little daunting.” So was knowing that the end goal of this visit was seeing my father in his orange jumpsuit, a windowpane between us. I tried not to think about that too much. There was still time to change my mind.

“You’ll be okay,” Ashley assured me. “I asked my Magic 8 Ball.”

“Did you ask if I was going to enjoy myself?” It seemed unlikely.

Ashley snorted. “It said, and I quote, ‘Better not tell you now.’ Sound advice. We wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

I smiled, chewing my bottom lip. “Will I see you when I get back?”

“Of course.”

There was nothing of course about it as far as I was concerned, but I didn’t want to contradict Ashley. We were skating on thin ice as it was.

“I can pick you up. Just let me know which flight you’re on. And if you’re not sure about doing this—”

“Don’t tell me I can stay home,” I begged. “Hearing it from you makes it sound tempting.” I needed to do this. I felt it in my bones, the urge to fix what my father had wrecked. We believed in reparations in my family—as well as in grudges.

Ashley was silent for a long beat, then, so quietly I might have missed it, he added, “You know I love you, right?”

My breath caught. I smiled, aware that he couldn’t see me. “’Course I know,” I quipped. So do I. I had just enough self-control not to let the words pass my lips. “Okay, they’re going to start calling my name soon.”

“Right.”

“I’ll see you when I get back.”

“You will.”

“I can’t wait.”

“I know,” Ashley shot back, a smile audible in his voice. “Bye, Laure.”

He loves me. I let the sentiment carry me from the plastic seat at the gate to the plastic seat on the plane. He loves me. For values of love that were possible in a scant three weeks of arguments, misunderstandings and awkward run-ins with our respective families.

I buckled my seat belt as we pulled away from the terminal, my heart leaping into my throat for reasons other than fear. What are three reasons you shouldn’t believe a word Ashley tells you?

Oh, shut up, I told that niggling voice at the back of my mind and closed my eyes. The engines revved with a dull hum, the floor vibrating beneath my feet as we lurched in motion—slow, at first, rattling over bumps and divots in the runway, then faster, picking up speed. My stomach bottomed out as we left the tarmac. The sky was as dark as pitch outside my window, but soon enough I could see the glow of street lamps, then the silver ribbon of the highway to the south. Paris looked like a jewel from high altitude. Somewhere in that tangle of crooked lanes and crowded apartment buildings of every shape and size was Ashley.

I clasped the thought of him to my chest, clinging as we soared into the cloud cover, on course for the States.