Boulder, December 1987
“Mom! What have you done to yourself? Is that the way you looked when you married my dad?”
“Well, darling, that was eighteen years ago. Obviously I’ve changed in some ways.”
“But how come you can make yourself look, well, the way you must have looked back then?”
She didn’t try to disguise her pleasure. Justin left the room to get a Coke, and Henrietta turned her head to look into the hallway mirror. It had been a full minute since she had last looked at herself, in the bathroom mirror. Her hair was curled over her forehead, coming down around her ears, glistening behind her long young neck. On her shoulders she wore the yellow tulle her father had given her when Justin was born, and around her neck she wore her mother’s pearls. The lipstick, pink and moist, she had had to go out to buy, at Jacki Goodman’s. She hadn’t used lipstick for all those years.
She wondered, did she look too much like a vamp on the prowl? What would they have thought of her at the university in Paris, got up that way, in the light of her reputation for resolute drabness? Her father had once upbraided her for her neglected appearance, but her aunt Josephine, who was naturally austere, defended her. “It is perfectly right,” she had told her brother, “that Henrietta should continue in mourning for her husband.”
Amy had been forthright in her invitation to come for drinks and dinner. “I’m not telling you,” she said over the phone, “that you have to tart yourself up. I am telling you that it wouldn’t make any sense to arrive with your natural attractions in disguise, the way they’ve been since you came to Boulder. Jean-Paul may not notice if you dress up, but he would certainly notice if you came in looking like a nun.”
“Jean-Paul? Have I met him?”
“Probably not, unless you’ve attended meetings of the French faculty. I’ve never encountered him in the stacks, where you and I hang out.”
“Why did you invite him?”
“Because he’s attractive. And a widower.”
“When did his wife die?”
“You remember the Air India flight that went down?”
“Oh mon Dieu, yes!—I won’t tell any jokes about airplanes.”
“You are coming to life, dear Henrietta.”
Also invited were Halston Rauschig and his wife, Helen. Halston was the soul of the Democratic Party in Boulder. He was pleased when Amy, in introducing him to Henrietta, took pains to point out that it had been Halston who had put together the Democratic rally the previous semester, “where Reuben Castle wowed everybody.”
“Were you there?” Halston asked Henrietta.
“Yes, I was.”
“What was your impression?”
“Impression of what?”
“Well, of the speaker. Senator Castle.”
They were standing in the glassed-in garden room, which looked out over the mountains, still faintly visible against the early December dusk. Amy suddenly remembered: “Hey, Henri! Weren’t you at the University of North Dakota, before going to Paris? Castle was also at the University of North Dakota! Did your paths cross?”
“I don’t remember.”
The doorbell rang and Amy went to answer it as Halston broke in: “Reuben Castle was a big shot on campus—chairman of the Student Council and editor of the student newspaper. If you were there at the same time, he’d have been hard to miss.”
“My mind was on other things. I had some extracurricular activities of my own.”
“Like what?” Amy Parrish asked, returning with Jean-Paul Lafayette.
“Like duck hunting.”
Jean-Paul was extending his hand. “Enchanté,” he said.
Henri murmured a reply, and Amy told her how lovely she looked. Helen agreed. “You’re hardly dressed to go duck hunting, Henri.”
“I don’t know, Helen. Maybe I am.”
She sat down next to Jean-Paul. His thick dark hair was cut short and curled close to his head. His gentle eyes and wry smile caught her, and his voice was light but warm. His native French was flawless, of course, but also colorful, and he insisted on using it. That was perfectly agreeable to Henri, less so to the other guests, but they all enjoyed themselves, talked politics for a bit, and ate and drank with relish, keeping John Parrish busy tending bar and pouring wine. He did manage to say to the Rauschigs—first to Halston, then separately to Helen—that the new line of Buicks, which his dealership was currently displaying, could be outfitted with a collapsible bar, “if you want one.”
Halston said that if he was getting a new car he might well want one. “It would be handy to have for celebrating the Democratic victory next November!”
John poured Halston’s glass full.