II

Mrs. March walked briskly down the street, with no identifiable purpose, not following her usual route, and anyway nothing was usual without her daily olive bread and breakfast muffins. The macarons could be replaced, she supposed; there was still time before the party. Or else she could send Martha to get them later. Patricia and Martha had never met, after all, although Patricia might suspect if Martha commissioned the very same items. “Can’t send Martha there, too risky,” she said aloud, and a man passing next to her gave a little jump.

She found it strange—never seeing Patricia again. Patricia, who had been a regular presence in her life for years. She had certainly not imagined, as she had pulled on her pantyhose that morning, and selected the maroon skirt to pair with her ruffled ivory blouse, that this would be the last day she would see Patricia. If someone had told her so, she would have laughed. Patricia would eventually work out that this had been the last day they had seen each other, and perhaps she would also dissect the minutiae of their last encounter—what she was wearing and doing and saying, and she too would wonder at the sheer impossibility of it all.

Maybe it wasn’t really so dramatic, that Patricia should have acted so thoughtlessly. An unfortunate thing, yes, but really, Patricia had been the only person to venture any parallel between her and that woman. That character, she corrected herself. She’s not even real. Quite possibly based on a living model . . . but George would never . . . would he?

She turned frantically into a busier street swarming with pedestrians and trumpeting with car horns. A woman smiled at her knowingly from a billboard, eyebrows raised at her like that woman in the patisserie. SHE HAD NO IDEA, the ad copy read, and Mrs. March stopped so suddenly that a man crashed into her. After a series of profuse apologies, she decided she needed to sit down and went into the nearest establishment, a poky little café.

It was drab inside, and not at all cozy. The paint on the ceiling peeling off in spots, the tables marked with swirling streaks where they had been wiped down in haste, the bathroom doorknob scratched as if someone had tried to break in. She counted two customers in total, and not very glamorous ones at that. Mrs. March slouched by the entrance, waiting to be seated, although she knew that wasn’t how this kind of place worked. She removed her mint green gloves and, as she looked them over, the recent unpleasant events flashed at her like headlights. Patricia’s words. George’s book. Her.

The shameful truth of the matter was, she had not read the book. Not really. She had barely managed to skim through a draft the previous year. The days when she would read George’s early manuscripts, sitting barefoot on a wicker chair while sucking on orange wedges in his old apartment, were long gone, unrecognizable in her gray, polluted present. She had a general sense of the book, of course—knew what it was about, knew about the fat, pathetic prostitute—but she had not stopped to consider it further. She had been, she now decided, too repulsed by the main character and the graphic, distastefully accurate story, to allow herself to continue. “Mannerisms,” she muttered under her breath. She inspected her nails again. She wondered whether that was one of them.

“Morning, ma’am, you’re alone?”

She looked at the server, clad in a black apron, which she found a tad lugubrious for a café—“I, no, not alone—”

“Table for two then?”

“Well, I’m not sure, the person I’m waiting for might not make it. Yes, let’s say for two, for now. That one?” She pointed to a table against the wall nearest the bathroom.

“No problem. Would you like to wait for this other person or shall I go ahead and take your order?”

Mrs. March could almost detect the trace of a bluff-calling smirk on the server’s face. “That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll order for both of us.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. March remembered the first time she had been called “ma’am,” or, more precisely, “madame”—she’d been unprepared, it had stunned and hurt her like a slap. Just shy of her thirtieth birthday, she had traveled to Paris for one of George’s book tours. Alone in their suite that morning, with George out signing books, she ordered herself a decadent breakfast: croissants and hot chocolate and crêpes with butter and sugar. When the waiter rolled in the cart, she received him in an oversized bathrobe, her hair still wet from the shower, her makeup streaked. She worried that she must look almost too provocative, too sensual, her lips a little swollen from rubbing them with a terrycloth towel to eliminate traces of last night’s wine. However, when she thanked the waiter (a lanky young man, barely out of his teens, neck ringed with sunburn) and tipped him, he said, “Thank you, madame,” and left the room. Just like that. He had not found her desirable in the least. In fact, he would likely consider the very notion of her naked body repulsive, and even though she wasn’t old enough to be his mother, he probably saw her as such anyway.

Now, the black-aproned waiter hovered at a slight distance, scratching absentmindedly at a scab on his wrist. “What can I get for you, ma’am?”

Once she had ordered two coffees—an espresso for her and a latte for her imaginary potential plus-one—she inhaled deeply and returned to the topic at hand. Johanna—that was the name of the protagonist, she recalled. Johanna. She whispered it to herself. She hadn’t given much thought to the name before, had never questioned why George had selected that particular name for that particular character. She didn’t know a single Johanna, nor had she ever. She wondered if George had. She hoped so, as that would indicate with almost complete certainty that this monstrous caricature was based on someone else entirely.

Nursing her espresso, she recalled—feeling sad for herself—how she had supported George at the beginning of his career by listening to him, by nodding at whatever he said, by not complaining. Even though she’d known there was no money in writing. George had said such a thing often, apologetically, as had her father (less apologetically). In those days George would take her out to his favorite cheap little Italian joint, where the waiters rattled off the menu—always different, always fresh—each night from memory. There, seated at a table sans tablecloth, a candle in a wine bottle flickering between them, he’d tell her about his latest story, his newest idea, as if he too had a fresh menu every night. She’d marveled at the genuine interest this respectable college professor appeared to have in her opinions. Not wanting to jinx it with her personality, she smiled at him and nodded and flattered him. All for him, for her George.

What could have merited this humiliation? Now the whole world would look at her differently. George knew her so well, maybe he had assumed she would never read it. A risky maneuver. But no, she concluded with scorn, he didn’t really know her that well at all. Johanna—she imagined her vividly now, sitting beside her in the cramped café, sweaty and black-toothed, she of spotted bosom and paltry existence—was nothing like her. She considered storming into every bookstore, buying every copy, destroying them somehow—a huge bonfire lit on a cold December night—but that was mad, of course.

She drummed her fingers on the table, checked her wristwatch blindly, and, unable to bear the anxiety any longer, resolved to return home and read the book. George had several copies of it in his study, and he was away until evening.

She paid for the coffees, apologizing for her absent friend, Johanna, whose untouched latte cooled, foamless, on the table. The black-aproned waiter paid no heed as she stepped out, pantyhose wrinkling around her ankles like furrowed brows, as if in reaction to the cold.

Walking home, Mrs. March passed a clothing store where two saleswomen were undressing a mannequin in the window. The women pulled at the dummy’s clothes viciously, one taking off her hat and stole and the other tugging at her dress, exposing one glossy, nipple-less breast. The mannequin looked on with such vivid, black-lashed blue eyes, and such a painful, wretched expression, that it compelled Mrs. March to look away.