Capturing Paris (19 page)

Later, as the afternoon ebbed into evening, they sat sipping tea by the fire in the library. Annie felt refreshed from their long walk in the fresh air and stimulated by Daphne's questions and ongoing enthusiasm for the book. She couldn't quite fathom Daphne's interest, and she was somewhat surprised by the intensity of such a recent friendship. They seemed to have reached a kind of understanding that usually took months or even years to develop.

“Wait until we take the river walk in the spring,” Daphne said. “The banks will be covered with daffodils.”

“Who knows where I'll be then.” Annie set her cup down and drew her feet up under herself on the sofa.

“You'll be right here, writing more poems for Paul's book.”

“You forget. Wesley's off in America, probably accepting a job there as we speak.”

“And you'll drop everything here to go and play loving wife?” Daphne tilted her head and raised her eyebrows in a bemused expression.

“Of course not.” Annie was vaguely annoyed, though she knew Daphne was teasing. “I'm sure I can manage to do the poems. Besides, I don't have to follow right away.”

“You use the word
follow
. I'm not sure I see you that way.”

“Just how do you see me?”

“I see you as a lot more than a dutiful, obliging wife. As a matter of fact, I think I see you more clearly than you see yourself.”

“And how is that?”

“Well”—Daphne paused and appeared to consider this thoughtfully—“for one thing, I see you as someone ready to get rid of a lifetime of restraints. I know it's a cliché, but I think you are just about to hit your stride. You've told me how you miss your mother, how you never knew her. Well, I have a feeling you're a lot like her. I think you're going to discover all kinds of things about yourself. Maybe you'll laugh”—and here Daphne did laugh—“but I think I'm the one who came along just in time to help you. I view it as my job to get you there.”

Annie found this a bit presumptuous. “I'm glad you're so interested, but—”

“Look. Just think about it.” Daphne took another sip of tea and got up. “Listen, have a little rest. I'm going to make a few phone calls. We can talk about it later over a drink.”

Annie wasn't sure she wanted to continue this conversation at all, though she was sleepy and decided to stay right there by the fire for a nap.

When she awoke, the room was dark, the only light coming from the glow of the coals dying in the fireplace. Sitting up, she was overcome with a sense of peace, an enveloping stillness. She was aware of her own breathing, the ticking of a clock in the hall, and distant sounds coming from the kitchen. Rather than clicking on a light and getting up to help out, like her usual efficient self, she remained perfectly still and watched the fire in silence.

“Well, you're awake,” Daphne said. “I'm going to rev up this fire and pour some drinks.”

Annie still didn't say a word. She stretched out her legs, rested her head on the back of the sofa, and watched as Daphne added logs and poked the coals. The fire obediently burst to life.

“You look happy,” Daphne said, turning around.

“Oh, I feel so much better. Sometimes there's just nothing like a nap.”

“How about a whiskey?”

“I never drink whiskey.”

“Remember what we talked about. Just try one.” She went over to a shelf in the bookcase where several crystal decanters were lined up with a tray of glasses. She poured the dark, honey-colored liquid into a heavy, short glass without ice. Then she poured a second one and came over and sat on the sofa at Annie's feet. She handed her the drink. Annie reached out and lifted the glass to her lips. The whiskey felt vaguely hot as it went down, but not unpleasant. She quite liked the aftertaste.

Daphne came around to the back of the sofa and picked up Annie's ponytail, giving it a brief tug.

“Have you ever thought of cutting it?” Daphne asked, and came back to the sofa. Annie was too astonished to answer. Her hair, while not a particularly exciting shade of pale brown, was thick and in summer took on golden highlights from the sun. She knew Wesley liked it long, and she'd never bothered to do anything different with it. Daphne was looking fixedly at her. Annie took another sip of whiskey.

“Don't be shocked. You've got lovely thick hair, and I think it could be great cut in layers, boyish but longer.” Daphne took a sip of her drink and reached over to Annie, unclipping the barrette. “I could do it, you know. I mean cut your hair. I did it all the time in boarding school. The girls thought I was very good.” She drew her fingers through Annie's hair.

This time Annie took a big swallow of the whiskey. Some voice, which did not sound like her own, said, “Fine, do it. I'm totally sick of what I look like.”

Daphne laughed. “You mean it?”

“I do.”

“Okay, bring your drink. Let's go up to my bathroom. I've got scissors there.”

Annie followed Daphne up the stairs, into her room and the bathroom beyond. She thought again of the afternoon when she had brought Daphne her tea in that old-fashioned bathroom, spare and functional with a claw-footed tub and two large porcelain sinks side by side. A huge mirror in a mahogany frame covered most of the wall
above the sinks. Daphne pulled a wooden chair out into the center of the bathroom. It scraped loudly across the tile floor.

“That's a gorgeous sweater, but take it off and put this over your shoulders.” She handed Annie an enormous white bath towel. Annie, with a surge of excitement, felt like a young girl about to do something that might get her into trouble. She set her drink down on the edge of the sink and pulled her sweater over her head to expose her pale winter skin and small breasts. She shivered. At least she was wearing one of her nicer bras. Daphne got the scissors from a drawer and picked up a heavy clump of hair on the top of Annie's head.

Annie heard the snap of the scissors as Daphne made the first cut. She shut her eyes.

“Okay?”

Annie kept her eyes closed and merely nodded. A sense of abandonment came over her. It was like the time she had gone skinny-dipping with Wesley in the pond behind his parents' house in Connecticut. She remembered the delightful sensation of the water caressing her body and the fear of someone discovering them totally naked in the hot summer sun. Now she imagined her head becoming lighter as Daphne cut hunk after hunk of her hair.

Daphne's fingers were cool and firm on her scalp. Periodically, she pulled both hands through Annie's hair before reaching for another clump. Eventually, she picked up the comb and drew it through, cutting small bits and the ends.

“I'm not opening my eyes until you're done,” Annie said. “Would you hand me my drink, please? I think I'm beginning to like whiskey.”

Daphne laughed softly and kept cutting. Gradually her work slowed and she pulled the towel off Annie's shoulders, brushing off the lingering remnants of hair. “Done,” she said, and stepped back to admire the results.

Annie opened her eyes slowly. She stood and stared into the bathroom mirror. The face looking back amazed her. Annie's thick hair was suited to the many layers and curled gently under. Daphne had tucked the short pieces by her face behind her ears. The final effect was young and French-looking, making her features seem more distinct, her eyes
bigger, and her mouth fuller. Annie expected the illusion to disappear, but the vision smiled back at her. Daphne handed her the black sweater. She pulled it over her head and tucked the sides of her hair behind her ears as Daphne had done a few minutes ago.

Daphne stood behind her. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks, Daphne. It's wonderful. I can't believe in all these years I've never thought of changing it.” She looked into the wastebasket where Daphne had tossed the hunks of hair. The hair didn't look like her own but like that of a stranger.

“It's really more you, very sexy too.”

“I wonder what Wesley will think.”

“He'd be crazy not to love it.” Daphne gave the towel a final shake. “Now let's go down before the chicken in the oven is all dried up.”

La Surprise

Annie enjoyed waking up alone at God House on these January mornings. She
appreciated the stillness, the silence, not having to talk to anyone. She pulled her covers up around her neck. The room was chilly; it would be another cold bright day. She thought of winter mornings in Vermont when she could see her breath in the air as she got out of bed. Aunt Kate always lowered the thermostat for the night. By January, the gray landscape would have been securely blanketed by snow that grew deeper with each winter storm. Between storms, the skies would clear and the sun would sparkle against the bright blue. On clear nights, the moon would illuminate the cold, sleeping world in a kind of primeval light that felt like magic.

Spending this time with Daphne at God House had been an unexpected pleasure. She had let go of her usual worries, and she welcomed the freedom from her normal responsibilities. She had shed her hair along with old habits and the pattern of her life with Wesley. Her writing was going well.

This morning, sunlight washed across the pink walls of her God House bedroom. The color reminded her of the pink shirts Wesley used to wear when she first met him. Made of cotton oxford cloth, softened by repeated launderings, they smelled like him, clean and optimistic. She had found their scent and softness so reassuring the first time that he had drawn her into his arms. He had felt so different from Luke, whose black turtlenecks smelled of smoke and the stale odor of men's dormitories. She had equated Luke's smell with sexiness and the alien territory of the male species. She soon learned that sex and love itself could take on another, altogether different flavor,
and one she had grown to love. She tried to remember when Wesley had stopped wearing the pink shirts.

Annie's days at God House took on a pleasant routine, each day melting easily into the next. In the mornings she and Daphne moved about quietly in their separate worlds. Annie, usually the first one up, would come down to the kitchen in her nightgown and robe for coffee. Daphne set up the coffee machine the night before, and Annie would switch it on and go out to the glass room to look for signs of life in the garden. She didn't know much about gardening, but like most Parisians, she tended window boxes and pots of plants on the windowsills of her apartment. But here an entire community of birds made their home among the hibernating plants. She watched them dine on seed pods and berries and dive into the bushes for cover. Soon there would be a few fresh green shoots peeking through the dark earth, the tips of spring bulbs.

When the coffee machine gave up its sputtering with a final wheeze, she'd go back to the kitchen to pour her first cup. On particularly cold mornings she'd carry her coffee back to bed, but today she went out to her favorite wicker chair at the far end of the glass room. She liked to start the day by reading something good, and this usually inspired her to start writing. She picked up a book she'd found yesterday in the library about the French writer Pierre Lotti, who wrote at the end of the nineteenth century about the lure of exotic places and his travels in North Africa. She looked at her white feet and wondered how they would feel on the smooth tiles of a Moroccan palace he described.

After a while, Annie would migrate back up to her room and run a hot bath. She might look in on Daphne briefly. Daphne preferred to spend the morning sitting in the middle of her large bed surrounded by piles of books and papers. She had her coffee on one tray and used another as a writing table. By ten-thirty or eleven Annie would hear her moving about and eventually the sound of her voice on the phone as she checked in with clients and antiques dealers. When Daphne set up a simple business appointment, her low, rich voice made it sound more like she was arranging an illicit rendezvous.

Usually by noon both women would meet in the kitchen hungry and ready for a snack or an early lunch. Today Annie found Daphne in the kitchen making a list.

“It's market day.” She raised her bent head and put down her pencil. “Why don't we go into the village for some shopping?”

“I'd love to.” Annie ran her fingers through her hair, still surprised at the feel of it. “Can you get fish at your market? I could cook mussels for dinner.”

“Lovely idea. They bring in a truck from Brittany.” Daphne seemed to be thinking something over and then added, “Let's buy enough for three. I talked to your Valmont this morning. He's bringing out some boxes of china late this afternoon, and we need to discuss what he wants to put in for an upcoming auction. I may invite him to stay on for dinner.” She bent to add a few more things to the list. “It's okay with you, isn't it?”

“Of course,” Annie said. “Why would I mind?”

“He can't get here until after five. I could hardly send him back to Paris on an empty stomach. And after all, he is your editor now and we have to keep him happy.”

“It'll be fun. I don't mind at all.” She thought of their last meeting, the pleasure of working with Paul in his office and the friendly dinner that followed. There had been that brief awkward moment of parting when he'd touched her face. What would it be like to see him here at God House, to share him with Daphne? “Your Valmont,” she had said.

The sign above the door said
CHEZ GABBY
. They had finished their shopping in the village, and Daphne suggested the slight detour to Morillon, another sleepy little town of houses with closed graying shutters hiding the private lives that hibernated within. A small pâtisserie on the main street was well lit, and Annie could see several elderly ladies bent over the counter studying an array of fruit tarts and dainty cakes. Just beyond, they came to the antiques shop where Daphne had wanted to check on some brass lanterns that the proprietor, Gabby, had found for her at a recent auction.