Capturing Paris (7 page)

“Wonderful. I miss her terribly. She died two years ago. We used to go to Vermont to see her every summer.” Annie wondered if this breed of spinster aunt still existed: maiden aunts, they were called then. Aunt Kate, much older than her father, lived for her animals and gardens. She raised a small herd of sheep for wool that she traded to a co-op of weavers. She tended a large vegetable garden during the short summer months, and she studied with the local painting society during the winter. Annie had several of her whimsical watercolors of vegetables and gourds hanging in her Paris kitchen. She could still picture Aunt Kate bustling around the kitchen, cookies baking in the oven and pots of jam boiling on the sticky spattered stovetop. She'd encouraged Annie in all her pursuits. “Maybe you'll be an actress like your mother,” she had once said.

“Do you still have the house?”

“No. We sold it. It was hard to look after, so far away.”

“And your father?”

“My father?”

“Yes. What was he like, besides insisting on a college education?”

“Quiet. A sweet man underneath. He died just before Sophie was born. I wish he'd known her. Aunt Kate said he was brilliant, but he suffered from depression.”

When Annie was a teenager, she'd overheard a woman talking about her father in the local IGA. “Damaged goods” were her words, and to this day Annie could still remember the worn linoleum floor of that grocery store with its shelves of dented cans and day-old bread.

“Is your father still living?” she asked Daphne.

“I haven't a clue. He left my mother before I was born. I've erased him from my life.” Her voice made it clear that this topic was closed. Daphne gestured for the waiter. “
Deux cafés, s'il vous plaît
.” He hurried off and returned almost immediately with two black coffees. Daphne added a dark brown cube of sugar, stirred with the diminutive spoon, and leaned into her chair, arching her back in one languid movement. She didn't seem to be in any hurry, and a comfortable silence fell between them.

The two women seated at the next table were getting up to leave. They retied scarves, found gloves, and headed outside. Annie had noticed them during lunch. They looked like mother and daughter, laughing and sharing intimate confidences, much the way she and Daphne had been comparing life stories. She could see them now out on the street, walking arm in arm, perhaps off to do some shopping for Christmas. Annie felt a momentary longing for Sophie.

She took a sip of strong coffee and pulled her shoulders back. She didn't know if it was the good meal or Daphne's interest in her, but she felt promise. She wanted this editor, this Valmont, to like her work. She knew she could write those poems. It was the power of this place. Paris had inspired her writing from the moment she'd arrived in the city and it still did. All these years of putting Sophie first and now brooding over Wesley. She'd had enough of that. Maybe it was her turn now. She knew that when she was writing, falling into her poems, all her day-to-day troubles bothered her less.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly three. She could feel the encroaching darkness, but today it didn't seem to matter. Later, they paid the bill, dividing it in half like two friends accustomed to a longtime ritual. They said good-bye out on the street, and Daphne kissed Annie
on both cheeks. Annie caught the faint scent of lilacs and wondered if there were lilacs planted in the gardens of God House.

“Until the solstice, then,” Daphne said. Her hand lingered for a moment on Annie's arm.

Annie could hear Wesley on the phone in his office when she arrived home. She hadn't bothered to shop for dinner. Instead, she'd taken the remaining afternoon to look in some of the small boutiques in the Latin Quarter. She hoped to find something special to send Sophie for Christmas, and there wasn't much time left. Tonight they could always heat some soup, or better yet, go out for dinner. She put her coat away and stretched. She wasn't hungry, and she knew she wouldn't be for quite some time.

She kept thinking of Daphne and their afternoon together. It had been fun to share stories about their lives, but there was something a trifle unsettling as well. Spending time with Daphne reminded Annie of being with Lydia, her best friend when she was eleven or twelve. Lydia was always talking Annie into trying new things.

One summer night Lydia had persuaded Annie to climb out onto the roof of her house to smoke her first cigarette. She had talked Annie into spying on her parents' raucous parties and stealing sips of unfinished drinks. Annie had thrown up in the rhododendron hedge before she had any idea she was tipsy. She and Lydia had become blood sisters by pricking their fingers with needles taken from Aunt Kate's sewing basket. Annie both loved and feared their adventures, and she had missed Lydia when her family moved to California a few years later.

Lydia was the daring one, and Annie never understood why Lydia had paid any attention to her at all. And now, standing here in the calm of her own home, Annie wondered again why Daphne had taken an interest in her. Did she really care about her poetry, or did she merely want to help her client, Valmont?

Annie put her head in the office doorway. Now off the phone, Wesley remained focused on a document on the computer screen. “I'll be with you in a minute,” he said.

She liked seeing him bent in concentration, the neat firm line of his jaw. She entered the office, Sophie's old room, and sat on what had been Sophie's bed. When they'd changed the room to an office for Wesley, she'd moved the bed against the wall and covered it with pillows to make it look more like a daybed. She watched him tapping the keys, scrolling down, and frowning. She couldn't imagine Daphne's fingers on a computer keyboard; instead, closing her eyes, she pictured the pale hands buttoning the soft mohair sweater, turning up the collar of her blouse, and unbuttoning the top button for just the right effect. She relaxed into the pillows.

“That was Charlie on the phone,” he said.

Annie opened her eyes. “Charlie, who used to be at the firm?”

“Yeah. He works for a small British firm now. Over near the Opéra. He asked me to help with a project he's doing for the U.S. Commerce Department.”

“Great. See, you are getting more business.” She sat up on her elbows.

“It's a small project. Where've you been all afternoon? I thought you weren't going to the office.”

Annie told him about her afternoon with Daphne, holding back some of the details of the long lunch at the Flore. “It's amazing. I feel like I've known her forever. And she's taking my poems to a French publisher, Paul Valmont.” Just saying his name made the project sound like a real possibility. “It's a small press, but well respected.”

“I wouldn't get your hopes up.” He'd shut down the computer and swiveled his office chair to face her. Despite his somber mood, he looked attractive to her, vulnerable, but in a sexy way, like some of the brooding French poets she'd studied in college.

“I'm not going to get my hopes up,” she said. But she did feel a new kind of energy. A subtle positive force had come over her. She felt a looseness in her limbs and a flush of warmth in her veins. She knew it wasn't only the wine. “Wesley, I had fun this afternoon. Fun. Something I think you need more of.” She stood up and pulled the velvet bow from her hair, allowing it to fall loosely about her face.

“Yeah, right.” He looked away from her. “I have other things to think about besides fun.”

“You shouldn't think about work so much.”

“You mean lack of work.” He turned the chair back to face the desk.

She went over to him. “Take off your glasses,” she said, starting to massage the muscles in his neck. His skin was warm. She bent to kiss his head, his shaggy hair softer than it appeared.

He pulled his head away. “Come on, leave me alone.”

“You don't mean that.” She moved around and lowered herself into his lap. A small pile of papers slid onto the floor.

“Annie, look at what you're doing.” He tried to lean away and reach for the papers scattered across the rug. “Annie, please.”

“Please what?”

“Please, not now.”

“I know what you need.” She ran her fingers through his hair and down to his shoulders.

“Listen to me. I said, not now.” His words felt like a slap.

“Well, when? Will you tell me that?” She reached to unbutton his shirt, but he took her hands in his own with a determined grip. She felt hot and embarrassed, but she couldn't stop. “What is it? You don't want sex?” The powerful word echoed in her ears. “There I've said it. You haven't touched me in months.” He looked away, still holding her hands. Now her words poured forth in a torrent. “What's happening to us? You're not old; certainly I'm not. I still need you, Wes. This coldness, it's changing everything.”

“I don't want to talk about it.” He let go of her hands.

“We need to talk about it.” She reached for his face, trying to get him to look her in the eye. “You don't want sex? Or is it me? You don't want me?”

“It's not about sex.” He wouldn't look at her, and his tall, slender body remained rigid and inert.

“Maybe you should talk to someone?” She spoke softly, as if coaxing a difficult child.

“God, Annie. It's not that.”

“I know what depression is. You remember my father.”

“Look, I'm stuck inside here all day long trying to hang on to the few clients I've got, and trying to get new ones. It's not easy.” His blue
eyes darkened to the slate color of a rough sea. “This is not some kind of mental illness. It's very simple. I can't stand not having enough work to do. I feel like a goddamned failure, and it just keeps getting worse.”

“You're not a failure.”

“What would you call it then?”

“Wesley.” She decided to take a different tack. “This is not just about you. We're in this together. This problem belongs to both of us, and you're shutting me out.”

“Annie, just give me time. Everyone has their own way of coping.” Now he sounded angry. He stood, nearly knocking her to the floor with the sudden movement. “I'm going out. I want to get some air.” He clicked off the desk light and left her alone, standing in the dark.

Annie crossed the shadowed room and sank back onto the bed. At first she felt only shame. She curled into a ball, pulling her knees to her chest. Her hair fell lank around her face. Wesley didn't want her. He wouldn't allow her to help. She heard the front door close and his footsteps fading in retreat. The old familiar ache set in, the girlhood loneliness she'd endured when her father closed the door to his study, the way he used to shut her out. He had refused to talk about her mother, refused to reveal his sadness, refused to share their loss. She'd been powerless then, a mere child, unable to change her parent. Now, as she lay on the faded bedspread, a similar helplessness weighed upon her. She listened to her own breathing, the silence heavy. Part of her wanted to fall asleep and forget, but she could feel anger creeping in and taking over her body.

She would not let it happen again. She got up, went to the alcove off the living room, and turned on the lamp by her chair. The light fell across the fine old maple drop-front desk that had belonged to her mother. A photograph of her mother sat on top of the desk, along with a bud vase that she kept filled with seasonal blooms. It contained a sprig of holly, shiny dark green leaves and red berries. She studied the wide grin, the smooth forehead and straight nose, her mother's spirited expression that, along with the tilt of her head, said, “I dare you.”

Annie sat down, picked up her notebook, and began to write. She jotted down words and phrases that helped to summon the still-imaginary place, God House. It already existed in her mind. A house where you would come alive—what had Daphne said? Annie didn't want to be an actress, like her mother, but she would be a poet. She gripped her pen more tightly and watched as the words spilled across the page.

Le Bureau

“
Perhaps you'd like to look at the photographs while we wait for François. I
expect him soon.”

Paul Valmont was younger than Annie expected. In the cool morning light she could detect flecks of gray in his dark hair, but he was not the aging widower who had occupied her imagination since his phone call. Daphne was right. He was good-looking, but in the French way, with strong features, deeply set eyes, and angles defining his face. His lips were full, capable of dangling the ubiquitous cigarette. He stood behind an elegant antique desk that looked nothing like the sleek modern furniture in the outer office where she had arrived. Loose papers, stacks of manuscripts, and books covered every inch of the surface, and a fountain pen lay in the crease of an open volume. Black ink markings still appeared wet on the page.

He reached for a well-worn leather portfolio that leaned against the side of his desk. “Let's go over to the table by the window. The light is better. I'm afraid that my desk is never clear.”

“It's a beautiful desk,” she said, noticing the carved legs and delicate inlaid wood along the edge.

“The desk of my father. The business belonged to him as well.” He gestured to the wall of books. “My family has been in the book business for generations.” The shelves on the wall behind him were filled with old leather books, finely tooled gold lettering glimmering on the spines. The shelves within reach of Valmont's desk chair overflowed with more modern volumes in colorful jackets, along with paperback editions squeezed horizontally into every available space.

Valmont pushed aside several manuscripts on the narrow table to make room for the portfolio. Annie stood beside him while he unfastened the worn black ribbon that held the two sides together and revealed a stack of black-and-white photographs separated by sheer creamy vellum sheets. His wide, pale hands shook slightly as he drew back the first page.