Letter from Paris (18 page)

“Here,” she said, lifting two long-stemmed glasses from the table and holding them toward the bottle.

“Cin Cin,” he said, raising his glass.

“Cheers,” she said without raising hers. “Let’s eat. You look like you’ve not had a meal in months.”

“This is so civilized.” Peter sighed, pulling out the ornate garden chair and shaking out a floral napkin. He speared a tomato and layered a slice of cheese curd onto the warm crusty bread. “I miss you, Lu. I miss this.”

Luella didn’t respond. She sat down looking into the middle distance, avoiding eye contact with him.

“How’s the new book coming on?” he asked through a mouthful of salad.

“Not so well. I’m collecting content right now,” she said pouring iced lemon water from a jug into their tumblers. “Planning the fashion show and preparing for the media promotion is taking up so much of my time it’s impossible to get into a writing rhythm.”

“I’m so proud of you, Lu. I think
Faux Fashion
is your best book yet.”

“I’ve given you a good acknowledgement for all the research you helped me with,” she said. “I felt so close to you when I was writing this book. You were such a big part of the process…it’s hard to imagine that when I was running all that by you and you were taking such an interest, you were…”

Peter refilled their glasses. “I know. I know,” he murmured. “Tell me what I can do to make things any better.”

Luella sighed heavily, put down her silverware and pushed her plate away. She shook out a cigarette and tapped it on the table, twisting it between her finger and thumb.

“I’ve been to see a counselor,” she said. “I’ve been going every week. It’s helping. It’s why I’m able to sit here with you, like this.”

“A counselor? I thought you didn’t want that.”

“Well, turns out I do. Having you here today, meeting you yesterday was all part of how I’m supposed to, and I quote, ‘begin to understand what’s happened and not blame you or blame myself.’ Apparently and somewhat obviously, if we aren’t communicating I won’t get answers to all my questions and I have SO many questions.”

Peter looked at her intensely. “Do you want me to come to the sessions? I told you ages ago that I would if you’d like me to.”

“No,” she said, more forcefully than she intended. “At least not yet. Maybe not at all.” She struck at the side of a card of matchsticks and lit her cigarette. “Peter, I’m not going to pretend that sitting here like this and being all civilized and grown up isn’t difficult.” She blew the smoke away from him over her shoulder and flicked the ash into the grass. “It’s excruciating if you want to know.”

“So what can I say or do now?”

“I have questions. You owe it to me to answer them truthfully.”

“Okay. Absolutely. I promise.”

“Are you still seeing this man?”

Peter pushed away his plate. “Yes,” he said.

“When did you meet him?”

“Five years ago, when Société Générale was extending its asset management and mutual funds business. You remember I stayed in Paris for a month.”

“And then went back there virtually every week for a while,” Luella said. “Yes. I remember. Ironically, I was writing
Synchronized Secrets
at the time.”

“Yes. That wasn’t lost on me. Life imitating art as they say.”

“I was chasing a deadline. I was grateful to have the time to myself to work while you were away.”

“That’s when it started,” he said quietly.

“Peter, how long would you have gone on deceiving me if I hadn’t found the letters?”

“Lu, I’d have told you years ago if I hadn’t been so torn. I’ve been in denial. You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to break it off with him. Nobody wants to be different. I didn’t. I really don’t, but now that you know, it has forced me to take a hard look at myself and accept that this is
what
, I mean,
who
I am.”

He looked at her, his face creased with pain. “There’s more I have to tell you,” he said.

“Go on.”

“It’s about my job.”

“Peter, you aren’t telling me you’d lose your job for coming out as gay. That’s ridiculous, surely?”

“No. Not for being gay, but there could be insider-trading issues here if I do – if they find out about us. He’s wealthy. He’s well known. He invested strongly in shares that, well…look, it could be construed that he had access to information that he might only have known about through me if they find out we are…” he hesitated, “…having an affair. He’s being investigated.”

Luella’s mouth dropped open. She leapt up and looked at him in horror. “What the flying fuck? Are you telling me that not only do I have to come to terms with your homosexuality and infidelity now I also have to get my head around the fact that you’re a crook? What the fuck, Peter? Do I even know you at all?”

Throwing down her cigarette and squashing it hard into the gravel path with her foot, she turned and faced him, her voice exploding with rage. “You’re involved in some kind of Martha Stewart insider-trading thing? You could go to fucking jail. We have joint accounts. We have investments. Are they at risk? What’s going on?”

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this, Luella,” Peter said quietly. “I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just how it might look. I will be investigated no doubt, but they won’t find anything. What they will find out is that we have had an affair and I didn’t want you finding that out before I explained everything, and I haven’t had the courage to tell you.”

Luella sat down and lit another cigarette. She felt spent. Her head throbbed and her throat felt so raw she could barely swallow. Leaning back, she put her hand on her chest to stop the palpitations.

“Peter, I can’t think straight. Please leave now. Please. I’ll call you.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m making this harder than it needs to be. Maybe I’ll put it in writing. That way we can talk more calmly.”

Luella watched him walk away. Pushing away the remains of her half-eaten lunch plate she remembered how badly Peter had always responded to confrontation, how frustrated she had always been by his inability to show emotion. In the early days of their marriage whenever they would disagree, she would fly into a rage, becoming more articulate the angrier she became and whipping things up into a more furious row. Peter would simmer silently, retreat into his personal space and freeze her out for hours, sometimes days.

Now as she began to calm down, she could see how futile and extreme her response had been. As the red mists of anger lifted, she felt saddened. She had done everything within her power to behave with civility, with dignity and maturity. She had been to see a counselor every week for months, called help-lines, talked endlessly to Susie, scoured books and followed blogs for hours on end, reading heart-wrenching stories of other women who had discovered their husbands were gay.

Taking deep drags of her cigarette, Luella understood how badly the months of agony, self-reproach and shock had affected her. Something had to give. After all, she had been functioning for all intents and purposes as if nothing had happened, going to meetings, writing, preparing guest blogs and traveling, while her life was crumbling around her. She had been feeling the intense pain of grieving. It was as if she had been numb up to this point. Now she felt the searing pain of abandonment.

Luella looked up. Peter was standing in the kitchen doorway.

“There’s something else you should know,” he said.

“I thought you’d left.” She sighed, getting to her feet and lifting a couple of their lunch plates. “Peter, I’m exhausted. I thought I made it abundantly clear I need some space right now.”

“Sit down, Lu. Please. I have to tell you something,” he said.

Hearing the urgency in his voice, Luella put down the dishes and sank back in the chair. “Okay…what do I need to know that can’t wait?” she said, wincing at the grating sound of metal as Peter dragged out the chair opposite her.

“The man I’ve been seeing…” he began tentatively.

Luella inhaled sharply. “Yes?”

“The man is Jean-Luc.”

Luella stared at him. “Jean-Luc?” she whispered. “Jean-Luc?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes for a few moments then opened them again. “You and Jean-Luc. Jean-Luc?” she said. “What the fuck? What the fuck, Peter?”

She stopped speaking for a moment, choking on her words. Peter said nothing. “Not only have you managed to screw up my personal life…” she said, “…managed to destroy everything I thought we had. Not only that, but now you’ve managed to fuck with my professional life too.”

“Lu…I…it wasn’t deliberate. I promise, this isn’t…”

“You know what. I’m done. Get out, Peter. I mean it. I really do.” She stood up and faced him, her eyes flashing dangerously. “If you stay here a minute longer, I will not be accountable for my actions. Get out, Peter. Get out right now before I lose it completely.”

Returning to her apartment after a full day of meetings, India was buzzing with adrenalin and at a loss as to how to fill her Friday evening. She needed a distraction, a project, anything to take her mind off of Adam Brooks this weekend.

The day had given her much to consider. She had experienced an epiphany on the subway home, had come to understand that fashion was not simply about wearing beautiful things. Fashion was an art form in and of itself. The fashion industry was a fundamental force to be reckoned with politically and ethically.

Fashion involved so much more than the shallow merchandising of clothes or labels. It was not all about
Vogue
shoots and Italian designers peddling impossible lifestyle aspirations, encouraging greed and ostentation. Sure, an obsession with fashion could lead to eating disorders and overspending, but it turned out that an interest in fashion, such as the one she indeed herself possessed, was more a form of social responsibility.

No longer would India see fashion as simply a form of self-expression or retail therapy. From this day forward, she would approach all purchases with an understanding of the vital contribution she was making to the survival of the planet. What had once been simply an absorbing pastime, which admittedly bordered on obsession, would now be a contribution to a cause, a responsibility to the earth. Bolstered by this very thought, India went through to her bedroom, a woman on a mission.

Two hours later, she was regretting her decision to conduct an appraisal of her closet in order to assess the political correctness of its contents. Clearly her shoes were, without exception, unsustainable. She surveyed the Louboutins bought in LA, the Prada sandals from New York, the Repetto ballet slippers from Paris, her nude pumps from LK Bennett as well as several pairs of All Saints boots, K Jacques sandals, Uggs and Lanvin flats that were heaped on her bed. This area had been designated the ‘Dead animals – footwear section’ and she was running out of space.

A bedside chair, an area designated ‘More dead animals section’ was covered in coats. Unsure where to file it, she placed her Arthur and Fox cashmere jacket lovingly on top of her Cottonier leather biker jacket, pretty sure that cashmere involved the exploitation of a protected species of Himalayan mountain goat.

Her shirts could remain on their hangers while she tallied them. Silk should never be thrown around, she thought, especially now I know what those worms have sacrificed. Stacking her merino wool and cashmere sweaters on a storage trunk in their protective moth repellant plastic zipper bags, she stopped to think.

Clearly there was no need to pull out any of her purses. They would never pass muster – Longchamp and Mulberry were not prone to the use of plastic even if given a fancy new name like ‘pleather.’

She appraised the remaining woolen skirts and silk dresses, ‘garments’ as Victoria would call them.

Many have died that you might live. She sighed, closing the mirrored doors.

Opening her underwear drawer and banishing an image of caterpillars in scalding water, India sighed at the memory of the many evenings she had spent with Adam in Los Angeles in her Agent Provocateur negligees, satin corsets and silk stockings.

Why does everything I do always bring me back to a memory of you? she thought mournfully as she began returning things to their place. There’s the shirt I wore for our very first date, the shoes from that magical night in Malibu, the pashmina you wrapped around me coming out of Chateau Marmont, and the little black dress of Annie’s that I should probably give back to her sometime.

When she was done, India showered and put on her Gap pajamas, made herself a hot chocolate and climbed into bed. Sipping on the comforting drink, she checked her phone and saw the text from Adam.

Will be in Saint-Paul de Vence next Tuesday and Wednesday… want to join me at La Colombe d’Or? Can send car to collect from Nice airport.

India stared at the screen for a moment, then put down her mug and lay back gazing at the ceiling. Suddenly wide-awake, she sat bolt upright and dialed Los Angeles.

“Hey sis,” Annabelle answered. “How’s it going? What time is it there?”

India glanced at the bedside clock. “Ten thirty. Is this a good time? Are you still jetlagged from Hawaii? Were you taking a nap?”