The Slipper (31 page)

Carol was intrigued. She had heard about the New Wave, of course, but she had considered them a bunch of rowdy, ragtail, undisciplined children—most of them were still in their mid-twenties—flying in the face of conventional values. Suddenly realizing that half an hour must have passed since Hanin dragged her away, she felt a pang of guilt and looked around for Norman. He was probably miserable in this crowd. She spotted him across the room, talking with Irwin Shaw and Peter Viertel. Moreau was still with him, looking magnificent in crushed red velvet and pearls, laughing at one of his remarks and devouring him with those wide, moody eyes. Mature, experienced, one of the most exciting women in the world and one of its greatest actresses, she obviously found the man from Kansas most interesting. Someone tugged on Carol's arm, pulling her away from the crowd around Hanin.

“It was dreadful, darling, wasn't it?” Gaby said brightly. “Frankly, I'm surprised the critics didn't rise en masse and come after me with machetes.”

“It was pretty awful,” Carol admitted.

“But such fun to do. I never really care what happens to the play—I can always write another novel. I just love being in the theater, working with the actors, soaking up the atmosphere.”

Gaby smiled her pixie smile, cheerful as could be, a little high on vodka, blithely celebrating in the face of disaster. Jean-Claude Brialy looked upset. Trintignant looked stoic. Michèle Morgan hadn't bothered to come to the party. Shaking her short, tawny-gold curls, Gaby seized another vodka from the tray of a passing waiter and took a healthy swig.

“Jeanne seems quite intrigued with your gentleman,” she said. “He must be something if he can keep her captivated.”

“He's something,” Carol told her.

“Is he the one, darling?”

“He—he could be, if I allowed it to happen.”

“Let it happen. Life without love—” Gaby paused, as though such a thing were unthinkable. “You need to be in love, darling. It gives one a reason for getting up in the morning.”

“It also hurts.”

“Love is like champagne. It lifts your spirits, it makes you sparkle, and you feel gloriously alive. If you have too much there is often a hangover, but that is a small price to pay.”

“That sounds like one of your books.”

“My books are me,” Gaby said blithely. “Here comes Alain, looking particularly sullen. We shall probably fight tonight—he has a violent temper—but in the early hours of the morning it will be such fun to make up.”

Gaby's youth came over and took her arm roughly, demanding they leave. He was dangerously attractive, if you cared for the type. Gaby rested her hand on his lean cheek and ignored the fiery look in his eyes. She smiled coquettishly, told him he would have to be patient and, pulling her arm free, waved him away. Her brown eyes sparkled as she turned back to Carol.

“Forget Coca-Cola, darling,” she advised. “Try the champagne.”

She gave Carol a hug and hurried away to greet Eddie Constantine and Edith Piaf, who, having skipped the play, were just arriving. The American-born actor was having a great vogue in French gangster films, his Lenny Caution series extremely popular. With his battered, Bogart face and flashy silk suit he looked like a hoodlum but was the most genial of souls. Piaf, all in black, appeared shaky and disoriented, her huge dark eyes full of pain. Carol moved across the room toward Norman but was intercepted by Gerard Philipe, who was currently making Vadim's
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
with Moreau and Stroyberg. They were already having censorship problems, he informed her. He said several nice things about Carol's performance in
And the Sea Is Blue
and added that he hoped they'd have an opportunity to work together soon.

Norman and Moreau were discussing the theater when Carol joined them. His French was almost perfect, she observed. Moreau took Carol's hand and smiled a radiant smile and told her she was fortunate indeed to have so charming and intelligent a companion. She apologized for monopolizing him and told Norman he was fortunate, too. Giving Carol's hand a friendly squeeze, she moved away to speak to Vadim and Stroyberg. Carol looked up at Norman, and there was no one else in the room. She sensed that he felt the same way. The noise, the glittering crowd were a mere background. Their eyes met and held and a long moment passed before Norman finally grinned and asked if she was ready to leave. Carol nodded. He tucked her arm in his and led her toward the exit.

Their car was parked down the street. Both were silent on the way back to the Avenue Ingres. It was a comfortable silence. There was no need to talk. Paris at night was festooned with dazzling, multicolored lights, like an aging beauty who has decided to wear all her jewels at once. Carol had been here for over two years, and this was the first time she had felt the full magic of Paris. The city seemed somehow different tonight, warm, welcoming, enfolding them both in its spell. Perhaps what they said was true. Perhaps Paris really was for lovers. But he isn't my lover, she reminded herself, and he's not going to be. Norman reached for her hand in the semidarkness of the backseat, holding it firmly in his own. He isn't. I'm not.

The limousine glided to a stop in front of her apartment building. Norman helped her out and they stood there on the pavement. A streetlamp nearby made a warm yellow pool, intensifying the shadows. She could smell flowers and damp soil from the
bois
across the way, and she could smell him and feel his warmth. Her knees felt curiously weak. Her throat felt tight again. There was an ache inside, an emptiness that yearned to be filled.

“Shall I ask the driver to wait?” he asked quietly.

“I—I'm tired of Coca-Cola,” Carol said.

Norman arched one fine, dark brow, puzzled.

“I want champagne,” she added. “Why don't you tell the driver you won't need him anymore tonight.”

Norman pulled her to him and kissed her lightly on the lips. Carol waited in front of the building while he stepped over to dismiss the driver, and a moment later the car pulled smoothly away. Norman took her hand and led her into the building. There might be a hangover, a very bad hangover, but she already felt her spirits soaring, felt wondrously, gloriously alive. Gaby was going to be very proud of her.

There was a balcony in her bedroom too, and sunlight streamed over the marble bannister the next morning and gilded the hardwood floor with a misty gold. He was still asleep, completely nude, the sheets twisted around his thighs, his bare chest and one leg exposed. He had the lean, solid body of an athlete, his skin a soft tan, and he had the strength and energy of a man many years his junior. He had proved that last night. Carol stood near the open French windows, nude herself beneath the thin blue robe that was belted at the waist and fell to mid-thigh. Birds were singing in the
bois
. She had never paid that much attention to them before. Again she felt the magic of the city. It seemed to smile, to welcome her into the ranks. Norman stirred, a lock of dark auburn hair tumbling over his brow. He opened his eyes. He saw her standing in the misty gold light. A lovely, boyish smile formed on his lips, and her heart seemed to swell until she thought it might burst.

“What's that I smell?” he asked.

“Bacon, eggs, warm croissants, coffee.”

“Delicious smells. I'd better get up.”

Carol shook her head and left and returned a few moments later with a tray. There were strawberry preserves and a crock of butter for the croissants, a pitcher of rich cream for the strong coffee. Norman was sitting up, his back propped against the headboard, the sheet pulled modestly up to his waist. Carol smiled and sat down beside him, carefully balancing the tray on his knees.

“I've never had breakfast in bed before,” she confessed.

“Never?”

“Never. Help yourself.”

Norman grinned. His hand moved up her bare thigh.

“I meant help yourself to the food.”

“You're far more appetizing.”

“You need your strength,” she said.

“There's that,” he agreed.

They both ate heartily. Food had never tasted so good before, she thought. His white dress shirt and tuxedo jacket were draped over the back of a chair and his pants folded neatly over its arm. Carol's high heels were in the middle of the floor, one upright, one on its side, her black Dior, her underclothes shamelessly abandoned beside them. The morning sunlight grew brighter, silvery now, dazzling rays streaming inside. She felt a wonderful languor in her bones. The bedsheets smelled of perspiration and love. She finished eating, set her dishes on the floor and watched him, her eyes glowing, a soft smile on her lips. Norman took a sip of coffee and a bite of croissant. Unable to resist, she touched his arm and ran her palm over the strong, muscular bicep and along his shoulder, resting her fingers against the nape of his neck. His skin was smooth like silk and warm to the touch. She ran her fingers through the thick auburn hair on the back of his head and he took a final sip of coffee and a final bite of croissant and then set his own dishes on the floor, along with the tray. He wrapped both arms around her and covered her mouth with his own and soon they were lost again in last night's rapture.

It was noon before both had bathed and dressed. Carol looked fresh and appealing in sandals and a simple lime-green cotton dress. His tuxedo was slightly wrinkled and incongruous at this hour, his tie a little crooked, but he looked deliciously handsome nevertheless. Carol stood up on tiptoes and gave him a light kiss, singing inside, flooded with radiance. Was it really possible for a person to feel this happy, or was she still inebriated? Gaby was right. It was exactly like champagne, and she wanted more and more and more.

“Cliff will probably think you've been kidnapped by Gypsies,” she said.

“I doubt it. Cliff's a big boy. He knows I am too, which, all things considered, is quite generous of him. Most sons think their fathers are doddering incompetents.”

“Is—is your business in Paris almost finished?”

He nodded. “We're scheduled to fly home day after tomorrow.”

Carol didn't say anything. He saw the look in her eyes and smiled.

“Cliff's raring to get back. We've been here for two weeks now, and he has a lovely fiancée waiting in Wichita. I, on the other hand, do not have a fiancée, and there's no reason on earth why I should fly back just now.”

“Oh?”

“I can think of a number of reasons to stay.”

They had dinner at Maxim's with Cliff the following evening. The decor was opulent. The food was incredible. The service was perfection. Cliff had fully recovered from his cold and sore throat and was so genial and engaging it was almost indecent. He told Carol about his plans for the boutiques and the shopping mall he hoped to build in a year or so and he told her all about Stephanie, whom he could hardly wait to see again and whom he was marrying in June. Neither Carol nor Norman could get a word in edgewise, but over dessert Norman was finally able to inform his son that he would be staying on in Paris for a while. Cliff looked surprised and then he looked at the two of them in something like wonderment. Then he grinned. Had they not been sitting at a table in one of the most elegant restaurants in the world he would undoubtedly have pounded his father on the back.

“Just be sure you get back in time for the wedding,” he said.

“I'll try,” Norman promised.

Cliff left for home the next morning and his father checked out of the Plaza-Athénée and moved into Carol's apartment. The concierge was quite perturbed, scowling, making ugly noises, but Carol gave her a lavish tip that squelched all qualms and brought a beaming smile to her lips.

“She can scarcely draw breath without expecting a tip for it,” Carol confided as they went up in the elevator. “She invariably looks the other way, but it's frightfully expensive.”

“For you?”

“For the other tenants. You happen to be the first man who's ever brought his luggage up to my apartment.”

“Oh?”

“The others had their own rooms,” she teased.

They entered the apartment and Norman put his bags down and pulled her into his arms and they skipped lunch. The afternoon was divine, both greedily savoring its splendors, and pale pink-gold sunlight was fading on the floor when they finally got out of bed. Norman smiled lazily, looking at her with sheepish dark-brown eyes, feeling young, feeling strong, feeling proud. Carol stretched languorously, wonderfully replete, limbs slightly sore, the ashes of aftermath glowing deliciously inside. They stood there in the fading sunlight, gazing at each other, and Norman reached across and took her hand and squeezed it gently, a tender affirmation of the beauty and the bliss they had just shared. She had never experienced such joy.

They dined at the Tour d'Argent that evening, Carol in her scarlet chiffon, Norman in a dark suit and silk tie, and Carol toyed with her wineglass, looking into his eyes with a half smile on her lips. He reached for her hand across the table and played with her fingers. People smiled, for they were so obviously in love, the beautiful, beloved young actress and the handsome stranger with gleaming auburn hair. They had oysters and duck and a brie that was wonderfully ripe and runny. Through the windows they could see Notre-Dame and the Seine and the Île Saint-Louis, softly spangled with lights. It was like something from one of those gloriously romantic forties movies, Carol thought, yet it was really happening and she felt every bit as sublime as Ingrid Bergman, and Norman was much better-looking than Charles Boyer.

The following morning Carol's agent sent her a script young Louis Malle was going to direct. She read it after breakfast. Malle wanted her for the leading role, a bored, unhappily married woman who has an intense affair with one of her lawyer husband's young colleagues. It was the sort of role Moreau played to perfection and it would be quite a challenge, a far cry from her wholesome American image. The script was sexually explicit—Malle would handle it with great artistry, she knew—and there was a nude bathing scene that would probably run into censorship problems. She was tempted, sorely tempted, but they wanted to begin filming almost immediately on location in Saumur. She turned the film down, even though she longed to do it.