The Suitors (23 page)

“So, if I understand correctly, I ask you questions about anything I want, you’ll all slip the same word into your answers, and it’s up to me to discover what the word is.”

The scent of jasmine was heavenly. And there was a feeling of innocent excitement in the air, the kind that draws
ohs
and
ahs
from children when the lights dim for a movie or the curtain goes up onstage. Not all of us were ready with our lines, though, and we were nervous, the
way we used to be in school when we had to solve a problem up at the blackboard. No one wanted to be chosen first by Frédéric, who took a wicked pleasure in dragging out the suspense by pointing at some of us as if hesitating whom to pick.

“Me, I’m not up to this, I don’t think I really understand how to play,” announced my father.

“Now don’t be silly,” my mother scolded him, fearing her husband’s candor would make him look like an idiot.

Showing his sense of fair play, Frédéric pounced on Béno.

“Since you are the master of ceremonies, my dear Béno, I’ll start with you. What did you hope to find by coming to this house?” he asked, flicking a sly look my way.

“What did I hope for?” replied Béno, looking over at Marie with an enigmatic smile. “Well, I hoped that my stories and sprightly conversation would meet with
favor; it
is always nice, isn’t it, to be appreciated.”

“Oh no,” exclaimed Lou. “That’s like what I was going to say. He stole my answer!”

“Would you just be quiet!” Mathias hissed at her.

“Ah! Mathias, thank you for catching my attention,” said Frédéric archly. “Let’s see, what would you say if I asked you what you do in your spare time?”

“I don’t rightly know, actually, because you see, I don’t really have any
favorite
pastime.”

“Hey, don’t work too hard!” sneered Lou.

Noticing that my mother was twitching with impatience to be questioned, Frédéric turned amiably to her.

“You’re next, Flokie. Tell me, when do you plan to stop stuffing us like geese with your diabolical menus of goodies?”

“Oh, but you know, in my mother-in-law’s day, her menus went on forever, people ate much more and never thought a thing about it, so in comparison, I’m actually doing you a
favor
,
it
seems!”

My mother had trotted out her reply so quickly and with such girlish glee that I was frankly astonished.

“Well, that’s twice someone has said
favor
,” mused Frédéric, “but not Mathias, so I’m not … wait a minute, he did say
favorite
, so that’s it, right?”

Caught up in the game now, we sent Georgina out of the room and picked
Handi Wipe
as our next word, which inspired Béno to come up with, “When you’ve already got something
handy, why p
utz around with anything else?” and Lou to trot out, “Because I’m always equipped with tissues before
hand, I wipe
my nose the second I’ve sneezed!” It was Charles who’d already gotten the biggest laugh, though, back when we’d settled on our chosen word.

“A
Handi Wipe
, what in heaven’s name is that?”

“Really, Charles, you’re such a snob!” exclaimed my mother.

“Excuse me?” he’d huffed. “
Just look who’s talking!
”

The evening came to an end when Béno—still going strong—asked Flokie for permission to invite Cheryla to lunch the next day.

“But of course,” replied my mother, completely under his spell, without really having any idea whom he meant.

For she pretended to adore music in general and the opera in particular, even though the only opinion I ever heard her utter on the subject was that Bach’s cantata BWV 51 as sung by Suzanne Danco—famous for her silvery, aristocratic tone—was the most sublime thing in the world. As for my mother’s knowledge of lighter fare, it stopped with Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli.

Trust my father to put his foot in his mouth. “Who’s she? You all seem to recognize her name …”

Odon and Gay were equally at sea, however, and relieved that he’d asked.

“I can’t believe this—she’s only America’s greatest star!” exclaimed Georgina, clearly a fan. “And what
a stunning career: she’s been reinventing herself for twenty years now, changing her look every few years and setting fashions, like the recent flurry of interest in the kabbalah, which Cheryla studies quite seriously. She’s an icon who fills the Stade de France when she gives a concert in Paris, and that’s the fifth-largest stadium in Europe! I mean, next to her, Céline Dion just fades away!”

“Céline who?” asked my father.

“Oh, don’t make it worse,” Marie said with a sigh.

After bowing practically in half when he said good night to his hostess, Béno left the room, leaving us orphaned and adrift in a space he had claimed for his own. We felt as if we had somehow been drained of all energy. Especially Marie, now apparently completely enthralled by Béno, who had singled her out for a particularly meaningful glance before vanishing like a magician.

So enthralled, in fact, that I’d given up all thought of having any private conversation with Marie and was about to go off to my room when she informed me that Béno was planning on joining her later in her bed!

“What should I do?” she asked.

“As if you were really wondering! Go on, what do you expect me to say?”

“You think it’s a dumb idea?”

“Yes, but I get the impression that you’re too far gone to listen to reason.”

“You’re right. Isn’t he sublime, though?”

“Maybe even a little
too
much so.”

“Perhaps, but so what? I’m going to go for it. May I remind you that all this was your idea?”

“Don’t I know it! Well, here’s your chance, take it, and have a wonderful night.”

Early the next morning I phoned Félix, who’d forgotten what it was he’d wanted to tell me the day before. Relieved to find him so cheerful, I asked him to describe what he was wearing so that I could picture him, all tanned since the last time I’d seen him, and then I closed my eyes, the better to hear his voice and the bright ring of his laughter.

After I hung up, I waited impatiently for Marie to come down to breakfast, only to see Frédéric and Mathias appear and discreetly get into a new tiff while pretending to review the day’s obituaries in
Le Figaro
. Because there was truly no love lost between the old guard and the beau past his prime, a pair as incompatible
as clashing colors. With his out-of-date vocabulary, Frédéric persisted in using words like “automobile,” “bathing costume,” “icebox,” “big bum,” and “lady.” He always referred to Juan-les-Pins as a “village,” for example, when that seaside resort no longer bore much resemblance to the shady town square, church steeple, neighborhood bakery, and café-tabac evoked by such a bucolic term.

“I’m not going into the village this morning because it’s too full of idiots on Saturdays.”

Mathias, on the other hand, who was on the wrong side of fifty but wore jeans, T-shirts, and running shoes, still clung to a more youthful way of speaking full of slang he punctuated with expressions such as “that’s cool,” “too much,” and “it’s the pits” to camouflage his lack of linguistic sophistication. Probably a good idea, insofar as he was largely unaware of his faux pas in that department.

Lou made her entrance wearing a black bustier and matching sarong, an ensemble meant to evoke an elegant evening gown. Amused, I asked Frédéric, “You think it has something to do with the arrival of Cheryla?”

“And how.”

Enough time passed for Mathias and Lou to run a mysterious errand in Juan-les-Pins—to get the papers, they explained evasively, citing their desperate need to
see that day’s edition of the
Corriere della Sera
—and for me to watch the entire household parade by before Marie and Béno materialized as if by magic toward noon, five minutes before Cheryla arrived.

In spite of what Béno had announced the previous evening, the Fondation Maeght had clearly not been part of his morning’s activities. Marie had dark circles under her eyes and, if I was not mistaken, telltale marks on her neck. Unwilling to risk betraying her secret idyll by publicly observing her too closely, I simply watched her reaction when I asked her, “Isn’t Cheryla arriving here a little early? I thought she wasn’t expected for lunch until two.”

“True,” replied Marie without even a glance in my direction, “but she was trapped in her room at the Eden-Roc, besieged by the paparazzi who’ve set up camp among the rocks, en masse. So Béno suggested she come for a swim here at the house.”

Marie’s attention was completely fixed on her lover, at whom she gazed unabashedly, leaving me to feel terribly sad and abandoned. Carried away by her playboy, Marie had forgotten me. Well, so what? There was nothing so unusual about that. And I, like her, had outgrown the need to demand my sister’s exclusive love and devotion. So why then could I not rejoice in Marie’s happiness, when only the day before I had advised her to find
someone to love? Was it jealousy? Egotism? Was it my suspicion that Béno seemed only distractedly charmed by my sister? Unless I was simply finding it hard to accept that this whole “blind date” project, which I had launched with the expectation of reinforcing our sisterly complicity, might turn sour by eliminating me from subsequent developments, like that horrible game of musical chairs from my childhood, which always terrified me with the idea that I could be left high and dry.

A sudden surge of anguish and dismay left me breathless. That’s all I need, I thought: to burst into tears in front of everyone.

I announced casually that I was going to fetch some cigarettes from my room.

Strolling around to get some air, I couldn’t help noticing that the news of Cheryla’s imminent appearance had spread through the house like wildfire. L’Agapanthe was in a real ferment, even to the point of luring out into the open its most discreet and rarely seen inhabitants: the cooks, who were having a smoke at the bottom of the service stairs, just around the corner from the front courtyard; the gardeners, suddenly intent on raking the gravel in front of the house; and the chambermaids, all gathered in the linen room overlooking the front door. Not to mention the new head butler, who
was pacing up and down the salon with a preoccupied air, no doubt instructed by the rest of the personnel to bring back an exhaustive report on the star’s arrival. As for Gay and Georgina, firm believers in mornings spent lounging lazily on the beach, they just happened to be in the loggia, which had drawn us all in for the occasion, like a watering hole in the desert.

Only Lou, immune to the light euphoria permeating the house, seemed out of sorts. Was she worried about the limelight our famous guest would surely steal from her, or was she simply refusing to appear impressed?

The crunching of Cheryla’s car out on the courtyard gravel threw into stark relief such a revealing silence that my mother felt compelled to speak up.

“She must be very
me, myself, and I
, no?” she asked Béno.

Béno, always Béno! I groused to myself in sudden indignation. Was the entire house now in orbit exclusively around him, his guests, and his opinions?

“By that you mean …?” I interjected, just to get my oar in.

“Well, an egotist!” replied my mother.

“As a matter of fact, no, she’s a doll. She’s shy and cultured, quite unlike her public image,” observed Béno so soothingly that my mother was instantly reassured.

Judging from the clatter of her heels on the travertine floor of the vestibule, Cheryla was descending the stairs. And we all pretended not to watch her do it. She appeared at last: slim and yet incredibly muscular, she looked quite sophisticated with her red lips and platinum blond hair. There was a look of intelligence in her eyes, and her chocolate-colored linen dress of striking sobriety—clearly haute couture—corrected any first impression of vulgarity. In short, she was a bombshell. What presence! What charisma! None of which prevented us from keeping up appearances by affecting an air of placid indifference, as befitted our status, while we greeted her and suggested that she might like something to drink—an offer Cheryla unpretentiously declined, however, eager for the refreshment of her promised swim.

“She made quite a good impression on me,” announced my mother as soon as Béno and Marie had escorted Cheryla off to the changing room down by the beach.

Firmly in Béno’s corner, my mother was clearly determined not to be offended by anything his friends might do, no matter how outlandish their behavior. Not even by the fact that Cheryla had thanked her with grateful effusions way too extravagant for a simple luncheon invitation, gushing “You’ve saved my life!” as if
we had just granted her political asylum. She’d overdone it. And in so doing behaved exactly like the star she was. For I’d had occasion to notice that although wannabes of all kinds display an arrogance they imagine to be indispensable to the prerogatives of a star, the real ones usually seek to be forgiven for their cumbersome notoriety by trying to behave in what they feel is the proper fashion—even though they haven’t the slightest idea of what normal propriety is anymore.