The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (30 page)

They were gathered around Shirley’s television, all except Hortense, who said she didn’t care to watch a bunch of crowned heads parading around. When they’d rung, Gary opened the door, grumbling.

“You’re going to watch that crap? Be my guest. I’ll be in my room.”

Joséphine, Zoé, Max, and Christine sprawled in front of the TV amid bags of chips, Cokes, and strawberry gumdrops. Using their fingers, they spread pâté on slices of baguette.

I should be home working
, thought Joséphine.
Florine’s second husband is still alive!
Jo had grown fond of him, and was having
trouble killing him off. She dutifully went to the library every day, but hadn’t made much headway. She had too many things on her mind. Zoé had cut classes twice in a week to follow Max on his dubious adventures. Her adorable little Zoé was out of control, a wild nymphet in the making. She once locked herself in the bathroom and emerged wearing a miniskirt and sporting coal-black eyeliner and vampire-red lipstick. Joséphine scrubbed it off with a washcloth and soap while Zoé struggled and screamed about child abuse.

Meanwhile, Christine spent her days sprawled on the living room sofa, surfing the Internet. She had found a dating Web site and was trading e-mails with panting admirers. When Joséphine came home from the library, she described her online hookups.

“Don’t worry, Madame Joséphine, I expect I’ll be finding a new place real soon.”

Jo listened to her stories in dismay. “But you don’t know a thing about these guys, Christine. You’re not going to jump right back into the same mess you were in before, are you?”

“Why not? For years I walked the straight and narrow, and look where it landed me. I got nothing left—no home, no money, no husband, and no job! This time, I’m gonna work the system. Sign up for welfare and unemployment, and then find some rich old fart to support me!”

“But you’re a responsible adult!” Jo stammered. “You have to set an example for Max!”

Christine just laughed. “Those days are over. Being honest doesn’t get you squat. For me, it’s party time!”

“But not in my house.”

Jo would head off to the library with a knot in her stomach. Each evening when she returned home, she felt a moment of panic when she put her key in the lock. Even Duffel Coat Man couldn’t cheer her up.

“Is something wrong?” he’d asked over coffee the previous afternoon. “You aren’t dropping things anymore.”

He’d told her that he was passionate about religious history, and spoke at length about tears—holy tears, profane tears, tears of ecstasy, tears of joy, tears of sacrifice. The talk made Joséphine herself start crying.

“See, something is wrong,” he said, observing her keenly.

“What you’re telling me about isn’t very cheerful,” she said, smiling through her tears.

“But you must know all about this stuff, given how pious the twelfth century was. Convents spreading like wildfire, preachers roaming the country warning about eternal damnation if people didn’t repent of their sins.”

“That’s true,” she said, swallowing her tears for want of a tissue.

At times, Joséphine told herself that the most oppressive part of her arrangement with Iris was its secrecy. She worried about that at night, unable to sleep.
I bet it blows up in our faces
, she thought.
The whole scheme will be uncovered, and I’ll end up homeless and broke, like Christine Barthillet.

“You shouldn’t take what I tell you so much to heart,” he was saying. “You’re too sensitive.”

“I don’t even know your name!” she blurted.

He smiled. “Luca, Italian origin, age thirty-six. I have all my teeth, and I’m a hopeless bookworm.”

“Is your family in France or in Italy?” Jo ventured. She had to know if he was married.

“I don’t have any family,” he answered seriously.

She left it at that.

The broadcast had begun, and Christine licked her fingers and popped another gumdrop into her mouth. Windsor Castle appeared onscreen, all lit up, with Charles and Camilla at the top of the stairs, greeting friends and family.

“Gosh, it’s beautiful!” said Christine. “And they’re so cute! Look at how everything is sparkling. Isn’t that something, Madame Joséphine, waiting thirty-five years for your true love? Not everyone can say that about themselves.”

Certainly not you
, thought Jo.
You’re ready to shack up with someone you meet on the Net after thirty-five seconds.

“What’s your latest prince charming called?” she whispered.

“Alberto. He’s Portuguese. Oh, look! It’s the queen and Prince Philip! I’ve always thought he was dreamy. Look at that big strong chest! A real fairy-tale prince!”

Now Queen Elizabeth was coming forward. She was wearing a turquoise evening gown and carrying a black purse. Philip followed close behind her, in tails.

Suddenly Joséphine gasped. “Look! Just behind the queen! Right there, there!”

She jumped to her feet and pointed at the TV screen, repeating, “Right there!” But no one reacted, so she went over and
tapped the screen, on a young woman in a pink gown who was walking near the queen.

“Did you see?”

“No,” they all answered.

“There, I’m telling you. Right there!”

Now Joséphine was jabbing her finger on the screen. “Look at the woman with the short hair!”

The woman seemed to be trying to remain in the queen’s shadow while staying close to her.

“Well, yeah . . . That black bag doesn’t go with the turquoise dress.”

“Not the queen! The person next to her!”

Joséphine shouted toward the back bedroom: “Gary! Gary! Come out here!”

He shambled into the living room. “What’s wrong? Why are you yelling like that?”

“It’s your mother!” Jo cried. “She’s at Windsor Castle! Right next to Queen Elizabeth!”

Gary ran a hand through his hair, went to stand in front of the television, and mumbled, “Oh, yeah . . . Mom.”

“What is she doing there?” Jo yelled at him.

“It
is
Shirley!” roared Christine, a gumdrop suspended in front of her mouth. “What the hell is she up to?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” said Jo, watching as the figure in pink mingled with the crowd of guests.

“I’ll be damned!” mumbled Christine. “I smell a rat.”

“And I smell the blood of an Englishman,” joked Zoé.

Shirley’s going to have some explaining to do
, thought Joséphine.
Could she really be connected to the English royal family? If she is, what in heaven’s name is she doing baking cakes in a Paris suburb?

Shirley didn’t return on Monday—or Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Gary ate his meals at Joséphine’s, where the girls peppered him with questions.

“I don’t know what you think you saw,” he told them, “but you’re wrong.”

“Oh, come on, Gary. You saw her, too!”

“No, I saw someone who looked like her, that’s all. The world’s full of women with short blond hair. Besides, what the heck would she be doing there?”

“That’s true,” Christine agreed. “You’ve been working too hard, Madame Joséphine. Maybe you’re getting confused.”

“But you all saw her! It wasn’t my imagination!”

“I think Gary’s right. We just saw someone who looked like her.”

Jo stuck to her guns. It
was
Shirley, and Jo was furious with her.
Here I tell her everything, and she doesn’t tell me a damned thing. I can’t even ask her questions.
She felt like a fool. Everyone was playing her for a fool—Iris, Antoine, Christine and her legion of virtual lovers, Shirley at Windsor Castle, Hortense hating her, and Zoé running wild.
They all treat me like a well-meaning dolt, which is exactly what I am.

Anger inspired her. She coldly dispatched Thibaut the gentle Troubadour, poisoned soon after joyously witnessing the birth
of his son. Florine no longer had to fight to survive anymore. She now had a legitimate son and heir, Thibaut the Younger.

Joséphine then introduced the third husband, Baudouin, a knight who was kind, strong, and pious. How am I going to do away with this one? He’s young and healthy, doesn’t drink or overindulge, is moderate in his lovemaking. Then she thought back to the Windsor Castle ball, and how Shirley had lied to her, and turned her anger on poor Baudouin.

He and Florine are invited to a great feast by the king of France, who is hunting on land near Castelnau. The king notices Baudouin in the midst of the glittering assembly, and turns pale. At the end of the evening, the young couple is walking down a hall toward their rooms. Suddenly a group of armed men attack Baudouin and cut his throat in front of his horrified wife. There is blood everywhere. Florine faints, collapsing across her husband’s lifeless body. We learn later that Baudouin was one of the king’s bastard sons, and would have been in line for the throne. Fearing he might claim to be his heir, the king decided to have him killed.

Widowed once again, Florine implores heaven to avert its wrath and let her peacefully climb the last rungs of the ladder.

Joséphine was now in a bloodthirsty mood.
That takes care of number three!
she thought grimly, encouraged by all the pages she had written.

“You seem to be doing better these days,” Luca said as they sat in the library cafeteria together. “You have a mischievous look on your face.”

“I’m giving up on being so conventional. You know, good friend, good sister, good mother.”

“You have children?”

“Two daughters, but no husband. He left me for another woman. I must not have been a good wife.”

She laughed awkwardly and blushed. She hadn’t meant to say that.

“Would you like to go see a movie on Saturday? A theater on rue des Écoles is showing
Wild River.
It’s an Elia Kazan film that never runs in France. I thought maybe—”

“Sure, I’d love to!”

Saturday night, Joséphine got to the theater early. She wanted time to compose herself before Luca showed up. She found him very attractive physically, and that troubled her. Until now her experience of sex had been pretty bland. Antoine had been gentle and considerate, but he didn’t send the wave of heat shooting through her that a single glance from Luca could spark.
I have to keep cool and not lose my head
, she thought.
I still have a solid month of hard work ahead, and I can’t afford to lose my way in a fling. Florine needs me.