The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (35 page)

“Hey, Dad! Will you take me driving today?” Alexandre had spotted his father sitting on the deck.

“Sure. Whenever you like.”

“Can we bring Zoé? She doesn’t believe I know how to drive.”

“If her mother says it’s okay.”

Alex went into the kitchen and asked Joséphine, who was happy to say yes. Ever since Zoé quit hanging around Max, she’d gone back to being a little girl. She was acting her age, and had stopped talking about makeup and boys. She and Alexandre were thick as thieves. They’d invented a secret pseudo-English language that was no secret at all. “The dog is barking”
meant
Watch out!
“The dog is sleeping”:
Everything is fine.
“The dog is running away”:
Let’s get out of here.
They snuck around looking mysterious, and the adults pretended not to understand.

Joséphine received a postcard from Christine. Her clubfooted boyfriend Alberto had rented her a furnished room on rue des Martyrs, not far from his company. The card read: “All’s well. The weather is nice. Max is spending the summer in the Massif Central with his dad, who makes goat cheese with his girlfriend. He loves working with animals, and his dad may keep him. That suits me fine. Best regards, Christine Barthillet.”

“What day is it today?” asked Joséphine, as Carmen walked into the kitchen.

“July the eleventh. Not quite time for the fireworks.”

That’s just what Daddy said
, Jo thought,
a little before he died.
In two days, it would be the anniversary of his death. She never forgot the date.

Carmen laid a cell phone on the table. “This is Hortense’s.”

“You must be mistaken. The girls don’t have cell phones.”

“Well, it was in her jeans. I checked the pockets before I did the laundry.”

Joséphine looked at the phone. “Do me a favor and don’t say anything. We’ll see how she reacts.”

The housekeeper gave her a conspiratorial look. “You don’t know where it’s from, do you?”

“No. And I don’t want to fire the first shot, so I’ll wait for her to show her hand.”

Two days later, Joséphine came in from a run in the woods just before noon. A sea breeze ruffled her hair, and her orange T-shirt was dark with sweat.

She looked at her watch: forty-five minutes! Running helped Jo think. As she ran she heard a bird chirping,
Quick-er! Quick-er! Quick-er!
, and picked up her pace. She talked aloud to her father. “Send me a sign, Daddy. . . . Any sign at all . . . When’s the publisher going to get back to us? . . . What’s he doing, anyway? . . . We gave him the manuscript two weeks ago . . .” Somewhere off to her left, a heron called.

Henriette had phoned the day before and spoken at length with Iris, who promptly reported to Joséphine.

“Mom thinks Chief has a mistress!” Iris said gleefully. “She says he’s completely changed! He seems younger, livelier. Apparently he’s using beauty creams and dyeing his hair. He’s lost weight, and he isn’t sleeping at home. Mom’s sure there’s another woman. She found a photo of him hugging some voluptuous babe at a dinner at the Lido. Can you believe it, at his age? Mom claims he’s spending money on this chick like there’s no tomorrow and writing it off as business entertainment.”

Remembering the scene on the platform at the train station, Jo was puzzled. Josiane Lambert was blond and plump, and well past the age of being called a chick.
Could Marcel have more than one mistress? What a man!

“So what does she plan to do?” Jo asked.

“She says she has a secret weapon against him. She couldn’t
care less about his cheating, but says if Chief tries to divorce her, she’ll blow him out of the water.”

“What kind of secret weapon?”

“Something about embezzling company funds. Mom apparently found a very incriminating file. Says he better do right by her if he doesn’t want to end up bankrupt and splashed all over the newspapers.”

Poor Marcel
, thought Joséphine.
He has every right to fall in love. Being with our mother couldn’t have been a million laughs.

Iris was waiting for Joséphine on the front steps of the house. She was wearing white capri pants and the latest Lacoste blouse, and was beaming triumphantly.

With a pitying glance at Joséphine’s sweaty outfit, she proudly announced: “Cric and Croc clobbered the big Cruc creeping up to crunch them.”

Joséphine collapsed onto the steps and mopped her forehead with her T-shirt.

“Let me guess: You finally managed to bake a soufflé?”

“Cold.”

“Alex drove around the house by himself for the first time?”

“Colder.”

“You’re pregnant?”

“At my age? You’re out of your mind!”

Joséphine looked up at her sister. “Serrurier called?”

“Bingo!
And he loves it!
”

Joséphine rolled onto the ground and lay there, arms out-flung, staring up at clouds that formed the phrase
AND
HE
LOVES
IT
. She had done it!

Iris came and stood over her, her long brown legs forming an upside down V—a V for Victory.

“You did it, Jo! You did it! He was dazzled, blown away! You’re amazing, and wonderful, and unbelievable! Thank you!”

“We should thank Daddy,” she said. “He died thirty years ago today. The day before Bastille Day.”

“Has it really been thirty years?”

“To the day. I was thinking of him as I was out running. I asked him to help the book, and—”

“Joséphine, stop it!” Iris snapped. “You wrote the book, not him!”

Poor old Jo
, she thought.
Such a sucker for cheap sentiment. Jo and her insatiable need for love, her tendency to trust everyone except herself. Never able to give herself credit for anything.
Iris gave a mental shrug, and her thoughts returned to the book. It was her move now.

“From now on, I’m a writer!” she declared. “I have to think like a writer, eat like a writer, sleep like a writer, wear my hair like a writer, dress like a writer. How am I going to manage all that?”

“No idea. We said we’d divide the roles, and you’re on now.” Joséphine said this as casually as she could, but her heart wasn’t in it.

That night, Philippe, Iris, and Joséphine went to dinner at Cirro’s, on the Deauville boardwalk. Iris ordered champagne and made a toast to the book.

“Tonight I feel like I’m christening a ship about to be
launched into the world,” she said pompously. “I wish it a long and prosperous life.”

They all clinked glasses and sipped their pink champagne in silence. Philippe’s cell phone rang, and he looked down to see who was calling.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this,” he said, getting up from the table.

When Philippe went out to the boardwalk, Iris drew a heavy white envelope from her handbag.

“This is for you, Jo. So that tonight will be a celebration for you, too!”

Joséphine took the envelope, opened it, and pulled out a pink-trimmed card. In Iris’s loopy handwriting it said, “Happy You! Happy Book! Happy Life!” in gold ink. A check was folded inside the card, for 25,000 euros.
The price of my silence
, thought Jo, mortified. She turned beet red and stuffed everything back into the envelope. As she bit her lip to keep from crying, she caught Philippe watching her from afar.

Suddenly Iris stood up and waved at a girl heading for a table near the beach.

“I think that’s Hortense over there!”

“Hortense?” asked Joséphine, peering in that direction.

Iris called out, and Hortense turned and came over to them.

“What are you doing here, darling?”

“I wanted to come say hello. Carmen told me you were having dinner here, and I didn’t feel like staying home alone with the two brats. I’m going to meet some friends at the bar next door.”

She looked at Joséphine.

“Can I please, Mom, sweetheart? You’re looking all radiant tonight!”

“You think so? I didn’t do anything special. Well, yes, I did; I went for a run this morning.”

“That must be it. Okay, see you later. Have fun!”

Joséphine watched her daughter gracefully walk off.
She’s hiding something from me
, she thought.
It isn’t like Hortense to pay me compliments for no reason.

“All right, here’s to the book’s health!” said Philippe. “Oh, by the way, what’s the title?”

Taken aback, the sisters looked at each another.

“Rats!” said Jo. “You know, I never thought of a title!”

Iris jumped in to cover Joséphine’s gaffe. “But we’ve talked about it often enough! Ever since I gave you the manuscript, I’ve been begging you for suggestions, and nada! You promised me, Jo. I can’t believe you forgot!”

Philippe was glaring at Iris in silent fury, remembering a similar situation from fifteen years earlier.
What Iris isn’t able to do herself, she gets others to do for her, then swoops in and steals the glory
, he thought.
She tried it once. Now she’s doing it again, only this time the victim is willing.

He glanced over at Joséphine, who was hiding behind her menu.

“You’re looking at the wrong menu, Jo. That’s the wine list.”

“Sorry,” she muttered. “My mistake.”

“No problem,” said Philippe, turning back to Iris. “We won’t let it spoil your party, will we, darling?” His voice rose with mordant sarcasm on the word
darling.

“Come on, Jo, smile!” he continued. “We’ll come up with a title, don’t you worry.”

They clinked glasses again as the waiter came to take their order. A light wind had picked up, blowing the sand and shaking the fringes of the umbrellas. You could smell the sea, invisible beyond the big white wooden planters surrounding the terrace. A sudden chill descended on the diners.

Iris shivered.

“W
hat’s the secret of your success?”

“I’m still being breast-fed.”

“What would satisfy you?”

“A nun’s habit.”

“Are you happy?”

“As happy as anyone can be, considering I think about committing suicide every day.”

“What have you given up on?”

“Ever being blond.”

“What do you do with your money?”

“I give it away. Money brings bad luck.”