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Page 20.
 “Family. Friends. It all worked out according to program. The wedding was in the newspapers. He has a yacht anchored in Monaco, and we all go sailing at least once a year. Egypt, Morocco, and then a big finale in Spain or France. Balearic Islands, Ibiza, Saint-Tropez.”
“Lucky you.”
“Lucky me.” She gave a sardonic little sniff. “I’d trade it all in to mow lawns and be free. Eat and drink what I like, dance all night, drink wine from the bottle, smoke the damn cigars instead of holding them.”
He said: “I don’t smoke. I like the wine part,” he said. “Keep the bottle though.” He sighed. “I’m supposed to envy you. My father sells cars and my mother bakes a helluva cake. My older brother’s in the Army. My younger brother Hilaire is still in high school. I’m the first person in the history of my family to finish college. I mow lawns for a living. Everyone thinks it is ironic.”
“Do your parents live near here?”
“In Créteil,” he told her. “Jimmy’s the big hope in the family. He’s president of his class, is a real charmer, and he wants to go into politics.”
She regarded him minutely, running a speculative tongue tip around inside her lips. “We grew up not far from each other, and yet so far apart.”
He thought for a moment. “I was starting high school when you graduated from—where was it?”
“Sainte Sophie. Small private Catholic girls’ finishing school near Versailles.”
“Finishing school, of course.”
She posed with raised shoulders, a cocked head, and batty eyelashes while making airy motions with a fluid hand. “My darling Sophie…o to dream of holding your cigar!”
“You don’t have to hold any cigars for me. I’ll hold my own cigar.”
She slapped his wrist lightly. “And blow smoke in my face.”
“If you deserve it.”
“I am always such a good girl.”
“Nobody is that perfect.”
“Especially being from Créteil and all.” She pronounced the town’s name with faint disdain or class venom.
Mildly annoyed, he peered at her in the watery light. It would take a lot for her to really turn him off.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said quickly. She was so vulnerable, squirming. “I was just imitating… oh hell, bad joke. I don’t think that way. Please don’t be annoyed. Most of the girls in my class at Vassar went off to hold their own cigars. It just so happened I wasn’t endowed with the sense of independence. My role is more to the hearth. I spin and Jérôme goes delving. That whole bag, you know?”
“You keep the fires banked?”
“That’s coarse.”
“And to the point.”
“I get the point.” She sighed. “Penelope, spinning and chaste by the hearth in Ithaca.”
“You have studied Homer.” He was glad they had some unknown amount of Literature in common.
“I’m not a dumb bunny.” She crossed her arms, wrapping her elbows in opposite hands. “If I didn’t feel so…affectionate…about you I’d be insulted.”
He rubbed his stomach. “It’s getting late and my stomach tells me it’s time for supper.”
“What do you usually do for supper?” she asked.
“Burger Barn,” he told her candidly. “It’s a sort of imitation California truck stop in the heart of the Marais.”
She irradiated him with one of those warm smiles he’d come to love. “I could go for a Quick Yack if they have one.”
“What the hell is a Quick Yack?”
“Oh I don’t know. A Slick Snack. I’m sure they have one. Crazy Americans.”
“Will you go with me?” he pleaded honestly.
She slipped her arm around his, and pulled herself close to him. “I told you. I will follow you anywhere.”
He laid his hand protectively over hers, pulling her even tighter. “Now I feel such an awesome responsibility.”
“I’m high maintenance.”
“You are a handful.” I wish.
She planted a hint of a kiss on his cheek. “I want to be your handful. And I will hold your cigar.”
“Do I even have a cigar?”
“Every man has a cigar.” She laughed. “We’ll beat that metaphor to death.”
“Maybe it’s time we mercy-killed it.”
“It’s like fleas on a cat,” she said, “or dandruff on some people. It never goes away. We’re stuck with it, I’m afraid. I am who I am.”
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