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Page 65.
 “Maybe they had the same idea,” she said listlessly, pointing to a small white car pulled in among the woods some distance up the road. “Anything left to eat?”
“You’re hungry again?” he asked.
“Sex makes me ravenous.”
They shared the last of the sandwiches, and savored the vanilla-filled, chocolate-drizzled eclairs. Cold coffee hit the spot.
“You don’t miss your bracelet?”
She shook her head. “It is a piece of us that will live in the slime of creation for a million years.”
“Good idea you had to come here.” She shrugged and grinned. “I went along with it, though. See, that’s part of holding a man’s cigar.”
“Live and learn,” he agreed. “I would like to spend the night with you if that’s all right.”
“Really? What an original idea.”
She could be sarcastic. He grinned ruefully, looking at that vulnerable, sultry, wounded face. He saw that distant look, and imagined her gaze was directed far away at Mr. Cigar (that fool, Jérôme) and what she must endure. “I’ll make it better.”
She looked up, suddenly all sunshine, as if he had promised to be a better husband. She said: “Maybe we are married already.”
That would be so cool. Did he dare hope? To think of such a thing?
Summer heat softened slightly in its intensity as he pulled the car out onto the oozing tarry road surface. A breeze bringing with it smells of hot tar and lukewarm leaf juice rattled softly under the tattered cloth top of the faltering car. The car seemed to find its own way back toward central Paris. They rode in an engorged silence. “Shall we go to a movie?” he offered, but his voice sounded unconvincing even to him.
She shook her head and said “I’d rather not, I think. I’m sort of tired and in a mood to take a long soak in the tub.”
After heavy traffic, a half hour later they entered the 5th Arrondissement.
She touched his arm. “Marc, I don’t want you to be mad, but I don’t want to see you for a while. I’m not saying never again, though maybe I should. I don’t want our lives to get any more tangled.”
He submitted with a mix of reluctance and relief. “We get too dramatic together.”
If nothing else, suddenly life is very simple again.
She shook him by the shoulders. “It’s all okay. We’ve known each other for such a short time, and it’s been so intense—I’ve been wondering when we’d have some sort of blow-up.”
He frowned in sunlight. “Léopold Montblé hasn’t written a really powerful poem in weeks.”
“All this happiness makes you soft.” She looked out over the passing green lawns and elm trees. “You can’t let your own things go, you know.” She grinned and added, “Can’t let your friend the poet down.”
He turned the corner slowly onto her street. “I really need some time to take care of things I’ve neglected.”
“Like your buddies,” she said sympathetically and sensibly. “Your poetry. Your dreams.”
As he pulled up at the curb, she reached over the seat to gather her bag with picnic remains and various books and extra clothing. They were at her married apartment, rather than the family hotel near the Rue des Bernardins.
He manfully removed the cooler and carried it to the house for her. They ascended the dark, cool stairway in silence. He waited for her familiar fumbling with keys.
Then the apartment door opened and he followed her into the dwelling. He’d only glimpsed this place once, when picking her up for a date. This was Jérôme’s territory, if he were ever home. Marc felt guilty and ungainly, an intruder, relishing the freshly painted and book-filled quiet and neatly ordered young/oldness of the apartment. Setting the canvas carryall aside on a kitchen counter, he walked into the living room with his hands in his pockets.
She emerged from the bedroom where she’d gone to put her unused sweater and book. She walked slowly, hands in the pockets of her skirt, kicking off her white deck shoes as she walked.
He was pointedly aware that she had nothing on underneath. “I’ll go home and take a shower,” he said.
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