The Last Time I Saw Paris (19 page)

“Doesn't he tell you that? Lara, you have to have more confidence in yourself. You can't let Bill take that away from you.”

“Maybe right now he loves me,” she said, still unsure. “But what if I'm just a passing fancy—a holiday romance? Maybe, when we get home, he'll go back to Britt.…”

Delia sighed again. “So, you obviously haven't discovered who you are yet.”

“I'm still looking. I just wish I didn't keep tripping over memories of Bill wherever we go.”

“Oh, yeah? Remember Bill? The louse in Beijing with Melissa Kenney?” Delia wished she were there to shake some sense into her. “And you're in—where are you, anyway?—somewhere in France with Dan. Your wonderful lover. Remember him?”

“I could never forget him,” Lara said simply.

“Great. Now let's get to the important stuff. Did you go shopping in Paris?”

“I bought you some earrings, brushed gold studded with tiny pearls. I got the other Girlfriends earrings too. And I bought a dress for Minnie, and a sweater for Josh. Oh, and a wonderful old print of Paris … and I guess that's about it.”

“Nothing for yourself?”

“Underwear. The airline lost the luggage.”

“Oh, my God! So, what else did you get?”

“Delia, there wasn't much time.”

“Huh.” Delia snorted. “I can't imagine what else you were doing.…”

Lara was laughing now. “Actually, I bought a pink-flowered dress. And we ate ice cream cones on the Isle St. Louis and walked around the Left Bank, and visited museums and ate too much good food. I bet I've gained five pounds.”

“It's worth it, hon. Keep up the good work.”

“Okay. I'd better go now. Love to the girls, Delia. And I love you.”

Delia's smacking kiss came down the line. “Love you too, honey. Keep in touch; remember, we are dying to hear how it goes.”

 

Clouds blanketed the Loire Valley the next morning, promising more rain, but still they set off early for Chambord and Blois.

It had rained too when Lara was there with Bill. She remembered staring, frozen and wet, at the magnificent Château du Chambord through a sheet of water. It had looked like a ghostly vision arising from the past and she had been swept back in time, imagining knights in armor charging their horses into the courtyard and King Louis, or maybe it was Charles, in his gold crown urging his men on to battle. But Bill, the medical man, had wondered out loud about
the sanitation and the living conditions underneath all that gloss and grandeur, bringing her back to the present with a thud. She had been so lost in the wonder of how they had built such palaces in the year 1498, and all Bill cared about were the toilets.

As a matter of fact, she remembered now, she too had learned to care about toilets. It had happened right here, in the Loire.

They had stopped for gas at a station in a small town. While Bill filled up, Lara had hurried to the rest room. She swung open the door and stared in astonishment at the concrete floor with a hole in the center and at the two slabs in the shape of large feet.

“Oh, my God,” she'd muttered, horrified. But she had to go.

She balanced herself precariously over the hole, then looked around for the flush. She found a lever and pressed it. Water gushed at her from every angle. Shrieking, she danced on tiptoe trying to escape; the water was splashing over her shoes, on her legs. She ran out, stunned.

Bill took one look at her shocked face. His brows rose and his mouth turned down at the corners in that resigned “what did you do now?” look. He'd even said it. “What did you do now, Lara? You only went to the rest room.”

“Have you
seen
that rest room?” she'd demanded heatedly. “It's from the Middle Ages, it's . . . it's
disgusting.”

Bill had not even laughed, though thinking about it later, Lara had. He had merely sighed. “I had no problem myself.”

“But then you wouldn't, would you?” she had said furiously. “Mr. Perfect Know-it-all.”

They had not spoken for the rest of the day.

Arms around each other, Dan and Lara sheltered beneath a big burgundy-and-green-striped umbrella, purchased that morning in town.

“It makes you wonder how they ever built this place,” Dan the builder marveled, touching the worn stones reverently, inspecting joists and beams and admiring massive oaken doors like a man in love. “I can just see you hanging out that turret window,” he added, “letting down your long hair like Rapunzel snaring her lover.”

Lara's dark hair was beaded with crystalline raindrops and her amber eyes smiled at him. Her cheeks were pink from the wind and her mouth soft with love. Bundled up in sweaters and a bright red anorak, she looked like the roly-poly teenager she had told him she used to be.

“Did I ever tell you, Ms. Lewis, ma'am,
Lara
—that right now you are more beautiful than Chambord? Or Blois? Or Chenonceau, or Amboise? Or even the naked woman in my bed last night?”

She blushed. “The rain's clouding your vision. This is the real me you're looking at.”

“Both are the real you.” He kissed raindrops from her eyelashes and the tip of her nose, burying his face in the fragrance of her neck, where the tiny pulse beat beneath his lips. “You're beautiful, Lara Lewis,” he murmured. “Never forget that.”

I won't, she told herself, lost in his arms, his kiss. Brimming with happiness, she stored those words in her memory bank. I'll never forget you said that.

T
hey were sitting in a tiny movie theater in I watching an old Gérard Depardieu film in Fn without subtitles, just to escape from the wind and rain.

“What are you thinking about?” Dan whisperei her ear.

She stared at the screen, where a grisly murder we taking place in a storm. “Sunshine,” she whispen back.

“What d'you say we get out of here? Head south?”

She turned to look at him. “I was hoping you wouh say that.”

Angry hissing noises came from behind them and people glared their way. Clutching hands they edged along the row, stumbling over feet in the darkness, giggling like two children.

The Holiday Inn was not where Lara had stayed with Bill. In fact, they had not stopped in Blois, but because of the weather she was willing to make a small exception to her honeymoon itinerary and, anyhow, it was the first hotel she had come across in the Gault guide. It was functional and comfortable, and it was
warm.
If they went south tomorrow, they would miss the famous gardens at Villandry, as well as the fabled château of Azay-le-Rideau, but, somehow, she thought they would return someday.

Meanwhile, she soaked in the Holiday Inn's tiny
tub while Dan pored over the map, tracing their route down through Poitiers and Angouléme to Bergerac.

“Why such a convoluted route, anyway?” he asked when she emerged wrapped in a towel, her long wet hair draped around her shoulders like seaweed on a mermaid. “We could be in Provence, in the sun. In fact, why don't we just drop off the car and fly to Marseilles?”

“Oh, but that's not the point,” she said, alarmed that he wanted to change her honeymoon route. “It's not the way we . . . the way
I
want to do it. Besides,” she added quickly, “it'll be too difficult to cancel all those reservations and get flights. And I know you're going to enjoy seeing it all.”

Dan said he surely hoped she was right and that the rain would quit. Meanwhile, he called room service and ordered
steak-frites
and a half bottle of a local Saumur. The white wine didn't go with the steak but he thought they ought to try it anyway, since that's what the area was famous for. Plus a slab of apple tart with vanilla ice cream.

They sat at the little table. Lara's wet hair was wrapped in a white towel-turban, and she was wearing her blue cotton robe and terry slippers. Dan had on gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt. On the TV, Canal Plus blasted them with the news in French.

“Just like an old married couple,” Dan said with a grin.

It was exactly what Lara had been thinking, but she hadn't dared say it.

“I feel guilty about being in a Holiday Inn, here in France,” she said.

“It beats Madame Defarge's barn.”

She had to agree with that.

The thin steak was what the French call
saignant
—
“cooked,” if that was the right word, for a minute on each side, so rare the blood still ran, and the
frites
were soggy. But the apple tart was a wonder to behold. It was more than just an apple tart, it was the local specialty, known as
pithiviers,
a fluffy, flaky pastry layered with rich almond paste and topped with concentric swirls of sugary apples. The vanilla ice cream was no match for Berthillon's, but they didn't care. They washed it down with the Saumur wine, which turned out to be sweet and syrupy and perfect with the dessert.

After supper, Dan dried Lara's hair for her. He smoothed the soft ripples with his hand, spreading it out around her shoulders the better to admire it. “Like waves of silk,” he said, bending to drop a kiss on the top of her head. “Beautiful.”

A little thrill of happiness shot up Lara's spine. It was the second time that day he had told her she was beautiful.

Naked, they lay propped up in bed, the blankets up to their chins, watching what must have been a very old interview with the French singer and man about town Serge Gainsbourg. Lara knew it was old because Gainsbourg had died several years earlier. And, of course, it was in French, but they were getting used to that and they enjoyed the music. Eventually they turned out the lights, kissed, and slid farther down under the covers. Silent. Introspective.

Does he really think I'm beautiful? Lara was wondering.

How can he think you are beautiful?
the nagging little voice of her conscience—or was it her alter ego, or maybe reality?—reminded her.
You've never been a beauty. You were an overweight teenager who only slimmed down at college because you hated the food.
You were at your peak when you married Bill and then you were only twenty. Now you look in the mirror every morning and see the truth.

But my hair, she thought defensively, he said that was beautiful too.

Sure, I'll give you that,
the mean little voice admitted,
but, hey, let's face it, you're no girl anymore. This is the Second Honeymoon, only without the first guy. The one who has grown old with you. That's when you become the matched set, the same vintage, so to speak. It kind of equals things out and you don't notice the deficiencies so much because you both have them. Except now Bill's turned you in for a younger, perkier model. And you are here in France with a young lover who must surely see the flaws. Besides, you ‘ve gained weight since you got here
—
you ‘11 never get into that red bathing suit now.
. . .

Lara tossed restlessly in his arms and Dan moved away, giving her room.

“You okay?” he whispered, turning on his side, away from her.

“I'm fine.”

There, you see that,
the evil little voice said triumphantly.
He doesn't want to make love to you. You should never have worn the robe and slippers. He likes it better when you ‘re in the Sabbia Rosa and the lizard heels. Young men like hot women, not women who remind them of their mothers.

Lara's heart sank. Maybe that was it. And when they got back to California he was just going to say a polite good-bye and “It was fun and I'll never forget you”—and go and marry beautiful blond Britt, who was young enough to be her daughter.

She sighed. If all it amounted to was a quick romantic affair, at least she would have the memories.

Dan caught the sigh and wondered if she was thinking about Bill. Maybe she was wishing it was her husband lying in bed next to her instead of him. He frowned. He didn't know Bill Lewis, but he certainly didn't like what he had heard about him. And he knew Bill didn't deserve a woman like Lara. She was special, different; she kept him guessing all the time.

Like now, for instance, he was wondering why she seemed so distant. Why sometimes she seemed to go off somewhere inside herself, shutting him out. She was insecure—it didn't take a genius to figure that out—and he didn't know how to make her feel better about herself. He guessed that's what happened to a woman when her husband left her for someone else, though it hadn't sounded like a great marriage to him, anyway. She had said Bill was hardly ever there.

Had Bill ever loved her? He supposed he must have, when they were young—he could have kicked himself for thinking that last bit. Lara would always be young; she was that kind of woman. He had meant it when he told her she was beautiful. To him, she was far more lovely than lean, hard-bodied young Britt with her breast implants and her size-two dresses. Lara was a real woman, rounded, female, slender where it counted and with nature's curves in all the right places. And, call him. an old-fashioned guy, but that was what he liked about her.