44 Charles Street (29 page)

“I’ll call you in Paris the next time I’m there,” she promised. “And don’t invite me to the wedding if you marry Charles-Edouard,” she teased her. “I’d be much too jealous.” The man with the yacht that she’d met in San Francisco over Thanksgiving hadn’t panned out. She was still looking for number six, but Charles-Edouard wouldn’t have fit the bill either. Marya was more his type than she was.

“We’re not in any rush,” Marya reassured her.

“What’s happening with Francesca and Chris?” Thalia asked her as Marya handed her a gift. It was one of her cookbooks that Thalia had said she wanted and couldn’t find because it was no longer in print. Thalia thanked her and smiled.

“They seem very happy. They’re just getting started. I think it’ll take a while for them to figure it out. He went through an awful lot with his ex-wife. And Francesca is very cautious, as you know.” Marya poured them both a cup of tea. Thalia was going to miss her. She was her only conduit into her daughter’s life. Francesca never told her anything.

They chatted about Paris for a while, and then Thalia stood up and hugged her. “Take good care of yourself,” Thalia said softly. “I’m going to miss you too, and not just to fill me in about Francesca.” She had become a good friend to them all, and Thalia was happy for her. Marya deserved all the happiness she had found with Charles-Edouard. She brought joy to a lot of people, and it was nice to see her getting her fair share of it back. The two women promised to stay in touch.

Thalia left Christmas gifts for Francesca, Chris, and Ian, and she told Francesca she’d call her from Gstaad. She was leaving for Europe the day before Marya, but she was going to be busy now until she left.

Avery dropped by to say goodbye to Marya too, and leave Christmas gifts for Francesca, Chris, and Ian. The one for Francesca was enormous, and it was easy to guess what it was. It was one of her father’s paintings, to replace the five she had sold.

Francesca was thrilled when she saw it that night, and she had Chris help her hang it in the living room, and took down one she had never liked, by an artist she no longer represented. Chris loved the new one too. They had told Marya and Charles-Edouard all about the show in Miami, and Chris had admitted to being totally overwhelmed.

“I’ve never seen so much art in one place in my life.” Marya said she would have loved to see it. She had always wanted to go to the June show in Basel. Maybe now, living in Paris, she would. There were so many things she wanted to do. She was sad to be leaving, but getting excited as the day approached. They were planning to spend Christmas in Courchevel with friends of Charles-Edouard. It was a very fancy ski resort, with some excellent restaurants Marya was anxious to try out. It was going to be a much more exciting life than the one she’d had on Charles Street for the past year, or in Vermont before that. And Charles-Edouard moved around Europe a lot. He said he wanted to take her to Prague and Budapest.

And then the day finally arrived when they had to leave. It was wrenching, and Francesca and Marya both cried. Marya could hardly let go of Ian, and Charles-Edouard shepherded her gently toward the door, where a car was waiting to take them to the airport. She promised to e-mail, and she and Francesca stood for a last moment holding each other tight.

“Take good care,” Marya whispered, and Francesca was crying too hard to talk.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” she said finally through her tears. This felt like a huge loss to her. And Ian looked mournful too.

“I’ll see you next summer, and talk to you long before that,” Marya promised as she bent to kiss Ian for a last time. Chris kept an arm around Francesca and held Ian’s hand as the car finally drove away, and they all went back inside. The house was going to be deadly quiet without them. Francesca was glad they were going to Boston in a few days, for Christmas with Chris’s family. She was still nervous about meeting them, but it was going to be better than staying home in a house that seemed too big now without Marya and Charles-Edouard.

“I think our kitchen just lost five stars,” Chris said, smiling wistfully at her.

“What do you want for dinner? Pizza or Chinese takeout?” Francesca asked him, and he laughed, as Ian voted for Chinese.

“I think we’re in trouble. One of us better learn to cook.” But Marya had actually taught her a number of her little tricks, if Francesca had time to do them. And Ian had become an expert at making all kinds of cookies. Charles-Edouard had left Chris a box of his favorite Cuban cigars. But the treasures they had left for them were no substitute for the people they had lost. It was going to be a big adjustment without them, and the house felt empty and sad for the rest of the week. It was going to be a relief to fly to Boston, and Ian was excited about seeing his cousins. Francesca was scared stiff. Chris had been giving her little hints about his family, that sounded like warnings. “Conservative, stuffy, not as uptight as they look, religious, Old Guard.” They sounded like danger signs to her.

“What if your parents hate me?” she asked Chris in bed, the night before they left.

“Then I won’t see them anymore,” he said matter-of-factly. “You forget who I was married to before. She’s not exactly a tough act to follow. My mother’s a little serious, but my father’s a good guy. They’ll love you,” he reassured her.

“How is Kim, by the way?” Francesca asked carefully. “Did you ever hear from her father?”

“My lawyer says she’s back in rehab. It won’t last. It never does.” He had given up hope. They had filed a report about her grabbing Ian from school, and she had been strongly reprimanded by the court through her attorney. They considered it a serious violation. Even Chris didn’t think she’d do it again. She hadn’t sent anything to Ian for Christmas. She always forgot, just like she did his birthday. There was no room in her life for holidays. She was too busy either trying to buy drugs, or get off them. It was a full-time job for her. Her addiction was her life.

Francesca’s mother had given Ian a cute little leather bomber jacket, and he loved it. Francesca was touched that she had made the effort. She bought a silver pen set for Chris, and an evening bag for her, which she wasn’t likely to wear often, but it was pretty. The bomber jacket for Ian more than made up for it. And Avery and her father had given him a beautiful drawing set with paints and pastels and pencils and colored pens, and he loved that too. His new substitute grandparents had done well by him. And Francesca loved the painting from her father, and went into the living room to see it every day.

She was going to get busy turning Marya’s room into an office for Chris as soon as they got back from Boston. And he was excited about that. They were spreading out all over the house. It was starting to feel like her house again, not having to make space for roommates. Ian seemed to feel it too—he had left a pile of toys in the kitchen, and loved watching TV with his father in Francesca’s bed at night, and climbing into bed with them on Sunday mornings. Chris and Ian had come home.

Chapter 23

I
t took Francesca hours to pack the night before they went to Boston. She wasn’t sure what to bring. Dressy, not so dressy, polite suit for church on Christmas Eve? Cocktail dress for dinner? Too sexy? Too short? Too low cut? Too dreary? She didn’t want to make a faux pas, and was terrified she would. Chris told her to forget it and wear jeans, but she knew that would be wrong too. She expected them to be conservative and stuffy, from everything Chris had said. She was hoping he had exaggerated a little. But she was worried. In the end, she took all the options with her, and had two heavy suitcases for the plane. Chris groaned when he saw them.

“What did you bring?” he asked with a look of dismay.

“Everything,” she said, smiling happily. She had taken no chances and brought it all. And then she appeared with a third smaller suitcase full of presents for Chris, Ian, and Chris’s parents. He managed to get it all in the car. And when they got to the airport, it was a zoo and the flight was late. It was snowing in Boston. They didn’t get out till ten o’clock, and they landed in Boston before midnight. Chris’s father was waiting for them, despite the late hour. He was a tall man like Chris, but had broader shoulders, a deep voice, and a firm grip as he shook Francesca’s hand. He looked like the linebacker he had been at Harvard fifty years before. He gave Ian a warm look and shook his hand, which seemed unusually formal to Francesca, but he seemed like a nice man. They closed the airport in the snowstorm right after they landed, and the roads were covered as they drove slowly into Boston. The two men talked football and politics in the car. Chris had already warned her that he was considered the family black sheep for not going to Harvard and moving to New York. He didn’t mention their objections to her house. He said they couldn’t understand why he’d want to be a graphic designer instead of a politician or a banker. And Kim had been the icing on the cake. So they didn’t approve of him, whatever they thought of her now. It made entering their world somewhat dicey for Francesca.

Chris’s parents lived in Cambridge, on Brattle Street, where the president of Harvard lived as well. All the men in his family had gone to school there, before becoming senators, governors, and presidents. They were an impressive bunch. Chris seemed so humble and unassuming, given the family he came from.

When they got to the house, his mother was waiting up for them. She was a small grandmotherly-looking woman with white hair and gray eyes like Chris. She was wearing a dark gray wool dress, and a string of pearls. There was nothing fashionable about her. She was totally unlike Francesca’s mother. And she showed Francesca to her room herself. Sharing a room with Chris would have been out of the question, even if Ian weren’t there. Chris’s mother had put Francesca in a guest room as far down the hall as possible from Chris. Her room assignment made it clear that there was to be no hanky-panky in their house. Francesca was nervous as Chris winked and left her in her room, after his mother said goodnight. Francesca wondered if he’d be back later. And Ian was sleeping in the room with his father. It was Chris’s boyhood room, and they had a full house, with Chris’s brother and sister and their families and numerous other relatives and their children staying with them. The house was huge. Chris had explained who would be there and she couldn’t keep track of any of them, the second cousins, an aunt, his siblings and their children. It was very confusing, with relatives and in-laws and their children, many of whom had the same first names. Francesca was sitting in her room, feeling a little dazed, when Chris walked back in, and quickly closed the door. Francesca had realized by then that his mother hadn’t spoken directly to her, other than to greet her, and say goodnight.

“My mother is still wandering around. I’ll be back later,” he said quickly, and Francesca rapidly understood that when he was at home, he followed their rules. Breaking them was not an option, even for him. It was one of the reasons he lived in New York, and had gone to Stanford on the West Coast. His parents had considered it treason.

“I take it you can’t sleep here,” she whispered, and he laughed.

“My mother would call the vice squad and have us both thrown out. She’s a very proper woman.”

“Got it.” He was thirty-eight years old and not allowed to have a girl in his room. But Chris knew his way around the system. They made her family look like wild libertines. And this was Boston. Old Boston. Old Guard.

Half an hour later, the house had gone quiet, and Chris tiptoed back in, barefoot in jeans. “All set.” He had his toothbrush with him. All he had to do was escape back to his own room in the morning by seven, when his mother came down to breakfast, religiously, every morning. She ran a tight ship. And kept a close eye on what went on in her house, just as she did at the Vineyard. Nothing escaped her eagle eye.

“She’s very old-fashioned,” he explained. He hadn’t mentioned it before, and hadn’t wanted to frighten Francesca. And as she thought about it, Francesca couldn’t even imagine the chaos Kimberly must have caused there when they were married, doing drugs and getting drunk. His parents must have loved that. And they would like even less what she’d been doing lately, recently out of jail, and absconding with their grandson. Chris said they hated her, and it was easy to see why. She just hoped they didn’t hate her too. Francesca was determined to respect them while she was there, even if their rules seemed silly to her.

They spent the night together in her room, and Chris set the alarm on his cell phone for quarter to seven. He bounded out of bed the moment it went off, kissed her, put on his jeans and shirt, and ran down the hall to his own room, where Ian was still sleeping. It was going to be an interesting weekend playing hide and seek in the hall, and musical bedrooms, to avoid his mother discovering them in the same room. He didn’t mind standing up to them on important issues, and always had, but he didn’t want to make waves now, and prejudice them against Francesca. If at all possible, he hoped they’d like her, and also relax their negative outlook on his living in her house. He wanted them to see what a good person she was, and how sweet to Ian.

Francesca almost expected Chris’s mother to do room inspections, and was afraid she would. She had brought them a bottle of wine and wondered if it was enough of a gift for a whole weekend. Maybe she should have sent them flowers instead. They were so proper, she was afraid to do the wrong thing. Nothing about them put her at ease. And his mother had been polite but not warm the night before.

Chris had breakfast with his mother, and then came back to find Francesca while she was getting dressed. She had breakfast in the dining room with assorted houseguests at eight-thirty and found herself sitting next to Chris’s sister Hilary, who was too busy taking care of her four-year-old twin boys to say more than hello. They were all going to church at ten, and Chris said it would be a good idea if she went. She had no objection, but clearly these people were used to doing everything together. It was a little like military school, or camp. And Chris was much more uptight here than he was in New York. All the men were supposed to play golf together that afternoon, but Chris said they wouldn’t if it snowed. And in summer they played football at the Vineyard. There were trophies for various athletic events all over the house. One of his cousins had won a gold medal in the Olympics. And his brother had been captain of the rowing team at Harvard. Francesca met him after breakfast, and he looked her over and said a cursory hello. He was four years older than Chris and planning to run for a congressional seat in the coming year. He introduced Francesca to his wife, and then they went upstairs to dress for church. They all seemed so different from Chris. They seemed like very competitive people to her. Tennis was a big deal to them, and football. All she knew anything about was art, not sports. She could barely contribute to the conversation at breakfast and hardly spoke. Chris could see how nervous she was when he found her afterward. She had worn black leather jeans and a black sweater. All the other women were wearing twin sets and plaid skirts, and none of them short. Francesca didn’t own a plaid skirt, of any length.