French Lessons (4 page)

But she’s pregnant without the guy, the job, the house, the dogs. In fact, it’s all she has. This baby.

She has no right to this baby. She thinks of Simon’s wife at the funeral, her skin the color of ash, her eyes as flat as a lake. The woman didn’t remember Josie. She nodded, accepting condolences that meant nothing. Nothing could penetrate that grief. What right did Josie have to her grief?

“She is tragic, no?” the French tutor asks.

Josie looks up. Marilyn Monroe stares back at her, her mouth slightly open, her eyes half closed. She looks drunk on sex, on booze, on death. She looks luscious and ripe and ready to die. Josie’s eyes fill up. She steps back, away from the seductive stare. They’re in a gallery space, full of Marilyn. Every photo—and the photos are huge, pressing the limits of each room—is of Marilyn. Marilyn with her head tilted back, a sated smile on her face. Marilyn drawing on a cigarette. Marilyn puckering up. Marilyn with her hand resting on the curve of her hip, stretched out on a couch, offering herself up.
Love me
.

“She killed herself three days after this photo shoot,” Nico says, reading from the brochure.

“You can see that she was ready,” Josie says.

“To die?”

“To give herself up to death. It looks like she was already dying.”

“You will have the baby, yes?”

Josie looks at him. Nico. He has the kindest eyes. She imagines his sweet child with eyes like this. It’s a boy and he’s holding his mama’s hand, walking through the market in Marrakesh. He’s got a swoon of sand-colored hair and everyone stops to stare at the lovely child.

“Yes,” she says. The minute she says it, she makes it true. “He’s mine.”

“It’s a boy?”

“I think so,” she says. She has Simon’s boy in her belly. It’s not fair. His wife has nothing. And she has this.

“Your boyfriend is very lucky.”

She smiles. Her smile breaks and tears spill from her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Nico says.

“No, no. It’s the photographs,” Josie tells him. “They’re so sad. Look at that one.” She turns back to the wall and Marilyn’s shadowed face. She can hear the rain against the glass roof that covers the courtyard. It sounds like an ominous movie score—there’s an army approaching or a madman about to break into someone’s house. She wraps her arms about herself. Her skin is still wet from the rain and she’s suddenly chilled.

“Didn’t she have an affair with your president Kennedy?” Nico asks.

“I think so,” Josie says. “Apparently back in those days American presidents could get away with their indiscretions.”

“Not anymore. Here we laugh at what happened to Clinton. Why should anyone care?”

“Except his wife,” Josie says.

“Yes. It’s a private problem. Not a public one. It has nothing to do with politics.”

“I wonder,” Josie says, staring into Marilyn’s dreamy eyes, “what it has to do with. Why men cheat. Why they fall into bed with pretty girls.”

“For the time that they’re in the arms of a beautiful woman, they’re invincible,” Nico says.

“Then they should stay there,” Josie says quietly.

“Are we still talking about your presidents?”

Josie doesn’t answer. She wanders down the wall of Marilyn. She feels drunk on Marilyn, sexed up and sloppy, as if her own sheets have been thrown off the bed, exposing her.

Once, after making love with Simon at her cottage, she fell asleep. She woke up and saw him standing at the side of the bed, watching her. He was dressed, ready to leave, waiting to say goodbye. He couldn’t wake her. He told her he stood there for a half hour, already late for a meeting, because he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Come back to bed,” she had said.

He did.

It’s in Marilyn’s mouth, it’s in her eyes, it’s in the curve of her generous hip.
Come back to bed
.

Nico’s by her side.

“Do you have a girlfriend now?” she asks.
Une petite amie
. She loves the phrase in French. Little friend. Even a boyfriend is a
petit ami
. On her lips, the words taste as sweet as they sound.

“No,” Nico says. “I was waiting for you.”

“But I’m taken,” she tells him. Their tone is as light as the smoke drifting from Marilyn’s cigarette.

Here, in the room with Marilyn, everything reeks of sex. It’s as if they’ve just done it and now, once again, are about to do it.
Come back to bed
.

“If you were taken,” Nico says, “you wouldn’t be so very sad.”

“Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” Josie’s father had asked, showing up at her cottage the morning after she returned from San Francisco, the morning after her stay with Simon at the Clift.

He was sitting in her tiny kitchen, drinking coffee, probably his fifth or sixth cup of the day. He had driven up from San Jose to Marin to surprise her. It was the anniversary of her mother’s death, but they would never speak of that. It would be there, the idea of it, in the air between them, all day. They would talk about her fancy job at the prep school, his lousy grocery store, her old best friend Emily who lives next to her old ma, his middle-of-the-night heart murmur, but they would never talk about her late mother, his wife.

“I don’t have time, Dad. I’m working too hard.”

“A young girl shouldn’t work so hard.”

“I like it,” she told him, sitting across the table from him. “I
love
it.”

“Love. Love is for boyfriends, not jobs.”

He looked old, her father, his hair mostly gone, his skin mottled with age spots, his face jowly. She calculated: thirty-five years older than she was—and just ten years older than Simon. Impossible, she thought. Simon was fit and firm, though when he slept she saw that his skin relaxed in a way that surprised her. It seemed to let go of his bones and suddenly he was vulnerable, soft. Something about that moved her, as if he too needed someone to watch over him.

But her father was old and cranky and out of touch with her world. Simon didn’t seem old to her. True, he was a world apart from the boys she usually fell for—the long-haired, rumpled, mumbling boys. The boys who come too quickly. The boys who throw on yesterday’s clothes. The boys who live in basement apartments and smell of pot and beer.

“Are you taking care of yourself, Dad? You still go for walks every day?”

“You think I sit around and do nothing? You think I’m getting fat?”

“You’re not getting fat, Dad. You look great.”

“You’re full of shit.”

She smiled. This was what her parents did, this squabbling. He looked pleased as punch, as if he’d just flexed his muscles for an admiring crowd.

“I worry about you,” he said.

“You shouldn’t worry,” she said gently. “I take care of myself.”

“So who’s the boyfriend?”

“There’s no boyfriend, Dad. I told you.”

“You got any cake? Coffee cake or something?”

Josie stood up and walked to the pantry. She took a loaf of whole wheat bread and sliced a couple of pieces, put them in the toaster. While she gathered jam, butter, plates, and knives, her dad told her about Emily’s new boyfriend, a lawyer in San Jose.

“Good for Emily,” Josie said, placing the toast in front of her dad.

“You and Emily used to be best friends. You couldn’t go anywhere without that girl.”

“That was a long time ago, Dad.”

“You call this coffee cake?”

“It’s all I have.”

“I should have told you I was coming. You could have bought me a cake.”

“I would have bought you a cake, Dad,” Josie said, smiling.

“I like a little surprise sometimes. But this is the price I pay.” He held up the whole wheat toast.

“Put jam on,” Josie urged him. “It needs a little something.”

“So what happened with you and Emily?”

“Nothing, Dad. Life. We grew up. I moved away, she stayed home. People change.”

“I don’t change.”

“Thank God for that.”

“You making fun of me?”

“Never.”

He smiled and she thought of her mother, sitting next to him, both of them short and a little fat, both of them fighting over every little thing, smacking each other’s arms like some married version of the Three Stooges. Josie was always embarrassed by them, embarrassed by her love for them, and then, when her mother died, she yearned for the noise of them.

“You could have a girlfriend,” Josie said gently. “It’s enough time.”

“Ha,” her father said. “You think there’s another Franny out there somewhere?”

“No.”

“One of a kind.”

“I know. Maybe the next one is a different kind.”

“There’s no next one.”

“You might try.”

“You want Emily to ask her nice boyfriend if he has any friends at the law firm for you?”

“No, Dad.”

The phone rang. She leapt at it.

“Hello.”

“I miss you.”

“My dad’s visiting. Can I call you later?”

“No. I’m headed into the meeting. I just wanted to tell you—”

He didn’t say anything. She waited. She watched her dad, who fiddled unhappily with his toast.

“Will he be there tonight?”

“No.”

“I’ll come by.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Hey, Whitney. My dad wants me to start dating. You know any eligible single guys to fix me up with?”

“Don’t.”

“Okay. Give it some thought. He’s right. I should have a boyfriend. I should fall in love with someone and bring him to meet my dad.”

Her dad nodded, smiling, his lips smeared with boysenberry jam.

“I wanted to tell you I’m falling in love with you,” Simon said.

“That’s crazy,” Josie said. “You must know some guys. The good ones can’t all be married.”

“Stop it.”

• • •

“My father would like you,” Josie tells Nico. They’re standing side by side, gazing at a photo of Marilyn, naked, a sheer scarf draped over her body.

“Not your mother? It’s usually the mothers I charm.”

“My mother’s dead.”

She moves to the next photograph on the gallery wall—Marilyn taking a long, lazy drag on her cigarette.

“Lung cancer. Eight years ago. She never smoked a cigarette in her life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“My father smoked. Quit the day she was diagnosed. A bit late, though.”

“You were so young.”

“I’ll tell you a story I’ve never told anyone. About my mother’s death.”

He looks pleased. This man is way too easy.

“That last winter my parents were in Palm Springs, staying with my aunt for a month. I flew down there a couple of days before my mom died and then flew back with my dad. They had my mother’s body flown up—Dad wanted her buried at a cemetery near their house. I had packed my mother’s clothes to have her buried in. When we were waiting for our luggage at SFO, standing in front of the …” Josie stops. She is suddenly there, waiting for the bags, no longer telling a story. It had been sweltering hot in Palm Springs and now it was frigid, even in the airport. Her coat was packed in her suitcase and she stood there, teeth chattering, waiting for the bags to arrive.

“Yes?”

“I don’t know the word.”

“What word?”

“For the thing that the suitcases drop onto. The—Oh my God, I can’t even remember the word in English.”

“Le carrousel de bagages?”

“Yes. ‘Carousel.’ That’s the word.”

“Tell me the story.”

Josie feels panic stirring inside her. She looks around. Marilyn; a cigarette, a martini, puckered lips, long, manicured fingernails. Marilyn, Marilyn. She is drunk on Marilyn.

“We were all standing there, at the baggage claim, and first a shoe dropped down—not a suitcase, but a single shoe. It circled the carousel once and everyone watched it. When it passed by me a second time I recognized it. My mother’s navy-blue shoe. Someone laughed. I grabbed it and tucked it under my arm, embarrassed somehow. And then a pair of underpants dropped from the chute—I’m not kidding—my mother’s flowered underpants. The ones I chose from her drawer to have her buried in. Then her blouse. A peach-colored silk blouse she wore for special occasions. It almost floated down, as if worn by a fucking ghost. I grabbed each item and tucked the clothes in my arms. Her bra. Imagine: everyone was watching. Her C-cup rose-colored bra tumbled down. My father walked away. Finally my suitcase dropped down the chute and it was partially open, the items spilling out. I grabbed the bag and started stuffing everything back.”

Josie’s crying, tears running down her face, and she can’t stop. Nico pulls her toward him and holds her. She lets him. She swipes tears from her face but there’s no stopping them.

Simon’s gone.

• • •

“I’ve been sitting in my car across the street. I waited until your father was gone.”

Josie reaches out and places her hand on Simon’s chest.

“I wanted to walk up to him and say, ‘I’m Josie’s boyfriend. She doesn’t need another boyfriend.’ ”

“But it’s not true. You’re not my boyfriend. You’re someone’s husband. You’re the man I sneak away to have sex with. You’re the reason I can’t even talk to my best friend anymore.”

“Don’t.”

“I can’t give my father the one pleasure he wants.”

“I know, Josie. That’s why I sat in my car for the past two hours.”

“You have Brady’s play tonight. It starts in an hour.”

“I can’t go.”

“This can wait. Brady can’t wait.”

“I can’t give you more than this.”

“I know that. I’m not asking for more.”

“You’re asking for a man to introduce to your father.”

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

“I want you.”

“It stopped raining,” Nico says. “Let’s go have lunch.”

Josie finds a Kleenex in her purse and wipes her face. She has stopped crying but she feels raw. When she first learned about Simon, when Whitney called that Saturday morning and told her to turn on the television, she couldn’t cry—or scream or rage. She sat stunned, in front of her computer, Googling news reports, trying to find out everything she could about the crash of a small plane in the mountains near Santa Barbara. The phone kept ringing and she never answered it. Later there were dozens of messages from other teachers, a couple of Brady’s classmates, even a long, sobbing message from Glynnis Gilmore. She had fallen in love with Brady on opening night, she said.