Magic (8 page)

“You can't mean this.” He was panicked.

“Yes, I can. I do.” She opened the door to her office to show him out.

“What am I going to tell my family?”

“That's up to you. It will take a while to extricate our families from the business and separate the parts they were involved in. Our lawyers can work it out. I'll have papers drawn up to remove you from the partnership immediately.”

“You can't do that,” he said, incensed.

“Yes, I can, and I will. I was a fool to wait this long. I only did it out of love for you, to give you a chance to come back if you wanted to. At least now everything is clear.”

“We don't need a divorce, Benedetta,” he insisted again. “Everything can be agreed privately between us, informally.”

“No, it can't. I need a divorce, even if you don't. I want everything clear between us. And that way if you want to marry her, you can. You're a free man.” He walked out of her office looking dazed, and the last thing she said to him was that she would have his things sent to Anya's apartment in Rome. She assumed they'd be going back there, and there was too much to send to a hotel. He turned one last time to look at her before she closed her office door.

“I thought you loved me,” he said with tears in his eyes. “That's why I was willing to come back to you a few weeks ago.” But that had changed when their boy twin died and Anya fell apart, and he decided to stay with her. But he'd still been sure of Benedetta only weeks ago.

“I do love you,” Benedetta said quietly. “I still love you very much. Enough to have been willing to stay with you. I hope one day I won't love you. That's all I wish for now.” And after she said it, she silently closed her office door. And Gregorio walked away in tears. He had never thought that Benedetta could be so cruel.

G
regorio flew back to Paris that night, and called Anya from the airport to ask how the baby was. Anya said she was the same, there was no news.

“Could you meet me at the hotel?” he asked, sounding jagged. Other than their son's death, it had been one of the hardest days of his life. He felt as though he had lost everything in a matter of hours. Benedetta wanted him out of their business. He had lost his job, his history, and his wife of twenty years. He had wanted to leave her to be with Anya, but he was shocked that she wanted a divorce. He had thought they would stay married, while he lived with Anya and the baby. That was what most people he knew did. Mistresses were still more common than divorces in Europe, particularly in Italy and even France. Gregorio was appalled at the idea of a divorce, even more than at the idea of his having twins with someone, other than his wife.

“What's wrong?” Anya was startled by how he sounded. “How did it go with her? Did you tell her?” She had been waiting for his call all day, but he had never called her. He had gone to see his older brother to tell him about the business, and his brother told him he was a fool and had ruined the family and their business.

“I told her I was leaving her. I didn't ask for a divorce.” He was still in shock. Benedetta was going to play hardball with him, and his brother warned him that the divorce would cost him and the family a fortune. He didn't blame his sister-in-law for what she was planning to do. He said his own wife would have killed him. Gregorio was lucky.

“What did she say?” Anya sounded happy at the news that he had told her, but he hadn't explained the rest yet.

“It's too complicated to tell you on the phone. I need a break. Why don't we spend a night at the hotel? Claudia will be all right without us for one night.” He didn't have an ounce left to give anyone. He needed to recharge his batteries, with room service, a hot bath, and a comfortable bed. His quick trip to Milan had been far worse than he'd expected.

“We can celebrate.” Anya sounded fifteen years old and hadn't picked up on the tone of his voice. He had lost everything. He suddenly wondered if his brother was right and he'd gone crazy. He had done it for the mother of his child, and she had no idea what any of it meant to him. To her, the divorce would be good news, though he didn't intend to tell her about it yet. She didn't need to know, and in Italy it would take two years. He had a long dark road ahead of him, while Benedetta destroyed what was left of his life.

“Meet me at the hotel,” he said, sounding exhausted.

He took a cab to the George V, and Anya arrived five minutes later, looking fresh and beautiful in a T-shirt and jeans, which was all they had at the hospital, and all they needed to sit in the neonatal ICU ward every day and night. They had been there now for over a month. It seemed a lifetime since the night of the White Dinner.

Anya ordered champagne almost as soon as she walked into the room, and Gregorio went to take a shower. He barely said hello to her, and she was lying on the bed watching TV when he came back into the room wearing one of the robes of the hotel. It was thick and luxurious, and he lay on the bed next to her, not even knowing what to say. Everything that had happened that day had been so awful, and he would never forget the look on Benedetta's face and the hardness of her eyes when she told him she was divorcing him. She had always been so understanding before. But he had never left her for another woman, nor had a baby with her, and humiliated her so publicly.

“So what did she say?” Anya asked him again, as she snuggled up next to him on the bed. They hadn't made love in months, but he knew he couldn't have now. He had nothing left in him. He felt as if Benedetta had killed him. He lay there feeling he was the victim, wondering how she could be so vicious, enough to take away their business and divorce him. To him, it was even worse than what he'd done, and punishment beyond measure.

“She's kicking me out of our business” was all he was willing to tell Anya. “Our families have worked together for more than a century, and she's willing to break with tradition.” Anya didn't appear to be impressed, nor to understand the magnitude of his wife's reaction. And then for an instant, she looked worried.

“Does that mean she's taking all your money?”

“No, but she'll probably go after that too.” He was morbidly depressed, and then she kissed him, and he smiled at her, hoping that somehow it would turn out all right, and maybe Benedetta would calm down and forget about the divorce. He couldn't believe she would do that to him, but seeing Anya lying next to him made the horror of a divorce seem less immediate and less real. She wrapped her arms around him, and slipped a hand into his robe. In spite of everything that had happened, she managed to arouse him, and a moment later they were making love passionately, and all that he'd been through that day and in the past month faded away as they clung to each other until they lay spent. He had forgotten how incredible she was to make love to. She was his now, and he needed her as desperately as she needed him.

They finished the bottle of champagne and ordered room service at midnight. It was a night of respite for both of them. And when he woke up lying next to her the next morning, he made love to her again.

He tried not to think of Benedetta as they showered together and dressed to go back to the hospital. But it was comforting to know that their baby and their future were waiting for them. And maybe when Benedetta calmed, she would change her mind about the business and the divorce. She was normally so reasonable, and he hoped she would be again.

Jean-Philippe had always loved having breakfast with his wife and children, while they waited for the nanny to arrive, so they could leave for work together. When he had time, he dropped Valerie off at her office. But ever since he had told her about Beijing, she was constantly late, the children cried, she burned their breakfast, and she took so long getting ready that he couldn't wait for her, and she took a cab to work. Their life seemed to be unraveling with the pressure of having to make a decision, and that morning even the nanny was late. And their two-year-old son, Damien, had been crying since four
A.M.
with an earache. Valerie was going to take him to the pediatrician before she went to work.

“Doesn't anything go smoothly here anymore?” he snapped at her, looking exasperated. Their five-year-old son, Jean-Louis, had hit his sister at breakfast, and she was crying too.

“How would you like to deal with all that in Beijing?” she threw back at him. “With a pediatrician who doesn't speak French or English?” She had spoken to several friends in the past few weeks who knew the city and said almost no one spoke English. You needed a translator everywhere if you didn't speak Chinese. The firm that had made Jean-Philippe the offer had told him he would have his own.

“I'm sure there must be Western doctors there. We can find one through the embassy. It's not a third-world country, for God's sake.”

“No, it's China,” she said tartly.

“Is that your answer, then?” He'd been pressing her for days. He had already told his potential future employers that he needed more time to make the decision. It was a big career change for his wife too, and they said they understood.

“If you want an answer now,” she barked back at him, as their children stared at them, shocked by the unfamiliar tone, “if you want an answer today,” Valerie said, lowering her voice when she saw her children's faces, “the answer is no. I'm not ready to walk into
Vogue
and quit today. I need more time to think about it.”

“I'm not doing this for myself,” he said, frustrated, “I'm doing it for us, for the long term.” They were both beginning to wonder if there would be a long term, the way things were going. In seven years they had never faced anything so divisive, that had shaken them this badly. And each of them blamed the other for the unbearable tension that engulfed them every day. Damien started to cry again then, and the young girl who worked for them arrived and took him to his bedroom to get him dressed. He was pulling on his ear, and when Jean-Louis spilled his orange juice all over the table, Valerie mopped it up.

“You're making the children nervous,” she accused her husband in a taut voice, as he shook his head in despair, and left without saying goodbye. That had never happened before.

“Where is Papa going?” three-year-old Isabelle asked, visibly worried. “He didn't kiss me.”

“He was in a hurry to go to work,” she said, kissing the chubby cheeks instead, as Valerie realized that if Jean-Philippe went anyway, and they didn't go with him, she would have three children to manage on her own.

“What's Pay-ching?” Jean-Louis asked her as she helped him out of his pajamas and into jeans with a red-checked shirt.

“It's a city in China,” Valerie tried to sound calm when she answered, as she put red sandals on his feet.

“Why don't they speak French or English?” He had heard every word of their conversation, and probably listened to their arguments at night, even if he didn't understand what they were about. The tension in the air between Jean-Philippe and Valerie was palpable.

“Because they speak Chinese, silly. Now I want you to be gentle with Isabelle today. It wasn't nice of you to hit her at breakfast. She's smaller than you are.”

“She said I was stupid. That's a bad word.”

“Yes, it is,” Valerie agreed with him, and then went to check on the baby. She still had to get to the pediatrician, and she was going to be hours late for work. They always made her wait.

She was in her car with Damien half an hour later, and it was nearly eleven when she brought him home and left him with the nanny, and then dashed off to work.

“Bad morning?” her assistant asked her sympathetically when she finally got to her office at
Vogue.
She didn't want to tell her that every morning was bad now, and her job was on the line because her husband wanted to move them all to Beijing. She tried to force it from her mind as she glanced at her messages and emails, and they had an editorial meeting on Skype with the New York office at noon, about the September issue, which was their biggest edition of the year, and the Paris office contributed to it too.

And she knew that by the end of a busy day at the office, she would be no closer to knowing what to do. Every fiber of her being told her to stay in Paris, where their life worked. Why did he want to drag them halfway around the world? It made no sense to her for any amount of money or career move. And why was his career more important than hers?

She was distracted through most of the meeting, and had a crushing headache by the end of the day. But at least when she got home the children had been bathed and fed, and Damien wasn't crying anymore. The antibiotics the pediatrician had given him had kicked in. And she was reading them a bedtime story when Jean-Philippe came home, and the children were all wearing matching pajamas with little teddy bears.

“You forgot to kiss me this morning, Daddy,” Isabelle reminded him, with her long dark hair like her mother's still damp from her bath.

“Then I'll just have to kiss you twice tonight when you go to bed.” As he said it, Valerie smiled at him, wishing their life were still as simple as it had been before. “How was your day?” he asked her over the children's heads. She shrugged in answer, there was nothing she could say. All she could hear now was the constant drum roll of the decision that had to be made. He let her finish the bedtime story, and came in to each of their bedrooms when she put them to bed. The nanny had gone home by then. And a few minutes later, their children were all tucked in.

She and Jean-Philippe walked into the kitchen together a few minutes later, but neither of them was hungry. Valerie pulled some leftover chicken out of the fridge and made a salad for them to share. They didn't say anything to each other. They were both too afraid to start an argument again. They ate at the kitchen table in silence, which was unusual for them. She did the dishes after they ate, while Jean-Philippe went over some papers in his office, and by the time he got to their bedroom, Valerie was in bed, and her headache was worse.

In the past several weeks, everything about their marriage seemed to have gone sour. It was hard to believe how quickly it had happened. And suddenly they had nothing to say to each other except to fight about the job in Beijing. Jean-Philippe went to get ready for bed then, and climbed into his side of the bed. Valerie lay with her back to him, and when he turned off the light, all she said was “Goodnight.” And as they lay there in the dark, neither of them had ever felt as lonely in their lives. It was as though the people they loved had disappeared and left strangers in their place. And the strangers they had left were destroying the marriage it had taken them seven years to build. It was beginning to feel like there was nothing left.

Xavier called Chantal a week after they'd met at the airport and had dinner. She had texted him her phone number when she thanked him for dinner, and forgot all about him while she went back to work on her script, with renewed energy after her trip to Berlin. Seeing her children always fueled her.

“I meant to call you sooner,” Xavier explained, “but I've been in Zurich all week. I just got back last night.”

“You travel a lot,” she commented. She was happy to hear from him.

“Yes, I do travel a lot. I've got clients all over the place. Are you free tomorrow night? I'd ask you for tonight, but it's short notice, and I'm still in the office.” It was eight o'clock by then.

“Tomorrow would be great.” She smiled at the prospect of dinner with him.

“Perfect. What kind of food do you like?”

“Anything, I'm easy. Just not too spicy.”