Revenge of the Black Virgin (4 page)

“I know I do. I kind of joke when I blame it
on the Black Virgin, but I don’t know how else to explain it. When
I learned that there was once a Cult of the Black Virgin during the
medieval period, it all seemed to make so much sense. My feelings
for Luc, I mean.”

Brenda got up to open a second bottle, this
time a
Pinot
Gris
. “You and your fucking
men!
So come on, tell me,” she prompted.

“Well, I just stopped fighting my attraction
to him and embraced it. I rationalized that it was all perfectly
natural, and had historical precedence, and was really mostly only
biology. And who am I to buck biological necessity?”

Brenda shot her a doubting look.

Jo drained her glass and held it out for some
of the
Pinot.
“And the results were amazing!” She felt
herself blushing as she remembered what Luc did to her. “I had no
idea sex could be so, well,
intimate.
So
spiritual.”

“But you were still taking your
contraceptives, weren’t you?” The normally unflappable Brenda
sounded shocked.

“I was. But I confess that at one point I
wished I hadn’t been. It was the weirdest thing, Bren. To
want
to get pregnant. To
want
to bear a man’s child.
A man I didn’t even know.”

“Well
fuck
me,” Brenda said softly,
awe in her voice. “I know you, Joey, and what you’re saying doesn’t
make any sense. For you, I mean.”

“I
know!
Really, I didn’t know who I
was anymore. I was like some sort of brain-washed cult member. I
turned over my will completely. To Luc. All I wanted to do was lie
down and spread my legs and let nature take its course.”

Brenda grimaced. “Weren’t you scared?”

“No. Not at all!
That’s
the scary
part. I was happier than I’ve ever been and thrilled just to be
alive. The only time I was scared was when I thought of coming home
and not being able to see him again.”

She felt familiar tears flood her eyes as she
realized that was exactly what had happened. She would never see
Luc again, and it was her own fault. “I actually promised I’d run
away with him,” she added in a whisper.

“What!? Are you fucking kidding?” Brenda
almost sputtered into her glass.

“He asked me to.” The tears were flowing
freely now. “We were going to go to Nice, to his family’s summer
house, and hide out until our heads were clear enough to make
rational decisions. I guess it sounds kind of st- stu- stupid,” she
said between sobs.

“Yes, stupid! And immature, too!
Irresponsible.” Brenda was lapsing into lecture mode now.
“Careless. Selfish. Do you want me to go on, you crazy bitch?”

“No. No. I realize as I’m telling you these
things that it was all crazy. But the craziest part is that I still
feel everything just as strongly as I did last week. Every day my
feelings grow even stronger. I can’t explain what’s happening to
me,” she admitted, stopping to blot her tears. “It’s as if the
Black Virgin is getting her revenge because I ran away. My desire
doesn’t fade—it grows and grows! I feel so powerless. And so
empty.”

Brenda moved closer to Jo on the sofa, put
her hand over Jo’s, and squeezed.

“Where’s your ring?” Brenda could see that Jo
wasn’t wearing the huge aquamarine ring James had given her last
Christmas.

“In the safe. I can’t bear to look at it
anymore. Every time I do, I think of James.”

“So where does he fit into all of this, if I
can ask?”

“He doesn’t,” Jo replied.

“Really?”

Jo detected a hint of satisfaction in her
friend’s voice.

“Really. But I don’t want to talk about him
right now. That conversation’s going to take a whole other evening.
And two more bottles of wine.” Jo smiled sadly.

“It sounds like you need time to get over all
of this, Joey. And you need distractions.” She squeezed Jo’s hand
again. “I think you should come back to work. Just part-time, if
you want. But I really do think you need to focus on something
outside yourself.”

“Maybe,” Jo said as she extricated her hand
and blew her nose. She knew that Brenda always had her best
interests at heart.

“And,” Brenda lowered her voice, “the
magazine needs you. I need you. Things just don’t work properly
when you’re not there.”

Jo looked up and saw a complex of emotions on
her friend’s face. At least one of them—humility—was new. She knew
that Brenda found it difficult to express her feelings. What she’d
just said was a big deal.

Maybe she has her own agenda. But that’s
okay. We need each other right now.

Jo sighed. “Okay, Bren. You’re probably
right. I’ll come in on Monday for a few hours and we’ll take it
from there. Alright?”

Brenda’s face lit up and she grabbed onto
Joanna in an awkward bear hug. “That’s my girl!”

After Brenda left, Jo felt a curious
lightening of her spirit, as if she’d been granted pardon for her
misadventures. Going back to work would probably be good for her.
And for Brenda. She
did
need to think about someone besides
herself.

Taking inventory, Jo couldn’t believe how
much loss she’d just suffered. First, her father. The strongest,
most faithful support in her life. Dead of a heart attack at
fifty-nine. It seemed impossible, and Jo knew she would never get
over losing him.

Then her almost-fiancé. James. The perfect
catch who, it seemed, still wanted to marry her after her
indiscretion
in France. Of course it was this very same
indiscretion that had pushed James out of the picture. Jo wasn’t
sure which was worse—losing a man like James or potentially losing
every other suitable man for the rest of her life. Every other man
who wasn’t Luc. No one else would do.

And, finally, losing Luc. Perhaps this was
hardest for Jo to accept because it was all her own doing.
If
she hadn’t listened to James,
if
she’d been strong
enough to insist on contacting Luc before she went home, everything
would be different. Perhaps then he would still want her. God knows
she hadn’t stopped wanting him since the first moment she saw
him.

And every hour of the day she wondered if he
felt the same way. Even after what she’d done to him.

Over the weekend James gave Jo the space she
said she needed but called a half dozen times. Each time she
answered with a consistently firm but detached voice. “Yes, I’m
fine. Thank you for calling. No, I don’t need anything. No, I don’t
want to talk right now.”

On Monday he sent an enormous bouquet of
flowers, with a terse little note apologizing for his behavior. She
emailed him a polite thank you, but didn’t open any of the emails
he sent her in return.

She was absolutely sure she wasn’t going to
change her mind about him.

Chapter Five

The first week passed—then the next, then
three more—and still Luc’s pain at being thrown over was as
debilitating as it was on the night it happened. The night he came
back to the hotel room in Martel to find that Joanna had broken her
promise to run off with him to Nice. Instead, he soon learned,
she’d gone back to Seattle with her fiancé. Without a word of
explanation.

His first response was a terrible fury. After
he worked through the anger it was replaced by an acute heartache
like nothing he’d ever imagined. His chest actually
hurt
him, as if someone had taken a shotgun to it. He ached and ached
and ached until he thought he’d go mad.

Of course he had to finish the tour. He’d
offered to lead a ten-day Dordogne Valley walk to help his friend
Oscar, who owned a tour company,
French Escapes.
If he
hadn’t been such a good sport, he would never have met Joanna, and
his life wouldn’t be in shambles, he caught himself thinking a
hundred times.

After Joanna fled he still had to deal with
the nine Brits and two Ozzies who were waiting for him to walk them
back to Souillac and send them off with a festive farewell dinner.
It turned out to be a grim two days for everybody. Luc squirmed
whenever he remembered them.

But there was no help for it.

Afterwards, he went home to Cahors. He still
had a month’s holiday from his civil service job, but he no longer
wanted to lead any mountain treks or river walks or anything that
would force him to be with other people. He told Oscar he was ill
and would no longer be able to help him out over the summer. Luc
hated telling the lie, but then he rationalized it wasn’t far off
the truth.

Then, like a wounded animal, he retreated
into his house, alone.

He lost his appetite, so he stopped cooking.
He kept his taste for wine, but he was careful to control it. And,
trying to tire himself, he exercised obsessively. As a result, his
muscular frame didn’t soften, but grew leaner, stronger.

His house was in serious need of maintenance,
and he’d drafted a long list of repairs and chores he’d hoped to
complete over the summer. But after Joanna he couldn’t be bothered.
Windows stayed stuck, doorknobs continued to wobble, paint went on
peeling and the drains kept clogging. The latch on the property
gate finally broke altogether and one night a pack of wild boars
charged in and uprooted an entire section of garden beside the
lake.

But he didn’t even notice.

Someone noticed, though. One look at his
ex-wife’s face and Luc knew how concerned she was about his
uncharacteristic behavior. It wasn’t just the house—she drew his
attention to the fact he was neglecting his prized vineyard, the
young vines he’d so patiently nurtured through to maturity. They
hadn’t been pruned, and the crop would be a disaster.

He was neglecting himself, too, she pointed
out. He knew he looked a wreck. Sloppy, unshaven, no longer caring
what he wore. Despite the change in his appearance, women still
sought him out on his brief forays into town. But after a few
minutes of strained flirtation he made it clear to each one that
she was wasting her time. He just wasn’t interested.

Worst of all, he was avoiding his family and
friends, taking no pleasure in things he once loved. In more than
one of their brief conversations, Anna told him she was
particularly concerned that their son was being affected by this
terrible change in his father.

After their divorce, several years earlier,
Anna and Luc had arranged a convenient situation for the benefit of
Daniel. As their large property had two houses on it, Luc moved
into the smaller home, leaving Anna and Daniel in the larger.
Daniel could stay at his father’s house whenever he wished, but
once he retreated, Luc became silent and unapproachable.

Of course Daniel couldn’t understand why his
father was withdrawing from him. He was further upset that Luc no
longer wore his wedding ring. When Luc and Anna sat him down one
day and told him they were no longer married, Daniel took it
hard.

So did Luc. Breaking up his little family was
yet another one of his failures.

Anna had to be strong for the both of them.
She managed to contain her son’s grief and distract him with
promises of outings and sleep-overs with his cousins and friends.
Then she turned her energies towards her ex-husband.

One evening, with Daniel safely at his
cousins’ for the night, she took a roasted chicken, a dish of Luc’s
favorite stewed eggplant and a bottle of wine over to his house.
After eating, drinking and much prodding she managed to get him to
talk. And because he trusted her, he eventually confessed the
entire sordid story.

“I know it sounds crazy but it really was
love at first sight. Or I guess I should say
lust
.”

He felt no embarrassment with Anna, ever. He
loved her, and he didn’t want to hurt her again. But that pain was
all in the past, and mostly healed. He sighed, and looked across
the table at the intelligent, sensible woman whom he’d married nine
years earlier out of duty. They were both in graduate school and
she was pregnant.

“And when did it turn into love, do you
think?” she asked.

Luc knew that some men would flinch at this
type of question coming from a former wife, but he understood that
Anna wished only for his happiness. He didn’t marry for love, but
they now loved each other in a way that would last, despite
divorce, for the rest of their lives.

“Within a few days, I suppose. I wasn’t
absolutely sure until that last day, when I made her promise to
come to Nice with me.” He ran his fingers through his hair,
noticing he needed a haircut. “I didn’t even plan it. It just sort
of happened.”

“And she said yes?”

“Not right away. I think she was too shocked.
But I managed to convince her,” he admitted sheepishly.

Anna was looking at him with shining eyes. He
supposed she was remembering how convincing he could be when he
wanted something. She was the one who had asked for the divorce.
She knew she couldn’t make him happy, and decided she had to let
him go.

“And you believed her when she said she’d
drop everything and go with you to Nice?” Anna asked gently.

“Yes. I did.” It did sound improbable when it
was put like that, he thought. “Maybe I just wanted it so much that
I couldn’t see she was frightened. Maybe she lied just to get away
from me.”

That thought disturbed him even more. At the
time, he’d been so sure that Joanna shared his passion. So sure
that he’d gambled everything.

“And now you think she was lying?”

“Yes. What other explanation could there
be?”

“A change of heart? A family emergency, you
said?”

“A
contrived
emergency, you mean?”

“Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt,”
Anna insisted. “What do you think happened?”

“
Madame
Guillmont told me that her
fiancé had made a sudden appearance at the
gîte
that
afternoon. When Joanna came back to collect her things, they
quarreled. Everyone could hear them. And then
nothing
—they
disappeared during dinner.”