The Last Time I Saw Paris (28 page)

“Forget California king, I never want any other kind of bed.” Dan's mouth traveled from her nape to her eyelids, to the tip of her nose, to the softness of her waiting mouth. “I've gotten used to this. Only thing is, though, you have to be part of the deal. One
lit matrimonial,
one Lara Lewis.”

She was nibbling at his lips, drinking him in. Their bodies were warm from the heat, their gaze languorous with desire, their hands curving and smoothing, skimming and pausing to caress.

“Tell me about your other women.” Lara stared, jealous, into his eyes. “I want to know who you've loved, how they were.”

Dan shook his head; she was as insecure as ever.
“There's never been anyone like you. I swear it. I've never felt like this about anyone, never wanted anyone this way. It's more than sex, more than passion.… I need you. I don't think I can live without you now, Lara Lewis.”

Her sigh was soft.

“Love me, Lara.” He buried his face in her round breasts. “Tell me you love me.”

“I love you,” she whispered.

Avoiding the sunburned parts of her, Dan traced his way down her body to the paler, sheltered flesh beneath.

“How different is it for you, being with an older woman?” she demanded, caught between what he was doing to her and jealousy of his life before her.

“There is no one but you, Lara,” he murmured, “only you. I think of no one else . . .”

And with their bodies wrapped together as one, she finally believed him.

Much later, they lay together, arms and legs still wound around each other, still dazed by their journey of the flesh and the spirit. Content.

Except,
the little voice nudged Lara,
there's only six more days, Girlfriend
. . .
Only six more days of paradise. Then what? He says he loves you now. Let's see what happens when you get back home.

With a sigh, Lara wondered if she would ever learn the trick of taking her happiness when and where she could. She was a genuine doubting Thomas, always questioning, always setting time limits. Always afraid of losing what she had.

 

She called Delia later that night, but this time she didn't hide it from Dan. He stood at the window listening
to the laughter drifting up from the cafes, while she dialed the number and waited for Delia to pick up the phone.

It rang and rang and she was just about to put it down when Delia's sleepy voice said, “Hello?”

“It's me, Lara,” she said, smiling.

“Hey, Lara, how're you enjoying your Second Honeymoon? How's it going?”

“Great,” Lara said, sounding guarded.

Delia's hearty laugh boomed down the phone again. “I guess a guarded
great
is better than a mere
nice.
Are you in love with him, or what?”

Lara looked at Dan leaning out the tall window with its long green shutters. The hair at the back of her neck prickled just looking at him. He was wearing only boxers. His muscular back tapered into a narrow waist and she could see the bump of each little vertebrae in his spine, the smooth matte texture of his bronzed skin.

“Yes,” she admitted, “I'm in love with him.”

She told Delia they were in Aix and tomorrow would be in the Côte d'Azur. “Oh, and by the way,” she added, “I changed our itinerary. We're not staying at the same hotels, so you won't be able to call me.”

Delia gave a surprised whistle. “You mean you've abandoned the Second Honeymoon tour?”

“Not entirely.” Lara remembered the harrowing search for the field of poppies, her own field of dreams. “We're going to all the same places. But this time it's so different. Sometimes . . .” She hesitated, glancing at Dan.

“Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes I wonder about the truth of my life.”

“The truth of your life, Lara Lewis, is that you are forty-five years old, attractive, sometimes even beautiful,
and sometimes slimmer than others. You're intelligent, you have two great kids who love you, as does Dex, who I want you to know is right here next to me, and who I'm sure sends you a big kiss. And the truth is Bill Lewis is in Beijing or India or somewhere with his lover, and you are in Provence with yours. How's that for an analysis?”

Lara grinned. “Trust you to get right to the nitty-gritty of the subject.”

“Don't tell me you still have yearnings for the doctor?” Delia sounded disbelieving.

Lara sighed deeply. “Sometimes . . . It's hard, you know.”

“I know, I know—after twenty-five years . . . Listen, Girlfriend, have you bought those stilettos yet, like I told you? Sounds to me as though you need them. Give your self-esteem a boost. You always did have good legs.” Delia was laughing now.

“I'll do it as soon as I get to Cannes.”

“Okay. So introduce me to the boyfriend.”

“What?”

“Put him on the line. I want to say hello.”

“If you're going to check him out. . .”

“Nah, I just wanna say, ‘Hi, there, lover, I hear you're a great fuck.…'”

Lara was laughing now. “Dan?” She held out the phone. “My girlfriend Delia wants to say hello.”

He raised his eyebrows, surprised, then took the phone. “Hello, Girlfriend Delia.” He listened. “Yeah, yeah. True. I'll remember that.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Is that right.”

Lara's eyes were fixed anxiously on him. “What's she saying?” She reached for the phone but he swung tantalizingly away.

“Hey, listen, Delia,” he said, still smiling, “let's get
together when we get back. I've heard a lot about you, and after this conversation I feel I already know you. . . . Okay, okay, great,” he said, nodding. “See you then, Girlfriend.”

Lara grabbed the phone from him. “What did she tell you?”

“Oh, nothin',” he said smugly. “Just this and that.”

“Delia, what are you up to?”

“Just putting in a good word for you, honey. Nothing to worry about.”

Lara groaned. “Okay, I get the picture.”

“Everybody needs a little boost,” Delia said, “and you more than most.”

“Thanks, but I'm sure I could have lived without it.”

“Maybe you couldn't; you'll never know.” Delia was unrepentant. “And don't forget to buy those peeptoe stilettos tomorrow. Black, of course, and some sheer black stockings—not panty hose, those stranglers of eroticism. Perhaps a little lacy garter belt …”

“Do they still exist?” Lara asked, amused.

“In France I'm sure they do—think of all those sexy women.”

Lara thought about them. “I'll buy them tomorrow,” she promised as they said “love you” and goodbye.

Dan swung around from the window. “Sounds nice, the girlfriend. Cute too.”

Lara frowned suspiciously at him. “What did she say to you?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Oh, nothing much, this and that, you know, just general chat.”

“No, it was not. Just tell me what she said, Dan.”

“She made me promise not to.”

“Aggghhh.” Lara hurled herself back onto the bed.
“You drive me crazy. Now I'll be wondering all night exactly what she said.”

“Just a few family secrets,” he said, grinning. “You know, like you're nothin' to write home about and it's real good of me to take you under my wing … stuff like that.”

Lara was laughing as he flung himself on top of her, pinning her hands over her head. “No, really, she sounds great,” he murmured in between kisses. “I can't wait to meet her.”

“All my girlfriends are great.” She was kissing him back.

“You hungry?” he asked.

“Mmmmmnnn . . .”

“Then let's go get something to eat.” He pulled her up by her hands.

“I was just going to call Minnie, and then Josh …”

He let go of her reluctantly. But then she shook her head; she didn't want to lose the moment. She would call them later.

T
he next morning they were on the road early. It was barely six-thirty and the streets were dappled with pale sunlight. The sidewalk cafes along the Cours Mirabeau were being hosed down, chairs put out, tables arranged. They grabbed a grand créme and a fresh croissant at the Deux Garçons, where last night they had dined on omelettes because, as Lara said, sometimes after all this fancy food she just had a longing for a boiled egg with toast soldiers, and the omelette was as close as she could get.

The A8-E80 La Provençal autoroute slipped eastward out of Aix, threading between green mountains, bypassing farms and hills of vineyards, onward through the Var all the way to the Riviera. Traffic zoomed contemptuously past their tiny Renault—their tiny
hot
Renault; how Lara wished she had known to ask for an air-conditioned car—blowing in petrol fumes and heat simultaneously. Either they closed the windows and roasted, or they opened them and were asphyxiated. Sweating, they pressed on, lining up patiently at the tollbooths, and stopping every now and again at autoroute cafes for an Orangina to swill away the taste of petrol.

They were approaching Grimaud. “Only ten kilometers to St. Tropez,” Lara said, scanning the map, praying she wasn't wrong again. Then she told him to take a right instead of a left and somehow they
were en route to Cogolin instead of St. Tropez. Then they revolved around the same roundabout several times before picking up the coast road that led
(pray, pray
Lara said silently) to St. Tropez.

“Stop,” she shrieked suddenly and the car skidded to a halt. “Oh, Dan,” she gasped, delighted. “Look. Just
look.”

The Mediterranean was like a mirage, an oasis in the desert after the long, sticky, gas-fumed drive on the autoroute, soothing to the soul after battling the crazy drivers. And it was as blue as the holiday brochures always promised it would be, sparkling in the evening sunlight. It was a dream come true.

La Figuiére was a small hotel tucked quietly away in the middle of vineyards a few kilometers up the Ramatuelle road, outside St. Tropez. It was exactly what they were looking for, a series of small stucco villas each in a different color—rose, ochre, white, blue, and cream, quietly set in a garden. A flowered terrace led to a turquoise swimming pool surrounded by fragrant lavender bushes abuzz with bees. After inspecting their room with its cool-tiled floors, they threw off their shorts and T-shirts, pulled on their swimsuits, and dived right in.

They surfaced, shrieking. The pool was gaspingly cold, refreshing as an iced lemonade on a hot afternoon. And the good news was, Lara's ankle was feeling better.

Later, showered and cool, they drove the battered, mud-spattered little Renault into St. Tropez.

Lara eyed the gleaming Porches, Ferraris, and Rolls-Royces parked on the Quai Jean Jaurès in front of enormous glistening white yachts. Everything glittered, from the cars on the quay and the brasswear on the yachts, to the gold braid on the caps of the chunky
old millionaires checking out the delectable, long-haired, short-skirted young girls in the Café Sénéquier across the way. “Maybe we should have had the car washed,” she said, awed.

Hungry, they ended up on the terrace at La Gorille on the Quai Suffren, where they drank ice-cold rosé de St. Tropez, and dined on
moules mariniers
and the best french fries they had ever tasted, watching the beautiful people go by.

Later, they strolled back through town, stumbling through cobblestoned alleys strung with laundry, peering into bead-curtained doorways and lace-hung windows, checking out tiny, happening disco clubs and even tinier boutiques selling minute bikinis and that sexy French lingerie, finally finding a cafe in the Place des Lices where they happily sipped cappuccino.

That night as her eyes closed, the little voice warned Lara,
Only five more days.
But she was already asleep and didn't hear.

H
ow delightful it was, Lara thought early the next morning, to throw open your shutters and look out onto rows of leafy young vines hung like Christmas tree decorations with bunches of small green grapes and plump purple figs. And how wonderful to breakfast on a crusty baguette fresh just minutes ago from the baker's oven, with sweet yellow butter that tasted the way only French butter did, heaped high with strawberry preserves that were more berries than jam. And all on a flower-filled terrace with the sound of songbirds and the tang of the sea while sipping a huge bowl of café au lait.

Thinking about Cannes, the next stop on their new itinerary, she remembered that even back then on her honeymoon it had been a busy sex-and-shopping kind of place. But Bill had liked it. Come to think of it, he had been a bit starstruck, hoping for a glimpse of Brigitte Bardot or Catherine Deneuve or Princess Grace. While she, naive fool, had eyes only for him.

Bill had insisted on drinks on the Carlton terrace, the glossiest hotel in town, right on the seafront. During the Cannes Film Festival it was the gathering place of show-business movers and shakers, but the only movers and shakers they had seen were other tourists like themselves, anxious to be counted in with the smart set, plus a few gorgeous wanna-bes hoping to be discovered.

Of course, she and Bill had not been able to afford to stay at the Carlton. Their hotel had been in a back street a block away from the sea. Cute, Lara had thought, liking its green-awninged windows, the tiny metal-grill balconies and green-painted shutters. It was set back in a small garden and she had thought it very French, but Bill had been discontented and she had sensed he wanted to be at the Carlton along with the rich folk. In fact, now she thought about it, Bill's ambitions had always run to accumulating money; plus, he always made sure he flew first-class on those jaunts to Beijing and Rio and London.

Why, Lara wondered, had it taken her twenty-five years to realize that Bill Lewis was a snob? That he had little time for the lesser people in the world? That he cared more about his own image than he did about being there for his wife and his children?