Invitation to Provence(4)
Grabbing her beat-up brown bag and remembering too late that she’d meant to change it for something smaller and more stylish, she smoothed back her windblown hair, left the car with the valet, and went inside to meet her destiny.
2
THE ITALIAN RESTAURANT was intimate and crowded, with a buzz of conversation and the clink of wineglasses and the pleasant aroma of pasta and sauces and women’s perfume.
“Mr. Marks’s reservation,” Franny said to the smiling hostess.
The girl checked her list. “Mr. Marks hasn’t arrived yet. Would you like to wait for him at the table?”
Franny said she would, squeezing past the close-packed tables to one in the corner. She ordered a glass of Chianti and sat looking around her. She didn’t come here often and she liked watching the smart people who treated this place as their neighborhood restaurant. She studied the young family at the next table. She thought enviously how perfect they were, so beautiful and happy with their two small sons and another baby obviously on the way. They were an example of everything young people were supposed to strive toward, while she … well, she was in limbo.
She sipped her wine, studying the menu and thanking god that at least this time she wasn’t the one who was late. The hostess came toward her, escorting a lovely woman, tall and elegant in a black dress, dark hair pulled back, sleek as a cat.
“Ms. Marten?” the woman said. Franny nodded, looking up at her with a puzzled smile. “I’m Clare Marks,” the woman said and a hot thrill of apprehension shot up Franny’s spine. “Marcus’s wife,” the woman added calmly. “He thought it was time we met.”
Franny could feel the blood drain from her face. “His ex-wife,” she managed finally, not wanting to believe the truth.
“His wife, Ms. Marten.” Their eyes met, Clare Marks’s brown and curious, Franny’s dark blue with shock.
Bewildered, Franny thought, This can’t be happening to me. Just a couple of hours ago at work she had been the woman in charge, the strong one, the one with the comforting arm and the encouraging words. Now she was reduced to zero, at a loss for words. In an instant her love affair with Marcus was rendered meaningless. She stared at her hand clutching her wineglass so tightly it might break, unwilling to meet Clare Marks’s eyes.
Clare pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. She signaled the waiter, asked for a glass of the pinot grigio, then turned back to Franny.
“Of course Marcus didn’t tell you he was married,” she said calmly. “He never does. He leaves it to me to work it all out. He’s a shit that way but …” She shrugged. “Most men are, don’t you think?”
Franny lifted her eyes and looked at Clare, wondering if she was going to scream at her, accuse her loudly in front of the entire restaurant of being “the other woman.” She glanced wildly around looking for a quick escape but the tables were too close together to make it easy. Instead, for courage, she downed her wine in three big gulps.
The waiter reappeared to take their order. “I suppose we might as well eat,” Clare said, glancing quickly at the menu and ordering the langostinos with fettucini.
The waiter gave her an approving smile—it was the house specialty. He turned expectantly to Franny, who took a deep breath. She couldn’t just sit here and have dinner with Marcus’s wife. Of course she couldn’t. She was getting up and leaving right this minute. Suddenly anger simmered. Dammit, no! She refused to be outfaced by this bitch.
“I’ll have the potato gnocci with the tomato sauce, please,” she said in a tight little voice she barely recognized as her own. “And another glass of the Chianti,” she added recklessly.
Clare Marks leaned her elbows on the table, hands folded under her chin, staring silently at her. The happy hum of conversation floated around Franny’s head like confetti at a wedding. Her chest hurt. Well, of course it did, that was where her heart was. Her eyes hurt, too, from staring at this vision that was her lover’s wife. The perfect features, the sleek dark hair pulled back to show her perfect profile, the perfect expensive little black dress, the perfect pearl earrings. And the platinum band embossed with diamonds on the third finger of her left hand.
Suddenly chilled, Franny hitched her blue crochet shawl over her shoulders. She felt unstylish and out of her league. She took another gulp of wine and the dangling earrings she’d thought so pretty clanked loudly against the glass.
“Cute earrings,” Clare Marks said, and Franny glared at her. She knew Clare knew they were cheap and of course she hadn’t really meant it as a compliment. She wondered bleakly why Marcus had even bothered with her when his wife was so beautiful.
“You’re looking at me and wondering why he does it, aren’t you?” Clare said. “I mean, I’m Miss America personified, right? And that’s who I was. Well, Miss Georgia, anyhow. Huh, actually I was more like Miss Hick from Hicksville, an innocent just like you when I met him. Anyhow, Marcus and I have been married for seven years. And you, Franny, are the seventh woman I’ve had to say good-bye to. How’s that for a record?”
Franny just sat there silently, stiff as a corpse in the throes of rigor mortis, aware that Clare was looking pityingly at her. Then Clare drained her glass and said, “The hell with it. Why don’t we just get a bottle? After all, this is a kind of celebration. Freedom for you, and—since I’ve left Marcus—freedom for me, too. And this time I really mean it. I won’t stay with that seven-timing, adulterous son of a bitch any longer. Not only that, Franny Marten, I’m gonna take him for every cent I can get, and trust me, honey, it will be a lot.” A grin lit her lovely face. Her brown eyes sparkled and she suddenly looked like a mischievous little girl.