Invitation to Provence(75)



“Oh god,” Franny said, and Clare lifted a resigned shoulder. “Hey, it was okay. I liked dressing up in spangles. I liked taking them off and having men admire my body. I’d never known I was pretty before.

“‘A gentlemen’s club,’ they called it, and believe me, it was the saddest place you ever saw in your life. I went by the name of Miss Georgia, and I danced around a pole, taking off the spangles until I was naked, acting like I really loved what I was doing, like I really fancied those guys so they would shower me with money. Then when I was done, I’d have to scramble naked on the floor to pick up all those dollars while the guys laughed at me and cheered.”

She looked at Franny. “You ever see a lap dancer, Franny? No, of course not. Well, it’s the same old same, faking hot sex while some guy gets his jollies off, and for an extra fee you go in the back room with him and—” she shrugged again “—do whatever he wants to do. I didn’t like it, didn’t like those guys groping me. In fact I hated it, yet I went on doing it. I didn’t know how to do anything else.

“In the end, though, I quit. The other girls looked at me as though I was crazy. ‘You’re turning down good money, babe,’ they said, and I looked into their faces, their real faces, the raw, un-made-up, sad faces they never showed to the customers and I saw my own reality behind those faces with the painted-on beauty and the sparky glamour and the hairpieces and the false eyelashes, and I was sick at heart. Some of these women had kids, some had a drug habit. They weren’t free to make a choice the way I was.” She took a deep breath. “And so I made it. And there I was—broke again. All that and nothing to show for it. I said to myself, I might as well have stayed home and worked in the onion fields.

“Anyhow, I picked myself up, threw away my jeweled thongs, put on a black dress, and got myself a job as a hostess at a restaurant. I also tended bar occasionally—you know, all the stuff you have to do just to stay alive. I worked, dated, made out, got by … and then Marcus came along.

“Marcus made me feel good, made me feel he liked me, that I was really someone. I think he asked me to marry him by accident. It just sort of happened—and suddenly there we were in front of the preacher in a cheap Las Vegas wedding chapel. What a fool I was, I still can’t believe it. Then of course came the big letdown. Oh, believe me, Franny, Marcus used me much more than he did you—all those other women, all those lives he touched and ruined. But then I met you, and we came here to Provence, and I met all these real people and I suddenly realized that I’m in charge of myself and I’m free of my past.” She looked humbly at Franny, her eyes pleading. “So there you have it,” she said in a wobbly voice. “And if you don’t want to be my friend anymore, I’ll understand.”

Franny opened her arms and reached out for her. “You’ll always be my friend,” she said. “How could you even think it mattered? I liked you right off, that first night when you came to tell me about Marcus. I shouldn’t have liked you, but I did. Because you are you.”

Tears plopped down Clare’s cheeks. “I love you, Franny,” she gulped.

“I know.” Franny stroked back her hair. “And I love you, too.”

Clare sniffed. “Speaking of love… . It’s happened. I mean, I’m actually in love.”

“Clare, how wonderful.”

“The thing is … I mean, he might already suspect, but anyhow I’m going to have to tell him the real truth. You know, about my past… . It’s only fair.” She shuddered and Franny crossed her fingers and hoped Scott was man enough to take this in stride.

“He’s a good guy,” she said. “It’ll be okay.” She smiled encouragingly. “Salt of the earth, right?”

“Right!” They high-fived and Clare dried her tears and said she was okay now. She would do what she had to do and hope for the best.





59





THE NEXT MORNING Franny and Little Blue set off for Cap d’Antibes, but the child sitting in the back of the red Fiat was quite different from the one who’d sat silent and frozen on the train to Avignon. In cute blue shorts and a skimpy summer

T-shirt with a straw hat perched on her shining hair, a pair of scarlet sunglasses on her nose, and a smile on her face, she was a normal, eager kid going on holiday, looking forward to learning to swim in the Mediterranean and playing on the beach. “How much longer?” she asked every fifteen minutes or so, the way every child does on a car journey.

Criminal sat patiently on the front seat, tongue lolling, eyeing the traffic with his usual skeptical expression. Every now and then Franny pulled into an autoroute café to let the dog run and to buy Little Blue a Fanta orange and a sandwich, because she’d developed an appetite that seemed unstoppable.

Eventually, lulled by the monotony of the Autoroute du Soleil, Little Blue dozed and Franny was left alone with her thoughts, which were mostly about Clare.

Clare’s confession had taken her completely by surprise. She was always the perfect lady, perfectly groomed, perfectly self-possessed, perfectly beautiful. But Franny also understood the poor background and her desperation to escape. She didn’t blame Clare, she just wished her friend had not had to go that route. But now Clare’s life was changing track: her past was behind her and she could look forward to a future with the kind of man who would look after her, a man who would laugh with her and love her the way she was born to be loved. And there was certainly no man more salt-of-the-earth than Scott Harris. He even worked with that earth, made his living from it—and successfully at that.

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