The Light of Paris(77)

A surprisingly strong wave of relief rushed over Margie. Five years was forever. What she would give for five years in Paris! “Well that’s fine, then! You can stay and paint—why, in five years who knows what will happen? They might change their minds. And in the meantime, if you keep selling your paintings, you won’t have to go back.”

In the firelight, Sebastien’s eyes looked green and gold, the eyes of a cat. “Oh, no, no,” he said sadly. “I am not beginning my five years in Paris. They are ending. And I cannot complain. I have lived more here than many people will in a lifetime. I have met people from all over the world. I have painted more than I could have imagined, and I have shown and sold my paintings. And my family has been so generous. How can I turn down their request to come home, to be a part of them, to work to repay them when they have given me so much for so long?”

Margie wanted to object, wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. There was an honor and loyalty in Sebastien’s words that made her like him even more. So much about Sebastien seemed clear now—his endless hunger for experiences, the way he always seemed determined to suck the marrow out of every night, fighting against sleep and good sense, his boundless energy. He was trying to live an entire life in five years.

Was this what Paris was to her as well? A moment of sunlight before she was thrust into darkness again? She had been having so much fun she hadn’t stopped to think of what would come after. Her position at the Libe was funded for only three months, and it had been . . . well, it had been more than two already, hadn’t it? She was shocked to realize so much time had passed, and then, thinking of Sebastien, she wondered if her own hourglass had been running the entire time as well.

“How much longer do you have?” she asked, a disquiet that was almost fear building inside her.

“Only a few weeks,” Sebastien said, and she could almost touch the regret in his voice.

They looked at each other across the sofa, the firelight dancing on their faces, the chill that had driven them inside gone and replaced with warmth and the sadness of the conversation. In his face, she saw not only the way he looked in the flicker of the fire, but the way he had looked the day they had first met, leaning forward to convince her she must stay in Paris, and the way he rested his chin in his hand when he was listening, really listening, to one of his friends at a café, or the way he looked in the lamplight when they strolled the streets at night, and the memory of those things coupled with the look of him at that moment, tragic and lovely in the firelight, made him irresistible. And he must have been thinking the same thing about her, because when she leaned forward, he met her halfway and they kissed, their bodies leaning toward each other without touching, their lips the only point of contact. The wine she had drunk with dinner, the touch of his clothes on her skin, the heat of the fire, and the taste of him made Margie feel giddy and overwhelmed, as though she had drunk a bottle of champagne, and when he pulled her closer, she came to him eagerly.

They kissed until the heat of their desire coupled with the fire was too much to bear, and then Margie drew back, and slowly, staring boldly into Sebastien’s eyes as though it were a dare, she pulled the shirt he had given her over her head. Underneath, she was bare, and she felt her body respond to the rush of air. For a moment, he didn’t break his gaze with hers, their eyes locked together, and Margie held her breath. Would he refuse her? Then he lowered his eyes and took her in, and she could see him breathe, long and slow, and he whispered something in French as he moved across the distance to her and lowered his mouth to her breasts.

She knew she was doing something daring, something shocking, even, but she felt no shame. Instead, she felt beautiful and desirable and powerful, as though there were nothing she could do wrong. And when he pulled off the rest of her clothes and she stood there, naked in the firelight while the rain beat on outside and he knelt as if to worship her, she felt reborn.

“Marguerite,” he whispered, his breath a kiss against her skin.

“Yes,” she replied, and she knelt down to meet him.





twenty-one





MADELEINE


   1999




My mother and I had been at a committee meeting at Ashley Hathaway’s house for approximately ten thousand years, and I was starting to act like a toddler, pulling at my mother’s skirt and begging for us to leave. Ashley’s house was exactly what I would have imagined it to be if you had asked me to draw it in the sixth grade. When we played MASH on the school bus on field trips, Ashley inevitably ended up living in a mansion, married to Scott Baio with four kids, which was pretty much how her life had turned out. Well, not the Scott Baio part exactly, but her husband was a good-looking doctor, so that was pretty much a wash. There were family portraits everywhere, sitting on the hall table where everyone had left their handbags, lining the stairs going up to the second floor, perfect black-and-white pictures of Ashley in her little cardigans, the boys and her husband in sweater vests, as though they were passing through on a visit from the 1950s. The familiar taste of copper sat on my tongue.

“Aren’t you just the sweetest to stay and help your mother for such a long time,” Ashley said when my mother finally assented to leaving. She took me by the elbows and dropped air kisses on both my cheeks. I wrinkled my forehead at her. There was an insult in there somewhere.