Beautiful(25)

“Beautiful is beautiful no matter what happens to it. You are beautiful. You were then and you are now, and you’ll be beautiful until you’re a hundred years old, and you’re beautiful even with a few scars on your face. So what? If I get a scar on my leg, will I be less of a man or a person, or less attractive? Hell, no. C’mon, let’s go out to dinner and eat like normal people, or I’m going to get drunk on your wine, and I’ll either pass out on your couch, or I’ll make a pass at you and you’ll throw me out. I’m starving.” He stood up, and pulled her up with him.

“So am I,” she admitted, smiling at him. “You really think I can go to a restaurant with this face?” she asked him innocently, and he wanted to put his arms around her and hold her.

“No, I think you should wear a bag over your head, and I’ll show the waiter a photograph of how you looked before, and I’ll eat your dinner too. Yes, I think you can go to a restaurant. Of course you can go to a restaurant. Ninety percent of the people there will be ugly, and never look as good as you do today. And you need to gain some weight, by the way. You don’t have a professional excuse anymore. You look like they’ve been starving you at that hospital in Brussels. I’m taking you to feed you. Where do you want to go?”

They agreed on a nearby bistro. He called an Uber, and five minutes later they were out the door. Véronique wore a short fur jacket, and her jeans. She was just as beautiful as he’d said. She was a woman with scars. She wasn’t just the scar itself.

Everything he had said to her that night was a gift. It had liberated her. She felt young and free as she got in the car with him. They had a good time at dinner. The waiter didn’t bat an eye when he saw her. There were glances from a few people and then they lost interest and stopped staring, except for one man who continued to stare at her as they left the restaurant after an excellent meal. Doug stopped at his table, glared down at him, and tapped him on the shoulder. “They’re dueling scars. Watch out for her. Don’t piss her off. She’s dangerous,” he said, and then they left. The man seemed mortified. “I think I’m going to become your bodyguard to make sure people behave,” he said to her when they were outside the restaurant. She was smiling broadly.

He dropped her off at home, and went on to the apartment where he was staying with a friend in the sixth arrondissement. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he promised, and she knew he would. Doug had never disappointed her before, and he hadn’t this time either. She walked into her building, and felt like a normal person, not a woman with a ruined face. He had reassured her, and she felt like herself again. She didn’t look in the mirror when she brushed her teeth before she went to bed. She didn’t want to spoil it. She slept well that night, and she woke up in the morning feeling good about life again. She didn’t put her mask on when her mother’s cleaning woman came. The woman didn’t say a word or stare at Véronique’s face. Doug had turned things around for her the night before and set her off down the right path. All she had to do now was hang on to what he had said and keep going.



* * *



—

She had a letter from her father in the mail that day. He thanked her for her letter, and said he would like to see her, if she came to New York. He said he hadn’t been well recently, and was devastated to hear about her mother. It was a terrible end for a wonderful woman. He thanked Véronique several times for writing to him, and said he hoped to see her soon. His health was failing, and he said he would like to see her at least once before he died. They couldn’t make up for lost time, but at least they could get to know each other, as much as time would allow. He said that her mother’s untimely death was a reminder that one could never be sure of the future. He signed the letter “With love, Your Father.”

It made Véronique cry when she read it. She wondered all day if she should go to New York especially to see him. He was right. The future was uncertain, and she didn’t want to miss the chance.

She was still thinking about it when Doug called her, and invited her to dinner again that night. There was a place in Saint-Germain-des-Prés on the Left Bank that they had both always liked. She accepted with pleasure, and she told him about Bill Hayes over dinner.

“Bill Hayes, the senator, is your father? You never told me that,” he said, surprised.

“I didn’t know. My mother always told me he died when I was six months old. All I knew was that he was American, a lawyer, and she said his name was Bill Smith. She left me a letter for after she died, and it turns out that he was married. They fell madly in love, had me, and she left him so she didn’t ruin his political career. He must have been pretty egotistical to let her do that, but he’s my father and I’d like to meet him. I think she was in love with him for the rest of her life.”

“He’s supposed to be a pretty remarkable guy. I’d go meet him if I were you. He must be pretty old,” Doug advised her.

“He’s eighty-three.”

“Go see him,” he said immediately. They had another good meal and a fun evening. Fashion Week was approaching and they both knew he would be busy once it started. She wanted to be cautious. She didn’t want to risk running into fashion editors or models or photographers she knew, or her agent. She was planning to lie low for the week, which Doug understood. People in fashion were such gossips. But she had been out twice with him now without the surgical mask and seemed perfectly at ease without it. He was pleased to see it. He meant what he had said to her.