The Butler(50)

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked, as they entered the sixteenth arrondissement.

“I was going to soak in a hot tub and go to bed.” She had helped carry some of the lumber that day since the workmen were shorthanded, and rocks for the garden. Each rock was individually selected. Nikolai Petrov wanted the most beautiful garden in France. And Joachim was constantly impressed by how hard she worked. Nothing stopped her or was too hard. “But I think I’ll go to a movie. There’s a new one on the Champs élysées I want to see, the original version in English. I get homesick once in a while, but not very often.”

    He smiled. Her French had improved in the last few months from speaking to their workers. Her accent was pure American, but she knew the words she needed to speak to the workmen, and they understood her.

“You can’t go to the Champs élysées alone. It’s dangerous.” He frowned at her. “There are juvenile delinquents all over the place, and Gypsies.” She still hadn’t made any friends or met anyone, other than the people she worked with, and Joachim. They had a good employer-employee relationship that had developed into an artistic partnership, like war buddies, but he was careful to maintain a respectful distance, which was comfortable for her too. They were both people who shied away from close relationships, although it manifested differently. He had said to her once that signing on for a life of service was like joining a religious order. You gave up your personal life for your job. To do it well, you had to give up your freedom, independence, and other loyalties. The job would always have to come first and the family you worked for, and your own family, personal pursuits, and girlfriend would have to come last.

“And no woman likes that,” he had said, and she agreed.

She had sacrificed her own personal life for her work, for a magazine that didn’t even exist now, so what had that gotten her? Ten years of hard work and long nights and an empty pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

    They both agreed that if they’d been dating anyone, they couldn’t have devoted the same intense amount of time to the chateau. But as a time-limited project, they were both willing to do it, and the rewards were considerable.

He argued with her again about the movie when he dropped her off at home, and offered to take her and she finally gave in. He wasn’t entirely wrong about the Champs élysées, but she didn’t want to monopolize all his time, and she said she didn’t need a babysitter, to which he always responded that she sounded like his mother.

“I’ll go home and change. I’ve been crawling around in dirt all day. And I’ll pick you up at eight. That still gives us time to buy popcorn,” he said, and she grinned, and took a bath and changed into clean jeans herself. He was slowly becoming her best friend in Paris.

When she talked to Claire, her old assistant, in L.A., occasionally, she always asked Olivia if she had a crush on him and she insisted that she didn’t. They were work friends and nothing more and Claire didn’t believe her. She insisted that wasn’t possible with no sexual undercurrent at all.

“Maybe I’m a freak then,” Olivia said. She hadn’t slept with anyone since she’d come to France, and for months before that, since she had dated a photographer briefly in New York. Like most of her relationships, it ended because she had no time to see him and didn’t really care. She had decided she was too old for casual sex and had never liked that anyway. The only men who had invited her out on dates so far in Paris were married, which she liked even less. She gave them a sharp rebuff every time, and they told her she was too American.

    Joachim’s mother had asked him the same question, if he was attracted to Olivia, and he said the same thing as Olivia had to Claire. He added that it was out of the question. They were employer and employee, and once in a while in their off hours, they enjoyed a casual friendship, or friendly conversation, with no physical overtones whatsoever. Liese didn’t believe him either.

“One day you’re going to wake up and figure out you’re in love with her,” his mother said matter-of-factly, which annoyed him. She seemed certain of it.

“Never,” he said confidently.

“Men and women can’t be friends in that way,” she said wisely.

“Yes, they can. Everything in life doesn’t have to be about romance, Mama,” he said stubbornly.

“Well, something does, or it’s a damn sorry existence, and a lonely one. Francois and I started out as friends, and I wanted to keep it that way. He wouldn’t have it, and he was patient and persistent, and I’m glad he was. He was my soul mate.” Her first husband, Joachim’s father, had been dashing, handsome, and superficial, and had deserted her the minute the chips were down. Francois would never have done that. He never even gave up on Javier completely, and always hoped he would find his way back, for Liese’s sake. And Joachim knew that about him. Francois had been such a good man and the love of his mother’s life.

“I can’t live a life in service, and go around falling in love with my employers, Mama. Besides, I don’t see her that way, as a sex object. I see her as a person.”

    “And the woman you’re in love with can’t be a person? Who dreamed that up? I may be an old woman, but I remember what love is. You’re not a priest, Joachim. You didn’t take holy orders. At least I hope not.” She doubted that she’d ever have grandchildren, but at least she wanted her son to be happy, and not sacrifice his entire life for his employers. He had always put them and all their needs first, and Liese wished he wouldn’t, or he would be a lonely old man one day, if he wasn’t already. Olivia sounded as if she’d been cut of the same cloth, from what he said. Joachim had mentioned that she was badly marked by her mother’s relationship with a married man, so she was careful not to get too deeply involved with any man. It didn’t sound like a fulfilling life to Liese. It sounded like both her son and Olivia were afraid of love. She secretly wished that Joachim would sleep with her. She had said it once, and Joachim was outraged, and said that even saying that was disrespectful. In Liese’s opinion, they were both running from the best part of life.