A Paris Apartment (31 page)

Using the side of her fork, April cut off a generous piece of sausage and then bit in, her teeth cracking through the thick, charred coating to reach the oily goodness inside.

“Oh my god,” she said, taking another bite, shamelessly talking with a mouth full of food. “This is ridiculous. Ridiculous!”

“It is rather good. I agree.”

Luc continued to take his reasonable, Parisian bites while April gobbled down both sausages and wondered if she should go for a third.

“So, Avril,” Luc said as he started on his second. She hated him right then for having more on his plate. April wished they were married, but only because she wanted to reach over and finish the rest of his food. “How does it feel, thirty-five?”

“Great so far!” she sang, not really knowing one way or another, though things were already immeasurably better than they had been a few hours before. “But it does feel like a milestone. Way more than thirty ever did.”

“That’s because Americans like to make thirty-five scary,” Luc said, wiping his mouth. April glanced at her napkin, which she had not yet used. There’d been no time for manners.

“What do you mean ‘scary’?” she said. “And what Americans?”

“The doctors. The television programs and newspapers.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Is thirty-five not the time when they demand women cease procreation?”

April laughed. “‘
They
,’ whoever ‘
they
’ are, don’t demand anything. There are women who have babies in their forties! Their fifties, even!”

“But do they not show you lots of terrifying literature about deformed progeny and such? This is what I hear. Pregnancy after thirty-five may only be accomplished via massive doses of drugs that make you fat and crazy.”

“I think it’s the pregnancy that makes you fat and crazy,” April said with a snort. “I’m not really sure how to respond to your … suppositions. I should probably be angry because I think you’re calling me old even though you have—what? Five years on me? Seven?”

Not that his years mattered, not that age ever did for a man. Luc had a point. For a woman thirty-five was a medical turning point. For men it was simply one more than thirty-four, one less than thirty-six.

“It is not an insult,” Luc said, slicing off another piece of sausage. “I think it’s atrocious they scare women like this. No more babies! You are too old! My sister had babies into her forties, and no one mentioned a thing.”

“There
is
science behind it,” April said. “Fertility nosedives at thirty-five and the risk for birth defects goes in the opposite direction. It’s a fact.”

“Or so they say.” Luc rolled his eyes.

“I tend to believe the professionals,” she said. “But I’m nutty like that. And anyway, it’s a nonissue for me. Yes I’m thirty-five, but I won’t be having kids.”

“Why’s that?”

“Beg pardon? Isn’t that question a little personal?”

“It is a question and you are a person, so…” He shrugged. “I’m only curious. Why don’t you want children?”

“It’s not that I don’t want them per se—”

“Is it because of your mother?” Luc asked, the words stabbing April in the chest. “Because you lost her so young?”

“Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel giddy on her birthday.” April inhaled deeply as Luc cast his eyes downward, in an almost embarrassed fashion. “Is it because we lost her? No. That’s not exactly how it’s all gone down.”

They had no one moment of losing, after all. There was more to it than that.

“It’s not that she died. I mean, I
suppose
there’s an aspect related to her illness. But, it’s simply easier to say kids were never my thing to begin with.” April crushed the unused napkin in her fist. “So, the band is getting back onstage. Shall we dance? I am in the mood for dancing.”

April was never in the mood for dancing, but it seemed a better option than continuing their current conversation.

“Are you sure?” Luc asked, hovering halfway over the bench, uncertain whether he should really stand.

“Dancing? Are you kidding me? I’m a pro. What about me doesn’t shout, ‘This girl has moves!’?”

April forced a laugh. Tears threatened to flood her eyes as she tried to smile them away. God, her mom. She missed her so much. Sandra Potter was the most amazing woman, even if she was a perfectly ordinary, traditional kind of mother. In her California beach town it was the hippie burnout parents who were cool, the ones prone to leaving pot brownies unattended on the kitchen counter. Still, despite Sandy Potter’s downright anemic coolness, April always liked her mom best.

“I’m sorry,” April said, dabbing her eyes with the balled-up napkin. “I always get a little emotional about her around my birthday. I start thinking about the ways I failed her, how I could’ve been a better daughter. God, I could
still
do better even if she was none the wiser.”

“We can leave,” Luc said. “We can go somewhere else. Less crowded. We can talk about this. I’m, ah”—he ran all ten fingers through his hair, nails scraping against his scalp—“I am not a very good
talker
but we can go elsewhere. We do not have to stay.”

“No,” April snapped and stamped a foot for good measure. “I want to dance and enjoy my birthday. You promised you could make it happen, Monsieur Thébault.” She lifted an eyebrow as her tears started to dry. “You promised.”

“Promise I did.”

Luc took her hand and held it firmly, safely in his. As he led her to the dance floor, April did her best to push away all thoughts of her mother, her birthday, parenting, and Troy. Better to let Luc simply pull her along.

Chapitre XLIX

The night slid by in a blur.

They danced, they drank, they consumed ever-more champagne and sausage, April besting Luc in food consumption though both were polite enough to not mention it.

Women batted their eyelashes at Luc as he displayed heroic efforts in pretending to look right through them. Whenever April spent a moment unattended, sleazy men chatted her up, actual sleazy men, not the cute-sleazy she unsuccessfully tried to ascribe to Luc. Ultimately the original supposedly smarmy Frenchman would return from the bathroom or champagne fountain to chastise the badgers for messing with
ma femme. Femme
meant “woman” but
ma femme
meant “wife.” April appreciated the gesture in a way that had little to do with chasing away strange men.

They talked about Marthe. Luc had read more of the diaries than April might’ve expected. And, for all his joking about how she thought of little else, he also spent a surprising amount of time thinking about
la demimondaine
.

April told him what she saw in Marthe’s words without trying to wrap it all up in the guise of provenance. They speculated on Jeanne Hugo, and also Marguérite. They joked about Montesquiou and his flamboyant ways and tried to spot dance-floor revelers who most matched his description. Indeed the fire station had many
Les Comtes
traipsing around but no reasonable proxy for Boldini.

By the end of the night April wondered how she could ingest so much champagne yet not feel any drunker than when she first walked in and witnessed the scene inside the
caserne de pompiers
. None of the social awkwardness she anticipated came to pass, not a sliver of embarrassment. It was, to sound like a seven-year-old girl, the best birthday ever. And April felt exactly that young and carefree.

When the party was over, after the firemen good-naturedly (though adamantly) pushed the crowd from the dance floors and courtyards, Luc and April stepped out into the cobalt sky of morning. They paused on the sidewalk as Luc checked his watch. It was almost five o’clock. April was not someone who stayed out until five o’clock. She was not someone who stayed out until the next morning at all.

“That was…” April started, unable to find words to do the night justice. They walked a few paces before she continued. “Amazing. The best birthday I’ve ever had. Thank you for forcing me to go.”

“I’m glad, in the end, you decided it was fun,” Luc said, his pace matching hers. After a full night of dancing it was as though they were now physically in sync. “And as far as Bastille Days have gone, this was my favorite too.”

April nodded, heart fluttering in a way she did not appreciate, her entire body weak with equal parts exhilaration and exhaustion. She was shaky, her forehead still damp with sweat. As the cool Parisian air whisked past them, April shivered. They walked a few blocks in companionable silence until the point they had to decide. Luc lived in one direction, April belonged in another.

She cleared her throat.

“All right,” she said. “I turn here. Good night. And thanks again. It really was a special night.”

“Non. I am going with you.”

“Oh, that’s silly. Your flat is in the exact opposite direction.”

“Non,” he said again, this time leaving no room for discussion. “No gentleman lets his date walk home in the dark alone.”

“It’s almost dawn,” April pointed out. “
Date
.” He called her a date. “So it won’t be dark much longer. Really, Luc, I don’t want to put you out. I am fine on my own. Paris is a big city, but I know it well. It’s probably safer than if I were walking home in New York.” As she spoke, April volleyed her weight from one foot to the other. Go. Stay. She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do. “Funny, isn’t it? New York is home, but Paris is where I feel safe.”

“I understand completely.” Luc took her hand. “Nonetheless, I will accompany you.”

April smiled again. “Thanks.”

She decided not to fight it.

The stroll back to the flat was both too fast and yet interminable at the same time. April felt every bone of Luc’s hand wrapped around hers. His pulse pounded in her skin. She alternated between enjoying the foreign sensation, that of someone
holding her hand
, and worrying what it all meant, or if it meant nothing, which was maybe the worst option of all.

April was so disoriented by the conundrum of a stranger’s fingers that when Luc jumped onto the curb and announced, “Here we are!” she had to peer at the building behind him to be sure.

“Yes,” April said, surprised, then added quietly, “I guess we are.”

Luc dropped her arm and put both hands on his hips. With one of his wry smiles he winked and hooked a thumb into the smartly frayed waistband of his fitted denim jeans.

“Well, Madame Vogt, tonight was a pleasure indeed.”

“It was,” April said, her eyes growing hot. “Thank you, Luc. I am not typically a fan of birthdays, but this one did not totally suck.”

He grinned. “That is a ringing endorsement. I preferred your previous ‘best birthday ever,’ though I suppose not totally sucking works too. May I add it to my résumé?”

April paused for thirty seconds, a minute.

“That’s it?” she said.

“What’s ‘it’?” Luc appeared legitimately confused.

“Come on, Thébault! You can do better than that. We both used a variation of the word ‘suck.’ Where’s your off-color comment?”

“I was under the impression you found my off-color comments tiresome.”

She could not tell if he was joking. And the truth was she didn’t. April didn’t find his comments tiresome at all.

“Maybe sometimes,” April lied. “But they are so very you, and now the conversation seems naked without them.”

“Naked?” He grinned.

“Yes,” April said. “Completely bare. Nude. À poil.”

She stepped up onto the curb and met him face-to-face, nose-to-nose. Without thinking, April leaned in and pressed her lips so softly against his they barely touched. She held for only half a second and was the first to pull away.

And in that instant, April understood. She saw how it was so easy for Marthe to flit from patron to patron, to fall easily into long-term flirtations or beds or financial arrangements, while still being able to recognize the real thing when it happened. Boldini was no lark, no dalliance.

It took only that half second for April to feel the sense of love and protection she’d been lacking for so long; and to know how genuine it was. It’s what Marthe spent her whole life trying to find, and to reclaim once she found Boldini. And here, in Paris, April had found it, too.

So April kissed him again. This time it was Luc who pulled back.

“You’ve had too much champagne, non?” Luc said, trying a smile but looking moderately pained and confused. He wobbled as he backed away from her.

“Nope,” April said. “I’m feeling quite sober, as a matter of fact. The most clear-headed I’ve been in months.”

He made a sound, like a
hmph
. Luc was trying to walk away but only because he felt he had to.

“You should probably escort me upstairs,” she said. “You never know what kind of vagrants and ne’er-do-wells loiter in my hallway.”

“April—” he said, voice raspy. “I don’t want to get you into any precarious situations.”

“Oh, believe me. I don’t like ‘precarious’ either. There isn’t a person alive more careful than April Vogt. I get it, now, though. I understand Marthe.”

“This is about Marthe?” Luc said, eyes narrowing.

“Yes. No. It is and it isn’t. It’s just—I finally appreciate that she could never love anyone she had to rely upon. In the years she had patronage from all those other men, she sought out
love
from Boldini; she didn’t need his money. She wanted only his affection. Luc, I—”

This was not like April. She’d never been so forward, so flagrant, so boob-print-on-linen-paper. But it felt good. Sometimes being someone else felt right.

“April,” Luc said, interrupting her again, using the American name that he so rarely uttered. He took several steps forward, so close April could literally smell him, and closed his hands around hers. April was surprised to find his skin clammy, a little jittery. “I think you’ve lost your head. Or have you sold the Americans on the four-to-five after all? Technically we are right now sometime after four but before five. Though it
is
morning, and I can’t imagine you’ve accomplished a feat of social upheaval in such a short period of time.”