Family Pictures (8 page)

The countertops are a honed marble, etched, marked, and all the lovelier for it. The patina they so quickly acquired remind Sylvie of the old patisseries in Paris, the more aged and stained the marble, the more warmth and charm the patisserie had.

Sylvie laid a soft limestone slab on the kitchen floor, color-washing the beams above with a pale soft gray.

Cookbooks fill a floor-to-ceiling hutch on the other side, piled haphazardly in varying directions, interspersed with marble pestles and mortars, collected by Sylvie over the years.

The oval dining table is in front of the French doors, a painted Swedish bench with faded blue-and-cream-check cushion pulled up on the window side, four curved French chairs curving around the rest of the table.

It is now a kitchen that is the envy of all her friends. Not because it is perfect or pristine or nearly as big as many of their own kitchens, but because it feels like
home.

Nothing is perfectly matched, yet everything matches perfectly. Sylvie, born and bred in America, has the sensibilities of her mother, preferring old and interesting over new and perfect, knowing without even thinking about it how to mix different styles to come up with something uniquely beautiful.

Picking up the coffee cup, she moves to the table, to a cluster of small ramekins, each filled with essential oils. She dips her head to inhale deeply, a small smile playing on her lips as she closes her eyes and smells again.

She has written down exactly how many drops of each oil she mixed, and in which order. She sniffs the pure Mediterranean fig again. It is sweet and spicy but, compared to her newly mixed fig, has no depth, no warmth.

What else does her scent need? She smells again, knowing she is close, but there is something missing. She goes through the bottles she hasn’t yet used, pausing at cassis. It is rich and fruity; it might be just what she needs.

She pours half her perfume into another bowl, noting the quantity down in her notebook, before adding three drops of cassis.

Nearly there. Nearly there. Another three drops, and it is perfect. She smells the sweetness of fig, and orange, the richness of amber, the warmth of sandalwood, the heady scent of tuberose and gardenia, with the cassis bringing them all together.

4.15
A.M.
Still plenty of time to get the candles made. After pouring the chips of wax into the metal pot, she waits for them to melt before checking the temperature, pouring in the oils, letting the temperature drop to 160 before pouring it slowly into the waiting glass jars.

Frowning at the wicks bending all the way to the side, Sylvie grabs a handful of knives from the kitchen drawer and then carefully balances them on the top of each jar, holding the wick perfectly in place in the center of the candle, and she smiles. It may not be the way the professionals do it, but it’s doing the job.

She lifts the cookie sheet the containers are balancing on, and then walks slowly and smoothly to the back door, trying not to disturb the wax, setting the tray on the steps.

Back inside, Sylvie examines the contents of the craft closet. Brown paper, raffia, a roll of cellophane. She smiles, glad she never sorted through this closet, never threw anything away.

Now all she needs is a label. After pouring herself a fresh cup, she sits at the computer and experiments with fonts, sizes, colors until she finally comes up with something she likes.

CANDLES BY SYLVIE

MEDITERRANEAN FIG & AMBER

It’s not great, but it works. It works even better when she sketches a fig leaf and scans it in, adding it to the label and changing the colors to a warm gray.

“Perfect.” She grins, whispering to herself. Elegant and simple. Her mother will approve.

10

Sylvie

Angie flies into Harry’s, two shopping bags from Sigi’s on her arm, unaware of the heads turning at the gorgeous redhead, striding through without thinking to look around to see who she knows, focusing only on smiling at her friend, sitting at the back.

“Oh God.” She dumps the bags on the floor next to Sylvie, planting a kiss on her cheek as she sits down. “Simon’s going to kill me. I just spent a fortune.”

“Tell him it’s your birthday present.” Sylvie smiles, for Angie continually vows to stop spending money, but cannot resist popping into Sigi’s or Bowers whenever she finds herself passing by with a moment or two to spare. Leaving empty-handed is unthinkable, she explains. It would be “plain rude.”

“
These
are my birthday present.” She shows off beautiful sparkly earrings. “He gave them to me the other night after everyone left. Aren’t they
beautiful
?”

“They are. Gorgeous. And speaking of the other night, we had the best time. Thank you so much. Everything about it was perfect. Honestly, I think I had more fun than I’ve had in years.”

“I know!” Angie grabs a passing waitress and orders a skinny cappuccino, extra shot of caffeine. “Wasn’t it great? I could barely move the next day, though. Oh my God, I’d forgotten what champagne does to me.”

“Right. Because you drink it so rarely,” Sylvie laughs as she pours herself some more tea.

“Not bottles and bottles of it. I tell you, I didn’t even mind turning forty, that’s how much fun it was.”

Sylvie frowns. “I thought you were forty-three?”

“Sssshhh,” hisses Angie. “The only people to know that are you and Simon, and if you tell anyone else, I may have to kill you.” She grins before lowering her voice. “Speaking of gossip, and I know we shouldn’t, but could you
believe
those pictures of Bill?”

Sylvie sighs. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel so awful for both of them. Are we sure those pictures mean he’s definitely been having affairs? What about that congressman who did the same thing? I don’t think he ever did anything other than send the pictures. Maybe that’s what Bill did?” she asks doubtfully.

Angie snorts. “Where there’s smoke … In any case, in this instance, unfortunately, Bill has definitely done more than just take pictures. Caroline’s discovered all kinds of terrible things. E-mails, receipts from Victoria’s Secret for underwear she’s never seen, and—”

“Victoria’s Secret?” Sylvie can’t resist a half smile. “Of course she’s never seen it. Caroline in Victoria’s Secret? Surely she’s much more a designer underwear girl.”

“That’s the point. She is. The Victoria’s Secret stuff is for the mistresses.” Angie shakes her head. “Frankly, Simon would be thrilled to have me in Victoria’s Secret. The one time I tried the flesh-colored T-shirt bra, he threatened to divorce me unless I burned it immediately.”

Sylvie laughs. “I guess Simon thinks all Victoria’s Secret means black lace?”

“Red, preferably.” Angie rolls her eyes. “I do try from time to time. You have to keep things hot to stop them from straying, but honestly, I’m so much more comfortable in the T-shirt bras.”

“Wow.” Sylvie sits back. “Do you really think you have to keep things hot to keep them from being unfaithful?”

“Absolutely.” Angie nods vigorously. “You think it’s any coincidence that all these men keep leaving their wives for young women? It’s not because they’re interested in their brains, or even their hot bodies. It’s because those women haven’t been ground down by childbirth, and PTAs and running a family. Those women don’t crawl into bed every night hoping their husbands will leave them alone so they can read their magazine in peace and get a decent night’s sleep in order to be able to do it all over again the next day.

“It’s biological.” She shrugs, sipping her coffee. “Men need sex. It isn’t about wanting it, they actually
need
it, and if you don’t give it to them, they’ll find someone else who will.”

Sylvie wipes imaginary sweat off her forehead. “Well, thank God Mark and I are absolutely fine in that department. Better than fine. I’ve been known to drag him out of parties because I can’t keep my hands off him.”

“I don’t blame you. If Simon looked like Mark, I’d do the same thing,” Angie says wistfully as they both smile, both picturing Simon: portly, receding hairline, brilliant mind, and biggest heart you could ever hope to find.

“Simon is many things, but a sex machine he is not. Mark is just about the best-looking man in town. Maybe in the state,” Angie says thoughtfully. “But Simon’s all mine, oh lucky girl that I am, and he’s a good boy, even if he does need retraining every once in a while. Truth is, I don’t know what I’d do without him, and I make damn sure that if he wants red lace and black tassels, I give him red lace and black tassels.”

Sylvie snorts with laughter. “Simon would never dare cheat on you. First of all, you’re gorgeous and he’d never find anyone like you again, and secondly, you’d cut his penis off.”

“I would.” Angie nods seriously. “It’s true. I couldn’t be forgiving after something like that.”

Sylvie frowns. “I’m not sure any of us really knows how we’d react until we’re there.”

“Wow!” Angie looks at her. “That’s so … magnanimous of you. You’d be able to forgive?”

“I didn’t say that. I just think it’s impossible to know. Every marriage is different, and it’s easy to theorize on how you’d react. Plus, some people have an understanding.”

“I don’t know. I think that’s what people tell themselves when they’re frightened of the alternative. How could you possibly allow the man you love to sleep with someone else? Simon’s no oil painting, but if I imagine him kissing someone else?” She shudders. “Urgh. It makes me feel nauseous. I may be one hell of a flirt, but I take my marriage vows seriously. Deep down, I’m just a good Southern girl, and I can’t condone infidelity.
Ever.
It goes against everything marriage is about.”

“I’m not sure I agree,” Sylvie says slowly. “Honestly? I’m not sure it’s the worst thing that can happen to a marriage.”

“What?” Angie barks. “You cannot be serious! How can a breakdown of trust and publicly humiliating your wife not be the worst thing that can happen?”

Sylvie nods. “I think, in Bill and Caroline’s case, the public humiliation is awful. But we’re human; we’re flawed; none of us infallible. We make mistakes. Everyone assumes that if someone’s unfaithful, it means there’s something wrong with the marriage, but I don’t know that I believe that’s true. Sometimes sex is just sex; it’s possible to love someone deeply, and to have sex with someone else. It can be about many things, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t love your spouse.”

“You surprise me.” Angie leans back. “I never expected you to say that. Is this the French part of you talking? All men have affairs and all that stuff?”

Sylvie smiles. “I don’t know about that. But my parents were married for forty years until my dad died. And—” She takes a deep breath, for this is something she doesn’t generally talk about, knowing that her American friends will not, as a rule, understand. “There was infidelity from the beginning.”

Angie nods. “Aah. Now I get it. Of course you’re going to feel that way if your dad had affairs. At least that explains why Clothilde’s such a bitch. She probably had it pent up for years.”

Sylvie cannot help a burst of laughter. “It wasn’t my father. It was my mother.”

Angie’s hands fly to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I should never have said that.”

“Don’t be. Clothilde’s a total bitch. Even I know that. What I’ve never been able to figure out,” Sylvie says sadly, “is why my father stayed. She was so vicious to him, and she’d leave him every summer to go and live with her lover. Can you imagine?”

“He knew?”

“Yup. But he refused to talk about it with me. I have no idea if he put up with it because he didn’t want to split the marriage up to protect me, or because he loved her. I think it was probably a bit of both.”

“That’s hard,” Angie says. “How did you find out?”

“I haven’t thought about this for years.” Sylvie takes a sip from her cup, casts her mind back all those years. “My mother was in France for the summer. I was sixteen, and alone in the house while my dad was at work. I loved being alone in the house; I was fascinated by everything of my mother’s because it was all so different from everyone else’s, and I used to snoop through her stuff, especially her clothes, which were so beautiful.

“And of course, in the back of her lingerie drawer, cliché of clichés, there was the stack of handwritten envelopes.”

Angie’s eyes are wide. “Did they smell of perfume?”

“No, Angie. Felipe isn’t a woman.”

“Ah yes. Good point.”

Sylvie laughs. “It was obviously from someone in France, and I ran downstairs to grab the huge old French dictionary, and spent the next five hours translating the entire collection.”

“Did you speak any French? And what did the letters say?”

“Yes, I spoke French but not nearly well enough to read the letters properly. They were from her lover. He lived in an apartment in Neuilly-sur-Seine, and shipped his wife and children off to their home in the hills below Grasse for the summer, where he would visit them on weekends, squiring his elegant mistress, Clothilde, around the hot spots of Paris during the week.

“He sounded rich. And fun. And exciting. He sounded like everything my dad wasn’t, and I just felt … sick. I understood why my mother took off, but I wished I didn’t. I remember wishing I’d just left well enough alone. It was information I didn’t want to have.

“Did you talk to either of them about it?”

“How could I? I wanted to protect my father, and my mother would have flown into one of her rages. I was terrified of her; I would never have dared confront her.”

“Didn’t you just hate her?”

“I did, but I hated her before that. And I loved her too,” she says sadly. “I was so torn with all these different feelings. Mostly, I think, I wanted her to love me. I’m not sure my mother has ever truly been capable of love. She can love on a superficial basis, if you’re beautiful, and clever, and a perfect reflection of her, but show any independence, contradict her in any way, and her love swiftly turns to hate.”

“Not really hate.” Angie is shocked.

“Oh yes. She has told me she hates me just as much as she has told me she loves me. Possibly more. I spent my childhood wanting her to love me, trying so hard just for her to love me.”