The Last Time I Saw Paris (20 page)

He said softly, “Lara? Are you awake?”

“Yes.” Her voice was muffled by the blanket that almost covered her head.

“You know what?” he said. “We're a lot alike, you and I. In a way, our lives have paralleled each other's. We both brought up children alone, made a home for them, sacrificed the way a good parent does for them. It's normal, natural. Except for men like Bill.”

Dan didn't know why he mentioned Bill, except it just angered him that Lara seemed to keep her husband on a pedestal: the great self-important surgeon too busy with his career to bother much about his own wife and kids.

“Bill was a busy man; he wanted to save lives,” Lara said, suddenly realizing how many years she had been saying exactly that. And believing it. Defending Bill was a reflex action. “He was always a distant man,” she added, remembering the first time she had met him, when she had held his hand while he shed tears for his dead mother. Even then, he hadn't really shared his feelings with her. It was she who had shared her feelings with him.

“When Josh was born, Bill was at a medical conference. He knew I was due but he said it was more important that he be in Atlanta.” She shrugged, adding, “I'm sure it was necessary.” Though now she wondered.

“Bill didn't want to see his child being born?” Dan said, astonished.
“His own son?
He wasn't there to help you? Jesus Christ, how old were you? Twentyone or -two? You were just a kid yourself.”

“It was okay. The Girlfriends were with me. And my mom, of course.”

“Who are the Girlfriends?”

They were sitting up now. Dan's arm was around her shoulders, her head nestled into the curve against his chest. His warm body had a faint tang of grassy cologne.

“The Girlfriends are Vannie, Susie, and Delia.” She smiled as she told him their stories. About their quirks and their humor and their loyalty. “I don't know what I would do without them,” she finished guiltily, because though she had spoken to Delia, so far she
hadn't so much as sent the others a postcard.

Dan tilted her face up to his. “Did you tell them about us?”

“I did.”

“And what did the Girlfriends say?” He didn't know why it was so important to have the approval of her best friends, but it was.

Lara laughed. “They said,
‘Go for it, Lara.'”

Dan laughed too. Then, “Are you going to divorce Bill?” he asked out of the blue.

She took a shocked breath. “I haven't gotten around to thinking about that.”

“You can't live your life in limbo forever,” he said abruptly. “You're going to have to make a decision sooner or later.”

Lara pushed back her hair worriedly, the romantic mood gone. “Why are we having this conversation in the middle of the night, anyhow?”

“I couldn't sleep.” Throwing back the covers, Dan walked to the window. He gazed out at the slumbering town of Blois.

Lara watched him for a minute, wondering what answer to give him about the divorce. Then she turned over and buried her head under the blanket. Damn him, she said to herself. I don't want to think about it, I don't want to go there. Not now. Not yet.

T
he next morning, early, they sat crushed in the battered little Renault, whizzing down the auto-route, past miles and miles of empty countryside, past manicured rest stops with playgrounds for children and restaurants that served coffee and snacks and instant meals.

Last night's conversation still hung between them. But what had Dan been getting at with Bill? Lara thought worriedly. It was nothing to do with him, none of his business.

Oh, yes, it is,
the little voice retorted.
You're a married woman and he has a right to be concerned about what your husband thinks. And what he might do. Bill could sue you for divorce naming Dan as the other man.

Wow! Lara drew in a deep breath. She had never thought of herself as the guilty party. No, I'm not, she told herself indignantly. Bill was unfaithful first. He made the choice. If he hadn't, I wouldn't be here now with a stranger. I would be here with my husband.

A stranger? Is that how you think about him?
Her alter ego was not letting her off the hook this morning. She remembered those long afternoons on her deck, watching Dan work, admiring his hard brown young body. She thought of those little electric signals that passed between them, like the lightning in the old RKO pylon logo. Zigzagging his way into her head,
into her sex. Into her heart. Did electric zigzags mean love? She wondered.

After a couple of silent hours, they pulled into a motorway cafe. They sat opposite each other in a red plastic booth, sipping surprisingly good coffee and sharing a passable croissant.

Dan looked at her across the table. She was wearing an oversized blue rollneck sweater and jeans and her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked adorable, wide-eyed and apprehensive. “I'm sorry, Lara.” Their hands met over the croissant plate. “I didn't mean to bug you about Bill. It's just that”—he searched his head for what it was exactly that bothered him—“he gets in our way,” he said finally. “Somehow, he's always there.”

“Not
always,”
she said softly, squeezing his hand. “But I'm sorry too. Let's just forget about Bill. We're on vacation, we should be enjoying ourselves.”

“I
am
enjoying myself,” he said, shaking his head in wonderment, “despite how aggravating you are.”

“And how adorable you are.”

He laughed then and Lara laughed with him.

“Not exactly the way I would have described myself,” he said.

“No, but I bet Britt would.” She bit her lip. She wished she hadn't said that.

His eyes still held a glint of laughter. “Let's not go there, shall we?”

“Certainly not. And I apologize one more time.” They were back on even keel again. Happy.

Later, zooming down the autoroute, Lara spotted a familiar exit sign.
Limoges.
She remembered it perfectly. “Oh, Dan, we have to get off here,” she cried, excited. “There's this lake somewhere around here; I remember it has swans on it.”

“How do you remember?” he asked, surprised.

Too late, she realized Dan didn't know she had been there before. She added quickly, “Oh, I was here once, years ago. I traveled a bit when I was younger.”

“Then this is kind of a memory thing for you?”

She gave him a guilty smile. “I'm just recalling my youth, I guess. But you'll see, it'll be a good place for a picnic.”

 

In the end they didn't eat their picnic by the lake outside Limoges because Lara couldn't find it. She scrutinized the map while Dan drove around in circles, until he finally said, “The heck with it; let's eat the stuff in the car.” So they pulled over to the side of the country road, and munched on a long thin bread called a
ficelle
and a hunk of Gruyère cheese bought from a tiny store in a small village a few miles back, washing it down with cold Evian water.

As they drove off again, Lara looked out the windows at the wisps of fog drifting from the moist brown fields. Wasn't it exactly here, in this very avenue of poplars they were driving through, that she had
left
Bill? The memory stabbed at her like a knife wound. How could she ever have forgotten?

Of course it couldn't be the same avenue of poplars, but it was very much like it. She recalled the scene in perfect detail. They had been sitting on a crumbling wall, all that remained of an old bridge, eating bread and cheese, just like now. It had begun to rain and the picnic, wrapped only in a brown paper bag, was getting wet. Bill was bustling around, organizing them.

“Get back into the car,” he'd ordered, wrapping up the food. “We're getting soaked.”

But Lara had lingered, entranced by the scene unfolding on the lake. A pair of swans, startlingly white on the carbon-gray water, were gliding toward them followed by three tiny brown chicks. The lowering sky pressed against the drooping willows and then-long, delicate green fronds floated sideways in the sudden wind, like a girl's long, fine hair.

Fishing the camera from her bag, she clicked away, laughing as the swans paddled nearer. “Ready for their close-up,” she called gaily to Bill.

“Come on, Lara. You're getting soaked.” He marched grumpily back to the car.

Ignoring the rain, she snapped happily away. When she finally came back, Bill was already behind the wheel with the engine running. He glanced at her, then at the camera, and said scathingly, “Lara, you left the lens cap on.”

She stared at the camera. Damn it, he was right.
As usual.
And she had taken a whole roll of film with the lens covered. She groaned. Over her shoulder she could see the swans were still there, she could still capture that image. “I have to go back and take more.”

“Oh, come
on,
Lara. You've seen swans before. Just get in out of the rain and let's get going.”

“Philistine,” she said scornfully. “These pictures are meant to be a wonderful memory of France. We can show them to our children, and our grandchildren, tell them all about our epic journey.”

“Oh, sure,” Bill said, ignoring what she said. “Meanwhile, let's go.”

Snatching up the bag of bread and cheese, Lara turned her back on him and marched back to the edge of the lake to feed the swans. They fluttered around her, the little chicks cheeping, trying vainly to scramble up the slope. Enchanted, she took her pictures.

Bill was leaning on the horn. “Lara,” he yelled, “for Christ's sake, come on.”

“This is my honeymoon as well as yours, Bill Lewis,” she yelled back. “And tell me what difference does ten minutes make, anyway?”

“It's getting dark, you idiot, and I have to drive through this godforsaken countryside not knowing where I am because you can't read the goddamn map.”

“What
did you say?” She marched toward him. The swans tagged after her, making angry swan sounds, abandoning their chicks in their greed.

“We should have set off at six.” Bill glared at her. “Only
you
wanted to sleep late.
Then
you insisted on having breakfast.
Then
you lost our way—not once, but three times.”

“So what's wrong with sleeping late?” she yelled back. “What's so wrong with having breakfast? We're not on our way to work, dammit. We're on vacation.”

“We have a schedule,” Bill said stiffly. “And I for one intend to stick with that.”

“Then stick with it on your own, Dr. Lewis.” She threw the Michelin road map at him. With her bad aim it hit the dashboard and she heard it rip. “And be your own navigator. Just try reading that map yourself when you're whirling around corners on two wheels at seventy miles an hour.”

“Kilometers,” Bill corrected her through gritted teeth.

“Ohhh. . . . fuck you.”
Furious, Lara stomped off down the road.

The wind was blowing hard now, cutting through her hooded sweatshirt, and the rain was coming down in sheets. She strode on, still fuming. Why was Bill so damn serious all the time? Why couldn't he take
time out to admire the swans? What was wrong with him, anyway? Him and his fucking schedule. All he thought about was getting from point A to point B when the whole point was to enjoy France, not pass it by without so much as a glance. How could he accuse her of losing their way three times? It was only twice today, and both had been minor, and, besides, it was just that the French roundabouts were such a bitch.… She never wanted to see him again; he could go complain to some other woman. She'd had it.

Hunched against the wind, she marched on. She was soaked now. And miserable. The fight was going out of her.

She heard the car behind her,
phutphuting
the way small French cars did. She slowed but did not look back. She told herself Bill would have to
beg
her to get into that car. But first he would have to apologize. Then
maybe
she would think about it. …

The car drove straight by her. Lara stared after it, stunned. It disappeared from sight and she was alone in the deepening twilight. The narrow tree-lined road stretched in front of her, the wind rustled eerily in the trees, and a white mist spiraled off the damp brown fields. There was no human habitation, no farm with smoke curling welcomingly from its chimney. Even the swans had gone back to their lake with their chicks. Except for the wind, there was just empty silence.

Fighting back the tears Lara marched on, head down. “Fuck you, Bill Lewis,” she muttered. “I never want to see you again,
never …
.”

But what will you do without him?
that little voice asked nastily.
Where will you go? This road goes on forever, no cars have passed since you came here. You're all alone somewhere in France and he's not
coming back for you. Maybe you got what you deserved; maybe he was right and you shouldn't have stopped to feed the swans when it was getting dark and you had to get on to the next town.

Lara stamped her foot, furious. “I was
not
wrong. I had
every right
to feed those bloody swans.”

Tears spurted from her eyes, rolled down her icy face. They dried quickly in the harsh wind, chapping her cheeks. Sniffling, she marched on down the empty road. She had never felt so alone. So
abandoned.

She must have walked almost half a mile when she saw the car parked in a muddy gateway that led to yet another brown field. Inside she could see Bill, warm and dry, arms folded, staring at her. Ignoring him, she marched straight past on the other side of the road.

“Lara! For God's sakes.” He stuck his head out the window. “Get in the car.”

She swung around, spitting mad. “Why?” she hissed. “So my loving new husband can prove to me how much he cares about me? Bah!” She continued her lonely march, straining her ears for the sound of the car's engine as he came after her.
Nothing.
Blinded with tears, she marched on.