The Last Time I Saw Paris (23 page)

Red asked where they were staying and when Lara admitted they had no idea, she said she knew just the place.

Within minutes, it seemed to Lara, their lives were organized. They were staying at a local château and dinner was arranged there later that night with the Shoups.

 

They wound their way up a little hill to the château, parked in a dusty, unpaved area, then walked across the wooden bridge over a tiny stream, where a great black dog sprawled, on guard. He raised his head, gave a flurry of barks, then settled back down.

The English
patron
hurried toward them. “He's not really our dog,” he apologized. “Or at least he wasn't. He's just sort of adopted us and now he's become territorial and considers the place his own.”

They were in a long lofty room with an enormous
oak refectory table. Tapestries hung on stone walls and off at one end Lara caught a glimpse of an enormous kitchen with copper pots and pans dangling from a rack over the vast wooden counter. Upstairs was another grand room with painted beams and heraldic shields, Persian rugs, and elegant furnishings. And somewhere beyond that, she assumed, were the family quarters.

They were shown to their own quarters, off the paved courtyard, up a winding stone staircase in a little round tower. It was like being in someone's pretty home, with a brass bed covered in English flowered chintz and fluffy swagged curtains to match.

“Don't forget, aperitifs and canapés on the terrace at six,” the owner beamed as he left.

 

Which was where they met their fellow guests later, over an exotic drink that tasted of raspberries. “We mix a different brew every day,” the
patron
told them as his charming wife preferred a tray of olives and fresh-from-the-oven cheese straws.

The sun was just beginning to set on the valley and Lara could see cars winding past on the curving road below and hear the bleat of a lone sheep on the hillside. The other guests, all British, mingled sociably, asking where they were from and how they were enjoying France, keeping a strict eye on their young offspring racing dangerously close to the edge of the pool.

A frazzled-looking young mother in a print skirt and striped T-shirt sighed as she told them, “Sarah has fallen in twice already. And always when I've just got her bathed and into something decent in time for supper,” and Dan said he thought it looked pretty
much like Sarah was about to do it again.

Seven-thirty was dinnertime. Lara was wearing the Paris dress again and the lizard sandals in honor of the grand dining room.

“Beautiful,” Dan whispered to her, smiling as he remembered the roly-poly woman bundled up in his sweatpants and layers of clothing that freezing night in Madame Defarge's barn.

Red and Jerry Shoup arrived in a group of six, and then two other pairs of guests arrived. With Lara and Dan and the patron and his wife, that made fourteen at the long table.

Somebody was a cordon-bleu cook, Lara couldn't remember whether it was him or her, but the food was simple and good and elegantly served. The wine flowed and the conversation was brimming with humor and punctuated with laughter. It was like a very nice English dinner party.

They were given all kinds of advice on what to see and where to go. You mustn't miss Monpazier, they were told. It's a thirteenth-century bastide, a little fortified village built by England's King Edward the First, who was married to France's Eleanor of Castile. It's perfectly preserved and on the list of the hundred most beautiful villages in France.

And then there's Domme, of course, off in the other direction, though, past Sarlat, but it's probably the prettiest of all the Dordogne villages.

And you shouldn't miss the Countess's château, just down the road, in the Lot region. She produces the finest prunes—the famous prunes of Agen. Hers are boxed like fine chocolates and they sell them in Harrods. Of course, it's better when they are in season, but the Countess always has boxes for sale.

And then there's the Moulin de Mouléde, a little
watermill near Montflanquin, where Madame serves a fine prix fixe lunch, all the locals go there.

“We could stay here forever,” Lara said, “there's so much to see.”

“Well, why don't you?” Red Shoup's shrewd blue gaze settled on the pair of them. She smiled at Lara. “Hang on to him, honey,” she whispered, “he's a gem.”

Once again there was that complicit exchange of glances between women. And once again the smile lightened Lara's already light heart until she almost levitated. She
knew
she had made the right choice, done the right thing. And she wasn't even missing Bill one bit. At least, not tonight.

“Why don't we buy a place here?” she said, brimming with enthusiasm as she stumbled up the spiral stone stairs with Dan later. She could already see them on some enchanted tower in the woods, with a view of the great river curving through the valley below. She put a hand over her mouth to stop herself, knowing she was talking commitment. “That was the wine talking,” she apologized. “Forget I said it.”

“Why should I forget?” He was following her up the stairs; his hand slid up her dress, and she laughed.

“Whatever will the neighbors think?” she whispered, melting into him.

“After Madame Defarge, what does it matter?”

He carried her up the remaining steps, fumbling with the key while she leaned against him, laughing. Soon she was naked and he was on top of her.

“The bed squeaks,” she whispered.

He lifted his head. “Do you care?”

She shook her head. “Not one bit.” And she was laughing again as he made love to her, squeaky springs and all.

San Francisco—and reality—were so far away.…

T
wo days later, they were on the road again, whizzing down the Autoroute des Deux Mers, the “Highway of Two Seas,” stopping every now and again to find the francs necessary to pay the tolls, then zooming on. Monpazier, the Shoups, and the Dordogne were behind them, and three boxes of the Countess's Agen prunes wilted in the backseat.

They were singing along with the radio, the Stones and “Brown Sugar.” Lara had first heard it when she was in her teens; Dan must have been just a kid.

“Take me dancing tonight,” she said suddenly. “I want to dance with you.”

He glanced at her, smiling at her enthusiasm. “Okay,” he agreed.

Uh-oh, now you're acting like a teenager.
The voice brought her nastily down to earth.
When did you ever dance with Bill?

Never, Lara thought airily. I never danced with Bill. He was always too serious. And now I want to dance, so there.…

The walled city of Carcassonne appeared, shimmering in the sunlight atop the hill, its ramparts and towers silhouetted against the blue sky.

“It's a mirage.” Lara breathed, awed. “It can't be real.”

They got off at the next exit and chugged up the hill. The only entry was over the drawbridge. They
had to park the car outside the walls and walk across, which they did, hand in hand.

They were in a medieval fortified town, on a cobblestoned street so narrow they were forced to press themselves against the walls to allow the few cars permitted in for deliveries to squeeze past. They climbed onto the ramparts and strode along the battlements imagining the knights of old watching their enemies massing on their horses, battle standards flying as they crossed the River Aude and charged up the hill, bows drawn, arrows ready. And the defenders of Carcassonne spilling vats of boiling oil on them.

Lara snapped away with her little Nikon (it had no lens cap to cheat her this time) while Dan admired the massive stones, wondering how they had built all this without machinery. Sheer power of labor, he guessed, hundreds of men working at once.

They found a room at the Hotel Dame Carcas, with a huge cherrywood bed and flowery wallpaper, and after a shower, they explored the town, then lingered over a citron
presse
in an outdoor cafe, watching the world go by.

Later, they found a bistro that served
cassoulet,
the local stew of preserved goose, with Toulouse sausages and thick white beans in a rich tomato-based sauce. It came in individual clay pots, crusted on top from the wood-fired oven, and they washed it down with a local rough red
vin du pays.
Lara thought it was heaven until Dan suddenly said, “So, are you going to leave Bill?”

What could she tell him? That she didn't know yet? That she had to find herself first? That she had to know the truth about who
she
was?

“Must we talk about this now?” she said coaxingly.
“It's such a lovely night, all I want to think about is us.
You.”

“You have to think about it sometime, Lara. I need to know.” She could see he was deadly serious and didn't know what to think. Was he asking for a commitment? She just couldn't cope with that.

“I will,” she replied. “Just not now, not this magical night.”

Fool,
the voice murmured.
Oh, you foolish woman
. . .

They held hands on the way back to the hotel, and Lara thought thankfully that everything seemed all right again. High up on their hill, the sky was ink blue and spattered with tiny stars. “As though God had thrown a paintbrush out there,” she said dreamily. And the narrow streets smelled of wood smoke and of Armagnac and geraniums. Secrets hung in the air, intangible, yet you felt them there. She thought that in France there was no need to go searching for history in museums; you lived with it every day. It was in the street you were walking down, in the old stone walls, in the turn-of-the-century brasseries and the ancient beams in the ceiling above your bed at night. In France, Lara thought, the past was always part of the present.

And so, she was soon to find out, was her own past. Because it was about to come back to haunt her.

 

Lara was wide awake. The
cassoulet
was sitting too heavily in her stomach. She turned her head to look at Dan, curled around her, one leg flung across hers. His mouth was slightly open and his hair was silver in the moonlight streaming through the open window.

Leaning on her elbow, she studied him, noticing
for the first time the tiny creases around his eyes, the as-yet-faint furrows on his brow, the golden stubble on his chin. Her heart melted at how vulnerable he looked.

Guilty at watching him when he was unaware, she slid from the bed and went to the window. She gazed out at the night sky, black as satin, pinned with a giant opal moon. The ancient town slept. Everyone, Lara thought restlessly, but her. She turned to look at Dan. He was lying on his back now, snoring softly.

Sighing with loneliness, she tiptoed into the bathroom and took a Zantac to quell the
cassoulet.
Then she found a crumpled copy of the
Herald Tribune
Dan had picked up in a cafe and went and sat by the window. There was enough light from the moon to read by and she smoothed out the pages, indifferently studying the headlines about train crashes and bull markets. Nothing that was going on in the world seemed to touch her charmed life; she was in a time warp, secured by the drawbridge in her walled city. The world could get along without her for a few weeks.

Not even a few weeks, anymore,
the voice reminded her.
What is it now? Ten days?

Lara shivered and pulled her robe closer. She didn't want to think about reality.

Halfway down the next page she saw the photograph.
Famous doctor and his assistant open new cardiac wing in Beijing,
the caption read.

For a second, she didn't get it. Then it hit her. Her hands trembled as she stared at the picture of Bill and Melissa Kenney. Bill had obviously not known he was being photographed. Either that or he didn't care. His arm was around Melissa's shoulder, his lips close to
her ear. . . as though he were about to kiss her, Lara thought, sickened.

World-famous cardiac surgeon, Dr. William H. Lewis of San Francisco, seen here with his assistant, pediatrician Dr. Melissa Kenney, were guests of honor of the Chinese government at the opening of a new cardiac center in Beijing. Dr. Lewis has won acclaim for his lifesaving heart and lung transplants on children, using pioneering techniques. The couple will continue on to New Delhi, where Dr. Lewis will cooperate on designing a new children's surgical facility and hospital. Dr. Lewis says, “My work is the most important thing in the world to me. Saving lives, children's lives, is why I became a doctor in the first place. Nothing can give a man more satisfaction than that. I consider it a job well done.”

Lara's flimsy bubble of happiness collapsed like a punctured party balloon. Anger choked her, sorrow clawed at her heart, self-pity overwhelmed her, and jealousy dug a ferocious acid pit in her stomach. Dan did not exist. France did not exist. All there was now was Bill and the past. Their entwined lives of twenty-five years, their long-ago youth, their children. And her own pain. The new woman she had become fell apart, as insubstantial as her alter ego had assured her she was all along.

When she could summon the strength, she went downstairs to the darkened lobby.

The sleepy young man on night duty stared at her as though he were seeing a ghost. He shuffled upright in his chair and got to his feet, smoothing back his hair. “Madame?”

“Telephone?” she asked, unable to think in French,
even though the word, fortunately, was identical.

He gestured to a small wooden cubicle under the stairs.

Lara stepped inside, closed the door, and sank onto the tiny cushioned seat. Automatically, she dialed Delia's number. She needed the Girlfriends.

The line was bad and there was what sounded like thousands of miles of ocean roaring at her when Delia answered. “Well, hi,” she said. “We hadn't heard from you, so we assumed no news was good news and that you were having such a great time, you hadn't given us a second thought. Or even a
first
thought.”