And all that night, she was haunted by him. All she could think about were the things they had talked about, and the expressive look on his face. And the French words he had taught her seemed to dance in her head. She was still feeling dazed the next day, as though she had taken a drug and was hung over. Being with him was some kind of strange aphrodisiac she couldn't have explained to anyone. He was such a powerful presence, in an almost sexual way. She could suddenly understand for the first time in her life why older women had affairs with younger men. But that wasn't going to happen to her.
She and Bix worked on a number of projects, and she was aware of a sense of malaise all day, as though some part of her were causing her body to be too big for her skin. She felt raw and uncomfortable all day. And it was crazy, but she actually missed him. She was determined not to give in to it, and she didn't call him on the cell phone he had rented, although he had given her the number. She went to bed early that night, and worked hard again the next day.
She felt better by Wednesday, and Meg called that night about their Thanksgiving plans. They were going to be with their father that year, and with her for Christmas. She never asked Meg how Rachel was doing with her pregnancy, because she didn't want to know. She had never asked if Peter was happy about it, if it was an accident, or planned. She couldn't bear to think of any of it, and Meg very discreetly never volunteered anything her mother didn't ask. She sensed just how painful it was for her, particularly since she was alone.
On Thursday as she drove home from the office at eight o'clock, her cell phone rang. She assumed it was either Bix or Meg. No one else ever called her on her cell. She was just pulling up in front of her house as she answered, and as she did, she saw him sitting there. It was Jean-Pierre both calling her, and sitting on her front steps.
“Où es tu?” he said in French, and she knew what it meant. It meant “Where are you?” She stopped the car, and smiled at him, embarrassingly pleased that he was there.
“I'm right here,” she answered, and got out of her car with the phone in her hand. She walked up the steps, and was going to kiss him on both cheeks, but he took her in his arms and kissed her searingly on the mouth. And she responded before she could stop herself. She never wanted it to stop, and didn't want him to go. It was as though she was being swept away on a tidal wave of sensuality, and for a moment she felt crazed. She had no idea what she was doing, why, or with whom. She hardly knew him, but all she did know was that she didn't want it to stop.
“I miss you so much,” he said simply, looking like a boy again, although he acted like a man, in all the important ways. “So I come back from Los Angeles. I go to Santa Barbara yesterday. Like Bordeaux. Very beautiful, and very small. Too quiet.”
“I think so too,” she agreed, and her heart pounded as she let them both into her house. He had gotten the address when he called her office and said he had proofs to show her. He followed her inside and looked around, nodding approval, as he took off his leather jacket. It looked as though it had been through the wars. “Would you like dinner?” she asked as he smiled and nodded, and went to look at the view, and then, while she was cooking, he took photographs of her. “Don't, I look terrible,” she said, brushing a lock of hair off her face. All she had was soup she had heated, cold chicken and salad she made for them, and she poured them each a glass of wine, while he put on some music. He seemed very much at home, and he came to kiss her from time to time while she organized dinner for them. It was harder and harder to keep her mind on what she was doing.
They sat down at the kitchen table, and talked about music. He had very sophisticated tastes, and was very knowledgeable about classical music. He said his mother had been an artist, and his father a conductor. And his sister was a doctor in Paris. A heart surgeon. He had an interesting background. He asked her what she had studied in school, and she told him economics, and he said he had studied political science.
“Sciences Po,” he said, as though he expected her to know it. “It is a very good school. And you? You did more high studies?” She knew what he meant.
“Graduate school. I have an MBA.” He didn't understand, and she said it was a very respected business degree, and he nodded.
“I understand. We have a very good school for that. HÉC. It is like Harvard Business School for us. I don't need that to take photographs,” he said, and laughed. And after they ate, he kissed her again, and she had to fight back a wave of passion that seemed to overwhelm her. This was crazy. She couldn't just let animal instinct overpower her. Nothing like this had ever happened to her, and she finally looked at him in dismay.
“Jean-Pierre, what are we doing? We don't know each other. This is crazy.”
“Sometimes crazy is good, no? I think yes. I am crazy to you.”
“For you, or about you.”
“Yes, that.”
“I feel that way too, but in a few days you'll leave, or sooner, and we'll be sorry if we do something foolish.”
He touched his heart and shook his head. “No, then I will always remember you. Here.”
“Me too. But maybe later we will be sorry.” She was worried about what they were doing or might do. He was nearly impossible to resist.
“Why sorry?”
“Because the heart can be very easily hurt. And we don't know each other,” she said sensibly, but he disagreed.
“I know you very much. I know many thing about you. Where you go to school, your children, your work, your marriage, your tristesse … your sadness…you have lose very much… sometimes we must find,” he said as he remembered something he wanted to share with her. “You know the book, The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry? There it say, ‘On ne voit l'essen-tiel qu'avec le coeur ’ … you only see the important thing in life with the heart … not the eyes. Or the head. It is a very wonderful book.”
“I read it to my children. It is very sad. The little prince dies in the end.” She looked touched. She loved the book.
“Yes, but he live forever in the stars.” He was pleased that she knew the book. It told him that she was a very special woman, as much so as he had thought. He had seen it in her eyes when he took photographs of her. “You must always see with the heart. And after, you will live forever in the stars.” It was a lovely thought, and it touched her.
They spent hours talking that night, and although she sensed that he would have liked to stay, he didn't ask her and she didn't offer. He didn't want to press her, and spoil what they had.
The next day he called her and then showed up at the office, and Bix looked surprised when he walked in.
“Are you still here, Jean-Pierre?” Bix asked with a smile of welcome. “I thought you left on Sunday or Monday.”
“I did. I go to Los Angeles.” He made it sound like a French city, and Bix smiled. “And then I come back yesterday.”
“How long will you be here?”
“Maybe a few week,” he said as Paris came out of her office and saw him. And something passed between them, as they looked at each other, like an electrical current of industrial voltage. Neither said anything, but Bix saw it immediately. He invited Jean-Pierre to stay for lunch, and the three of them ate sandwiches and drank cappuccinos in the room where they made presentations to clients. And afterward Jean-Pierre thanked them and left. He said he was going to visit Berkeley. He never said anything obvious to Paris, but he managed to communicate to her without words that he would see her later. And after he left, Bix stared at her.