“Then don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly, “but don’t say things like that. It scares me.” She nodded and kissed him hard on the mouth.
He left minutes before her kids got home, and hailed a cab to take him to Annie’s. And he turned back and waved as Pattie watched him from the window. Her eyes never left the cab until it disappeared.
In Paris, Jean-Louis and Liz were planning to pick up his son Damien to spend the day and night with him. They had had dinner with friends of Jean-Louis the night before. Lizzie had been having a wonderful time since she arrived. He had a beautiful little apartment on the Left Bank on the quais, with a terrace overlooking the Seine. She loved watching the boats drift by and looking across the city. When she came here to work, she stayed at the Four Seasons or the Bristol, but it was much more fun and more romantic staying with him. And she was looking forward to meeting his son. Jean-Louis was planning to take him to the park with her and had promised him a ride on the carousel.
Lizzie was getting ready in his funny old bathroom, with the round oeil de boeuf windows, when she opened a drawer looking for a fresh roll of toilet paper, since they were running out. She was startled to see several pairs of women’s underwear and a lacy black bra. None of it was hers. She wasn’t sure if it was a relic of his past, or something more current, but she took it all out and tossed it on the bed, where Jean-Louis was watching a soccer match on TV between Paris F.C. and Saint-Germain.
“I found these in the bathroom,” she said casually as he glanced away from the TV for just a second, and Paris F.C. scored a goal. He heard the crowd cheer and looked back at the TV immediately as he talked to her. He had seen the lacy underwear sitting on the bed. He looked undisturbed.
“You’ve discovered my secret,” he said, smiling at her. “I wear them when you’re not here.”
“Very funny,” she said with a faint tremor in her stomach. She was normally not jealous, but they had agreed to be exclusive, and she wanted to be sure they were still on the same page. “Do these belong to anyone you know?” It was unlikely that a perfect stranger had come to his apartment and left her underpants and a bra in a drawer.
“Probably Françoise. I’m sure they’ve been here for years and she forgot them when she left. I never look through those drawers. Just throw them away. If she hasn’t asked for them in four years, she doesn’t need them now.” Françoise was his son’s mother, and it sounded reasonable to Liz, and she smiled at him as she tossed them in a wastebasket under his desk. It didn’t look it, but he had a cleaning woman who came once a week. His apartment was as disorderly as his clothes.
“We’re out of toilet paper, by the way,” she informed him as she continued to get dressed, relieved by his simple undramatic explanation. She hated jealous scenes, and it was nice to know he wasn’t cheating on her. It wasn’t the love affair of the century, but it was a comfortable arrangement for both of them.
“There’s a roll in my desk. Bottom drawer.” The incongruous location for toilet paper was typical of him. His housekeeping skills were nil. “I know that sounds crazy, but I forget where I put it otherwise.”
She had put on jeans and a sweater by then, and sexy high-heeled boots, and she looked rail thin. She wound a raspberry-colored pashmina around her neck and put on a black fox coat she had bought in Milan. She looked very stylish for the park and the carousel, and he smiled at her admiringly as he turned off the TV and got up off the bed. He was happy-his team had won. He was taking her to lunch at the Brasserie Lipp before they picked up his son. And Liz was curious to meet the boy and get a look at his mother. She was an extremely successful model Jean-Louis had lived with for two years, and he had remained on good terms with her. They had split up before the boy was a year old, four years before, and she’d had several boyfriends since Jean-Louis.
Liz ate a salad at the famous old brasserie on the Boulevard St. Germain, while Jean-Louis ate a heavy German meal. And at three o’clock they were at the apartment building where Françoise lived on the rue Jacob. She was twenty-five years old, and she looked about fifteen when she opened the door. She was even taller than Liz and stood six feet tall in bare feet, with huge green eyes, flawless skin, and a long mane of red hair. Damien’s hair was the same color as his mother’s, but otherwise he was the image of Jean-Louis. He smiled up at his father with a delighted look, and then looked quizzically up at Liz, and Jean-Louis introduced her and said she was his friend. Françoise was looking at her with the same curious expression as her son. She shook Lizzie’s hand and asked if they wanted to come in.
The decor of her apartment was decidedly Moroccan, with leather poufs on the floor, low tables, and couches that had seen better days and were covered with colorful shawls. Her housekeeping skills were about the same as Jean-Louis’s. There were magazines, loose photographs, her modeling portfolio, half-drunk bottles of wine, and shoes everywhere.
Damien seemed like a happy, easygoing child as he ran to hug his father, and then kissed his mother when they left.
The two women had looked each other over with interest, but said very little. Lizzie had the feeling that Françoise wasn’t thrilled to see her, but she didn’t seem overly upset either. Jean-Louis had said that they had always had a very open arrangement when they lived together and had never been entirely faithful to each other. He had told Liz that she was the only woman he had promised monogamy to, and he considered it an enormous concession and a big commitment from him. Until then, monogamy, his own or his partner’s, had never been important to him. He believed in living in the moment, and seizing opportunities when they arose. And he teased Lizzie frequently about how American she was, and what puritans Americans were. But she stuck by her rules. She didn’t want her boyfriend sleeping with anyone else. She had never had any evidence to the contrary, and when she called him at home at night in Paris, when she was in New York, he was always alone. Liz had been intrigued to see him with Damien’s mother when they met. They seemed friendly and nothing more. He had told Liz right from the beginning that he and Françoise were good friends, and she trusted him. He had never lied to her yet.
They went to the Bois de Boulogne, and it was cold, but they ran around a lot and played ball with Damien. He was very cute, and Liz made a big effort to speak to him in French, and all three of them rode the carousel. And afterward they went to Ladurée on the Champs Élysées for hot chocolate and pastries. Damien loved it, and even Lizzie succumbed and had macarons and a cup of tea. They went back to Jean-Louis’s apartment after that, and Liz gave Damien the train she’d brought. He loved it, and once he tired of playing with it, Jean-Louis put on a Disney DVD for him in the bedroom, in French, and the two adults talked quietly in the living room. It had been a perfect day. Lizzie had wanted to meet his son for a long time, but it had never worked out until then. This was the first time she had had leisure time in Paris-she was always so busy when she came, organizing shoots and flying in and out with no time to spare.
“I wish he stayed with me more often,” Jean-Louis said wistfully. “He’s such a great kid, but I’m never here. Or not for long anyway. Françoise travels a lot too. Her mother comes up from Nice to take care of him but she’s been thinking about sending Damien to live with her, now that he’s really starting school. It’s hard for him to bounce around between the two of us, and her mother takes good care of him. Françoise was really too young when he was born. We thought it was a great idea at the time when she got pregnant, but we probably should have waited.” He smiled at Liz then. “But then he would never have been born. I guess destiny makes the right decisions after all.” It seemed odd to her to leave something as important as the decision to have a child to “destiny.” She had never felt ready to have a baby so far, and she couldn’t imagine doing that for many years. She was too involved in her career, and so were Françoise and Jean-Louis, but they didn’t seem to care.