He turned to Serafina. “You’ll find my daughter, of that I have no doubt. I’ll be in town for some time, untangling the financial mess I found in the Paris stores. The business belongs to me and to Sophie in equal parts, but she’ll agree to do whatever I tell her. It’s time she collected an allowance.”
He stopped, seemed to notice his tea for the first time and took a sip, wincing. “If her sons can’t handle the stores, I’ll find others who can. And I want to speak with your daughter, Carmela. I arrived yesterday and had a long chat with an old friend, Madame Joyeuse.”
Carmela sat next to Serafina. Her eyes were moist, her cheeks red. The others were waiting in the lobby. They planned to celebrate.
“Levi Busacca wants me to start working with Madame Joyeuse,” Carmela said, suppressing a smile. She grew more animated. “She told him I was a natural designer.”
“Who’s Madame Joyeuse?”
“The chief designer for Busacca Millinery. I told you about her last week. She’s the one who trained all the other designers. I think Busacca hired her long ago and he has a regard for her design.”
“And she has a high notion of your design based on what?” Why couldn’t Serafina be more pleased for her daughter?
Carmela cupped a hand to her chest. “The pillbox I made for myself, the suggestions I made while she was designing a hat for Tessa. And I told Busacca to his face what I thought of his millinery-at least the stores in Paris, I don’t know about the store in Palermo.”
“I remember your telling me that the world of fashion is changing, but his stores are being left behind.”
She nodded. “That’s what I told him, I didn’t care what he thought of me. I had to be honest. He wants me to work with Madame Joyeuse while I’m here. I’m to talk to her, and together we’ll agree on a salary. But I don’t think he’s returning to Palermo right away.”
Serafina smiled. Finally, Carmela had come into her own. But her smile soon faded. She needed Carmela.
“And as soon as the case is over, I’m to cable him the date of my return to Oltramari. He wants to train me himself. He wants to show me the whole operation, how to buy, where to buy, how to hire designers. I’m to oversee all the stores.” She stopped, looking into Serafina’s eyes, pleading. “I told him I couldn’t promise that I’d like that kind of position, but I’d love to design for him.”
“He told me I must be an innovator. I must lead the other designers. Far more exciting that mere design.”
“But we have so much still to do,” Serafina said, hearing a whine in her voice not unlike Sophie’s high-pitched accusations in Versailles. “We must find Elena and discover who killed the woman on the Rue Cassette, and I need you by my side. How can you help me and learn millinery at the same time?”
Serafina wished she could take back the words. She was spoiling her daughter’s news. And it was the first time she’d seen Carmela happy, really happy, the first time she thought her daughter had a future.
“Forgive me,” Serafina said. “I was thinking of myself. You must see Madame Joyeuse this afternoon. Now.” She wrapped her arms around Carmela. She tried to tell her how happy she was for her, but the words wouldn’t come out.
Carmela hung her head and walked away.
After she left, Serafina went to the window and looked out at the bustle of Paris, the stamina, the style, the gaiety. She wished it would seep into her soul. She wished she could be a more loving mother.
There was a knock on the door. Rosa.
“We’re waiting for you in the lobby and you sit here. We haven’t eaten and. Do something with your hair, will you? Where’s that Gesuzza?”
The day was gray, but not Serafina’s heart, not when she saw her family waiting for her. She took Loffredo’s arm and they walked out of the hotel.
“Where are we going?”
“To eat, where else?” Rosa said.
“Too late for a noon meal, too early for dinner,” Teo said.
Arcangelo pulled his sleeves. “I know a small cafe.”
“How would you know a cafe?” Rosa asked.
“I remember passing it. They’re open day and night.”
“The man who opened the restaurant was from Palermo,” Teo said.
“So he’s the one who taught the French how to cook,” Rosa said. “I knew it.”
They hailed a cab. “Rue l’Ancienne Comedie,” Arcangelo said.
Chapter 32: Cafe Procope
“We want the best table in the house,” Rosa said. “Someplace where we can talk without being disturbed.” She slipped the waiter some francs, and he smiled.
“This way, please. He led them up a narrow flight of stairs.
As they passed a tricorne displayed on a shelf, Loffredo pointed to it and said, “Napoleon dined here. That’s his hat.”
Arcangelo reached out to it.
“Not for touching,” the waiter said.
When they were seated, Serafina told them she had a bit of news and summarized a note Busacca sent to her stating that he’d been in contact with his lawyer. There was to be a reading of Elena’s will on May 16, one month after her death, but the lawyer told Busacca the terms.
“Elena changed her will, making his sister sole beneficiary.”
Rosa arched one brow and looked at Serafina. Serafina stared at Loffredo.
“I’m not surprised. I knew she was going to change it,” he said. “She cut off my allowance some time ago.” He didn’t show distress, seemed like he’d been expecting it. Serafina wondered how he’d manage to live in his villa close to Oltramari’s piazza without Elena’s money, on the meager stipend the state paid its medical examiners, but he didn’t seem worried.
In his note, Busacca also mentioned that Sophie had already applied to l’Assicurazioni Generali of Trieste requesting payment according to the terms of a life insurance policy that Elena had taken out some time ago.
Serafina told them she’d taken Busacca’s note to Valois.
Rosa straightened. “Arrest an old woman for fraud? I’d like to see Valois do that. In Sicily it wouldn’t happen.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Loffredo said. “If what Busacca says is true, l’Assicurazioni’s lawyers will swoop down and carry her to the gallows in their talons. And don’t think they won’t find her in Paris.”
“Valois asked if we’d found Elena.”
“And you told him?”
“Not yet.”
“So if we’re finished with lawyers and free spirits, let’s eat,” the madam said, wrapping a knife on her glass.
“This restaurant is almost two hundred years old,” Loffredo said. “Poets and kings have dined here.”
They studied the menu.
“I’m not that hungry,” Serafina said.
“You always say that. Where’s Carmela by the way?”
Serafina told her about Carmela’s plans to work for Busacca.
“Good for her,” Rosa said. “She has a love of color, a flair, a way of summing up. It all comes together, and Busacca needs help or the business his ancestors founded six hundred years ago will disappear. He could use a good accountant, too. Did you tell him about Vicenzu?”
“We need him to run the apothecary.” Leave it to the madam to understand Busacca. “You seem to know him well. Was he a customer?” Serafina asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He loves his wife. They don’t deserve what their daughter has become.”
“He blames himself.”
“He would. But his daughter is her own person,” Rosa said. “I’m lucky. I have the perfect daughter.”
Tessa blushed.
Loffredo looked happier now that the truth was out about Elena. He sat next to Serafina and studied her face, her hair.
“We’re here to dine, Loffredo, not to make love,” Rosa said.
Tessa’s blush deepened. Arcangelo looked at Teo, his eyes wide.
“We’re also here to plan,” Serafina said. “Last week Victorine gave Carmela the address of her studio. I have it here. We might pay a visit. It’s not far from here, one of the narrow streets near the Seine in the sixth arrondissement, I believe. She’s one of Elena’s friends, but alas, unreliable. Carmela’s gone to her studio several times and she hasn’t been in when she said she would be. But I think we should keep trying.”