Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [26]
Kelly finished ironing her uniform. The white collar was starched stiff as cardboard, just as Didier liked it. Unplugging the iron, she remembered the best part of ironing Pan Am’s laundry. At the end of the day, after the iron had cooled, Kelly’s mother had let her blow the coal ashes out of it. She remembered blowing into the tube, watching the silver ash fly out the trap door. She remembered the gritty, twinkly feeling of ash on her cheeks and in her eyelashes. And she remembered how, every time she did it, her mother would smile and call her “Tinkerbell.”
Didier d’Origny gripped the champagne cork with a white linen towel, twisted, and let a wisp of vapor escape the bottle. He filled four glasses, turning the bottle as he poured, to avoid spilling a drop. The room was silent except for the sigh of air as the cork was removed, then the bubbles fizzing in the glasses. The evening was off to a festive start. Lydie glanced over at Michael, tried to see him as the others would: lean, thirty-five, curly brown hair that needed to be cut, a mouth that smiled easily, and eyes that took everything in.
“To health,” Didier said, raising his glass.
“Health,” said Lydie, Michael, and Patrice in unison, smiling, clinking glasses, and drinking.
“So,” Didier said, setting down his glass. “Have you explored the Champagne region of France?”
“We spent one of our first weekends there,” Michael said.
“I loved those underground caves, where they age the wine,” Lydie said, remembering walking down one hundred steps into a dim, damp clay-walled chamber lined with racks of champagne.
“Marvelous caves,” Didier said. His expression was kind, but a little distant. His blond hair receded slightly from his broad forehead, and he had the sort of weathered skin that made Lydie wonder if he was a skier.
“So, you two were childhood sweethearts,” Patrice said, smiling at Michael.
“Actually, I missed my first chance with Lydie,” Michael said. “In high school I cared more about the hoop than girls.”
“ ‘The hoop’?” Didier asked, lighting a cigarette.
“Basketball,” Michael said.
“I don’t know how I missed him,” Lydie said. “He looked so great in shorts.” She could see him now: driving to the basket, his legs long and muscled, running faster than anyone else. She watched how he grinned at Didier in a way he never would at a woman. One athlete to another, Lydie thought.
“Yes, you know it’s a shame,” Didier said. “It was the same for me—soccer, shooting, skiing. I went to a boys’ school. I didn’t know about girls until I was twenty-three.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Patrice said, snorting. “They’ll think you were queer unless you tell them you’ve already been married twice. I’m his third,” she said to Lydie, which Lydie had not known.
“My baby, you may be third, but you are the best,” Didier said. “It’s not right to talk about my first two wives, so let me talk about myself. They were wonderful women. I was the idiot. I didn’t know anything until I met Patrice.”
“Wonderful?” Patrice raised her eyebrows. “Both of them are in love with new men, but they refuse to get married because they don’t want to lose Didier’s alimony.”
“It’s true,” Didier said sadly. “I am supporting four adults. Not to mention my children.”
“Oh, you have children?” Lydie asked.
“A boy and a girl,” Didier said. “One with each wife.”
“Make that six adults you’re supporting,” Patrice said. “I mean, we’re not talking toddlers. Would you call people of college age ‘children’?”
Didier