Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [49]
Kelly said nothing, but smiled.
“Did you buy salmon for dinner?” Patrice asked.
“Yes, Mum. It will be such a pretty meal, with pink salmon and bright green peas. I hope your mother will like it.”
“I’m not sure whether I care about that.” Patrice felt her eyes fill with tears.
“What is it?” Kelly asked, sounding alarmed. “What is wrong, Mum?”
Kelly’s voice was so kind, so concerned, that Patrice began to cry. She covered her eyes with her hands and sobbed, and she felt Kelly touch her shoulder.
“Everything will be all right,” Kelly said. “You haven’t seen your mother in such a long time. When I finally see my mother I know we will have to get used to each other again.”
“She is so difficult,” Patrice said. “No one can please her.”
“She is very far from her home.”
“You’ve been so nice to her,” Patrice said, sniffling. “I really appreciate it.”
“It is my pleasure. She is so nice to me! Yesterday she told me all the places your relatives live in the United States. Boston, Cleveland, Palm Beach, and Farmington.”
Listening to Kelly gush, Patrice felt sorry for her. Eliza had made a fool of her, telling her a few pitiful facts about the United States while holding her in contempt. It reminded Patrice of the loyalty she had felt for Lydie at lunch, listening to Lydie talk on about her job, about Michael’s, as though Eliza actually took her seriously. Knowing that Eliza would dismiss Lydie from memory ten minutes after leaving the restaurant, Patrice had felt protective of her friend.
Eliza valued people from families of good social standing, preferably from Boston’s North Shore, certainly not maids or second-generation Irish from New York. The two ironies, of which Patrice was dimly aware, were that Eliza herself came from a nonexalted background, from a family who had owned a small textile mill in Fall River, and that Patrice, in spite of her democratic taste in women friends, had inherited her mother’s respect for old-line names and anything prestigious. Still, in spite of that, Patrice knew she was quite different from her mother. She could appreciate any fine, decent person regardless of background. Wasn’t she standing in her kitchen, spilling her guts to Kelly?
“Do you feel better now, Mum?” Kelly asked.
“A little.”
“Hello, hello,” Eliza said, shaking the box of aspirin. “I’ve come for a glass of water.”
In one swift motion, Kelly reached for a glass, filled it with Evian water from the refrigerator, and handed it to Eliza. “You’re so efficient, dear,” Eliza said.
“Are your travel plans set?” Patrice asked. She felt peculiar. She felt like crying, shouting, belting, and hugging her mother all at once.
“Now, don’t be hurt, Patsy, but I think it is best that I leave a little early. We’ve had this lovely week in Paris. I’ve had such a good time. You know I don’t care too much for the Riviera, and this way I can get back to Boston and you and Didier can have a nice vacation alone together.”
“The trouble is, we’ll always remember this. That you came for a month and left after a week because we couldn’t stand each other.” Patrice remembered what Lydie had said the other day: “Be nice to your mother, it’s only a month out of your life.”
“That’s not true,” Eliza said. “I not only can stand you, I love you. I simply want to give you and Didier a nice time alone together. Don’t forget, your father was a businessman; I know how hard those men work, how they need their time off. And he is just so in love with you!”
And Patrice knew that Eliza had deemed that tale to become the reality. Eliza was expert at reinvention; it would go down in history that Eliza had left France early not because mother and daughter hated each other but because Eliza did not want to intrude on Patrice and Didier’s vacation. On their little love nest in Saint-Tropez. Patrice tried to feel relieved. Wasn’t this exactly what she wanted? Instead, she felt sick.
Eliza dropped two aspirin tablets in the water, and the three women stood silent, listening to them dissolve. “Why they don’t market this