Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [5]
“What a woman,” Michael said, bending down to kiss her.
“She’s one in a million,” Julia said. “After she won her first race at Watkin’s Glen, her father said she could do anything. Do you remember that nice dinner we all had afterward?”
“Sure,” Lydie said, quivering with the memory. They had drunk champagne, and after dinner her father had bought her a cigar. She could picture her parents perfectly: their proud smiles, her mother’s girlish smile, the absent way her father reached over to touch Julia’s shoulder. It killed Lydie to think Margaret Downes had already brought her car in for its second paint job in six months, that Neil had already fallen in love with her. The happy expression on her father’s face that night, so full of love, had been for Margaret.
Lydie crouched, assembling another carton. Michael sat beside her, pulling the tape out of her hands and holding them tight; he knew what the memory meant to her. Julia said nothing, looking on. She had started to cry but stopped herself. Lydie eased her hands from Michael’s grasp, ripped off a piece of tape, closed a seam. Every crack she taped, every box she built, brought her closer to leaving. And, somehow, the idea of leaving the scene of her father’s death and crime filled her with doom. She felt wild with an abundance of unfinished business.
“A year in Paris,” Julia had said. “I can’t imagine any couple who could enjoy it more than you.”
But it wasn’t working out that way, Lydie thought now, entering the Bibliothèque’s vast courtyard. With their great luck, she had thought they would be the most frivolous pair in Paris. But Michael’s exhilaration had turned to patience; he was waiting for Lydie to get back the spirit he had fallen in love with. So far it hadn’t happened. Since coming to Paris, Lydie felt a gulf widening between herself and Michael, and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
Just before a race, Lydie always experienced a vision. In a flash she saw the crash, the rollover, herself paralyzed in a hospital. And the vision always refined her concentration, made her take great care and drive more safely. Now, walking numb through the streets of Paris, she felt as if the crash had happened, and she hadn’t even seen it coming.
“Why didn’t anyone tell us it stays light in Paris till midnight?” Michael McBride asked. He was watching Lydie cook dinner. They stood in the kitchen of their Belle Epoque apartment overlooking the Pont de l’Alma. A roasting chicken sizzled in the oven.
“It’s nowhere near midnight,” Lydie said, smiling. “It’s ten-fifteen, and the sun’s going down.”
“Lydie!” Michael said, feeling impatient but vowing to stay calm. “I think you’re missing my point. All I’m saying is that the sun would have set two hours ago in New York. It’s something different, and I think it’s neat.”
“Paris is farther north than New York,” Lydie said. “New York is actually on the same parallel as Rome.”
Michael let it drop. If he opened his mouth again, he knew Lydie would come back with another rebuttal. They kept just missing each other these days. Sometimes they had full-scale fights. Like yesterday, when Michael had asked Lydie to meet him at Chez Francis for dinner and Lydie complaining bitterly about how she missed Chinese takeout. Then Michael had accused her of deliberately trying not to enjoy their year in Paris and Lydie going on and on about eggrolls.
Still, watching her now, he felt a shock of love for Lydie. She moved around the kitchen with an unconscious grace, a small frown on her face when she concentrated on cooking the meal. He’d seen that same expression on her face when she raced cars. She looked delicate, with her pale skin and fine reddish-gold hair, but Michael had always thought of her as a tiger: strong, always moving, ready for anything.
“I met someone in a café today,” Lydie said. “An American.”
“Oh?” Michael said.
“We talked for a while, and it made me realize how much I’ve missed that. Someone to talk to.”
“What do you call what goes on between us?” Michael