Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [6]
Lydie smiled and laid down her wooden spoon. Taking her hand, Michael led her into the living room. He still felt a jolt when he came upon their furniture, which for seven years had sat in the same New York apartment, here, across the Atlantic, in Paris. There were the low mahogany table, the seascape by Lydie’s mother, the sofa covered in a pattern Lydie called “flame-stitch,” the ugly lounge chair his father had given him for his thirty-fifth birthday. Lydie, as a stylist specializing in interior design, had great taste, and it had pained Michael to inflict that eyesore on her. But she had said it wouldn’t do to hurt the old man’s feelings.
“Her name is Patrice d’Origny,” Lydie was saying. “She’s married to a Frenchman and lives here permanently.”
“Why don’t you ask them for dinner?” Michael asked.
“Maybe,” Lydie said. Although her voice still sounded subdued, her eyes looked happier than Michael had seen them in quite a while. After eight years of marriage, the sight of her smiling eyes, hazel framed with thick blond lashes, made the back of Michael’s neck tingle. The feeling of excitement saddened him, because it was the only important thing between them that still felt true. He wanted to kiss Lydie, but she seemed to be concentrating on something.
“Why say ‘maybe’?” he asked. “Why not just invite them?”
Lydie cocked her head slightly, as if she was trying to figure out her own hesitation. But the moment passed quickly. “Why not?” she said.
From her indolent tone, Michael doubted that a dinner with the d’Orignys would come to pass. He cursed himself for the disappointment he felt toward Lydie. But he’d been through it all with her: the sorrow, the mourning, the struggle to understand, and there didn’t seem an end to it. Maybe he wouldn’t feel so deprived if the contrast were not so great. Old Lydie versus new Lydie; he loved the old Lydie better.
He could see her now, one October day at Lime Rock, the old Lydie speeding them around the track. She wore her racing overalls and sunglasses; she gripped the wheel with wicked intensity. “You scared?” she asked, possibly wanting him to be. But he wasn’t. He was fascinated. He loved riding with her while she cranked the Volvo wagon up to 135 MPH. Seven miles down Route 112 Michael had pulled off the road and there, behind a red barn, Lydie dropped her overalls, laughing because she wore nothing under them, wanting Michael to be amused. Amusement was not what he remembered feeling. He remembered pulling her close, kissing her, feeling her shiver in the autumn air, making love to her on the cold ground.
And the words “cold ground” made Michael think of Neil Fallon. He and Neil had gotten along well, more like friends than father- and son-in-law. But Michael laid the blame for Lydie’s transformation directly at Neil’s feet. The man had lived his whole life as a good husband and father, an average businessman who had cared more about coming home for dinner every night than making a million dollars. He had devilish charm; on a bet he had truly, before witnesses, sold drunken Dennis Lavery his own car. With his elegant profile and wild black hair, Neil was so handsome that even Michael noticed. He was a Lion and a Knight of Columbus, a regular churchgoer who could be seen passing the basket at nine o’clock mass at St. Anthony’s. By the time he started spending time with Margaret Downes, he had established himself as such a pillar that Julia and Lydie never questioned his absence or preoccupation. So how could Michael blame Lydie for falling apart when Neil, with his sharp-tongued, gentle-eyed Irish devil act, had turned out to be the Devil himself?
Michael knew that he was the only person Neil had told about Margaret Downes. Two nights before the shooting, Michael dropped his own car off at Neil’s shop and hung around waiting for Neil to give him a ride home. Dented or mangled cars filled the six bays. Welding torches roared. An irate customer leaned across the office desk, haggling over the cost of replacing his Ford LTD quarter panel.
“I can’t