Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [70]
“I’m going to help Kelly get to America.”
“What do you mean? How?”
“I’m filing a petition for her.”
Patrice felt rage growing inside her. It wasn’t so much that Lydie had taken up Kelly’s cause without a word to her: Patrice resented Lydie’s defiant tone, as if she were daring Patrice to get upset. Considering the loving thoughts she’d just had for Lydie, it seemed a rank betrayal. “A petition,” she said.
“Now, don’t get mad,” Lydie said.
“I don’t know why you think I’ll be mad about this,” Patrice said coolly. “I have the strangest feeling that you want me to be.”
Lydie shook her head. “Maybe I’m not thinking straight. I was afraid you’d think I was interfering.”
“You plan to take Kelly home with you when you leave? After the ball?”
“If her petition goes through.”
Patrice’s first thought was that she’d have two people to write letters to. She realized instantly that she was thinking just like her mother, twisting a situation around and planting herself in the middle of it. She tried to imagine how happy Kelly must be. “How far have you gotten?” she asked.
“I’ve spoken to someone at the embassy. That’s all. I know I should have talked to you first …”
“Don’t be silly,” Patrice said. Although she believed it too, she knew how petty it sounded. To say that Lydie should have consulted her before starting the process seemed so selfish. Lydie was acting selfless—noble, even. Patrice could actually see the words “HUMAN RIGHTS,” weighty as a headline, printed in the air above Lydie’s halo of golden hair. “Is this a throwback to your days as a social activist? Isn’t that what Michael told us you used to be?”
“I just feel sorry for Kelly,” Lydie said.
“So do I,” Patrice said, finally feeling calmer. Now that she had composed herself, she laughed. “There must be feasting and merriment chez Merida. One of their pilgrims actually found the road to Mecca. Thanks to you.”
“You don’t want her to go, do you?” Lydie asked.
“Of course I do.”
“But you’ll miss her.”
“Look, I miss a lot of people,” Patrice said, thinking of Lydie herself, who would be gone from Paris in just a couple of months. “It’s the way of the world.”
“You’ve always mentioned her college education and said how wrong it is for her to be doing housework. But I know that you rely on her, that you’re fond of her … ”
“Look, I just spent a month without Kelly Merida making my bed, so I think I can manage. I think it’s great. I really do,” Patrice said. She leaned toward Lydie to kiss her cheek, to prove she meant it.
But when Patrice returned home, when she was safe in her bedroom overlooking the Place des Vosges, she saw red.
“It’s treachery,” she said out loud. Kelly, with her simpering manner, her “Oh, thank you, Mum” for any little favor, her false naïveté, while all the time plotting, the wheels clicking, getting what she could out of people. And Lydie! Who would have thought she could be capable of such subterfuge? Acting so big about the whole thing, as if she was saving Kelly from a fate worse than death. And all that business about Kelly’s education: Patrice was willing to bet Kelly’s first years in New York would be spent cleaning Lydie’s house or taking care of Lydie’s sainted mother in her declining years. She swept around the bedroom, fast and faster. She didn’t know what to do with herself.
The bags, still unpacked, stood by the bedroom door. When she had called Kelly last night, to tell her she was home a few days early, Kelly had given her some song and dance about not being able to work until late in the day. She had expected to hear some sort of welcome in Kelly’s voice, but there had been nothing. In retrospect, Patrice supposed Kelly, like Lydie, had been dreading Patrice’s return. The thought brought tears to her eyes.
Patrice did what she never did: called Didier at his office. She had to make polite small talk about Saint-Tropez with his secretary, Solange. But she kept her cool—she remembered to inquire