Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [82]
“It is a little excessive,” Lydie said, embarrassed.
“Not so bad,” Dot said. She looked up. “I notice you’re filing individually. Your husband’s not cosigning.”
“Well, that’s true,” Lydie said. Was it her imagination, or did Dot wear an expression of sympathy? The world of Americans in Paris, at least those connected with the government, was a small one, and she supposed it likely that people would have heard about the separation by now. “Kelly is my assistant—I figured I should file alone.”
“Oh,” Dot said, continuing to watch Lydie’s face. “It’s just that an additional signature can carry weight. Two people taking responsibility for the alien instead of one. This is one of my little tricks of the trade.”
“I think it’s better this way,” Lydie said.
“Whatever you say,” Dot said. “By the way, I sneaked in to see Michael’s work at the Louvre. Brilliant! Everyone will say so.”
“Thank you,” Lydie said.
“I tell you what,” Dot said. “Leave this petition with me for an hour or so, and I’ll punch it into shape.”
“Dot!” Lydie said, at once grateful and uncomfortable; she felt sure the only reason Dot would volunteer was because she knew about the separation and felt sorry for Lydie.
“It’s a formula, honey. That’s all it takes to fill this out, and no one knows it better than I do.”
Killing time, Lydie decided to buy a book and have tea at W. H. Smith. But walking down the vaulted colonnade of the rue de Rivoli, she changed her mind, crossed the street, and headed through the Tuileries toward the Louvre.
She hadn’t yet seen Michael’s information center. She knew it was nearly finished, but she hadn’t been able to force herself into the museum to look at it. How could she stand to view it amid tourists instead of alongside its architect? If she didn’t see it today, she knew she never would. Dot had made it possible. Because somehow Michael was responsible for Dot volunteering to do Kelly’s petition. Either out of pity for what he had done to Lydie or awe for the mark he had left on the Louvre: it didn’t matter which it was. All Lydie knew, walking through the forest of chestnut trees, was that she had a burning desire to see her husband’s work.
Coming into the sunlight by the stone pond, she stopped dead. There was Michael, sitting in a metal lawn chair, his feet propped up on the pond’s rim. He was reading the newspaper. And beside him, writing in a notebook, was Anne Dumas.
Michael believed in neither the powers of darkness, nor the powers of suggestion, but it seemed a combination of the two that made him turn around. He had to pivot nearly 180 degrees to see Lydie disappearing into the chestnut woods. He caught just a glimpse of her: red-gold hair, blue linen jacket, big straw bag. But the same powers that had made him turn around told him that she had seen him and Anne.
“Hell,” he said.
“Hmm?” Anne said, continuing to write.
He did not reply. He stared at the spot where Lydie had been, wondering whether she stood just out of sight, behind a tree trunk, watching them now.
“I cannot do my work with you saying ‘hell,’ ” Anne said.
“Why not?” Michael asked.
She rested her forearm on his knee. “Because if something upsets you, you should tell me what it is.”
“Oh,” Michael said. “What are you working on?” He knew it had to be historical; he had learned that Anne was easily distracted from the present by anything in the seventeenth century, the period in which she wished she dwelled and actually, it seemed to Michael, sometimes believed she did.
“My articles for Figaro. You know, their Sunday magazine is so popular, this project is really a headache. Six articles, two lectures. Will all those readers care anything about my work? They are not scholars.”
“Anne, French people love their own history. The entire country was practically raised on it.”
“Exactly my point. What can I tell them that is new without seeming pedantic? So I’ve decided to write about the rivalry between Madame de Sévigné and Ninon de Lenclos.”
“You hardly ever mention Ninon de Lenclos.”
“She discovered Voltaire. Also, she