Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [84]
“Lydie …” Michael said.
“You just can’t stop yourself—the sins feel so good, right?” Lydie asked.
Well, she’s right about that, Michael thought, feeling disgusted with himself and with Lydie for pointing it out. “I love you,” Michael said. “I’m sorry about everything.”
“I thought you loved her. Anne Dumas,” Lydie said. For the first time, her tone seemed less aggressive, a little quizzical.
“No. I don’t love her,” Michael said. He felt dizzy. He wished they could sit down.
“I knew you were seeing someone, but Anne Dumas?” Lydie said, her voice trembling. “Watching you with her. In the sunshine, you both looking so tan, so comfortable with each other. You haven’t even known her that long …”
What difference does that make? Michael wanted to ask, although he already knew the answer. Lydie set great stock in longevity. She believed the person you loved longest you loved most. Birthdays and anniversaries overjoyed her; they represented the accumulation of affections. But right in the midst of her sentence he reached for her, drew her against his chest. In such a little time Anne had become his measure, and Lydie felt tall, unfamiliar.
“I forgot what I was going to say,” she said.
“That’s good,” he said.
“Everyone knows about you and Anne Dumas, I suppose?” Lydie said, stepping away. “Arthur Chase? Dot Graulty?”
“Who’s Dot Graulty?” Michael asked.
“That woman from the embassy. The one who can accomplish anything.”
Michael remembered. He had seen her recently, at a press reception at the Louvre. She had carried on about his project—how wonderful it was, how proud Americans could be of him, her eyes constantly clicking between him and Anne. Later Anne had called her la maternelle—the mother figure. “She doesn’t know anything about it,” Michael lied. “Why do you care about her?”
“She’s been wonderful to me. Today she helped me file that petition for Kelly,” Lydie said.
Michael had to admit that Lydie really knew how to stick with something. Better, perhaps, than he did: look what he had done to his marriage. For weeks, since leaving Lydie, guilt had been booby-trapping him left and right. What had once made sense, his desire for happiness, now mocked him. Especially now, in the presence of Lydie, whom, he realized, he wanted more than anything else. He grabbed her wrists, held them hard. Their eyes locked and they stared at each other for a few seconds until Lydie closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and let him kiss her.
But when the kiss ended, Lydie stepped back. “Just go,” she said.
“I think I’ve blown it,” Michael said to Didier. They sat on a bench in the Tuileries just paces from where Lydie had stood when she’d spied him and Anne.
“You’ve made a mess of things with Lydie,” Didier said.
“How do you know?” Michael asked, irate because he hadn’t even started to talk yet.
“Because I could see this coming a mile away. You weren’t in love with that girl at the Louvre, you only thought you were. But of course it has complicated everything with your wife. Has Lydie found out?”
“She saw me with Anne. She was coming through these trees”—Michael waved his arm—“and saw me sitting with Anne over there.” He pointed. Doing so, he realized he had chosen this spot to meet Didier as a way to punish himself. He could relive the pain of that day and imagine how horrible Lydie must have felt.
“It is so much worse when they see with their own eyes. My first wife caught me in bed with my mistress. Yes—it is true. Can you believe what a jerk I was? I wanted her to catch us, of course. I left a trail an idiot could follow. She never forgave me. We were divorced less than eighteen months later.”
“Thanks for the moral support, Didier,” Michael said, feeling worse than ever. At least Lydie hadn’t seen him in bed with Anne. He ran that day in the park through his mind: had he been touching Anne when Lydie saw them? Holding her hand? Or had she been stroking his forearm or knee, as she often did when they read together? He didn’t think so, but he wasn’t sure.
“The point, Michael, is this: I didn’t love my