Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [95]
He had said that before, but Patrice had never quite believed it. Now, at his obvious sincerity, she felt her throat tighten. Here with her husband in their ancient house, in a foreign country, for the first time in her life, Patrice felt secure. She didn’t believe that she was fascinating, but she knew that Didier believed it. She could see it in his eyes, eyes that tended to smile even in repose. She gazed at him, her Frenchman, whose tan and weathered face gave him more the look of a mountaineer than a businessman, and she let him rub her foot.
Lydie and Kelly stood on the rue de Rivoli, scanning the Tuileries. Lydie wore her most businesslike blue suit. Kelly wore a plaid wool skirt and white blouse and a black jacket Patrice had loaned her to go on top.
“Don’t be so nervous, Kelly,” Lydie said. “She’ll be here in a minute.”
Kelly glanced over her shoulder, at the armed soldier who stood at the corner of rue Cambon. “But we must go. We should be in line.”
Lydie laughed, touched her shoulder in an attempt to calm her. “There will be no line. You have an appointment. We’re thirty minutes early.” She checked her watch. She herself was beginning to feel a little anxious; Patrice was ten minutes late. But here she came, waving, breaking into a run.
“Whew,” Patrice said, kissing Lydie’s cheeks.
“Hello, Mum,” Kelly said shyly.
“Hi, Kelly.”
“Shall we run though the routine?” Lydie asked. “Let’s sit on that bench.”
“I think we should go,” Kelly said. “We can’t be late.”
“It’s a two-minute walk,” Patrice said, smiling gently, the way a parent might smile at a nervous child. “Relax, okay? Lydie and I want to rehearse with you.”
Kelly smiled. “I have always rehearsed for this day. When I was thirteen my sister and I played American Embassy.”
“Let’s rehearse,” Patrice repeated.
Kelly pursed her lips, but she relented. Lydie had known she would, but it worried her instead of pleasing her. If Kelly could be assertive with Lydie and Patrice, perhaps she would have a better chance with the consular officer.
“Pretend I’m the interviewer, okay?” Patrice asked. She cleared her throat and made her expression very cross, making Kelly laugh a little.
“Tell me, Miss Merida,” she said. “What do you do for a living?”
“I am the assistant to Mrs. Lydie McBride,” Kelly said proudly, her spine erect.
“And what does Mrs. McBride do?”
“She is a shopper. I mean, she is a stylist.” Kelly reddened at the mistake, glanced apologetically at Lydie.
“That’s all right,” Lydie said.
“What do you do for Mrs. McBride?” Patrice asked.
“I … shop.” Kelly slumped a little, and her voice was softer, less confident since her mistake.
“Kelly,” Lydie said carefully, not wanting to spook her. “Tell the lady what we discussed. Tell her I have very specific tastes, that I get assignments from important magazines, that major companies hire me to do their catalogues and advertisements. Tell her that you are an integral part of my business.”
“Integral,” Kelly said almost sternly, trying to commit the word to memory. “Integral, integral.”
“Tell her that I trained you, that it would take months for me to train someone new.”
Kelly nodded fast, staccato, like a short-circuited robot.
“You’ll be fine,” Patrice said. “Maybe we should knock off the rehearsal, do some deep breathing.” Looking over Kelly’s head at Lydie, she raised one eyebrow.
Lydie could see Patrice feared that Kelly would bomb in the interview. Perhaps Lydie did too, but she tried to have faith. The three of them walked up the rue Cambon. At the gate to the American Embassy, Patrice spoke to the guard. She proffered the three passports. This was the first time an official had examined Kelly’s since her arrival in Germany. Lydie examined her fingernails, then gazed up at a flock of pigeons—deliberately nonchalant. The guard stared from Patrice’s face to Kelly’s to Lydie’s, then let them pass.
“Go through that door, take a left, take a quick right,” he said to Patrice. He cast a cold glance