French Lessons (22 page)

“Did you love him or did you love danger?” Jeremy asks.

Chantal looks puzzled.

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy says quickly. “It’s none of my business.”

“It’s a good question,” Chantal says. “I can answer it.” She pauses and sips her wine. “I loved him.”

“And you still love him?”

“I don’t know,” Chantal says.

“Does he make you a more daring person?” Jeremy asks.

“For one night,” Chantal says with a sly smile. “And for that I loved him.”

Jeremy doesn’t understand. He wants to ask questions but he feels that he has intruded enough.

And then, like a sudden storm, he feels irrationally angry: What does breaking into a château and making love in someone else’s bed have to do with love?

For a moment he confuses Chantal with his daughter. He wants to give her advice, tell her that she’s wrong, that Philippe is the wrong man, that love has nothing to do with danger. And then a loudspeaker breaks their uneasy silence and he hears a static-filled roar of words—something about Notre Dame and the Île Saint-Louis. It is the
bateau-mouche
again. And again, tourists are waving madly. Why? What would it matter if he waved back? He turns away from them and reaches for more cheese.

She places her hand on his. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It was an inappropriate story.”

“I remember what you said at the café earlier,” Jeremy says. “That sometimes we have to run away from ourselves to find ourselves. Maybe Philippe helped you do that.”

Chantal smiles. “I like that. And so I have learned once again that I am truly a good girl at heart. And I should find myself a better man.”

He looks at her hand and she takes it away.

Jeremy is not accustomed to so much talk. If he were younger, he would take her hand and lead her downstairs to her bedroom. No, it has nothing to do with age. He would do it now. This is the moment he has waited for since he arrived at the métro this morning.

He thinks about sex with Dana. In bed with her, he finds his truest self. Their lovemaking is deep and rich—they rarely speak in bed, and yet he feels he knows her best when they’ve made love. She gives herself to him, he gives himself to her. In ten years, their passion has not quieted.

“Let’s walk,” he says to Chantal.

She stands too quickly and knocks the table. Her glass of wine topples and Jeremy catches it before it falls to the deck. But wine spills on Chantal’s sandaled feet.

“Oh, how clumsy!” she says, and her face turns the same shade of pink as her blouse. She flees—Jeremy can hear her feet clattering down the stairs of the boat and into the space below.

Jeremy cleans up. Most of the wine landed on her feet, and he mops what landed on the deck with a napkin dipped in water.

He gathers the bowls and plates and basket and puts them back on the tray. Much of the food is gone—and so is the wine. He’s surprised to see the empty bottle.

He’d clear the dishes, but he knows that the kitchen is below—along with Chantal and her bedroom. No, he’ll leave it all here.

His cell phone rings. He pulls it out of his back pocket. It is Dana.

For a moment he feels caught—but then he shakes his head.
I’ve done nothing wrong. A lunch, some wine
.

“Allô?”
He says it with a French accent—she’ll be amused, he thinks.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, and then in French: “I have the wrong number.”

She hangs up before he can stop her.

He calls her back.

“It was me,” he says in English. “I was pretending to be your dashing French lover.” And then Chantal is standing there, in front of him. He looks down. She is wearing white sneakers—Keds—and again he thinks of his daughter.

Dana laughs, her movie laugh—rich and deep. Chantal takes the tray and walks away.

“I’d like to meet her,” Dana says.

“Who?”

“The French tutor.”

“Why?”

“Lindy says she is very pretty.”

“You saw Lindy?”

“Not yet. She called. Bring your tutor to meet me.”

“The lesson is almost over,” Jeremy says, though it’s not. He glances at his watch. Two
P.M
. “There’s no reason to meet her.” He lowers his voice to a whisper.

“We’re shooting early. Pascale called a couple of hours ago. Something about the rain. She’s setting up now. I want you both to come.”

“Where?”

“The Pont des Arts. Your little friend will enjoy it.”

“Dana.”

“Lindy says you’re smitten.”

“She didn’t say that. That’s not even a word she would know.”

“Maybe we’re all taking language lessons these days.”

“Dana.”

“I’ve got to go, sweetheart. Come by soon. We start in half an hour.”

“Where’s Lindy—”

“She’ll be there.”

“Did she tell you about the monastery?”

“Monastery? I have to throw clothes on and dash over there. I’ll see you soon.”

She hangs up.

Chantal is gone. So is the food, the wine, the momentary illusion of a different Jeremy.

No
, he thinks. He will not bring her to meet Dana. Lindy was behaving like a petulant child. That’s all.

He remembers Chantal’s hand on his.

He thinks of his house in the Santa Monica Canyon, his dog, his shop, and he wishes he were home.

He walks to the front of the boat. He sees the stairs—a steep ladder really—that lead below. He can’t hear anything—no dishes being washed, no water running.

“Chantal?” he calls.

“J’arrive,”
she says. I’m coming.

She appears at the bottom of the ladder and looks up at him. Has she been crying? Did he say something on the phone that would have upset her?
There’s no reason to meet her
.

He steps back and lets her pass by. She keeps on walking and he follows her to the edge of the boat and then onto the quai. This time she does not offer her hand as he leaps from the boat to the land.

“My wife invited us—” he begins and she turns to him. She has put on lipstick. Her lips are moist. I can go back, he thinks. I can take her hand.

“Yes?”

“—to watch them film. She thought you might be interested.”

“How nice of her.”

“We don’t have to.”

“Of course,” Chantal says.

“It’s very slow. It’s nothing as glamorous as Hollywood would like us to believe.”

“I’d like that very much.”

Lindy meets them at the entrance to the Pont des Arts. A huge crowd has gathered behind barricades on both sides of the river. Lindy hands them badges on twine that they hang around their necks.

“Mon papa!”
she tells the young guard, who has not taken his eyes off the girl. Jeremy looks at his daughter through this man’s eyes. She is luminous, despite the shaved head—the word “ripe” comes to mind, and Jeremy hates himself for the thought of it. She’s wearing a tight tank top over breasts that seem to have grown since last fall. She’s gained a little weight, which becomes her—her face is fuller, her body less waiflike. Jeremy looks back at the guard and wants to deck him.

Lindy leads them through the opening in the barricade and past the guard. She takes Jeremy’s hand as if she were a child. His heart swells. She is still his child, he thinks.

He feels the tug back to his life, this daughter he never imagined he’d have, ten years of girldom, a complicated path through the teenage wilderness and now this, a quest to a monastery and back. All his. He squeezes her hand.

Ahead, in the middle of the bridge, is a whirlwind of noise and commotion and equipment and lights—in the center of it all a petite, wild-haired redhead, Pascale, shouts commands. Jeremy likes Pascale. She’s a director Dana has worked with before, and she seems to keep her sanity in this crazy business. Pascale catches his eye and blows a kiss. She points toward a tent at the other end of the bridge. And then she goes back to yelling at a couple of ponytailed guys carrying a bed. A bed on the bridge?

“Did you meet your friends?” Jeremy asks Lindy as they walk toward the tent.

“No friends,” she says. “I was leaving you to your French lesson.” She glances back at Chantal, who follows a step or two behind. “Why is she here?”

“Your mother invited her,” Jeremy says quietly, hoping Chantal cannot hear.

Jeremy looks back at Chantal. She is distracted by the set and the crowd—her eyes are wide, her face aglow. She moves up closer to them.

“Maman!”
Lindy calls.

Dana is standing at the entrance to the tent, watching them. Jeremy, caught between Chantal and Lindy, in the middle of the thick crowd, feels Chantal’s arm against his. He can’t move away. Dana smiles as if she knows what he’s thinking.

She’s a mess, his beautiful wife. She wears no makeup—or is she wearing makeup to distort her perfect features? Her tan skin is pale, her hair flat and dull, her clothes baggy and worn. Is this a costume?

For an impossible moment, Jeremy thinks she’s someone else—his wife’s ugly assistant—and in a moment the star will emerge from her tent.

But Dana steps toward him and kisses his lips. Then she extends a hand toward Chantal.

“Enchantée,”
she says, her voice that buttery movie voice that everyone loves. At night, Jeremy hears a different voice: her bed voice, he calls it. He thinks of it as a voice she saves for him, unlike the voice she shares with the world.

“So pleased to meet you,” Chantal says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Lies, Jeremy thinks. He has invented a gorgeous wife, a glamorous wife, a larger-than-life wife. He has invented himself today as well. A boy who dives into a summer lake with a naked girl. A man who seduces a woman on a houseboat on the Seine.

What if everything you’ve always been sure of—your wife’s beauty, your own fidelity—gets shaken?

“You look awful!” Lindy says.

Dana rubs her hand over Lindy’s head and then pulls her daughter to her and embraces her. It is a powerful hug; the girl is engulfed in her mother’s arms.

“What’s this?” Dana asks, pulling back and peering at Lindy’s scalp.

“It will grow back,” Lindy says.

“You look gorgeous,” Dana tells her.

“Really?” Lindy says, truly surprised.

“Really.”

Lindy throws her arms around her mother. Over Lindy’s shoulder Dana rolls her eyes, her smile broad and happy.

“Is this your costume?” Lindy asks. “What are you?”

Dana laughs. “I’m a wreck, apparently. I’ve just lost my husband to a younger woman.” She glances at Chantal. “And I’ve been caught in a rainstorm. We’re hoping it rains again. Though I can’t imagine looking any worse than this.”

Her role, Jeremy thinks, and he feels his shoulders relax, his chest expand. Of course. It
is
makeup—he can see now that new lines have been etched into his wife’s flawless skin.

He can’t remember the story of this film, though he’s sure that she’s told him. Have I not been paying attention? he thinks. But that’s who he is—a man who listens. When did she tell me the story? Last night at dinner? Months ago when she got the script? Why have I forgotten?

“Why is there a bed on the bridge?” he asks in French.

“See,” Dana says. “I knew you spoke French beautifully. Never with me, though.” She turns to Chantal. “I talk too much. See what happens if I stop talking?”

“I’ve been making mistakes all day,” Jeremy says. It is another mistake. Suddenly everything has two meanings. Jeremy feels off balance.

“Le lit?”
he repeats.

“Ah, the bed,” Dana says.

“Attention! Atten-ci-on!”
Pascale shouts over the loudspeaker. The movie is a French and American collaboration. The cast is half French, half American. Even the dialogue is a jumble of both languages. Jeremy remembers that much.

“I must go,” Dana says, while Pascale shouts something over the loudspeaker. “I’m on right away. I hope we can talk later.” She says this last to Chantal, who seems inordinately pleased to receive the attentions of this actress, even if she is homely, poorly dressed, and the wife of the man who has spent the day pining for her.

I mean nothing to her
, Jeremy thinks, and then he catches himself. Of course not. I’m this week’s student. On Monday she’ll meet another student.

Dana hurries off.

“Come on,” Lindy says, breathlessly. “I want to be in front.”

She sounds like a little girl at her first shoot. She should know better—that it will take longer than they anticipate to set up the scene, that something will go wrong right away and they’ll have to find a new lens or bring in the jib or reset the lighting. And if it does rain, they’ll need tarps above the cameramen and director, even while the actors get soaked.

Lindy dashes ahead through the crowd.

“Are you sure—” Jeremy says. He wants Chantal to say,
Let’s leave. Let’s go someplace quiet
.

“Oh, I can’t wait to see them film!” she says. Of course, she is starstruck. Everyone is. Except for him. Can he love his wife and hate the star?

Jeremy takes Chantal’s elbow and they maneuver through the crowd. Pascale has cleared a large space in the middle of the bridge. The bed sits there, with a single rose-colored sheet covering it. No blanket, no pillows. The sheet is rumpled as if already used.

The sky darkens and thunder rumbles—the crowd lets out a collective
Ooooh!
They are waiting for drama and the approaching storm feeds their expectation. Nothing is happening yet on the set, but onlookers have quieted. Jeremy sees that gawkers on both sides of the Seine, lined up three or four deep, are obediently following the demands of the signs that have been lifted by young crew members.
Silence!

Jeremy finds Lindy at the front edge of the set and he helps Chantal squeeze in beside her. He then fits himself in the space between them. He knows only a few of the film people who hover near Pascale—he recognizes them from the last film Dana made with her, four years before. One of them was at dinner last night—a young Frenchman who worked with Pascale on the script. “He’s brilliant,” Dana told Jeremy while the young man told a long story about the immigrant revolution brewing in the
banlieue
of Paris. And pompous, Jeremy thought, but he didn’t say a word. Now the young man fixes Dana’s oversize shirt, unbuttoning two of the top buttons. He’s not from the costume department, Jeremy thinks. What business is it of his? But Pascale looks over and nods—apparently Dana should look horrible and bare her breasts at the same time.