Miracle (27 page)

“No. It won’t. This is wishful thinking.”

“You absolutely refuse to go see him?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be finished here in a few months. What then?”

“I’m going home. I’ve already had invitations from several surgeons who want me to join their practices.”

“But surely you’ll go see the old man when you get home?”

“No.”

“Not even if the cancer returns?”

“Not even then.”

“You’re awful,” Annette said, her voice low and vibrating. “You want Papa to suffer for his faults, but you refuse to admit that you have any faults yourself. I’m tired of your arrogance. It’s not fair! Papa wants you to take over the businesses and all you do is throw your hatred in his face! While I
love
him, and he doesn’t care! Get out! Get out of my sight!”

“I will call you this evening,” Sebastien told her calmly, though he was upset at the way this visit had degenerated into a fight. “Perhaps tomorrow we can—”

“I’m going home. On the first flight I can get.”

He went to her and grasped her shoulders. “Annette, I won’t pretend to love our father, not even to make you happy. But I don’t want you to accuse me of motives—”

“I despise your pride! I despise you!” She flung herself away from him, dark hair flying around her face.

“Annette, try to accept the way I feel—”

“Heartless bastard!”

“You’d better leave,” Jacques said, rising and coming to her. “I can’t say that I don’t agree with her, but I’ll try to calm her down.”

Annette burst into tears and covered her face. “Father could be dying of cancer! But Sebastien doesn’t care!”

Sebastien hesitated for a moment, thinking about the past, analyzing the unforgiving bitterness of a small boy who had cradled his mother’s bloody head and watched her die begging his father to forgive her for deliberately killing herself and their children. Then he remembered his father’s mistress,
la comtesse
, who had come to the funerals. She had stayed at their home in Paris the night afterward, and he felt certain she had not slept alone.

Sebastien touched Annette’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he
murmured. “But you’re right about the way I feel toward our father. I don’t care if he dies. And I’m certainly not going to make it more pleasant for him by pretending to care.”

He left the room to the sound of Annette’s sobs and Jacques’s muttered obscenities.

Marie was formal and solemn, not prim in the way the nuns had intended to make her at school, but of a serious nature that rebuked the world for being frivolous. Her exquisite heart-shaped face and willowy figure rescued her from a look of severe reserve, and she was beautiful despite the tailored black dresses that she had favored all her adult life.

Sebastien had last seen her three years earlier at her wedding to an English financier. Her husband’s death in a boating accident the past fall had added an appealing aura of sorrow to her dignity.

When he took her out to dinner she talked of neutral subjects, and in his troubled mood he was glad simply to sit and listen. There was nothing passive about her reserve, nothing hesitant. She spoke slowly and without flirtation; she was almost placid, except for her habit of stroking a graceful hand along the long strand of pearls she always wore.

She owned a day-care facility, a very exclusive one where the fees were high and the children of the rich were taught by the most advanced methods. She was intent on making the world safe for intellectuals, starting with the youngest. Sebastien wasn’t certain that he approved of formal schooling for mere toddlers; he preferred to let them enjoy their innocent ignorance for as long as possible.

But Marie’s dedication impressed him, as did her independence. Her father was the chief administrator at Sainte Crillion, a hospital of great renown situated in one of the wealthiest suburbs of Paris. She could have lived handsomely on family money and her late husband’s wealth, but she didn’t.

“My father asked about you before I left to come here,”
she told Sebastien. “He hopes that you’ll contact him. He practically spied on you the entire time you were working in America.”

“I know. Several surgeons told me that they were acquaintances of his. I suspected that they were reporting on my progress.’

“That doesn’t annoy you?”

“Your father is no tyrant. I respect him. I was flattered.”

“He is so impressed with you, Sebastien. The department of cardiac surgery at his hospital is becoming very prominent, I’m sure you know. Father has spoken to the department’s chief surgeon about you. They’d love to have you on staff there. Would you be interested in meeting with him when you return to Paris?”

“Of course.”

She looked pleased, smiling at him under darkly lashed eyes nearly devoid of makeup. Her black hair was twisted atop her head in a soft, simple style. Like many French women, she gave the natural look a distinct elegance.

He found himself wanting to know more about her, wanting to explore the personality that viewed life with such cool control. She was self-absorbed and made no apologies for it.

“You know, we share many memories,” he told her. “I recall a time when you were tutoring Annette in the violin, practicing together at our home. I was preparing to enter the university and you refused to speak to me because of it.”

“I was envious! All of the servants kept talking about you—Oh, he’s so advanced for his age! I wanted to compete with you! And, you must understand, I was terribly infatuated with you. You were only two years older, but you seemed so confident and so mysterious. There was an air about you, even then, of great purpose. I wanted to be part of that purpose, whatever it was.”

“And now?” he asked, propping his chin on one hand. A waiter brought coffee, and she smiled slightly while she stirred cream into hers.

“
Now
?” she repeated, her eyes settling on his with businesslike challenge. “Annette says she’s going home tomorrow.
Jacques says he’s staying for a few days to make you uncomfortable. What do you think I should do?”

“Do you know why my brother and sister are angry with me?”

“Yes. Annette told me.”

“Do you think they’re right?”

“I think that you’re one of the few men in the world who never lets sentiment interfere with principle. And that, my dear Sebastien, is why I’m still fascinated with you. Now, what should I do? Go home, or stay here?”

Sebastien held out his hand. She placed hers in it, cool and still. “Stay here,” he answered. “Definitely.”

That night he took her to his apartment and to bed, where she surprised him with the ferocity of her needs. She suited him, with her pragmatic tenderness and unhesitant requests, offering her slender, small-breasted body to him much more easily than she would ever offer love.

He was happy that she stared at his body in awe; happy that she writhed under him, clawing his back with her long, carefully manicured nails; happy that her needs were easy to satisfy. He was frantic for a woman’s touch after being alone for so long; abstinence made it easier not to think about Amy, at least during the most heated moments.

When Marie came, calling the name of her dead husband, Sebastien was only mildly perturbed. She apologized quickly, and he assured her that he understood. They both realized the truth—this was not about love but about something much simpler and safer. They were perfect together.

A
my wandered into the kitchen, an economics book under one arm, huge circles under her eyes, her face gaunt. “Cheese toast with pickles. At
midnight
. Ugh. Are you pregnant or something?”

Mary Beth chortled. “If I were, the kid’d be wearing a coat hanger by now.”

“You’re like
totally
gross.”

“Nice Valley Girl impression, bitch.” Mary Beth grinned at her. “I made extra cheese toast for you. And here’s a glass of milk. Now sit down and eat. Your half-Jewish mother commands it. How are you feeling?”

“Better. I think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

“Don’t tell me you
miss
that Atwater jerk. I never even met him, but I know the type. He’s not worth missing.”

“I don’t miss him. I’m glad he’s in California. I hope he never comes back.”

“Then stop feeling guilty over what happened. The guy preyed on you like a fox on a rabbit, sugar. You never had a chance.”

“This rabbit didn’t hop too fast. I
let
him catch me.”

“So you’re human. So what? Let’s cut classes tomorrow. It’s summertime. We should be sunning our tits, not working.”

Amy sat down at their battered table and wearily propped her head on one hand. “Nah. When I lay in the sun. I think too much. My moods starts to smell like a dead fish.”

“A good deodorant would take care of that.”

That made her smile. She grabbed a pickle slice from a small plate and threw it at Mary Beth. “I like the delicate way you treat my feelings.”

Mary Beth dodged the pickle and laughed. The poor kid was too nice.
Somebody
had to look out for her. She sank her teeth into a piece of toast and ripped a bite free with predatory pleasure.

Amy hunched over a soft drink in the cafeteria of the student center. She had just gotten her grades from a quarter filled with accounting, management science, and economics. Only through agonized efforts had she come out with straight B’s. It galled her to lose her A average; all this time she’d submerged herself in the pursuit of a perfect grade-point average. It had become her holy grail, something she could present to Sebastien if she ever saw him again, proof that she was smart enough and determined enough to be loved.

She was halfway to her degree, but now she admitted a disturbing truth: Business administration was as exciting as watching Mary Beth’s latest boyfriend blow bubbles in his chocolate milk, which he was doing right now with great gusto.

Beau was another athlete; a member of the track team, lean and rangy where Harlan had been bulky and squat. Mary Beth made no excuses for her puzzling taste in men. “I don’t need an intellectual fuck,” she had once explained. “I want my men hard, I want ’em sweaty, and I want ’em dumb.” Beau qualified.