No More Lonely Nights (31 page)

“Let’s go,” he said in a monotone. Again, he turned away and began to walk.

It crossed Dominique’s mind to once more remain where she was. But the stupid fight had gone on long enough! Angry at Clay for prolonging it, but anxious for peace, she stalked after him.

When they reached the car, he strode ahead and opened Dominique’s side, but instead of waiting for her to get in, he left the door ajar and went to his own side.

Surely he’ll say something when we’re inside, Dominique thought. If he doesn’t, I will.

When they had driven for five minutes in silence, Dominique ventured, “Fascinating town, wasn’t it?”

Clay didn’t answer. Instead, he turned on the radio. Fast French chatter. News—incomprehensible to Clay.

Dominique forged ahead with determination. “They say in the guidebook that penitents used to climb up the stairs to the church on their knees. Can you imagine that?”

Clay turned up the volume of the radio until it was blaring.

Dominique whipped her head around to face him. “Stop it!” she cried. She leaned over and snapped off the radio. “I can’t believe you’re behaving this way over something so trivial!”

Clay said nothing. He stared fixedly ahead. They drove all the way to the hotel in hostile silence.

This is such a shame, Dominique thought as they entered the gravel drive that led to the enchanting little castle. She wanted to exclaim at the scene, to share her pleasure with Clay, for it was almost painfully beautiful: in the foreground, a garden of pink, yellow, and red flowers were set in geometric beds; behind the hotel, the silky Dordogne River wended its way through overhanging trees.

Clay brought the car to an abrupt halt and got out. He walked into the hotel without a glance at Dominique.

Was he going to spend the rest of the day in silence? Dominique couldn’t bear the thought. The disagreement had ruined the entire afternoon! On the other hand, Clay was the one behaving like a boor. Dominique wasn’t going to apologize. She had tried to talk to him, but he was determined to be angry.

When Dominique reached the room—where Clay was lying on the bed apparently absorbed in a book—she went directly into the bathroom, took a shower, and dressed for dinner. She emerged forty minutes later to find Clay still on the bed.

Dominique put a hand on her hip. “Do you intend to have dinner?”

Clay slowly put his book face down on his chest. He turned his head to Dominique. “Yes,” he said sharply.

“Well,” she answered in the same tone, “you don’t need to worry. I won’t translate for you. In fact, I won’t say a word. I’ll just point to what I want.”

“I understand that there are times when you need to translate,” Clay said testily. “But some of the people speak English; that’s the point I was trying to make.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up quickly, as though to forestall further discussion. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be ready in a few minutes.” His tone was almost normal now.

Dominique, eager to resume good relations, decided not to argue his point. She gave him a look of appeal. “The menu looks awfully good,” she said tentatively.

Clay nodded—cool, but no longer adversarial. “I’m looking forward to it,” he conceded.

By the time they went to dinner, the argument was behind them.

The remaining weeks of their honeymoon passed too quickly for Dominique. From the Dordogne region they drove to the French Riviera, staying in the posh yachting haven of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Their room overlooked the lively harbor and, beyond it, the royal blue Mediterranean.

Each morning, Clay and Dominique drove a few miles to the bustling farm market in the pedestrian area of Nice. There they bought the ingredients for a picnic lunch. One stall sold nothing but goat cheese, another a cornucopia of tropical fruit. But the one Dominique and Clay found most tantalizing specialized in olives—dozens of varieties, colors, sizes, and preparations.

Clay had to stifle laughter when the saleswoman asked them, in passable English, the purpose of their olive purchase. “Salad, aperitif, sauce, or tapenade?”

“Oh, just a picnic,” they responded, far more casually than the saleswoman would have wished.

“And what wine with your picnic?”

Dominique and Clay looked blankly at each other. “White, I suppose,” Dominique finally said.

The woman sniffed at Dominique’s lack of specificity. “White” told her almost nothing, but she saw it was futile to pursue that particular line of questioning. “What will you have for lunch? Possibly a baguette with prosciutto and cheese?”

Dominique seized on that. “Exactly!” she lied. They hadn’t yet bought their sandwich ingredients.

“Ah, then…” The woman reached for a little white box and filled it half full with green olives bathed in fresh oregano and vinaigrette. From another section of her stall, she selected some wrinkled black olives in a red sauce.

“Thank you, Madame,” Dominique said sheepishly.

She and Clay scurried away, giggling like truants who had just escaped an adult.

The couple’s first days back in New Orleans were almost as enchanted. Though it was September, the only sign of waning summer was the early twilight. And it was in this fragrant, still twilight that they loved to wander and search for just the perfect house in which to begin their life together.

Dominique was in no hurry. She was perfectly content with Clay’s uptown apartment, but he was eager to move to the Garden District. So each day they went with a real estate agent to examine properties. Most were too expensive for them; the ones they could afford were at the edges of the Garden District, and thus unsatisfactory to Clay.

“It’s a great home for a couple just starting out,” the agent would insist. She was a motherly sort of woman, who freely offered advice to counter Clay’s objections. But Clay wouldn’t listen.

Often, they would pass the type of house Clay had in mind and he would order the agent to stop.

“You’d probably need a little help from your father on that one,” she’d say. She knew of Clay’s family, of course.

Clay would shake his head. “Let’s keep looking.” They had arranged an extra week of vacation before resuming work so Clay could devote himself full time to the search.

At the end of the day, they’d dismiss the agent and, at a quiet, easy pace, explore the Garden District on their own. They would drive in Clay’s convertible along St. Charles Avenue—already darker and cooler than the side streets, thanks to the overhanging canopy of live oaks—then park and walk for hours. They loved to look into the floor-to-ceiling windows of the grand houses, lit from within to reveal intriguing glimpses of their occupants’ lives.

“That’s the kind of library to have!” Dominique exclaimed on one of their forays. “Nothing on the walls except books.”

Clay agreed. “My Father has one like that. There’s a ladder attached to the shelves and it slides around the room so you can reach everything.” He looked down at her and squeezed her hand. “But you’ll see for yourself this weekend.”

Dominique was looking forward to their dinner at his parents’ home just a few blocks away. She was very curious about her mother-in-law, whom she’d yet to meet. In addition, the rest of the family would be there and Dominique hoped she’d make friends with some of them. Clay said he had several cousins their age.

Dominique had already made a few friends in New Orleans simply by walking through the Garden District with Clay. Almost every night, the couple would encounter people enjoying the breeze on their wide, galleried porches. And since Clay had grown up in the neighborhood, he knew a number of them.

“C’mon up and have a drink—give us a chance to meet your bride,” they’d say, and Clay never refused. They would open creaking gates and mount the wooden stairs. They would be offered mint juleps or gin fizzes as they settled into a porch swing or glider. The fans overhead would thump softly, keeping the mosquitoes at bay. And the voices would float lazily through the thick, balmy air. Even the silences were pleasant—they’d just sit and listen to the hypnotic music of the crickets. Crickets, tinkling ice, languorous voices. That was the southern way. Always time to stop and chat with neighbors, to sit and enjoy company.

To Dominique, all this seemed natural. The fast, impersonal pace of New York and San Francisco, the long work days and early-to-bed mentality, had been new to her. She fit in with Clay’s friends as she had nowhere else in America. Many of them spoke French, thanks to their antecedents. And, as Clay had predicted, her nationality was regarded as a charming attribute. No one had trouble understanding her; no one even questioned her foreignness.

By the end of her first month there, Dominique already considered New Orleans home.

DOMINIQUE fairly leapt off the St. Charles streetcar, in a hurry to get home. She hoped Clay was there—she couldn’t wait to tell him her news. Only one year at Orman’s New Orleans branch and she was already winning accolades for pulling off the biggest coup in its short history. Clay would be so proud of her!

She crossed St. Charles and entered the quiet side street that led home, four blocks away. The first few houses she passed were grand mansions set well back from the road. As she progressed, though, the neighborhood changed. Mansions gave way to smaller, albeit charming, houses. No more antebellum pillars or Italianate villas, no Tudor fantasies or Georgian palaces. The houses were pure New Orleans, with deep porches, two-story galleries, and long windows with real shutters that were pulled closed during storms. Unlike the pristine, formal landscapes of St. Charles Avenue, the lawns here were often punctuated by tricycles, scooters, or roller skates.

After only ten months in the new house, Clay was eager to move out—or move “up,” as he and the realtor termed it—but Dominique loved the down-to-earth character of her block. She often mused that she and Clay had had almost opposite reactions to their privileged childhoods. Dominique enjoyed luxury, but in ways that made a difference to her personal comfort: fine wine, good food, linen sheets, or well-made shoes. She liked pretty things, but they didn’t have to be grand. Clay, on the other hand, would not consider himself a success until he lived on the same scale as his parents.

Now that Dominique had seen the home of the elder Parkers, she couldn’t agree. It was exquisite, but almost like a museum in its perfection. She was determined that if she and Clay moved to St. Charles Avenue, their house would have a more human decor.

As always, her heart lifted at the sight of her own welcoming front porch twined with wisteria. Dominique and Clay had repainted the house pure white with glossy black shutters. And at either side of the front door was a waist-high planter of ivy and fragrant petunias.

Dominique entered the foyer, sniffing appreciatively the clean scent of furniture wax and fresh cut flowers. For the hundredth time, she acknowledged that Clay had been right to insist on the daily housekeeper. Lucy, an attractive, middle-aged woman with smiling features, arrived each weekday morning at nine to clean house and prepare dinner.

Dominique chuckled when she remembered that she had tried to dissuade Clay from hiring the woman. “I’ve become used to fending for myself,” she had insisted.

Clay had looked at her skeptically. “You’ve already admitted you can’t cook.”

“I’m learning,” Dominique had said defensively.

Clay had taken her in his arms. “Look, everyone here has help, not just the very wealthy. It’s like what you told me about Egypt. It would look odd if we didn’t have someone. Besides, you’ll be gone all day and won’t have time to see to the house, much less to prepare the kind of dinner I like. Do this for me,” he’d coaxed.

Now Dominique was glad she’d given in. Clay hated arriving home and finding Dominique still out. But the problem would have been compounded if he’d had to wait while Dominique threw together an inexpert dinner. With Lucy, things ran smoothly.

“Clay!” she called, as she spotted his hat on the hall table. “Lucy!”

Lucy appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on a towel. “Good evening, Mrs. Parker,” she said with a smile. “Mr. Parker’s on the back patio enjoying his martini.”

Dominique put down her purse and hat beside Clay’s and smoothed her hair in the mirror above the table. “Thanks, Lucy,” she said breathlessly. Then she hurried through the house to the kitchen. The old, wood-framed screen door squeaked as Dominique pushed it open to go out on the patio.

Clay turned at the sound. When he saw her, he stood up.

“Congratulate me!” Dominique said cheerfully, letting the door fall shut behind her.

Clay smiled indulgently. He put down his drink and came toward her. “What for?” he asked as he bent to kiss her.

“Mark Patout has agreed to host Orman’s charity gala! The one we’re putting on for the cancer society.”

Clay smiled cautiously. “Mark Patout, the representative?”

Dominique proudly recited what she had learned about the man. “One of the founding families of Louisiana. Old French aristocracy. And a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.”

“Sounds like you did your homework,” Clay teased. He turned and went back to his chair. He pulled the empty chair beside him closer—a gesture of invitation.

Dominique kept talking as she sat down. “It was so strange how it happened. I was reading an article in
Life
about the country’s one hundred up-and-coming young politicians. I wasn’t even paying attention to where he was from, I just noticed that his last name was French. Anyhow, when I saw he was from here, I decided to call him about the gala.” Dominique laughed victoriously. “And it was a good thing I didn’t ask anyone’s opinion first, because they told me later that he never does this sort of thing. It’s just that the charity is for cancer and his mother died of cancer, so he feels very strongly about it. At least that’s what his secretary said. I didn’t talk to him personally. But she called me back right away and she said he’d definitely do it!”

Dominique gave a contented sigh and relaxed into her chair. But a second later, she eagerly perched at the edge of her seat. “Tomorrow, I’ll send one of the secretaries to the library to find every article there is about him. I really don’t know anything more than the little paragraph I read in
Life.
I’m sure there’s all sorts of useful information.”