Free Lessons in French by Hilary Reyl Page B

of my papers and my affairs.” Claudia’s voice was a hiss of escaping steam.
    “Perhaps you should, dear. Lydia’s a bit of a stickler for tidiness.”
    As he began to hum the opening theme of the St. Matthew Passion , she rose impatiently from the table.
    Once Claudia had left for Montparnasse, I teased Clarence gently that she had a schoolgirl crush on him. “She’s even worried that Lydia doesn’t appreciate you enough because she’s too American to get you. It’s classic, right? Oedipal? She’s fascinated with you.” Possessed by my own impossible infatuation, it was a relief to talk about someone else’s.
    “You’re both very imaginative young women,” he said, smiling his dough-lipped smile and drumming his fingers on his wineglass.

twelve
    I reached the little horseshoe bar at dusk. Olivier was there already, sipping something brown that I guessed was whiskey. As I caught his eye, I could feel my face a confusion of deep blush and the pink chill of the first really cool day of fall. The only coat I had that didn’t embarrass me was too thin for this weather. I had walked fast to stay warm. My whole body was pumping.
    There were half a dozen people sprinkled around the old wooden U-shaped bar. When Olivier pulled me in for a kiss in front of all of them, I was stunned. He introduced me to the bartender, Michel, dark and foxishly thin. He said that since it might be tricky for me to get mail from him at the house, he would write to me in care of Michel. He untied the old black and white plaid scarf that had been Daddy’s. Mom had given it to me when I headed to college on the East Coast, saying she had saved it all these years because she always knew it would come in
handy.
    “I love this,” Olivier said, rubbing it to his cheek. “It’s so soft.”
    “Thanks. It was my dad’s.”
    “It is your dad’s.”
    Michel asked me what I would like to drink and all I could think of was a Kir.
    From the bar, Olivier walked me to the Place des Vosges, the sixteenth-century red brick square with geometric grass and black iron benches. Victor Hugo had lived here. It was Olivier’s favorite square in all of Paris. He took me to a bench under a chestnut tree where he made me promise to sit and read his letters. He wanted to picture me there.
    He felt me shiver and draped his coat over mine. Then he gave me his hand. He began to massage my palm so that his chevalière pressed and rose, rose and pressed.
    “Your ring is like a hint of lost treasure,” I laughed, “like the one thing that was saved from the shipwreck.”
    He laughed too. “It’s all very tragicomic, isn’t it? I could have had this whole other life like you could have had a completely different childhood with your dad being some kick-ass movie director. We can’t take anything for granted, can we?”
    “And Portia can?” I ventured.
    “I told you she’s spoiled. She thinks she has desires, but they’re all just about acquiring more to pile on to what she already has. There’s nothing burning.”
    “At least she has good taste.”
    “There’s that.”
    “Have you actually told her you’re breaking up with her?”
    “She’s not stupid. She knows.”
    When he kissed me, he whispered, “This is true. We understand one another. On se comprend.”
    But I didn’t understand anything except what I felt like doing there and then. Which was so obviously what he felt like do-
ing too.
    The old family crest pressed softly into my ear and then into my back, my legs. His hands were running through my hair.
    I pulled away so that he could look at me. “Olivier, what are we doing? What about Portia? Are we doing something terrible to her?”
    “People are meant to follow their hearts. There’s nothing else.” He gave me another whiskey-sugared kiss.
    I succumbed to the magic of selfishness and went with him back to his quirky room on the third floor of his hôtel de charme, steps away from the Picasso Museum.
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