“Where were you all weekend?” she asked irritably.
“Here, honestly! I was working!”
“I kept getting the answering machine.”
“I told you I wanted to work in peace.”
“But I don’t understand. I called you several times—”
“I got your message last night, after I’d finished work, but it was too late to call you back. I didn’t want to wake your mother. Are you coming home now?”
“Yeah, we’re on our way,” she said, feeling suddenly weary.
* * *
Another week passed, then two more, monotonous. Lola was pale; she felt numb, lifeless. Her friend Fanny suggested Lola get checked out professionally. She booked an appointment with her family doctor, but he found nothing alarming. He prescribed some blood tests and a urine sample.
“You might be slightly anemic. I’ll call you tomorrow if I find anything abnormal. In the meantime, get some rest.”
* * *
The next day, returning home in the late afternoon, she saw there was a message on the answering machine. It was from her friend Caroline. Lola halfheartedly listened to it, then pressed the delete button. The cassette rewound for a long time. She stood up to light a cigarette. Suddenly the machine made a strange, staticky noise.
“Damn, I must have gotten the wrong button!”
She pressed a different switch, then another. The crackling ended, but the cassette kept playing. She didn’t know how to stop it. She tried every button on the machine.
“Oh shit!”
She could already imagine the exasperated look on Charles’s face.
Suddenly she heard raised voices. After a moment or two, she recognized one of them as Charles’s.
“Please, Apollonie, calm down!”
Lola froze. Then she moved closer to the machine.
A young woman’s voice—firm sounding and completely unknown to Lola—filled the room.
“How am I supposed to calm down, Charles?”
“Please try, Apollonie. There’s no point working yourself into a state about it.”
Lola felt puzzled. Then she realized Charles must have grabbed the phone just as the answering machine clicked into action. It had recorded a conversation between her husband and this stranger, this Apollonie.
Lola pressed the pause button, and the cassette stopped. Did she want to hear what came next? Wouldn’t it be better to erase the whole thing, to pretend she had never heard those voices, to close her eyes, protect herself? Charles probably thought he’d deleted this conversation. He must have done something wrong, erased only part of it.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Lola released the pause button and the cassette kept playing.
“For the past year, you’ve been promising to leave your wife, going on and on about how bored to death you are with her, how your kids drive you nuts, how your family sucks, and how you want to feel young again!”
“Apollonie, listen—”
“No, Charles, I’ve had it! You know perfectly well I can give you that second youth, but you don’t have the balls to leave your wife. That’s all there is to it—you’re a coward!”
“Listen to me. They’ll be home soon.”
“Then don’t forget to unmake your bed and eat whatever your old lady left for you in the fridge. Otherwise she’ll realize you weren’t home all weekend.”
“I’ll call you later. See you at one tomorrow, okay? Have you calmed down?”
“Do you love me?”
“Of course I do, but stop acting like a spoiled brat, will you? I can’t just drop everything for you. My wife wouldn’t bear it. She needs me. I’m everything for her. And my sons are still young. It would be terrible to leave them now. They’d hate me for the rest of their lives. Just give me some time, sweetie, okay?”
“Okay, okay! But I’m warning you: I’m not going to wait ten years. Ten years from now, I’ll be your wife’s age and you won’t want me anymore.”
Charles laughed.
“I will always want you, and your divine body.… See you tomorrow, babe. Rue du Dôme, okay?’
Apollonie blew him a loud kiss and they hung up.
“Sunday, six fifteen pm,” the metallic voice announced.
Before Lola could react, the telephone rang again. Devastated by what she had heard, she just sat there, frozen.
The answering machine took over. After the beep, her doctor’s voice was heard.
“Hello, this is Dr Aupick. I have some wonderful news for you, confirmed by the blood tests. You’re pregnant, madame! So please book an appointment with your obstetrician. Congratulations. I’ll send you the results of the blood tests. Good-bye.”
“Thursday, three thirty-seven pm.”
Lola was too shocked to move a muscle. Her breathing came in fits and starts, mouth open, as if she’d just been punched in the stomach.
Then, very quickly, without thinking, she pressed the delete button. A swirl of noise as the messages rewound. She checked that the cassette tape was blank again. Apollonie, Charles, and Dr Aupick had all vanished.
Lola took a deep breath and got to her feet. She touched her flat stomach. Inside her, a baby was growing. She smiled. It was a girl; she was sure of it.
THE AU PAIR GIRL
What greater pleasure
than to cheat the cheater!
—JEAN DE LA FONTAINE (1621–1695), “The Cock and the Fox”
On the top floor of a fancy store in Rue de Passy, two young women were eating a light lunch of Château-Thierry pie and Vaux-le-Vicomte salad. The restaurant’s windows overlooked the gray rooftops of Paris and the atmosphere was so hushed and refined that they might have been in England.
One of the women was blond, with a pale, delicate complexion and light blue eyes. She wore a lapis-lazuli jacket, braided with bister silk, with round golden buttons that matched her earrings. Her hair was smoothed back in a ponytail, exposing a childlike forehead with barely a wrinkle. Her white fingers looked too fragile to be sporting a round diamond (on her left ring finger) and a heavy gold signet ring (on her right pinkie).
The other young woman wore a leather redingote over an ivory-colored blouse. Her golden-brown hair framed a slightly lined and very expressive face with hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and thin red lips. Her hands were squarish, her fingernails cut short, and no rings shone on any of her fingers.
Marguerite, the blonde, worked as a publicist for a high-street fashion house. Marie, the brunette, was an advertising executive for a weekly women’s magazine. They ate lunch together once a month for professional reasons, but always enjoyed each other’s company.
An elegant older woman sat down at a neighboring table. She gave them a friendly smile, then took out her cell phone while she waited for her guest. Marguerite and Marie smiled politely in return.
“Did you notice?” Marie whispered.
“Yes. She’s had a face-lift,” Marguerite replied quietly.
“Not a success, if you ask me.”
“Hideous.”
“Don’t look now, but Marie-Hélène has just walked in carrying the same purse as yours.”
Marguerite shot a quick glance across the room, then lifted a disdainful eyebrow.
“It’s a fake. That color doesn’t exist. She must have ordered it in Place du Palais-Bourbon, from that guy who does pretty good imitations.”
Marie leaned over her tablet, her index finger scrolling impatiently down a page of photographs.
“So, where were we?”
“I was telling you about the perfume launch.”
“Oh yes. So this is what I propose.…”
Marguerite listened, but her thoughts were clearly elsewhere. She looked wearily out the window.
Marie stared at her. “What’s the matter?”
Marguerite ordered their coffees and played distractedly with a spoon.
“I’m exhausted.”
“Yes, you look tired.”
“I am.”
&nbs
p; “Too much work?”
“No more than usual.”
Marie drank her coffee. Marguerite did not touch hers.
Then she said, “I’m not sure if I should tell you this.… We’re not close friends, after all.…”
“Sometimes it’s easier to confide in someone you don’t know that well.”
“That’s true.”
Silence.
“You can tell me if you want.”
Marguerite hesitated.
“Yes, I would like that. I’m too ashamed to admit this to my closest friends.”
“I’m guessing it’s about your husband?”
“Exactly.”
Marguerite had turned red. She looked down for a moment, then confronted Marie’s dark gaze.
“Promise me you’ll keep this to yourself.”
“Of course, darling. I swear on my daughter’s head.”
Again Marguerite hesitated. She drank her tepid coffee, then looked around at the chattering bourgeois customers, the bustling waitresses, the endless procession of well-dressed women. For the first time, she noticed that there were no men in this restaurant. It was a feminine cocoon, a gynaeceum, where women came to talk about men.
As her friend wavered, Marie leaned in close and whispered: “Has your husband been a bad boy?”
Marguerite turned her azure eyes away. “Yes.”
“What did he do?”
Finally, Marguerite met her eyes. “Jean is cheating on me.”
“He’s cheating on you?”
“Keep your voice down. People are looking at us,” Marguerite said coldly. “Yes, Jean is cheating on me.”
“How do you know?”
Marguerite ordered another coffee. “I know.”
“Have you found any clues?”
Marguerite snickered, revealing her tiny white incisors. “I saw him.”
Marie sat up. “You saw him cheating on you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my darling! How awful.”
Silence.
“Who was it?”
“The au pair.”
Silence again.
“That’s horrible.”
“Absolutely horrible,” Marguerite agreed.
“Are you sure about this?”
“What else are you supposed to think when you find your husband in bed with the au pair girl?”
“Oh my God!” said Marie. “What are you going to do, my darling?”
Marguerite smiled again. “What am I going to do? Do you really want to know?”
“I would be capable of suicide if my husband did that to me.”
“No, I’m not going to kill myself.”
“Or I’d become depressed.”
“I’m not planning on a depression.”
“Then I’d leave him.”
“I’m not going to leave him either.”
“Because of the children?”
“Of course because of the children. I have a much better idea.”
“What?”
“I’m going to cheat on him! And I will tell him all about my affair, without omitting any of the juicy details. I’ll make him squirm; I’ll make him retch. He’ll regret what he did to me for the rest of his life. It will be my supreme revenge.”
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?”
“Exactly.”
“Who will you choose?”
“His best friend, Pierre.”
“You’re crazy! Your husband will kill you.”
Marguerite blushed again, but this time with anger. “Crazy? How would you feel, in my place? Imagine you go home unexpectedly, thinking about something else entirely a photo shoot, or a new collection, or a mailing list—and you walk into your bedroom and you see a vision of horror: your husband in bed with an eighteen-year-old Swedish girl.”
Marie shivered. “What’s she like, this Swedish girl?”
Marguerite took a drag on her e-cigarette. “Much too sexy. Blond, a gorgeous body. I should never have hired her. But, you know, I honestly thought Jean was above that sort of thing. He’s a very busy man. His time is taken up by the bank, the Dow Jones, the CAC 40, his golf weekends, and his polo games. I’m still in shock. Men are beasts, when it comes down to it, don’t you think?”
“Oh, absolutely. You should have hired a fat, old, ugly Filipino woman. I could never have rested easily, knowing my husband was alone in the house with the next Scarlett Johansson. You should never tempt a man! Especially not a man in his thirties.”
“Apparently it’s even worse when they hit fifty.” Marguerite sighed. “The midlife crisis, you know? My husband seems to have started a little early.…”
“How will you go about it, with his friend Pierre?” Marie asked.
“I’ll just get straight to the point. I’ll ask him if he wants to sleep with me.”
“What if he says no?”
“He won’t.”
“Have you seduced many men since you got married?”
Stung by this, Marguerite shrugged. “Seducing a man is like riding a bike—you never forget how. Even if you’ve been married for ten years.”
“Have you talked to Jean?”
“He doesn’t know that I know. I left the room without making a sound. He didn’t see me.”
“Were they asleep?”
“No, they were fucking. He was taking her from behind, doggy-style.”
“Oh, that’s dreadful.”
“Yep. In the middle of the morning, in my own bedroom. On my own bed.”
“It’s despicable. How did you manage to sleep in your bed that night?”
“I didn’t.”
“So where did you sleep?”
“I’m going to sleep in Pierre’s bed, tonight. It happened this morning. Look, I’m all ready.” She lifted up an elegant overnight bag.
“Wow. I’m impressed, Marguerite.”
“I bet you’d do the same thing, in my position.”
“I think I’d have killed the pair of them.”
“I must be calmer than you.”
“And more Machiavellian. But what if Pierre does say no?”
Marguerite picked up her cell phone and checked it quickly, put her e-cigarette in its holder, then asked for the check.
“Marie, no man could refuse a woman who gives herself to him, the way I’m going to do with Pierre. He won’t resist, even if I am his best friend’s wife. In fact, I bet that makes it even more exciting for him.”
“And afterward?”
She pulled a face. “We’ll see.”
“So you’ve never cheated on Jean before?”
“I should have done. I feel so stupid, so naïve! If only I’d known…”
Marie laughed softly. “I’ve done it.”
“You’ve been unfaithful?”
“Yes. I’d just had my daughter. I was feeling frumpy. It was in Touquet, during the summer holidays. My husband was working in Paris.”
“And?”
“There was this young guy—not bad, a bit of a rube—who was coming on to me. I was playing golf with my parents-in-law, and he followed me. I ended up saying yes, because I was bored. We lay down in the rough and had sex, very quickly.”
“How was it?”
“Not great. Afterward, I told him my husband was on his way, and that he should leave me alone. I never even knew his name.”
“And since then?”
“Since then, I’ve been faithful. I’m scared of catching AIDS.”
“Oh shit!” Marguerite said, dropping her cell phone on the tablecloth.
“What?”
“The rubbers!”
“What about them?”
“I don’t have any!”
“So?”
“I can’t sleep with Pierre without a rubber, can I?”
“You think your husband wore a rubber, with the Swede?”
“The Swedes use rubbers more than any other nationality in the world. The Scandinavians are totally pro-condom!”
&nbs
p; “Well, just go buy some at the pharmacy.”
Marguerite bit her lip. “That’s such a nuisance!”
“Why?”
“I’m embarrassed to buy them.”
“I’ll buy some for you, if you like.”
“You won’t believe this, but I have no idea how to use them. I’ve never put a condom on a man in my life.”
“Your Pierre will know how. The man usually does it, anyway. It’s like putting on a sock. Just don’t get it the wrong way round. It’s not difficult.”
“This messes up my whole plan. How am I supposed to seduce him if I have to put that thing on him?”
“He’ll do it himself.”
“Yes, but who’s supposed to bring up the subject—him or me? How does it happen these days? It’s the first time I’ve been in this kind of situation. And what am I supposed to say, exactly? ‘Would you mind wearing a thingamajig … you know, a whatsit—’ Ugh! It’ll turn him off in an instant.”
“I wouldn’t say anything. I’d just put it on him myself.”
“And what if I get it on the wrong way? What if I end up wearing it like a glove and he loses his erection? Oh, what a nightmare!”
“There are different sizes and models, too—”
“No!”
“Oh yes. There’s king-size, super king-size, and extra-super king size.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means men can’t bear the idea of walking into a store and asking for a pack of ‘medium’-sized condoms. Then there’s lubricated, unlubricated, different flavors—vanilla, pear, banana, strawberry—and different colors. You can get them with patterns or without, with studs or ribs—shall I go on?”
“Where did you learn all this, Marie?”
“I gave up using the pill at one point. Would you like me to come with you, to buy some? I could help you choose.”
Marguerite sighed. “Oh … no, thank you, darling. I think I’ll just go home and beat the crap out of my husband. It’s less complicated.”
She removed the large gem from the ring finger of her left hand and put it on her right. Now the thick signet ring and the engagement ring were touching. She made a fist and looked at it appraisingly.
“Look—I have brass knuckles now! So that diamond will finally serve some purpose.”