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248

EILEEN GOUDGE

was his mother’s town, her birthplace, where she’d moved back to after Newt died. He hadn’t lived with her since he left at fifteen to work in an oil field, hauling equipment almost as heavy as he’d been at the time. He’d had soft hands then, but that day-he’d been twentyfour-they were hard as canvas tarp left out in the salt air.

And inside him there were things he wanted to close his eyes to as well. All his life, Rydell had fed him the family dogma, speaking in a hushed, reverent voice about his father’s heroism, about his rich, God-Bless-America heritage. And Dean, in his grave at Arlington, ostensibly because of dysentery, but really because of Rydell-she’d sucked the truth right out of his bones and filled him with lies.

This visit, she’d been trying the same with him. Hounding him about his duty to our flag, to the good boys over in Vietnam, to the memory of his father and brother. Not enough she’d sacrificed one son; she wanted his blood too. Two graves, side by side, like trophies, or the sets of bronzed baby shoes on the mantel.

The time had come, he knew, to tell her that she had some other son in mind, a boy who looked and talked like him, but who wasn’t him. And here, today, he felt no allegiance to either group, white or black. He just wanted to go his own way, find his own place, and eventually sink roots in real soil, not the cow shit Rydell had been shovelling out so long she couldn’t even smell it.

But just then, with people screaming, sirens wailing, bottles smashing against the pavement, Emmett couldn’t make believe he was somewhere else.

Rydell, five feet eleven inches in her silk-stockinged feet and built like a steamroller, clung to his arm as if she were a frail invalid. Had she been alone, he was convinced, she would have stridden tall, wielding her enormous handbag like a brickbat. Her coiffed red hair gleamed in the sun like a knight’s helmet, her soft moth-white face turned to his, her mouth against his ear, spouting in honeyed outrage.

There’s no call for this, no call ‘tall. White trash, that’s what these people are. Redneck white trash. Quality folk

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know how to treat coloreds, always did, even ‘fore the war. Treat them decent, Daddy always said, and they won’t go actin’ up. We always did, you know. Why, Clovis was prac’ly a member of our family! And Ruby-you remember Ruby, don’t you, son?-she cried at Grandpa’s funeral. Cried like it was her very own kin nailed inside that

coffin… .

Then he saw something that shut out his mother and made his stomach tip like an overfull bucket. A black kid, no more than twelve or thirteen, pinned to the pavement by a slab-armed man twice his size who was beating him with the butt end of a shotgun. And two policemen standing not six feet away, studiously looking in the other

direction.

Until Emmett felt his mother’s grip on his arm turn from rose petals to iron, intent on holding him back, he had not been aware that he was straining in that direction. It’s not your fight, son. You just stay away, hear. None of this is any of our business.

Christ, in her view, his whole life had been none of

his business.

It all clicked into place, why he didn’t give a shit for any of this. He’d been running away, not wanting to face what was eating him: that he hated his mother. What she stood for, what she’d been cramming down his throat all his life. And mostly for speeding his brother off to get

killed.

No, he would not be like her. And he wasn’t going to stand here listening to her shit while some kid got beaten

to a pulp.

He tore away, pushed his way into the fracas.

Blood. He remembered being hit first in the mouth and tasting his owb blood, hot, salty, oddly metallic. Then hands, white hands all around him, disembodied somehow, tearing at his shirt, fingernails clawing him, leaving fiery trails down his back, his arms. The man with the shotgun wasn’t a man at all … a Brahma bull … broad face, bulging eyes, no neck … just a head spliced onto a pair of meaty shoulders.

And the kid. Not real either, more like a doll that

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EILEEN GOVDGE

had been discarded or accidentally dropped. A pair of dust้ ] streaked jeans. A small face the dull, dirty gray of old asphalt. Except for the blood.

Blood on his Monkees T-shirt, trickling down his j arm. Almighty Jesus. What kind of a man would do this? ] This wasn’t about race, or color, or busing, but a man kicking the shit out of a defenseless little kid.

“Son of a bitch.” Emmett heard himself roar as he dove at the Brahma bull, plowed his fist into unyielding meat. His blows seemed to do nothing, as if he were hitting a brick wall, bruising only himself. Then he felt his head in an iron vise. He was being crushed.

He saw sun reflecting brightly off case-hardened steel. An ear-shattering blast. A sudden, shocking numbness in his foot. He heard a woman scream, a high-pitched whine like a mosquito buzzing at his ear. His mother? Everything else faded except that whine; it kept building until it sounded like a DC-10 using his head as a runway.

He must have passed out, because the next thing he remembered was lying in a hospital bed, his mother’s face hovering over him like an Arctic moon, coral lipstick freshly and flawlessly applied. A single crevice between her brows, as if drawn by a ruler, bisecting her otherwise smooth forehead into two neat halves.

… sheared off half your ankle bone. And three toes. Some muscles and nerves too … but don’t worry, the doctors say you’ll walk again. Spoken like it was nothing worse than a sprained ankle. But you can just forget about the army. They’ll never take you now. Eyes rolling back, hands clasped in prayer. Lord, what have I done to deserve this? I’ve tried to be a good mother to my boys, to hold up their father as an example, but seems like whatever I say, this one does the opposite … and now look what it’s come to …

Emmett was jerked from his reverie by a hand on his arm, firm but gentle. He turned and saw Annie. Thin face, saved from mere prettiness by strong bones that made him think of delicate but powerful alloyed steel. Huge eyes the color of blue ink. No makeup, but then she didn’t need any. Skinny as a rail. Wearing pegged jeans and a black

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turtleneck, like some throwback from the Fifties. No bellbottoms or miniskirts for Annie.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” she said, reaching for a handle of the heavy tub he was hefting.

Pity? Give the cripple a break? Emmett felt resentment kindle in him. Then he caught himself. No, she couldn’t have meant it that way.

He smiled. “Thanks, but I can manage. Just don’t offer me your foot … I might take you up on it.”

“Not funny.” But a corner of her wide mouth curved down in a small don’t-make-me-laugh smile.

She didn’t move away. She was standing so close, he could smell her perfume, something musky and Oriental, overriding even the pervasive aroma of chocolate. There was a smear of chocolate on one cheek. He thought about licking it off.

Jesus.

Emmett felt panicky. What had come over him? He wasn’t some horny teenager. He didn’t need her. He’d had plenty of women … before and since getting his foot shot. He thought of the married lady he’d been seeing in Neuilly, who really got off on his being a cripple. Like it was some sexy new kink. But she was just a diversion, and that was all he was to her.

Suddenly, Emmett knew why he was panicky. He felt a mild tremor go all through him. If he took so much as a step in her direction, he could fall in love with Annie.

And, with Annie, he suspected that if he fell, it would be a long, hard fall. She was hungering for something too … but not for a half-crippled drifter. Whatever she was looking for right now, it was more than any one man could supply. She was travelling the blue highways of her soul, and there was no map or guide for that.

He saw her follow him to the enrobing machine in the next room, watching while he slowly poured the fresh couverture into a stainless trough that fed a silken, darkbrown drizzle over the slow-moving slotted conveyor belt. A little farther down the line, nuggets of glistening newly coated ganache passed under the infrared lamp and

blow-dryer, where Thierry stood ready to transfer the finished truffles onto wide plastic sheets.

“Dinner tonight?” she asked in a low voice. “I found this little caf้ off rue de Seine. The most amazing omelette, made with potatoes. Cheap, too. And if you’re really poor and musical, someone told me they let you play for your supper. Oh, say yes, Em … it’d be so much fun!”

Her eyes shone, but he sensed it was not for him. She was excited over her discovery, and the new idea he’d heard her discussing with Pompeau, eager to share it with someone.

Don’t let her see. Don’t let her know you’re not the joker you pretend to be.

“Sure thing,” he said, forcing a hundred-watt grin. “I’ll even bring my harmonica.”

Annie stared at the small metal box she was holding. Inside was a single truffle, its glossy black coating of couverture dusted with toasted bitter almonds crushed to a fine powder.

Was it any good? Thinking back over the week, Annie counted fourteen batches of her pear ganache, and everyone around here who’d tasted her Poire William truffle had said they loved it. But Emmett and Thierry and Maurice, they were probably only saying it was great instead of just ordinary, because they were her buddies.

She loved it, but she’d sampled so many batches, how in God’s name could she be sure this was the perfect one? Emmett, when he’d tasted this latest effort, had grinned and rolled his eyes in ecstasy, but when she pressed him, he’d admitted he could hardly tell the difference between this batch and the last. So thank heaven Pompeau had agreed to hold off reporting on her progress until Henri, who knew nothing of her attempt, had tasted it. He would be the judge … the only one who counted.

Annie mounted the narrow staircase leading up from the kitchen to the shop, which faced out onto the fashionable Rue du Faubourg St-Honore. She carried the chilled metal box that held her Poire William truffle. Her

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hands shook a bit, but she forced herself to ascend briskly, one foot after the next, stepping squarely in the middle of each stair. The rumble of Henri Baptiste’s deep voice carried down to her, blending with the rush of blood in her ears.

What if he doesn’t like it? What if it really is nothing special?

The thought heightened her panic. No, not that, please … Total thumbs-down failure, that she could handle. That would just convince her he was way off-base or having a bad day. Because it was good. But if he said ordinary, that could be true.

Even so, she mustn’t let it destroy her. She mustn’t.

At the top of the stairs, she turned left, entering the packing room where squat, ruddy-cheeked MarieClaire, in a spotless white apron, gauze cap, and white gloves, hovered over the finished chocolates that had been brought up in chilled metal boxes like the one Annie was carrying. Her nimble fingers were a blur, moving quickly as she transferred the truffles into Girod’s signature brown-and-gold boxes, placing each in its own pleated paper cup. Above MarieClaire’s head, deep shelves were crammed with yet-to-be-folded boxes, yards of satin ribbon in every color, fat rolls of gilt gift-wrapping paper, sheets of gold stickers stamped with Girod’s darkbrown lettering, and plain brown cardboard shipping cartons. Annie nodded to MarieClaire as she brushed past. The Frenchwoman smiled and nodded back, her fingers not missing a beat.

Annie passed through a narrow door, and into the shop itself. As always, she paused on the threshold, a bit dazzled. Girod’s was like no other chocolate shop-not even Dolly’s could compare. It looked more like a reproduced nineteenth century room in a museum. An Oriental carpet, soft undedr her feet after the hard tile of the kitchen, muted gold-flecked wallpaper above walnut wainscoting; on one wall, glass shelves on which artisans’ works were displayed-a carved alabaster vase, a pair of Lalique mermaid candlesticks, an ancient jade horse from China, a nineteenth-century S่vres platter commemorating Napoleon’s coronation.

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EILEEN GOUDGE

Above the display cases, the shelves were laden with handpainted wooden boxes. Henri had commissioned an artist to decorate each lid with a different scene: bouquets of flowers, clusters of fruit, rambling grapevines, birds, children playing. Annie’s favorite was a village scene, a woman shooing geese from the stoop of a thatched cottage festooned with tea roses. For a thousand francs, MarieClaire had told her, customers could have their chocolates packed in one of these unique boxes, and tied with a satin ribbon dyed especially to match.

But what Annie loved best of all were the chocolates themselves. On all sides, displayed on silver trays like precious jewels, in antique wicker baskets, and in fluted crystal dishes. In the bow-front window sat a multitiered silver epergne, like great leaves on an ornate silver bough, each tier adorned with truffles, and with bonbons from antique molds in the shapes of horses, grape clusters, leaves, cherubs. Surrounding the epergne were the small cakes Monsieur Pompeau baked himself. They reminded Annie of exquisite jewel boxes, decorated with candied violets, miniature silver bells, and curls of gold leaf.

But right now Annie knew it was Henri to whom she needed to devote all her attention. He stood talking to C้cile, a tall, slim woman whose neck seemed too slender to support the heavy coil of graying hair at its nape. When Henri wasn’t around, she managed the shop. Softspoken and discreet, and impeccably dressed in a soft gray wool jersey adorned only by a heavy gold chain, C้cile looked as if she could just as easily have been the doyenne of a haute couture house on the avenue Montaigne. It was she who had created the rule: Never, ever, ask if a box of chocolates was a gift; every purchase of Girod’s was a gift … if only to oneself.

Henri, in comparison, looked rumpled, more like a shaggy philosopher than the director of this chic establishment, his bespoke chalk-stripe suit badly creased, hair mussed and cheeks flushed, as if he’d ridden a bicycle here. Not handsome-his strong broad features made Annie think of a Van Gogh potato farmer. And from what Dolly had told her, she knew Henri wouldn’t hesitate to roll up