A Paris Affair (2 page)

“One piece of good news,” Philippe said as he drained the bottle into his wife’s glass. “My parents called and said they’d like to have the kids for a few days. My vacation is already on the schedule at work, so I thought I’d take them up on the train on Wednesday and beat the rush out of the city.”

They both knew that Valérie disliked his parents and wouldn’t want to go, so he didn’t even ask. “You can have a break from the kids and all the appointments and running around. You can stay in your pajamas all day and relax.”

Valérie smiled at him, took his hand and squeezed it gently between hers, saying, “You’re my angel.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead.

Philippe was careful with Valérie ever since she had suffered a minor emotional breakdown in the midst of the move back to Paris and the shock of their troubles with Mathieu. Philippe made sure she took her anti-anxiety medication, and tried to ease some of her daily load.

“
Papa
! Mathieu ripped the head off Chloé!” Manon stomped into the kitchen and displayed the evidence in both hands.

“I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t…!” Mathieu yelled repeatedly from the other room. Valérie dropped her head. She so desperately needed respite from the chaos of…of just everything. She missed the big houses of international life. Here, space was a rare commodity, and although they had a roomy apartment by Paris standards, it was claustrophobic for a stressed family.

Philippe glanced at his wife, and when he saw her strained expression, jumped up and ushered Manon out in order to calm the waters.

Preparations and Departures

The day before their departure, Valérie was packing Philippe’s and the children’s bags for their holiday in Bretagne. She was going through a mental checklist of what they would need for their beach days when the cell phone rang.

She walked into the hallway, found her bag and dug through it for her phone. “Yes, hello!”

“Valérie?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t recognize my voice? Of course, it’s been so long. It’s Oscar from New York….”

“Oscar…Nathalie’s friend? Yes, of course…Oscar, how are you? It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has, but I had such a nice time at that dinner, and I’ve never forgotten you both. How is your husband, your children?”

“Fine, fine. Are you here in France?”

“I am. That’s why I’m calling. I’m in Paris for a few days. We had such a nice dinner in New York, so I got your number here from Nathalie. She told me you had moved back. I was going to ask if you and Philippe could meet me for supper while I’m in the city.”

Valérie was stunned to be getting this call. Her heart began to pound and she started to sweat. Thank God this was over the telephone and not in person! She had to concentrate in order to keep her voice sounding offhanded and light. Oscar, of all people! During their Los Angles posting a few years back, Philippe and Valérie had flown to New York to visit Valérie’s sister. Nathalie had married a New Yorker, and worked as a private French tutor for firms that did business abroad. Oscar was a senior manager in an international sports federation, and needed to be multilingual, since their business was done around the world. He became one of her students, and eventually a friend, and had been a guest at the dinner party.

Valérie was instantly attracted to him. She had been seated across from him and they’d chatted throughout the meal, which his wife hadn’t attended. Oscar was not a big man, maybe 5’6”—which accounted for his talent at soccer when he was young—but she liked his size, and beneath his sharp business suit his build seemed compact, lithe and muscular. She’d sensed a fierce sexuality under those executive clothes. He had light olive skin, and his face looked toned and angular. She even liked the shape of his neck, which made her wish he hadn’t been wearing a tie, so that she could peek at his chest.

She loved a man’s fit, lean torso, and how it made her eye travel down to his sex, and she still remembered that the lines of his shirt suggested he was strong and muscular. He sat comfortably, with his legs apart and his elbows resting on his thighs, and exuded the alpha confidence of an athlete. Philippe, though very attractive, was not particularly fit, and he held himself the way intellectuals and businessmen do, with their heads somehow disconnected from their bodies. But this man was different. She had felt that he was
in
his body, and that his mind and body were a powerful team. He had an aura that seemed to knock other men out of the room.

He was several years older than Valérie, and had beautifully graying hair and an appealing, virile five o’clock shadow that brought out his square jawline. His eyes, which had held her gaze longer than normal for a casual dinner gathering, were dark green. She’d found them captivating, and more than once had looked away when she felt the intimacy overwhelming.

She still remembered how, when he spoke, he’d rested his elbow on the table and lightly stroked his lips with his thumb while holding her glance. She’d found him sexy, and a little sly. For a diplomat’s spouse, dinner parties were akin to a part-time job, and she met scores of good-looking men, married or not. Valérie had never imagined being involved with a man outside her marriage, and she and Philippe had been very happy together at that point. But Oscar had left an impression on her that hadn’t disappeared.

All they’d shared that evening was common dinner party conversation, but underneath the banter she’d felt a current of heat between them. Had he shared her feeling? She had always thought so, because his eyes never left hers except when they perused her hair and her shirt front. She felt as if he was carefully checking her out, and was flattered, because she found him so attractive.

But she never found out one way or another. She and her sister didn’t share intimacies, so Valérie had never mentioned him to Nathalie except in completely casual terms. She’d prayed that nobody at the party had noticed the heat she had felt between them.

At one point in the evening she had spied Philippe in a conversation with him, and when they were on their way home she learned her husband had exchanged phone numbers with Oscar, who apparently traveled widely for his job and sometimes found himself in Los Angeles. She had been nonchalant about it to Philippe, but was secretly thrilled. She was disappointed that they never heard from Oscar again, but had never quite forgotten him.

Clearly, the momentary attraction had not faded, because she was as excited as a schoolgirl to have him on the phone.

“Well, Philippe is taking the children to the north coast to his parents’ for a few days, and I’ll be on my own. We could get together for a coffee tomorrow. How’s that?”

“Lovely. You’re there in the sixteenth arrondissement, at the address your sister gave?”

“Yes, yes. And we have a good café at the corner, called Café Liberté. It has a blue awning—you’ll see it. It’s across from a little grocery with flowers in front.”

“No problem. Is four o’clock fine for you?”

“Perfect. Tomorrow at four. See you then.”

“I look forward to it! I’m so glad I’ll have some company for a bit! Paris is a little harsh when you’re alone.”

“Oh, your wife didn’t come with you?” she ventured.
What the hell am I thinking?
she wondered.

“No, no, I came for work in Madrid. She has work in New York.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Valérie lied. “Well, anyway…till tomorrow then. Bye-bye.”

“Tomorrow!”

They hung up simultaneously.

Valérie stood in the room with the phone in her hand. Then she sat on the bed, in the middle of the piles of clothes and toiletries and open suitcases. She dropped the cell back into her bag and took out a pack of cigarettes. Philippe disapproved of her smoking, but wasn’t too angry if she did it only occasionally, and when she was alone.

She got back up, went to the window and opened it, then lit up and took a deep drag. She looked mindlessly at the traffic below and the neighbors around her, and recalled her single meeting with Oscar. She remembered the color of his eyes and now, with the phone call, the calm of his smooth, sexy voice. She swallowed and took another drag of her cigarette, feeling something deep in her body that she hadn’t felt in years. It was pure, sexual wanting. It was dormant sensation reawakened by the voice of this man she’d met for just a few hours years ago. She felt a flicker in her sex, as if it was being shaken awake, too.

She had never been unfaithful in her marriage, and had never shared more than an innocent flirtation with another man. But…then
what
, exactly? she asked herself. Things at home were so stressed, and sex was lukewarm at best. She didn’t even wait for arousal anymore with her husband. She just wanted it to be done so that she could sleep. What a state!

Her discontent allowed a space to open within her. It did not open in her heart, but in her body, and she felt it through her nerve endings. She felt that a ray of daylight was piercing the dismal gray cloud of her life, and offering her something beyond her marriage. How could the timing be so
perfect
? she asked herself, careful to avoid the word
affair.
She didn’t wish for any real distance from Philippe and her children; but while they were having
their
little holiday, might she have a “holiday” of her own…?

She was dying to know if Oscar was interested in her, and if he ever strayed outside his marriage; what man
wouldn’t
, she wondered, if the opportunity presented itself? She felt the stirring storm of sexual anticipation that she had in New York. It had been
so
long since a man had moved her sexually. Physically, she lived in a dry desert of neutered sex, and had actually forgotten the earthquake of desire. Here it was, rumbling inside her.

She recalled the sizzling undercurrent she’d felt with Oscar, and her nerves jumped. Did he really just want a cup of coffee, or something more…? She would have to wait and see. And if
something more
meant something that could harm her marriage, the stability of the life she and Philippe had made together, or their children…these were issues too monumental for her to allow herself to consider.

Valérie wasn’t a schemer or a planner, and wasn’t deceptive by nature; but her circumstances and her own emotional weakness left her open to seizing a moment and hoping it would all turn out for the best. She felt such a great longing for respite from a difficult period in their lives. And unless she was very wrong, Oscar’s sudden appearance felt ready-made:
prêt-à-porter
!

Looking out the window, she recalled Oscar and her sense of him. At the dinner she had imagined what he looked like under his sharp business suit—from the way his clothes fell she’d thought she could make out a taut, slim muscular build. She’d felt his raw sexuality. She remembered his green eyes gazing into hers like a cheeky dare…and she breathed hard. She put her cigarette out on the window ledge, closed the window, and turned back to packing for her family’s trip.

The next day all the preparations were in place. The taxi was ordered, bags were packed, and the grandparents were expecting them at the train station. They were leaving around lunchtime, so Valérie had prepared food for the trip.

“All ready to go?” Philippe asked the children. He looked at his wife. “This will be a good change of pace for everyone, don’t you think?”

Valérie smiled warmly at him and hugged him around his waist. He reciprocated with his arm around her shoulder. They stood together, looking at the children, who were stuffing last-second treasures into their bags. The apartment buzzer rang, signaling the taxi. “Let’s go! Taxi’s here!” Philippe said.

Ding-dang-dong
… The three-tone notices hummed continuously over the loudspeaker, announcing trains coming and going. Gare de l’Est was a loom in motion. Families, singles, couples, old people, children, backpackers—they walked and ran in every direction, their paths crisscrossing in a colorful weave.

“We’ll miss you, my love,” Philippe said. “Mathieu, you know
Maman
is staying home. She’s not coming with us. It’s just us three visiting
Mamie
and
Papie
.”

Mathieu looked at his parents, then turned back to watch the crowd. He clung to his mother. “He’s gonna throw a total fit the second we get on the train and he sees you’re not coming,” Manon said, matter-of-factly.

“Try and relax,” Philippe directed, “and don’t smoke too much. Remember to eat properly. I’ll call you as soon as we’re there.”

“If I’m out, don’t worry. I might go to a film or sit in a café. Just things to clear my head. Maybe I’ll do some shopping for the kids. Make sure you all enjoy yourselves.”

Ding-dang-dong…boarding train 631 in five minutes to Lorient on track 15…

Café Liberté

Back in the apartment in front of her bedroom mirror, Valérie thought that the pale green top gave her a flirty décolletage, but that maybe the black skirt wasn’t so flattering. On the other hand, she thought as she tried on things from her closet, the pale pink linen dress showed off her waist and had décolleté as well. She chose the pink dress and stepped into it.

She was in good shape for her age, despite having had a couple of kids. Her breasts hadn’t bounced back to their former glory, but were still nicely shaped. Her olive skin tone was still pretty, and she had a slim waist and nice legs. She was a petite height, and had to watch what she ate to stay slim, now that she was nearly forty-three. She still cared about her figure, but had never anticipated being
naked with another man
. It had simply never occurred to her. She looked at her body and thought that her hair was still her best feature. She had wild, glossy black curls that fell below her shoulders.

Oh, maybe it’s just a coffee, after all,
she thought, hoping that it wasn’t…but afraid that it was…! Conflicting notions pulled her one way and then another. On one hand she felt as if she had the right to a moment of pure joy with someone; yet on the other hand she knew she would be breaking a commitment she’d made to her husband. And then again, Oscar might be simply meeting an acquaintance for a coffee….