The Love Season (32 page)

Cade pushed open the door to the guest room, thinking maybe she had left him a note. He turned on the light. He was looking for a piece of paper—and that was what drew his eyes to the list. He snapped it up, but
seeing that it was just something in his mother’s handwriting, he balled it up and threw it on the floor. He looked out on the deck, the deck where only the night before he and Renata had made love while his parents entertained friends below them. But the deck was deserted. Ditto the bathroom. It wasn’t until Cade was ready to leave the guest room—and, quite possibly, make a surreptitious run over to Quince Street—that he noticed the ring. It was right on top of the dresser, as obvious as the nose on his face, so maybe he had seen it a minute ago and just not admitted it to himself.

He picked up the ring, squeezed it in his palm, and sat on the bed.
Renata
. He thought he might cry for the first time since who knew when. People had said he was crazy to propose to a nineteen-year-old girl.
She’s too young—
his own parents had warned him of that
—she hasn’t had time to get started, much less be finished
. And then there was Claire’s parting shot:
She wasn’t good enough for you, anyway
. Claire was jealous—either that or she suspected Renata had been indiscreet with Miles, which was, Cade had to admit to himself, entirely possible. Even so, Cade loved Renata fiercely. Yes, she was young, but she was going to grow into an amazing woman, and he wanted to be there for that.

He rocked back and forth on the bed. She didn’t want him. Cade had the urge to knock on his parents’ bedroom door and, like a three-year-old, crawl into their bed, have his mother smooth his hair, have his father chuck him under the chin. But his parents weren’t like that; they weren’t nurturing. They had given him every possible advantage and they expected him, now, to make his own way. He would have better luck seeking comfort from Daniel Knox. Yes, Cade thought, he would go down, pour himself a scotch, and confide in the man who might have been his father-in-law. Daniel knew Renata better than anyone. Maybe he could tell Cade something that would make him understand.

Cade walked down the hall, past the west guest room, in case Daniel had come upstairs. But the door to the west guest room was open; the room was dark and empty. Cade stumbled down the back stairs into the kitchen—it had been cleaned by somebody, Nicole probably—and into the living room. Empty. Cade walked out onto the deck. The table had been cleared, the tiki torches extinguished. The deck was deserted. Cade gazed out at the small front lawn, and down farther to the beach.

“Daniel?” Cade whispered into the darkness.

But he was gone.

11:00 P.M.

At eleven o’clock, with the old clock’s grand recital of the hour, its eleven ominous bongs, Marguerite brought out dessert. Two
pots de crème
, topped with freshly whipped cream and garnished with raspberries. Renata was fading; Marguerite could see it in the way her pretty shoulders were sagging now, her eyes staring blankly at her own reflection in the dark window. Marguerite set the ramekins down with a flourish. This was it. There was no more champagne to pour. Nothing left to do but tell her. Marguerite’s heart hammered away. For years she had imagined this moment, the great confession. Many times Marguerite had considered going to a priest. She would sit in the little booth, face-to-face with the padre, and confess her sins—then allow the priest to touch her head and grant her absolution. But it would have made no difference. Marguerite knew that God forgave her; his forgiveness didn’t matter. Forgiveness from the girl in front of her, Candace’s child, that did matter.

Marguerite had imagined this moment, yes, but she still couldn’t believe it was about to happen. Her chest felt tight, like someone was squeezing her windpipe. Heart, lungs—her body was trying to stop her.

“I’d like to talk to you about your mother’s death,” she said.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Renata said. “You don’t have to say anything else.”

“I’d like to anyway. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“A couple of years after you were born, your parents bought the house in Dobbs Ferry. They wanted a place to spend the winter. Your father thought maybe Colorado, but your mother wanted to be close to the city. She loved New York, and Porter was there. She wanted to put you in a good school; she wanted to be able to take you to the museums and the zoo. It made sense.”

Renata nodded.

“They bought the house when you were four.”

Renata swirled her whipped cream and chocolate together, like a child mixing paints. She had yet to take a bite.

Marguerite paused. Her task was impossible. She could speak the words, relay the facts—but she would never be able to convey the emotion. Candace had spent months preparing Marguerite for the news—saying that she and Dan were looking at houses off-island, saying they’d found a house in a town they liked, Dobbs Ferry, New York, less than four hours away. Marguerite never responded to these announcements; she pretended not to hear. She was being childish and unfair—they were all adults, Candace and Dan were free to do as they liked, they had Renata to think of, and Nantucket in the winter had few options for the parents of small children. The warning shots grew nearer. One day Candace had the gall to suggest that Marguerite join a book group or a church.

You need to get out more
, she said.
You need to make more friends
.

What she was saying was that she couldn’t carry the load by herself. She was going to be leaving. But Marguerite, stubbornly, would hear none of it.

You can’t leave
, Marguerite said. She picked Renata up, kissed her cheeks, and said,
You are not leaving
.

But leave they did, in the autumn, a scant three weeks after Porter returned to Manhattan. In the final days, Candace called Marguerite at the restaurant kitchen every few hours.

I’m worried about you
.

Dobbs Ferry isn’t that far, you know
.

We’ll be back for Columbus Day. And then at Thanksgiving, you’ll come to us. I can’t possibly do the dinner without you
.

We’re leaving nearly everything at the club. Because we’ll be back the first of May. Maybe April fifteenth
.

On the day that Candace left, Marguerite saw them off at the ferry. It was six thirty in the morning but as dark as midnight. Dan stayed in the car—Renata was sound asleep in the back—but Candace and Marguerite stood outside until the last minute, their breath escaping like plumes of smoke in the cold.

It’s not like we’ll never see each other again
, Candace said.

Right. Marguerite should have been used to it, sixteen years Porter had been leaving her in much the same way, and yet at that moment she felt finally and completely forsaken.

“Your mother leaving was painful,” Marguerite said.

Candace had phoned every day during Renata’s nap and Marguerite—despite her claims that she would be fine, that she was very, very
busy—came to rely on those phone calls. After she hung up with Candace, she poured her first glass of wine.

“I traveled down to the new house for Thanksgiving like your mother wanted. We cooked three geese.”

“Geese?”

“Your uncle Porter took the train up from the city. It was a very big deal. That was the only time in seventeen years that I ever celebrated the holidays with him.”

Marguerite closed her eyes for a second and was gone again. Three geese stuffed with apples and onions, served with a Roquefort sauce, stuffing with chestnuts, potato gratin, curried carrots, brussel sprouts with bacon and chives—Marguerite made everything herself, from scratch, while Candace did her best to help. Porter, bald and with a belly, did his old stint of lingering in the kitchen all day, drinking champagne, shaving off pieces of the exotic cheeses he’d brought in from the city, providing a running commentary on the Macy’s parade, which played on TV for Renata, who stacked blocks on the linoleum floor.

At the dinner table, they all took their usual spots: Marguerite next to Candace, across from Porter. It was a careful imitation of their dinners at Les Parapluies, though Marguerite keenly felt the difference—the strange house, the evanescence of the occasion—in three short days, she would be back on Nantucket alone, and Porter, Dan, and Candace would return to the lives they had made without her.

Later, though, Porter cornered her in the kitchen as she finished the dessert dishes—Dan was in the den watching football; Candace was upstairs putting Renata to bed. He pushed Marguerite’s hair aside and kissed her neck, just like he used to all those years ago in the restaurant. She nearly broke the crystal fruit compote.

I have something for you
, he said.
Call it an early Christmas present
.

Marguerite rinsed her hands and dried them on a dish towel. Christmas used to mean pearls or a box from Tiffany’s, though in the last few years Porter’s ardor had mellowed or matured and he sent an amaryllis and great bottles of wine that he picked up at one of the auctions he attended in New York.

Marguerite turned to him, smiling but not happy. Porter sensed her misery, she knew, and he would do anything short of performing a circus act to get her to snap out of it.

He handed her an envelope. So not the amaryllis or vintage Bordeaux after all. Marguerite’s hands were warm and loose from the dishwater, too loose—she fumbled with the envelope. Inside were two plane tickets to Paris. It was like a joke, a story, something unreal, but when she looked at Porter his eyes were shining. She grabbed his ears and shrieked like a teenager.

“Just after the first of the year, your uncle took me back to Paris,” Marguerite said to Renata. “Finally. After nearly seventeen years.”

“How was it?” Renata said. “Was it like you remembered?”

“No,” Marguerite said. “Not at all as I remembered.”

Marguerite had convinced herself that Paris was the answer to her prayers, the key to her happiness; her expectations were dangerously high. There was, after all, no way to re-create their earlier time in Paris: Too much had happened; they were different people. Marguerite was nearly fifty years old, and Porter was beyond fifty. They were professionals; they were seasoned; they had money and tastes now. Instead of being caught up in the throes of fresh love, they were comfortable together; they were, Marguerite thought, a pair of old shoes. And yet she held out for romance—a promise from Porter, a proposal. She believed the trip to
Paris was a sign that he was finished with his bachelor life in New York; he was done with his string of other women; the sparkle had worn off; the effort wearied him; he was ready for something lasting, something meaningful. Marguerite had won out in the end for her perseverance. She would finally belong to someone; she would finally be safe.

No, it wasn’t the same, though still they walked, hand in hand. Marguerite had compiled a list of places she wanted to visit—this
fromagerie
in the sixth, this chocolatier, this home-goods store for hand-loomed linens, this wine shop, this purveyor of fennel-studded salami, which they ate on slender
ficelles
, this butcher for roasted
bleu de Bresse
. It was January and bitterly cold. They bundled up in long wool coats, cashmere scarves, fur hats, leather gloves, boots lined with shearling. Despite the temperature, Marguerite insisted they visit the Tuilieries, though the gardens were brown and gray, dead and dormant—and afterward Le Musée du Jeu de Paume. The museum was smaller than either of them remembered; it was overheated; the bench where Porter had fallen asleep was gone, replaced by a red circular sofa. They revisited the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. When they opened the door, the draft licked at the flame of five hundred lit prayer candles. Marguerite paid three francs to light one herself.
Please
, she thought. At Shakespeare and Company, Marguerite lingered among the Colette novels and picked one out for Candace while Porter, to her astonishment, bought something off the American bestseller list, a thriller penned by a twenty-five-year-old woman.

“All my students are reading it,” he said.

They were staying in a suite at the Plaza Athenee—it was all red brocade and gold tassels; it had two huge marble bathrooms. It was sumptuous and decadent, though a far cry from showering together under the roses. One afternoon, while Porter worked out in the new fitness center, Marguerite lounged in the bubble bath and thought,
I should feel happy.
Why aren’t I happy?
Something was missing from this trip. An intimacy, a connection. When she got out of the tub, she called Candace.

“Why are you calling me?” Candace said, though she sounded happy and excited to hear from Marguerite. “You’re supposed to be strolling the Champs-Elysées.”

“Oh, you know,” Marguerite said. “I just called to say hello.”

“Just hello?” Candace said. “This must be costing you a fortune. Is everything okay? How’s Porter?”

What could Marguerite say? Suddenly, with Candace on the phone, her worries seemed silly, insubstantial. Porter had brought her to Paris; they were staying in a palace; Porter was sweet, attentive, indulgent. He hadn’t so much as called his secretary. She couldn’t possibly complain.

“Everything’s great,” she said.

Each night, they dressed for dinner—Porter in a tuxedo, Marguerite in long velvet skirts or the silk pantsuit Candace had sent her from Saks. They went to the legends: Taillvent, Maxim’s, La Tour d’Argent. The service was intimidating; the food was artwork; the candlelight was flattering to Porter’s face as Marguerite hoped it was to hers. She worried that they might run out of things to talk about, but Porter was as manic and charming as ever; he was so filled with funny stories that Marguerite was surprised he didn’t burst from them. And yet she couldn’t combat the feeling that he felt it was his job to keep her amused.

One night, at a bistro that had been written up in
Bon Appétit
, they drank three bottles of wine and when they got in the cab they spoke to the driver in fluent French. When they reached the hotel, they were laughing and feeling extremely pleased with themselves. Porter looked at Marguerite seriously, tenderly; he seemed to recognize her for the first time during the trip and maybe in years. They were standing outside the door to their suite; Porter had the old-fashioned iron key poised above the lock.