He nodded reluctantly. He was in no position to argue with her. “I’ll call a realtor tomorrow. Are you still going to see the lawyer?” he asked her cautiously.
“Yes, I am. I think he’s back from vacation next week. I just want to establish some ground rules for both of us to follow.” They had actually been managing well without them, but he dropped by whenever he wanted, without warning. Lately, he had been calling first, but not always. He still felt as though he lived with them.
“I’ll be in Brittany for a couple of weeks in October,” he said, and they both knew why, although he didn’t say it. He was going to be there for his son’s birth. But it didn’t sound as though he would be seeing him regularly, if Pascale was planning to leave him with her mother. That way she wouldn’t have to hire a nanny or worry about him. She joked about it and said she had never liked babysitting when she was younger, which shocked Nicolas. And yet she had wanted the baby, like a doll to play with when it suited her.
Thinking about it made Nadia realize how difficult it would be to go back to him, if she had wanted to. They would always have his son as a reminder of his affair with Pascale, even if they were no longer together. The child would be a living reminder of the hearts that had been broken when he came into the world. She felt sorry for the baby, with an absentee mother and a father who had another family he felt closer to. She wondered if Nicolas would fall in love with him, as he had with their girls. He had been crazy about them when they were born. Maybe he would with this one too, since he was a boy.
“Where are you staying now?” she asked Nicolas before he left, since she knew that Pascale was still in Ramatuelle.
“I’m staying with a friend. And I’m going to move to a hotel. It seems less complicated.” She nodded, and didn’t feel guilty about it. It was necessary, and a natural consequence of his actions. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, until he turned around and looked at her right before he left. “I still love you, you know,” he said softly. She didn’t know what to say at first.
“That’s too bad for both of us,” she said. She knew he missed the apartment, their shared lifestyle, and their daughters. She wasn’t convinced he missed her. “You’ll get used to it. We both will. It’s a big change for all of us,” she responded quietly.
“I’m not so sure I will get used to it. I’ve made some terrible mistakes in the last several months,” he said.
“Let’s not talk about it now,” she said. She was tired and didn’t want to dredge it all up again. “It happened. Now we have to live with it.” Forever, she thought. “Good night.” She walked to her room, and a minute later, she heard the front door close behind him.
* * *
—
The September issue of Mode came out, as it always did, in the last week of August. It sat on the corner of Rose’s desk, and she didn’t handle it with pride this time. She always loved the look of the thick magazine, with all its wonders. She was usually so proud of it, and it represented such a huge collaboration and so much work and inspiration. This time, she cringed every time she saw it. It pained her almost physically to see Pascale Solon on the cover. She was wearing a ruby red evening gown, extraordinary makeup, and the photograph itself was a work of art. The girl on the cover was a beauty, almost like a gem herself. And the photographs taken in Ramatuelle were inside the magazine, with the interview.
Olivia, Athena, and Venetia had gotten their copies, since they subscribed. Nadia always bought hers at a newsstand. She saw it on her way home from work, the day the girls started school. The red dress caught her eye, and she stood staring at it for a minute, not wanting to buy it, but feeling compelled to. It was as though it had beckoned to her. She had promised herself she wouldn’t buy it this time, but after standing in front of the kiosk for a full five minutes, she finally reached into her wallet, pulled out the money, handed it to the vendor, and grabbed a copy. She clutched it to her chest like something alive that she was shielding, as though it could leap out of her arms. Once she’d bought it, she hurried home, wanting desperately not to read it, but she knew she had to. It would not let her go now, as though it had tentacles, which held her fast.
She threw it on her bed when she walked into the apartment, sat down and stared at the cover for a long time, looking at every inch of Pascale’s face as though she were alive, and then she checked the table of contents, found the page number, and opened the magazine to the feature story. There was a full-page photograph of Nicolas and Pascale sitting on a lounge chair together, his arm casually around her, Pascale in a white lace dress, where you could almost see her breasts but not quite, and the full belly, which was carrying his baby. It nearly choked Nadia when she saw it, and she studied each photograph carefully, then read the interview. The questions were painful for Nadia, and Pascale’s answers were innocuous. Nicolas’s more artful answers were even more so. He had tried to glide through each question they had asked him, and in every image of them, he appeared happy. Looking at it, Nadia wondered why she had hesitated to divorce him. He appeared to be so in love with Pascale, and so bewitched by her. She finished reading the article and had to admit that none of it was actually tasteless. At one point she could see that they had pressed him about his marriage, and they had printed his response, “I love my family very much,” and then he had changed the subject. He said he was excited about the baby, but that was all he’d said about it. The rest of the time, he had talked of their working together on the film, what a powerful experience it had been for everyone in the cast, and what a talented actress she was. He had thrown many compliments her way for her acting, and he had spoken as little as possible about their relationship. He had handled it artfully, and defused most of the loaded questions. Pascale had spoken almost entirely about herself. All roads led to Rome with her. She was the classic, young narcissistic actress, and Nicolas almost seemed like a backdrop for her, a piece of stage scenery put there to enhance her. He didn’t seem stupid so much as deluded, and Nadia didn’t find her touching or innocent or sympathique in her responses. It was what you’d expect from a girl her age, who had recently exploded into stardom. She was very taken with herself. And the poses she melted into were invariably sexy. Nadia glanced through the photographs again until she’d had enough, and then she called her mother in New York. It was lunchtime for her, and Nadia got her on her cell.
“I know how terrible you feel about the interview, Mom,” she said simply, and Rose made a groaning sound, almost as though she was choking, or the interview was stuck in her throat. “I just wanted to tell you that I think it was done very tastefully. It’s better than I expected. It hurts to see him with her, but it’s nothing I don’t know, and he was careful and respectful with his responses.” She wanted her mother to know that she had survived it and had suffered less than her mother feared.
“Do you really think so?” her mother asked, amazed, and deeply grateful for the call.