“You have an admirer, Lucie,” Charles called in a teasing lilt.
Jerzy made an exaggerated frown. “The poor boy must be lonely so far from home.”
“Good,” Lucie said. “The lonelier they get, the sooner they’ll go home.”
The men laughed, but Bernadette met Lucie’s eye and shook her head.
Bernadette was right. Although many of the French chafed under German rule, many welcomed the stability the Germans brought after the tumultuous 1930s. Even Lucie had to admit the soldiers were polite, with only a handful of ugly episodes, so polite they’d earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname of the “corrects.”
The door opened. Monsieur Quinault shook out his umbrella and stepped inside.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Quinault.” Lucie hurried forward to meet the printer. How unusual for him to visit the store. “Did you bring more bookplates?”
Monsieur Quinault did not return her smile. “Not until you pay for the previous order as well as this one. Since you no longer pay your bills, payment is now due upon order.”
“Oh.” Lucie eased back. “I’m sorry. Let me find out what happened. Madame Martel?”
After a pause, Bernadette raised dark eyes. “Oui?”
“Monsieur Quinault says he hasn’t been paid.”
Bernadette tipped her head toward the office. “The bill is on the desk.”
The desk. Lucie shuddered and headed to the office. Erma had kept the desk clear with a tiny, neat stack of papers quickly whisked into the file cabinet. But Bernadette worked in a freer environment.
Lucie thumbed through the hill of papers on the desk, but she didn’t know what she was looking for. She’d never had a head for such things. Bernadette did, but she preferred reading to paperwork, and the store did need her deep literary knowledge.
A bunch of papers cascaded off the desk, and Lucie knelt to pick them up.
“How much longer, mademoiselle?” Quinault’s cigarette-roughened voice tightened. “I would like to be paid.”
Lucie plopped the papers on the desk. “How much do I owe you?”
Quinault’s craggy face froze. His eye twitched. “Two hundred francs.”
He wasn’t telling the truth, but without the bill, Lucie couldn’t verify the amount. She’d write it down and ask Bernadette to reconcile it.
Besides, Monsieur Quinault was a widower, and the Germans held his only son as a prisoner of war, along with two million other French soldiers. Quinault might be having a difficult time making ends meet, and he deserved kindness. And having his bills paid.
Lucie opened the cash box and counted out the francs. The cash looked low, but it was the first of the month, right after the rent had been paid.
She wrote out a receipt. “I thank you for your patience and for your beautiful printing.”
Quinault pointed the bills at her. “Next time, you will pay first.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Monsieur Greenblatt never should have left his store to a woman.”
Somehow Lucie managed not to roll her eyes. Madame Greenblatt had been the one who paid the bills.
With a huff, Quinault departed, passing Véronique and Marie-Claude.
Lucie’s roommates gaped after him, then entered the office.
“Oh, my pet, what are you doing in here?” Marie-Claude wrinkled her nose at the papers. “With . . . this?”
Véronique beckoned. “Come, come.”
“You mustn’t worry.” Lucie waved her hands over the desk with a flourish. “I shall turn this all into papier-mâché and sculpt with it.”
Véronique took Lucie’s hand and drew her out from behind the desk. “We don’t have practice at the ballet today. We’re going to the cinema, where we’ll flirt with the soldiers, then pretend not to understand a word they say.”
“Thank you for the invitation, but I have to mind the store.”
Marie-Claude gave Lucie a teasing look. “While you mind the store, mind you don’t turn bourgeois.”
“This is the only turning I do.” Lucie sprang onto pointe in her brown oxfords, her feet tight together, then spun in a soutenu turn and blew a kiss to her friends.
No danger that she’d ever turn bourgeois.
4
SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1941
Paul’s pencil swooped over the paper. Only when designing cars at his mahogany desk at home did he feel like his real self.
Someday he would build this model he called the Autonomy, a nimble two-seater based on the Audacity race car. Since 1915, Dad’s business had revolved around the stately Authority and the elegant Aurora. Although they’d been one of the few luxury carmakers to survive the Depression, Paul wanted to expand their line. Future success lay with serving bankers and physicians as well as business tycoons and movie stars.
Sure would beat his current work manufacturing delivery trucks. Since gasoline permits were only available to a privileged few, the trucks ran on wood gas. External wood-burning gazogène generators fed wood gas to modified engines. Paul privately called the model the Au-ful.
Saturday morning sunshine spilled over the desk as Paul sketched the Autonomy’s engine compartment.
“Da-deeee.” Josie’s little voice rose before him with plaintiveness that said she’d already spoken his name several times.
He glanced across his desk to his four-year-old. “Hello, jelly bean.”
She giggled, lighting up brown eyes the same shade as Paul’s. Madame Coudray had pinned a yellow side bow in Josie’s chin-length brown curls.
Paul wound one finger into a curl, the only feature she’d inherited from her mother. “What’s up?”
“Want to see my Feenee story?” Josie plopped a lopsided booklet of crayon drawings onto Paul’s desk.
His stomach soured. He ought to praise her work. That’s what fathers did. But Josie’s stories were odd. All about a strange creature she called Feenee.
Paul handed back the booklet. “Maybe tonight. Daddy’s working.”
“Oh.” Light drained from her eyes.
His chest squeezed, but he needed to point the child to more acceptable pursuits.
In the doorway Madame Coudray gave Josie a gentle smile. “You did not finish your breakfast. We must not waste food.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Josie slipped away.
Paul raised one finger to bid the nanny to stay, then motioned for her to have a seat. “Have you noticed more of these Feenee stories? I’m concerned.”
Well into her sixties, the nanny sat stiff and thin as a poker. She folded her hands in her lap and studied them. “May I speak plainly, Monsieur Aubrey?”
“Yes, please.” Not only did the woman spend far more time with Josie than Paul did, but she’d raised Simone as well.
Madame Coudray raised her pale eyes. “Madame Aubrey has been gone almost a year.”
Paul’s breath snagged in his throat.
“You are at the factory more than ever.” She frowned at his desk. “When you are home, still you work. Rarely do you go out. You do not have guests.”
For reasons too complex and secret for her ears. “No, I don’t.”
She swept her hand toward the window. “Take your daughter for a walk. Listen to her stories. They are mere childish fantasies and will soon be gone. You do not need to like her stories, but you need to listen to them.”