“Norbert brought a man with him to dinner last night. I went to lunch with him at the Café de Paris, and he came here to swim with me and asked me to dinner tonight. His name is Paul Lamont. He’s of the Lamont cosmetics family.”
“I know all about the Lamont cosmetics family. So?”
“I don’t think it’s brain surgery to figure out that he wants to get more involved with me.”
“I’d be pretty stupid to be surprised about that,” she said dryly. “And very disappointed to hear otherwise.”
“I wanted to be sure that you thought it was all right.”
“What was all right?”
“For me to be seeing him like this while I’m he
re,” I said.
“It’s all right if it’s all right with you, if you handle everything correctly and carefully. Perhaps he’ll fall in love with you, and you won’t have to come back,” she added. “Would you like that?”
“We’ve only known each other for twenty-four hours, but he probably is in love with me,” I told her.
She laughed. “One of you is,” she said.
“Yes, but you have no worries. He won’t ask me to marry him. He’s in one of those arranged relationships.”
“He doesn’t have to offer marriage,” she said.
There was something about the indifference in her voice that sparked suspicion in my mind.
“This is a test, isn’t it?” I asked. “It’s all prearranged.”
“Everything you will do from now on is a test, Roxy, whether I arrange it or not. Get used to it. I’ve got to go. Make your own decisions now. We’ll see you in about ten days. Unless something makes that unnecessary,” she added. “Au revoir, ma chère,” she said, and hung up.
I sat there with the dead receiver in my hand, thinking. Was everything pure coincidence, or wasn’t it, and if it wasn’t, did that mean Paul was part of it? Would I be disappointed if that was so? Would I feel manipulated, my emotions tapped and prodded, with everyone waiting to see what I would do?
“Make your own decisions,” Mrs. Brittany had said. All right, I will. Right now, I’ll just shower and wash my hair, and then I’ll make my first decision since we spoke. I’ll decide what to wear. None of this will intimidate me, I told myself. I really should have told her that, made it clear. Right from the beginning, I should have done what she said, assumed everything was a test in one way or another. I didn’t need her to confirm it. I’d never need her to confirm it.
I wasn’t sure what made me more enthusiastic and excited, my defiance, my growing affection for Paul, or my desire to learn the truth. What would I do with that truth if and when I learned it, anyway? Would I pout and then quit, demand my kill fee, and go off on my own? Would I just swallow it and keep it to myself? Would I laugh in their faces and claim that I always knew?
“Everything is an experience,” Mrs. Brittany once told me. “Treat it all that way. Feeling sorry for yourself after a distasteful or disappointing experience only blinds you to what lessons there are and how you can benefit.”
Now was the time to take her advice, I thought. Maybe I wasn’t just discovering things about Paul and Mrs. Brittany and everything and everyone else around me. Maybe I was discovering more about myself. What was I made of, fragile and delicate little feelings that crackled and popped or feelings covered with thick, strong skin that helped open my eyes more and trained me to confront any problem courageously?
How many times after I had left home did I stop to feel sorry for myself? Each time I was tempted to surrender, to go crawling back. If I had done that, what would have become of me? I could hear the derision in Mrs. Brittany’s voice. So you think you’re being tested? Poor girl. If you think this is a test, wait until you’re really out there. I was so angry at myself the more I thought about it that I nearly stomped out of my room and ripped off the banister as I descended the stairway.
Paul was out on the patio having some wine. I paused to look at him, unseen. He had freely admitted that he was committed or was in the process of being committed to another woman, primarily for business reasons. Would he toss that aside for someone like me, someone who had nothing but herself to offer? Was it the musings of a romantic teenage girl even to think of such a thing? If I had learned anything while being with Mrs. Brittany, it should be that such idyllic romance occurs only in movies. She was probably right. He would try to keep us both, with me on the side, the famous mistress French men were expected to possess, and his respectable, wealthy wife on his arm in public. I liked him. He was good-looking and sexy. I wasn’t going to toss him off so quickly.
I considered the implication Mrs. Brittany had made that he would want me for a mistress. Why should such a possibility bother me, someone who was preparing herself for a life, at least in her youth, to be just that sort of woman for many wealthy and powerful men? If it did bother me that much, I certainly wasn’t capable of being a Brittany girl, was I?
No, if he should ever propose such a relationship, I would smile and say, “Take a ticket.” The idea brought a ripple of silent laughter across my lips. Go play the game, Roxy Wilcox, I whispered to myself. Take the test, and prove yourself to yourself first and Mrs. Brittany last.
Paul turned and saw me staring at him. He smiled and lifted an empty wineglass.
“Yes, please,” I said, coming out onto the patio.
He poured me a glass and handed it to me. “Well, I didn’t think it was possible,” he said.
“What was possible?”
“For you to look more beautiful than you did before. The truth is, you look more and more beautiful each time I see you.”