Legacy

afternoon, and hardly drank at dinner.

“Okay, so tell me again,” Amy continued. “No mad passionate affairs in Paris, just some schoolteacher you spent the weekend with. What a waste of a ticket to Paris! You couldn’t do better than that?”

Brigitte laughed at how she said it. “He’s a nice guy, and I like him. He’s just geographically undesirable. He lives in Paris. I live here.”

“So move. There’s nothing special about Boston.”

“I live here. I like it. I’m looking for a job here.”

“Anything new on that score, by the way?” Brigitte decided not to tell her about the interview at AUP. They didn’t have anything for her anyway. And Amy would have pounced on it. She was desperate for Brigitte to have a life, a guy, a baby. It was too much pressure for Brigitte.

“I’m going to start calling around tomorrow. This is a busy time of year. They probably haven’t had time to get back to me.” Amy nodded agreement, but she also knew that her friend didn’t have much to show for her ten years in the admissions office at BU. Being number three after ten years was hardly impressive. But it had been what Brigitte wanted. And it was going to hurt her now, looking for a new job. What it would show any prospective employer was either a lack of ability, or a lack of ambition. In her case, it was the latter, but how were they supposed to know?

They talked until the boys woke up, and then Brigitte left and went back to her own apartment. And once she got there, she didn’t know what to do. She thought about going to a movie, but she hated to go alone. There were people she could have called, but she didn’t want to explain what had happened with Ted or that they had broken up. It made her feel like such a loser. Uh, yeah… after six years, he dumped me and went off to do a dig. Wouldn’t he have taken her along if he loved her? The way it had ended would tell everyone that he didn’t really care about her, and what did that say about her? Lately her ego was more wounded than her heart. But either way, she didn’t want to call anyone and have to explain.

She wandered around the apartment, got out the vacuum cleaner, and did her laundry. It made her think of the comfortable Sunday nights she had spent with him for six years, at the end of the weekends. They usually cooked dinner together. Just as she had feared, the reality of her solitude was beginning to hit her now that she was home. It reminded her of what Marc had said, that if she had loved Ted, she would have missed him when she was in Paris, not just when she went back to Boston. This was about what she didn’t have in her life, not about whom she was missing. Reminding herself of that helped, and she cleaned the apartment thoroughly before she went to bed. It had been an uneventful day, and a far cry from the weekend before, when she’d been in Brittany with Marc, going to fish restaurants, visiting the chateau, and staying at the cozy little inn. She laughed to herself as she put her flannel nightgown in the dryer. There was certainly nothing exotic about her life. She thought about calling Marc just to say hello, but she didn’t want to do that either. She needed to let go of that connection and not hang on too tightly, and by then it was four in the morning for him. And he hadn’t called her since she left. He was doing the right thing. She was just lonely and bored on a Sunday night.

She went to bed early and called all the universities she had sent resumes to, the next morning. Everyone was pleasant and polite. Yes, they had gotten her CV, they had no openings at the moment, but they would keep it on file. Some suggested she call back in June, others in September. It seemed incredible that at nine universities, there wasn’t a single opening. But there was nothing remarkable on her CV. She’d had a very standard job for ten years, and had done nothing to distinguish herself. She had published no articles, taught no classes, had organized no special programs. She had done no volunteer work. She had worked in the office, spent weekends with Ted, and researched her book. She was embarrassed now when she thought about it. How could she have challenged herself so little, and asked so little of herself?

It made her sit down at her desk with real determination and get back to her book about the women’s vote. She reorganized all her research, weeded through it, and took some things out, and by Tuesday, she started to write again. She had written a whole chapter by the end of the week. And then she read it. When she had finished reading it, she burst into tears. It was the most boring thing she’d ever written. Even academics wouldn’t want to read the book. She didn’t know what to do.

She was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands, when her mother called her on Friday night. She sounded excited. She’d been reading everything in the folder Brigitte had brought back from the trip.

“The material on our little Sioux relative is incredible. And the marquis sounds like quite a guy too. The stuff on her is riveting, and she was barely more than a girl.”

“Yes, it is.” Brigitte sounded lackluster, and her mother could hear it.

“Something wrong?”

“I’ve been working on my suffrage book all week, and it stinks. I don’t know what made me think anyone would care about this. It’s like reading cereal boxes, or tax forms, or prune juice labels. I hate it, and everyone else will too. And I’ve invested seven years of my life in it. I should just throw it away.” Her mother had never thought it an interesting subject, but Brigitte had always argued hotly for it, as an anthropologist and a woman. As a reader, and a retired editor, Marguerite had always thought it sounded pretty dull, but she didn’t want to be rude. “What do I do now?”

“Maybe your friend in Paris is right. Maybe you should write about Wachiwi. I agree with you. I don’t think you need to fictionalize it. It’s terrific the way it is. What about doing something with that?” Her mother was trying to be helpful.

“Maybe,” Brigitte said, sounding depressed.

“Have you heard from him, by the way?” her mother asked her with interest.

“No.”

“Then why don’t you write to him? You can send him an e-mail.”

“I don’t want to muddy the waters, Mom. We left things pretty much the way they should be. Friends who would get in touch from time to time. If I start writing to him, it’ll confuse us both.”

“What’s with all the shoulds? And what’s wrong with a little confusion between friends?” Her saying that reminded Brigitte instantly of the night they had kissed under the Eiffel Tower. The confusion had felt good that night. But that was then, this was now. And she was home. Paris was like a distant dream. And so was he.

“I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself. It’s kind of a letdown to come back from Paris. What I need is a job. No one seems to be hiring right now.” She had enough to live on until the end of summer, or longer if she was careful, but more than anything she was bored. And her mother could hear it in her voice.

“Well, come back to New York anytime. We can play. I’m in a bridge tournament next week, but after that I’m free.” At least her mother had bridge. She didn’t have that. She had nothing to keep her busy right now. And every time she thought about the material on Wachiwi, it scared her to death. And she didn’t want to tell Amy how she was feeling, or she’d tell her to go back to therapy. Amy suggested that when Ted left, and Brigitte didn’t want to do that right now either. She didn’t know what she wanted, or who.

She watched old movies on TV until late that night, and then, for lack of anything better to do, she sat down at her computer and wrote Marc an e-mail. She wasn’t sure what to say. Hi, I’m so bored I could scream… I still don’t have a job, my social life seems to have gone down the tubes… my book is the most boring piece of crap on the planet… and I’m thinking of burning it, and how are you?

Instead, she wrote him a short e-mail, saying that she was thinking about him, that she’d had a wonderful time with him in Paris and Brittany, and the little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower was sitting on her dressing table. And she said that her mother was thrilled with the material she brought back, and thanked him again for his help. She said she hoped everything was fine with him. And then she sat staring at it, wondering how to sign off… “Bye” sounded juvenile, “All the best” too businesslike, “Warm regards” ridiculous, “Fondly” pathetic, “Love” misleading. Finally she came up with “Thinking of you. Take care,” which sounded honest and real. She read it about six times to make sure it didn’t sound mushy, romantic, or whiny. And then she hit the send button, and it went. She gulped when she sent it, and was sorry instantly. There it was. The risk thing again. What was she doing? The guy lived three thousand miles away. What was she thinking? She finally told herself that she was sending an e-mail to a nice guy she had met in Paris, to say hello.

“Okay. I can live with that,” she said out loud, trying not to feel stupid or anxious. She read it again, even though it was too late to do anything about it. And then she went to bed. And for a second as she climbed into bed, she decided she was glad she’d sent it, and hoped he’d write back.