Summer’s End

want my eggs fried, and not burned to a crisp. Have you got the newspapers up there?”

“No, Margaret must have them waiting for you at the table.”

“Bon. A tout de suite.”

Not even “good morning,” no “how are you? How did you sleep?… I love you.” Only the papers, the black skirt, the passport, the-Deanna’s eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. They didn’t do it deliberately, they were simply that way. But why didn’t they care where her black skirt was, where her slippers were, how her latest painting was coming. She glanced over her shoulder wistfully as she closed the door to her studio behind her. Her day had begun.

* * *

Margaret heard her rustling the papers in the dining room and opened the kitchen door with her customary smile. “Morning, Mrs. Duras.”

“Good morning, Margaret.”

And so it went, as ever, with precision and grace. Orders were given with kindness and a smile; the newspapers were carefully set out in order of importance; the coffee was immediately placed on the table in the delicate Limoges pot that had belonged to Marc’s mother; the curtains were pulled back; the weather was observed; and everyone manned his station, donned his mask, and began a new day.

Deanna forgot her earlier thoughts as she glanced at the paper and sipped coffee from the flowered blue cup, rubbing her feet along the carpet to warm them from the chill of the tile on the terrace. She looked young in the morning, her dark hair loose, her eyes wide, her skin as clear as Pilar’s, and her hands as delicate and unlined as they had been twenty years before. She didn’t look her thirty-seven years, but more like someone in her late twenties. It was the way she lifted her face when she spoke, the sparkle in her eyes, the smile that appeared like a rainbow that made her seem very young. Later in the day, the consummately conservative style, the carefully knotted hair, and the regal bearing as she moved would make her seem more than her age. But in the morning she was burdened with none of the symbols-she was simply herself.

She heard him coming down the stairs before she heard him speak, calling back gaily to Pilar in French as the girl stood with wet hair on the second-floor landing. It was something about staying out of Nice and making sure she behaved herself in Antibes. Unlike Deanna, Marc would be seeing his daughter again in the course of the summer. He would be back and forth between Paris and San Francisco several times, stopping off in Antibes for a weekend, whenever he could. Old habits were too hard to break, and the lure of his daughter was too great. They had always been friends.

“Bonjour, ma chere.”

Ma chere, not ma cherie. My dear, not my darling, Deanna observed. The i had fallen from the word many years since. “You look pretty this morning.”

“Thank you.” She looked up with the dawn of a smile, then saw him already studying the papers. The compliment had been a formality more than a truth. The art of the French. She knew it well. “Anything new in Paris?” Her face was once again grave.

“I’ll let you know. I’m going over tomorrow. For a while.” Something in his tone told her there was more. There always was.

“How long a while?”

He looked at her, amused, and she was reminded once again of all the reasons she had fallen in love with him. Marc was an incredibly handsome man, with a lean, aristocratic face and flashing blue eyes that even Pilar’s couldn’t match. The gray at his temples barely showed in the still-sandy-blond hair. He still looked young and dynamic, and almost always amused, particularly when he was in the States. He found Americans “amusing”: It amused him when he beat them at tennis and squash, at bridge or backgammon, and particularly in the courtroom. He worked the way he played- hard and fast and well, and with extraordinary results. He was a man whom men envied and over whom women fawned. He always won. Winning was his style. Deanna had loved that about him at first. It had been such a victory when he first told her he loved her.

“I asked you how long you’d be away.” There was a tiny edge to her voice.

“I’m not sure. A few days. Does it matter?”

“Of course.” The edge to her voice.

“Have we something important?” He looked surprised; he had checked the book and hadn’t seen anything there. “Well?”

No, nothing important, darling… only each other. “No, no, nothing like that. I just wondered.”

“I’ll let you know. I’ll have a better idea after some meetings today. There’s a problem apparently on the big shipping case. I may have to go directly to Athens from Paris.”

“Again?”

“So it would seem.” He went back to the papers until Margaret set his eggs in front of him then glanced at his wife again. “You’re taking Pilar to the airport?”

“Of course.”

“Please see to it that she’s properly dressed. Mother will have a stroke if she gets off the plane again in one of those outrageous costumes.”

“Why don’t you tell her yourself?” Deanna fixed him with her green eyes.

“I thought that was more your province.” He looked unmoved.

“What, discipline or her wardrobe?” Each of them thankless tasks, as they both knew.

“Both, to a degree.” She wanted to ask to what degree, but she didn’t. To the degree that she was capable of it? Was that what he meant? Marc went on, “I’ve given her some money for the trip, by the way. So you won’t have to.”

“How much?”

He glanced up sharply. “I beg your pardon?”

“I asked how much money you gave her for the trip.” She said it very quietly.

“Is that important?”

“I think so. Or are discipline and wardrobe my only departments?” The edge of eighteen years of marriage colored her tone now.

“Not necessarily. Don’t worry, she has enough.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“What are you worried about?” His tone was suddenly not pleasant, and her eyes were like steel.

“I don’t think she should have too much money for the summer. She doesn’t need it.”

“She’s a very responsible girl.”

“But she is not quite sixteen years old, Marc. How much did you give her?”

“A thousand.” He said it very quietly, as though he were closing a deal.

“Dollars?” Her eyes flew wide. “That’s outrageous!”

“Is it?”

“You know perfectly well it is. And you also know what she’ll do with it.”

“Amuse herself, I assume. Harmlessly.”

“No, she’ll buy one of those damn motorcycles she wants so much, and I absolutely refuse to allow that to happen.” But Deanna’s fury was matched only by her impotence and she knew it. Pilar was going to “them” now, out of Deanna’s control. “I don’t want her to have that much money.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“For God’s sake, Marc…”

The telephone rang as she began her tirade in earnest. It was for Marc, from Milan. He had no time to listen to her before he left. He had a meeting to attend at nine-thirty. He glanced at his watch. “Stop being so hysterical, Deanna. The child will be in good hands.” But that was a whole other discussion right there, and he didn’t have time. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Will you be home for dinner?”