“Or too French,” Rose said with a disapproving glance, and Nadia laughed. Her mother still had some of her old British prejudices about the French, but she had loved and trusted her son-in-law until recently. “So what does she want? She’s too young for motherhood too.”
“She wants to live with him for as long as it lasts. I’m not planning to stick around for that, for the next few years, while he has two households, with a foot in each, or riding two horses, as the French say.”
“Even modern French men don’t do that anymore. They have kids and don’t marry, but juggling two women is no way to live, especially for you. You deserve better than that.”
“I know,” she said sadly. “I thought he’d end it with her before it came to this, but the baby changes all that, and I think he’s secretly happy about it. He loves kids.” Her mother rolled her eyes.
“Please, this isn’t about his love of children. It’s about his having a sloppy affair, making a spectacle of himself at a highly publicized event, and letting it get out of hand. It’s about his wanting to have fun with a hot young girl, not his love of kids. It’s feeding his ego, and not much else.” Nadia didn’t disagree. “And what are you supposed to do in the meantime?” She strongly disapproved of how weak and selfish he was being, like a boy half his age.
“I have no idea,” Nadia said. “I keep thinking about what I should do. I want it to have never happened, but it did.”
“Have you called a lawyer yet?” Nadia shook her head and didn’t want her mother pressuring her about it. Her sister Olivia had called her and insisted she file for divorce immediately, but Nadia didn’t feel ready to do that yet, and wasn’t sure when she would. It had to be on her timing, not theirs.
“I haven’t had time,” or the heart to do it. “He comes to see the girls all the time, which is good for them.”
“Where is he living?” It sounded confusing to Rose.
“Here, some of the time, in the guest room, and with Pascale the rest of the time. He hasn’t moved out yet. I don’t think either of us is ready for it. Some of the time I want him to, the rest of the time, I don’t. We’re doing it this way for the girls, for now.”
“Or because you’re both too frightened to let go? You’re letting him have his cake and eat it too,” Rose said pointedly.
“Not really. I’m just not ready to do anything radical yet. This is all very new.”
“I’d say having a baby out of wedlock with a twenty-two-year-old actress, and being on the front page of the tabloids is pretty radical, wouldn’t you?” Nadia smiled and nodded. Her mother always got right to the point without wasting time.
“Yes, it is. I just want to be sure, before he moves out and we tell the girls we’re getting a divorce.”
“Can you see yourself taking him back after this?” her mother asked her, shocked. She couldn’t imagine it herself, and Nadia shook her head.
“No, I can’t. I’ll never feel the same about him again. But divorce is a big word, and it lasts forever.”
“I thought marriage was supposed to last forever,” Rose said primly, more so than she would have at the magazine, where she had to be more modern and open-minded, but this was her family, and she hoped they had the same values she did.
“I thought so too,” Nadia said as the girls reappeared in denim shorts, pink T-shirts, and pink sneakers. Sylvie had done Laure’s hair in pigtails, and they were sticking out at an odd angle, and Sylvie had forgotten to brush her own, which was a tangled mass of thick blond curls. Laure had dark hair like Nadia’s and was the image of her mother. Sylvie looked more like Nicolas, with a hint of her aunt Olivia, which Nadia noticed occasionally, but Sylvie had a sunnier disposition than her somewhat daunting aunt.
Nadia went to get dressed and do their hair while Rose settled into the guest room with the view of the river below, and a few minutes later, Nadia came to ask her if she wanted to go to the park with them.
“That’s what I’m here for,” she said as she put on ballet flats and jeans, and a few minutes later, they went for a long walk. They stopped for lunch on the terrace of a café on the Boulevard Saint-Germain on the way back, where Nadia picked at a salad, and Rose and the girls had sandwiches. They walked back to the apartment slowly after that. It had been a relief not to talk about Nicolas while they were out. His name didn’t come up again until just before dinnertime, when he called to talk to the girls, and Nadia handed them her cellphone. It was obvious that they were happy to hear from him, and he told them he was doing publicity for his latest book in the South of France.
“Translation: He’s in Saint-Tropez with her,” Nadia said to her mother as soon as the girls left the room. But she also knew that he had wanted to be with her, and she wouldn’t let him because of her mother’s visit. Now, the minute he wasn’t with one woman, he was with the other. Nadia was beginning to think he should get his own apartment, but she was afraid that if she suggested it, he would move in with Pascale. But maybe he would now anyway, with a baby on the way. Nadia felt as though she couldn’t stop the flow of what was happening to them. He had unleashed a tidal wave of reaction and consequences from his foolishness.
Her mother took them to a nearby pizza restaurant the girls loved for dinner. Normally, she would have invited Nadia and Nicolas to the Voltaire farther down the street where they lived. But Nadia didn’t feel up to running into anyone at the fashionable restaurant where designers, fashion photographers, socialites, decorators, and their clients hung out, and she usually knew someone at almost every table. And everyone knew Rose. It was more than Nadia wanted to deal with, so hiding at the pizza restaurant was more her style at the moment, and all she could cope with.
Rose told her granddaughters stories about funny things that had happened to the models at fashion shoots, and they both giggled at stories about when tops fell down, and skirts fell off, a lion cub escaped, and about how at a recent shoot of a bridal gown, they let a flock of doves loose and they pooped all over the photographer and the model in the wedding gown. The girls loved the stories their grandmother told them, and although they knew nothing about fashion, they had a sense that their grandmother was special.
“She always looks so nice,” Sylvie said sleepily, after they got home and Nadia kissed her good night and tucked her in. Rose went to pour herself a glass of wine. “I love her bracelets.” She often wore interesting bangles, and some unusual ethnic ones she had found in exotic places on her travels for the magazine.
“I like her hair,” Laure said softly. “It looks like snow.” They were fascinated by her hair, which was the whitest they had ever seen. “She’s pretty.” Nadia smiled at their comments, turned off the light, and went to find her mother. She was sitting on the couch, admiring the view of Paris in the moonlight, and thinking about her daughter, wishing none of this had happened to her.