Each day presented a fresh chance for his wife to explore, as if her new city were an elaborate set of nesting dolls to disassemble and admire. That she’d adjusted so well pleased him. He’d been afraid she’d long for her friends back home, maybe hunger for their Parisian cafés or miss her job as a motivational speaker. To the contrary, though, she’d been thrilled by the idea of Jean-Paul’s taking the Seafarer job from the very beginning.
“What an honor!” she’d exclaimed when the call came. “You must accept, yes? Out of a hundred candidates, they picked you!” Her eyes had gleamed with pride, and Jean-Paul allowed himself to bask in the accomplishment for a brief moment.
“You wouldn’t mind? Packing up and leaving behind our lives here?” Already he’d been promoted to assistant manager at Le Bistrol, one of Paris’s most opulent hotels. It was quite possible that one day he would ascend the ranks to manager; as his friends liked to say, no one left Le Bistrol willingly unless, perhaps, he were being wheeled out in a casket. But the Seafarer position held a particular sway over Jean-Paul, as if it were built into his muscle memory: ever since he was a young boy, his father, an international banker, would whisk the family away to Boston for a week, where they’d stay at the Seafarer.
For Jean-Paul, the Seafarer encapsulates everything magical about his childhood—having his parents all to himself for a week, being able to partake in the theaters and ballparks and boiled lobster. Even now, a Red Sox banner from Fenway, where he and his dad watched the Sox defeat the Yankees 3–2 in a nail-biter, hangs on the bedroom wall. He remembers jumping from his parents’ king-size bed to his own double in the hotel room, recalls sitting by the pool where waiters in crisp whites delivered meals to their lounge chairs and where Jean-Paul would unfailingly order a cheeseburger with fries and a Coca-Cola, the most American meal he could think of.
The opportunity to manage the hotel of his boyhood dreams, to bring it into the next century, as mandated by the board, had been too good to pass up, as intoxicating as the first scent of summer in the air.
“Mind? Mais non!” Marie said. “It’s the perfect opportunity for you. As for me, I can learn to speak American,” she teased. “At least, better than I do now.” She’d pulled him into an embrace and pressed her soft lips against his. “And I will teach those American women the French secret to staying skinny.”
“Ah, and what is that exactly?”
“Walking, fresh air, lipstick and sex.”
“It sounds so simple,” he said, loving that she seemed keen to join him on this new venture.
“Which is precisely why it works.” She clapped her hands together, insistent. “You must call them back immediately. Tell them that you’re honored to accept.”
Which was how they’d found themselves, one month later, on American soil, living in a two-story brownstone in Boston’s Seaport District, selected for them by a realtor who, in turn, had been recommended by the hotel. Their lives unspooling exactly as they’d imagined.
And then one day Marie stepped into his office holding a surprise behind her back: a tiny white stick bisected by two pink lines.
Soon enough his wife’s days were consumed with setting up the nursery (that is, after Jean-Paul had dragged an untold number of unpacked boxes and crates from the spare room into the garage) and painting the walls a soft pink. Along the top near the ceiling, she stenciled tiny bluebirds for a border. “But what if she hates birds?” Jean-Paul asked, and Marie had shooed him away, saying what did he know about little girls anyway?
Those had been their salad days, when they joked with each other easily, when a pregnant Marie might page him at the hotel to tell him to bring home a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream if he had any intention of not sleeping on the sofa that night. Together, they watched as her belly grew and grew, until his petite French wife looked as if an enormous basketball were attached to her front, and yet Jean-Paul still thought her the most enchanting woman he’d ever met.
When Isabella arrived at last, five days past her due date, it was with a holler and a bang—practically pushing herself out into the world as the medics wheeled Marie across the hospital entrance. Jean-Paul remembers the exquisite little toes, the dainty, crinkled fingers, Isabella’s tiny face scrunched up in rage during those first few minutes. But when the nurse laid the baby on Marie’s chest, she’d instantly settled, as if recognizing her own mother’s scent.
Besotted, that’s what they were.
But somewhere in the last few weeks (or maybe months?) Marie has grown quiet, sullen. Work now demands that Jean-Paul arrive at the hotel by seven most mornings and that he often stay as late as seven or eight in the evenings. Especially now that the renovations are complete, reservations have soared. And while technically he’s on call only for the weekends, inevitably a small crisis—an angry, belligerent guest; a leaky pipe; a broken generator—will arise, and his night manager, Oliver, will call to wrench him from the depths of sleep.
Sometimes when the phone rings in the middle of the night, Marie will give him a swift kick under the sheets, as if Jean-Paul isn’t answering quickly enough (though, she claims to never remember the call—or the kick). Inevitably a tender bruise will pop up on his calf the next day, proof. When he left this morning, she was particularly petulant, shooting him dark looks across her coffee mug while the baby—dear, sweet Isabella, with her enormous brown eyes and plump belly sticking out deliciously over her diaper—shifted fitfully in her arms. His wife is convinced that their daughter suffers from colic, but their pediatrician has reassured them that she’s a typical three-month-old, if a tad sensitive.
“Sensitive?” Marie had come home raging. “How about every little thing sets her off?” Jean-Paul didn’t know what to say to make things better. He felt as if he’d already exhausted all his best material: It’s only a stage. The baby will grow out of it. Maybe she’s going through a growth spurt? But the comment that really sent his wife into a whirlwind of rage was when he inquired if maybe they should switch to formula to help calm Isabella.
Was it possible, he asked foolishly, that Isabella was allergic to Marie’s milk? Well, he might as well have accused Marie of poisoning their own daughter! For two whole days, she refused to speak to him.
How, Jean-Paul wonders (to himself), does she expect him to provide for his family and do his job well on practically no sleep at all? At least Marie can nap during the day while the baby sleeps. He’d actually said this aloud over dinner one night, another comment made in grave error when he was delirious from lack of sleep himself. Marie had practically snapped his head off like a sprig of broccoli. As if he’d suggested that taking care of the baby was akin to checking into a lavish spa for the day! He’d meant no such thing, naturally, but why is it that his fatigue never seems to matter? Marie claims her exhaustion exists in another realm that he can’t possibly imagine, a realm that is sanity-robbing.