French Coast by Anita Hughes

Author:Anita Hughes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466868427
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

chapter fifteen

Serena slipped on her yellow Lilly Pulitzer dress and strapped on white leather sandals. She tied her ponytail with a yellow ribbon and coated her lips with lipgloss. She ate one quick bite of toast with strawberry jam and stepped into the hallway.

“Serena! I’m so happy to see you,” Yvette said as she opened the door of the Sophia Loren Suite.

She wore red yoga pants and a black leotard and clutched a paperback book. “I hate insomnia, but reading can be such a gift. I make a pot of tea and curl up with a book and before I know it, it’s morning.”

“My father gets insomnia.” Serena walked into the living room.

The turquoise curtains were pulled back and the bay shimmered like a sheet of glass. The sideboard was filled with platters of warm scones and berries and there was a pitcher of orange juice on the dining-room table.

“Have you read Anaïs Nin? She was born in Paris and was rumored to be Henry Miller’s mistress.” Yvette curled up on the cream silk love seat, tucking her feet under her. “Her diaries are quite … vivid. It’s strange how a staid married woman can meet a man and her whole life can change.…”

* * *

Yvette smelled Bertrand before she saw him. She entered the ice cream shop in Juan-les-Pins and inhaled his scent of cigarettes and sweat. She turned around and saw him sitting at a table, eating a banana split.

“How do you do it?” he asked. “You have to share your secret with other women.”

“What are you talking about?” Yvette blushed, seeing other shoppers glance at her curiously.

Bertrand walked to the counter and gazed at her floral cotton dress with its wide leather belt.

“You keep having babies, but you don’t get fat.”

Yvette clutched the pint of vanilla ice cream, trying to stop her heart from racing. She hadn’t seen Bertrand in two years, since the day she took the train to Paris. When she’d returned to Antibes she discovered Bertrand had left for Hollywood.

* * *

She finished translating the manuscript, feeling bold and reckless. She knew Bertrand wouldn’t read it and Edouard would say nothing, so she gave Bertrand’s dour heroine her own unrequited passion. She turned it in to Edouard like an addict giving up her opium. Then she waited to have her baby, hoping the early-morning feedings, the delirium of sleepless nights, would cure her.

Bertrand sent two dozen lilies when she gave birth with a note written on ivory notepaper. She read the words aloud: “‘You have done what I never could, created something perfect.’” Then she folded it carefully and slipped it into her lingerie drawer.

* * *

Yvette entered the vast kitchen and put the ice cream in the freezer. She poured a glass of lemonade and sat at the long oak table. Only when Françoise walked in asking about the steaks did she realize she had left their dinner at the ice cream shop.

Yvette saw Bertrand again a week later at the Marché Provençal. It was late morning and she had come with Lilly to buy cut flowers and fresh fruit.

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