Summer’s End

1

Deanna Duras opened one eye to look at the clock as the first light stole in beneath the shades. It was 6:45. If she got up now, she would still have almost an hour to herself, perhaps more. Quiet moments in which Pilar could not attack, or harass; when there would be no phone calls for Marc-Edouard from Brussels or London or Rome. Moments in which she could breathe and think and be alone. She slipped out quietly from beneath the sheets, glancing at Marc-Edouard, still asleep on the far side of the bed. The very far side. For years now, their bed could have slept three or four, the way she and Marc kept to their sides. It wasn’t that they never joined in the middle anymore, they still did… sometimes. When he was in town, when he wasn’t tired, or didn’t come home so very, very late. They still did-once in a while.

Silently she reached into the closet for the long, ivory, silk robe. She looked young and delicate in the early morning light, her dark hair falling softly over her shoulders like a sable shawl. She stooped for a moment looking for her slippers. Gone. Pilar must have them again. Nothing was sacred, not even slippers, least of all Deanna. She smiled to herself as she padded barefoot and silent across the thick carpeting and stole another glance at Marc, still asleep, so peaceful there. When he slept, he still looked terribly young, almost like the man she had met nineteen years before. She watched him as she stood in the doorway, wanting him to stir, to wake, to hold his arms out to her sleepily with a smile, whispering the words of so long ago, “Reviens, ma chérie. Come back to bed, ma Diane. La belle Diane.”

She hadn’t been that to him in a thousand years or more. She was simply Deanna to him now, as to everyone else: “Deanna, can you come to dinner on Tuesday? Deanna, did you know that the garage door isn’t properly closed? Deanna, the cashmere jacket I just bought in London got badly mauled at the cleaner. Deanna, I’m leaving for Lisbon tonight (Or Paris. Or Rome).” She sometimes wondered if he even remembered the days of Diane, the days of late rising and laughter and coffee in her garret, or on her roof as they soaked up the sun in the months before they were married. They had been months of golden dreams, golden hours-the stolen weekends in Acapulco, the four days in Madrid when they had pretended that she was his secretary. Her mind drifted back often to those long-ago times. Early mornings had a way of reminding her of the past.

“Diane, mon amour, are you coming back to bed?” Her eyes shone at the remembered words. She had been just eighteen and always anxious to come back to bed. She had been shy but so in love with him. Every hour, every moment had been filled with what she felt. Her paintings had shown it too, they glowed with the luster of her love. She remembered his eyes, as he sat in the studio, watching her, a pile of his own work on his knees, making notes, frowning now and then as he read, then smiling in his irresistible way when he looked up. “Alors, Madame Picasso, ready to stop for lunch?”

“In a minute, I’m almost through.”

“May I have a look?” He would make as though to peek around the easel, waiting for her to jump up and protest, as she always did, until she saw the teasing in his eyes.

“Stop that! You know you can’t see it till I’m through.”

“Why not? Are you painting a shocking nude?” Laughter lighting those dazzling blue eyes.

“Perhaps I am, monsieur. Would that upset you very much?”

“Absolutely. You’re much too young to paint shocking nudes.”

“Am I?” Her big green eyes would open wide, sometimes taken in by the seeming seriousness of his words. He had replaced her father in so many ways. Marc had become the voice of authority, the strength on which she relied. She had been so overwhelmed when her father had died. It had been a godsend when suddenly Marc-Edouard Duras had appeared. She had lived with a series of aunts and uncles after her father’s death, none of whom had welcomed Deanna’s presence in their midst. And then finally, at the age of eighteen, after a year of vagabonding among her mother’s relatives, she had gone off on her own, working in a boutique in the daytime, going to art school at night. It was the art classes that kept her spirit alive. She lived only for that. She had been seventeen when her father died. He had died instantly, crashing in the plane he loved to fly. No plans had ever been made for her future; her father was convinced he was not only invincible but immortal. Deanna’s mother had died when she was twelve, and for years there had been no one in her life except Papa. Her mother’s relatives in San Francisco were forgotten, shut out, generally ignored by the extravagant and selfish man whom they held responsible for her death. Deanna knew little of what had happened, only that “Mommy died.” Mommy died-her father’s words on that bleak morning would ring in her ears for a lifetime. The Mommy who had shut herself away from the world, who had hidden in her bedroom and a bottle, promising always “in a minute, dear” when Deanna knocked on her door. The “in a minute, dears” had lasted for ten of her twelve years, leaving Deanna to play alone in corridors or her room, while her father flew his plane or went off suddenly on business trips with friends. For a long time it had been difficult to decide if he had disappeared on trips because her mother drank, or if she drank because Papa was always gone. Whatever the reason, Deanna was alone. Until her mother died. After that there had been considerable discussion about “what in hell to do.” “For God’s sake, I don’t know a damned thing about kids, least of all little girls.” He had wanted to send her away, to a school, to a “wonderful place where there will be horses and pretty country and lots of new friends.” But she had been so distraught that at last he had relented. She didn’t want to go to a wonderful place, she wanted to be with him. He was a wonderful place, the magic father with the plane, the man who brought her marvelous gifts from faraway places. The man she had bragged about for years and never understood. Now, he was all she had. All she had left, now that the woman behind the bedroom door was gone.

So he kept her. He took her with him when he could, left her with friends when he couldn’t, and taught her to enjoy the finer things in life: the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, the George V in Paris, and The Stork Club in New York, where she had perched on a stool at the bar and not only drank a Shirley Temple but met her as a grown woman. Papa had led a fabulous life. And so had Deanna, for a while, watching everything, taking it all in, the sleek women, the interesting men, the dancing at El Morocco, the weekend trips to Beverly Hills. He had been a movie star once, a long time ago, a race driver, a pilot during the war, a gambler, a lover, a man with a passion for life and women and anything he could fly. He wanted Deanna to fly too, wanted her to know what it was to watch over the world at ten thousand feet, sailing through clouds and living on dreams. But she had had her own dreams that were nothing like his. A quiet life, a house where they stayed all the time, a stepmother who did not hide behind “in a minute” or an always locked door. At fourteen she was tired of El Morocco, and at fifteen she was tired of dancing with his friends. At sixteen she had managed to finish school, and desperately wanted to go to Vassar or Smith. Papa insisted it would be a bore. So she painted instead, on sketch pads and canvases she took with her wherever they went. She drew on paper tablecloths in the South of France, and the backs of letters from his friends, having no friends of her own. She drew on anything she could get her hands on. A gallery owner in Venice had told her that she was good, that if she stuck around, he might show her work. He didn’t of course. They left Venice after a month, and Florence after two, Rome after six, and Paris after one, then finally came back to the States, where Papa promised her a home, a real one this time, and maybe even a real-live stepmother to go with it. He had met an American actress in Rome-“someone you’ll love,” he had promised, as he packed a bag for the weekend at her ranch somewhere near L.A.

This time he didn’t ask Deanna to come along. This time he wanted to be alone. He left Deanna at the Fairmont in San Francisco, with four hundred dollars in cash and a promise to be back in three days. Instead he was dead in three hours, and Deanna was alone. Forever this time. And back where she had started, with the threat of a “wonderful school.”

But this time the threat was short-lived. There was no money left. For a wonderful school or anything else. None. And a mountain of debts that went unpaid. She called the long-forgotten relatives of her mother. They arrived at the hotel and took her to live with them. “Only for a few months, Deanna. You understand. We just can’t. You’ll have to get a job, and get your own place when you get on your feet.” A job. What job? What could she do? Paint? Draw? Dream. What difference did it make now that she knew almost every piece in the Uffizi and the Louvre, that she had spent months in the Jeu de Paume, that she had watched her father run with the bulls in Pamplona, had danced at El Morocco and stayed at the Ritz? Who gave a damn? No one did. In three months she was moved in with a cousin and then with another aunt. “For a while, you understand.” She understood it all now, the loneliness, the pain, the seriousness of what her father had done. He had played his life away. He had had a good time. Now she understood what had happened to her mother, and why. For a time she came to hate the man she had loved. He had left her alone, frightened, and unloved.

Providence had come in the form of a letter from France. There had been a small case pending in the French courts, a minor judgment, but her father had won. It was a matter of six or seven thousand dollars. Would she be so kind as to have her attorney contact the French firm? What attorney? She called one from a list she got from one of her aunts, and he referred her to an international firm of lawyers. She had gone to their offices at nine o’clock on a Monday morning, dressed in a little black dress she had bought with her father in France. A little black Dior, with a little black alligator bag he had brought her back from Brazil, and the pearls that were all that her mother had left her. She didn’t give a damn about Dior, or Paris, or Rio, or anything else. The promised six or seven thousand dollars was a king’s ransom to her. She wanted to give up her job and go to art school day and night. In a few years she’d make a name for herself with her art. But in the meantime maybe she could live on the six thousand for a year. Maybe.

That was all that she wanted when she walked into the huge wood-paneled office and met Marc-Edouard Duras for the very first time.

“Mademoiselle…” He had never had a case quite like hers. His field was corporate law, complex international business cases, but when the secretary had relayed her call, he had been intrigued. When he saw her, a delicate child-woman with a frightened beautiful face, he was fascinated. She moved with mystifying grace, and the eyes that looked into his were bottomless. He ushered her to a seat on the other side of the desk, and looked very grave. But his eyes danced as they talked their way through the hour. He too loved the Uffizi, he too had once spent days at a time in the Louvre; he had also been to São Paulo and Caracas and Deauville. She found herself sharing her world with him and opening windows and doors that she had thought were sealed forever. And she had explained about her father. She told him the whole dreadful tale, as she sat across from him, with the largest green eyes he had ever seen and a fragility that tore at his heart. He had been almost thirty-two at the time, certainly not old enough to be her father, and his feelings were certainly not paternal. But nonetheless he took her under his wing. Three months later she was his wife. The ceremony was small and held at city hall; the honeymoon was spent at his mother’s house in Antibes, followed by two weeks in Paris.

And by then she understood what she had done. She had married a country as well as a man. A way of life. She would have to be perfect, understanding-and silent. She would have to be charming and entertain his clients and friends. She would have to be lonely while he traveled. And she would have to give up the dream of making a name for herself with her art. Marc didn’t really approve. In the days when he courted her, he had been amused, but it was not a career he encouraged for his wife. She had become Madame Duras, and to Marc that meant a great deal.

Over the years she gave up a number of dreams, but she had Marc. The man who had saved her from solitude and starvation. The man who had won her gratitude and her heart. The man of impeccable manners and exquisite taste, who rewarded her with security and sable. The man who always wore a mask.

She knew that he loved her, but now he rarely expressed it as he had done before. “Shows of affection are for children,” he explained.

But that would come too. They conceived their first child in less than a year. How Marc had wanted that baby! Enough to show her once more how much he loved her. A boy. It would be a boy. Because Marc said so. He was certain, and so was Deanna. She wanted only that. His son. It had to be; it was the one thing that would win her his respect and maybe even his passion for a lifetime. A son. And it was. A tiny baby boy with a whisper in his lungs. The priest was called only moments after the birth and christened him Philippe-Edouard. In four hours the baby was dead.

Marc took her to France for the summer and left her in the care of his mother and aunts. He spent the summer working in London, but he came back on weekends, holding her close and drying her tears, until at last she conceived again. The second baby died too, another boy. And having Marc’s child became her obsession. She dreamed only of their son. She even stopped painting. The doctor put her to bed when she became pregnant for the third time. Marc had cases in Milan and Morocco that year, but he called and sent flowers and, when he was at home, sat at her bedside. Once more he promised that she would have his son. This time he was wrong. The long-awaited heir was a girl, but a healthy baby, with a halo of blonde hair and her father’s blue eyes. The child of Deanna’s dreams. Even Marc resigned himself and quickly fell in love with the tiny blonde girl. They named her Pilar and flew to France to show her to his mother. Madame Duras bemoaned Deanna’s failure to produce a son. But Marc didn’t care. The baby was his. His child, his flesh. She would speak only French; she would spend every summer in Antibes. Deanna had felt feeble flutterings of fear, but she reveled in the joy of motherhood at last.

Marc spent every spare moment with Pilar, showing her off to his friends. She was always a child of laughter and smiles. Her first words were in French. By the time she was ten, she was more at home in Paris than the States-the books she read, the clothes she wore, the games she played had all been carefully imported by Marc. She knew who she was: a Duras, and where she belonged: in France. At twelve, she went to boarding school in Grenoble. By then the damage was done; Deanna had lost a daughter. Deanna was a foreigner to her now, an object of anger and resentment. It was her fault they didn’t live in France, her fault Pilar couldn’t be with her friends. Her fault Papa couldn’t be in Paris with Grand-mère who missed him so much. In the end they had won. Again.

Deanna walked softly down the steps, her bare feet a whisper on the Persian runner Marc had brought back from Iran. Out of habit she glanced into the living room. Nothing was out of place; it never was. The delicate green silk of the couch was smoothed to perfection; the Louis XV chairs stood at attention like soldiers at their posts; the Aubusson rug was as exquisite as ever in its soft celadon greens and faded raspberry-colored flowers. The silver shone; the ashtrays were immaculate; the portraits of Marc’s enviable ancestors hung at precisely the right angle; and the curtains framed a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay. There were no sailboats yet at this hour, and for once there was no fog. It was a perfect June day, and she stood for a moment, looking at the water. She was tempted to sit down and simply watch. But it seemed sacrilege to rumple the couch, to tread on the rug, even to breathe in that room. It was easier to simply move on, to her own little world, to the studio at the back of the house where she painted… where she fled.

She walked past the dining room without looking in, then soundlessly down a long corridor to the back of the house. A half flight of stairs led to her studio. The dark wood was cold on her feet. The door was stiff, as always. Marc had given up reminding her to have something done about it. He had come to the conclusion that she liked it that way, and he was right. It was difficult to open, and it always slammed rapidly closed, sealing her into her own bright little cocoon. The studio was her own precious world, a burst of music and flowers tenderly tucked away from the stifling sobriety of the rest of the house. No Aubussons here, no silver, no Louis XV. Here, everything was bright and alive-the paints on her palette, the canvases on her easel, the soft yellow of the walls, and the big, comfortable, white chair that embraced her the moment she relinquished herself into its arms. She smiled as she sat down and looked around. She had left a terrible mess the morning before, but it suited her; it was a happy place in which she could work. She flung back the flowered curtains and pushed open the French doors, stepping onto the tiny terrace, the bright tiles like ice beneath her feet.

She often stood here at this hour, sometimes even in the fog, breathing deeply and smiling at the specter of the bridge hanging eerily above an invisible bay, listening to the slow owl hoot of the foghorns. But not this morning. This morning the sun was so bright that she squinted as she stepped outside. It would be a perfect day to go sailing, or disappear to the beach. The very idea made her laugh. Who would tell Margaret what to polish, who would respond to the mail, who would explain to Pilar why she could not go out that night? Pilar. This was the day of Pilar’s departure. Cap d’Antibes for the summer, to visit her grandmother and her aunts, uncles, and cousins, all down from Paris. Deanna almost shuddered at the memory. After years of enduring those stifling summers, she had finally said no. The eternal charm of Marc’s family had been insufferable, politesse through clenched teeth, the invisible thorns that ripped through one’s flesh. Deanna had never won their approval. Marc’s mother made no secret of that. Deanna was, after all, an American, and far too young to be a respectable match. Worst of all, she had been the penniless daughter of an extravagant wanderer. It was a marriage that added nothing to Marc’s consequence, only to her own. His relatives assumed that was why she had snared him. And they were careful not to mention it-more than twice a year. Eventually Deanna had had enough, and had stopped making the pilgrimage to Antibes for the summer. Now, Pilar went alone, and she loved it. She was one of them.

Deanna leaned her elbows on the terrace wall, and propped her chin on the back of one hand. A sigh escaped her unnoticed as she watched a freighter glide slowly into the bay.

“Aren’t you cold out here, Mother?” The words were as chilly as the terrace tiles. Pilar had spoken to her as though she were an oddity, standing there in her bathrobe and bare feet. Deanna cast a look at the ship and turned slowly around with a smile.

“Not really. I like it out here. And besides, I couldn’t find my slippers.” She said it with the same steady smile and looked directly into her daughter’s brilliant blue eyes. The girl was everything Deanna was not. Her hair was the palest gold, her eyes an almost iridescent blue, and her skin had the rich glow of youth. She was almost a head taller than her mother, and in almost every possible way the image of Marc-Edouard. But she did not yet have his aura of power-that would come later. And if she learned her lessons well from her grandmother and aunts, she would learn to mask it almost as viciously as they did. Marc-Edouard was not quite as artful; there was no need to be, he was a man. But the Duras women practiced a far subtler art. There was little Deanna could do to change that now, except perhaps keep Pilar away, but that would be a fruitless venture. Pilar, Marc, the old woman herself, all conspired to keep Pilar in Europe much of the time. And there was more to Pilar’s resemblance to her grandmother than mimicry. It was something that ran in her blood. There was nothing Deanna could do, other than accept it. She never ceased to marvel, though, at how acutely painful the disappointment always was. There was never a moment when she didn’t care, when it mattered less. It always mattered. She always felt Pilar’s loss. Always.

She smiled now and looked down at her daughter’s feet. She was wearing the absentee slippers. “I see you’ve found them.” Deanna’s words teased, but her eyes wore the pain of a lifetime. Tragedy constantly hidden by jokes.

“Is that supposed to be funny, Mother?” There was already warfare in Pilar’s face, at barely seven-thirty in the morning. “I can’t find any of my good sweaters, and my black skirt isn’t back from your dressmaker.” It was an accusation of major importance. Pilar flung back her long, straight, blonde hair and looked angrily at her mother.

Deanna always wondered at Pilar’s fury. Teenage rebellion? Or merely that she didn’t want to share Marc with Deanna? There was nothing Deanna could do. At least not for the moment. Maybe one day, maybe later, maybe in five years she’d get another chance to win back her daughter and become her friend. It was something she lived for. A hope that refused to die.

“The skirt came back yesterday. It’s in the hall closet. The sweaters are already in your suitcase. Margaret packed for you yesterday. Does that solve all your problems?” The words were spoken gently. Pilar would always be the child of her dreams, no matter what, no matter how badly the dreams had been shattered.

“Mother! You’re not paying attention!” For a moment Deanna’s mind had wandered, and Pilar’s eyes blazed at her. “I asked you what you did with my passport.”

Deanna’s green eyes met Pilar’s blue ones and held them for a long moment. She wanted to say something, the right thing. All she said was, “I have your passport. I’ll give it to you at the airport.”

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of it myself.”

“I’m sure you are.” Deanna stepped carefully back into her studio, avoiding the girl’s gaze. “Are you going to have breakfast?”

“Later. I have to wash my hair.”

“I’ll have Margaret bring you a tray.”

“Fine.” Then she was gone, a bright arrow of youth that had pierced Deanna’s heart yet again. It took so little to hurt. The words were all so small, but their emptiness stung her. Surely there had to be more. Surely one did not have children merely to have it end like this? She wondered sometimes if it would have been this way with her sons. Maybe it was just Pilar. Maybe the pull between two countries, and two worlds, was too great for her.

The phone buzzed softly on her desk as she sighed and sat down. It was the house line, no doubt Margaret asking if she wanted her coffee in the studio. When Marc was away, Deanna often ate alone in this room. When he was at home, breakfast with him was a ritual, sometimes the only meal they shared.

“Yes?” Her voice had a soft, smoky quality that always lent gentleness to her words.

“Deanna, I have to call Paris. I won’t be downstairs for another fifteen minutes. Please tell Margaret that I 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. À 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 chère.”

Ma chère, not ma chérie. 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?”

“I doubt it. I’ll have Dominique call.”

“Thank you.” They were two tiny, frozen words. She watched him close the door. A moment later she heard his Jaguar purr out of the driveway. She had lost another war.

She broached the subject again with Pilar on the way to the airport. “I understand your father gave you quite a lot of money for the summer.”

“Here we go. What is it now?”

“You know damn well what it is now. The motorcycle. I’ll put it to you very simply, love. You buy one and I’ll have you hauled home.”

Pilar wanted to taunt her with “how will you know?” but she didn’t dare. “O.K., so I won’t buy one.”

“Or ride one.”

“Or ride one.” But it was a useless parroting, and Deanna found herself, for the first time in a long time, wanting to scream.

She glanced at her daughter for a moment as she drove and then looked straight ahead again. “Why does it have to be this way? You’re leaving for three months. We won’t see each other. Couldn’t it be pleasant between us today? What’s the point of this constant haggling?”

“I didn’t start it. You brought up the motorcycle.”

“Do you have any idea why? Because I love you, because I give a damn. Because I don’t want you killed. Does that make any sense to you?” There was desperation in her voice, and finally anger.

“Yeah, sure.”

They rode on in silence to the airport. Deanna felt tears sting her eyes again, but she would not let Pilar see them. She had to be perfect, she had to be strong. The way Marc was, the way all his damned French relatives pretended to be, the way Pilar wanted to be. Deanna left her car with the valet at the curb, and they followed the porter inside, where Pilar checked in. When the clerk handed back her passport and ticket, she turned to her mother.

“You’re coming to the gate?” There was more dismay in her voice than encouragement.

“I thought that might be nice. Would you mind?”

“No.” Sullen, and angry. A goddamn child. Deanna wanted to slap her. Who was this person? Who had she become? Where had the sunny little girl who loved her gone? They each held tightly to their own thoughts as they walked toward the gate, collecting appreciative glances as they went. They were a striking pair. The dark beauty of Deanna in a beautifully cut, black wool dress, her hair swept into a knot, with a bright red jacket over one arm; Pilar in her youthful blaze of blonde, tall and slender and graceful in a white linen suit that had met with her mother’s approval as she came down the stairs. Even her grandmother would approve-unless she found the cut too American. Anything was possible, with Madame Duras.

The plane was already boarding when they arrived, and Deanna had only a moment to hold the girl’s hand tightly in her own. “I mean it about the motorcycle, darling. Please…”

“All right, all right.” But Pilar was already looking past Deanna, eager to be on the plane.

“I’ll call you. And call me, if you have any problems.”

“I won’t.” It was said with the assurance of not-quite-sixteen years.

“I hope not.” Deanna’s face softened as she looked at her daughter, then pulled her into a hug. “I love you, darling. Have a good time.”

“Thanks, Mom.” She favored her mother with a brief smile, and a quick wave, as her golden mane flew into the passageway. Deanna suddenly felt leaden. She was gone again. Her baby… the little girl with the curly blonde hair, the child who had held her arms out so trustingly each night to be hugged and kissed… Pilar. Deanna took a seat in the lounge and waited to see the 747 begin its climb into the sky. At last she rose and walked slowly back to her car. The valet tipped his cap appreciatively at the dollar she handed him and wondered about her as she swung her legs gracefully into the car. She was one hell of a good-looking woman; he couldn’t quite guess how old she was: twenty-eight? thirty-two? thirty-five? forty? It was impossible to tell. Her face was young, but the rest of her, the way she moved, the look in her eyes, was so old.

Deanna heard him coming up the stairs as she sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair. It was twenty after ten, and he hadn’t called her all day. Dominique, his secretary, had left a message with Margaret at noon: Monsieur Duras would not be home for dinner. Deanna had eaten in the studio while she sketched, but her mind had not been on her work. She had been thinking of Pilar.

She turned and smiled at him as he came into the room. She had actually missed him. The house had been strangely quiet all day. “Hello, darling. That was a long day.”

“Very long. And yours?”

“Peaceful. It’s too quiet here without Pilar.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say that.” Marc-Edouard smiled at his wife as he slid into a large blue velvet chair near the fireplace.

“Neither did I. How were your meetings?”

“Tiresome.”

He was not very expansive. She turned in her seat to look at him. “You’re still going to Paris tomorrow?” He nodded, and she continued to watch him as he stretched his long legs. He looked no different than he had that morning and seemed almost ready to take on another day. He thrived on the meetings he called “tiresome.” He stood up and walked toward her with a smile in his eyes.

“Yes, I’m going to Paris tomorrow. Are you quite sure you don’t want to join Pilar and my mother in Cap d’Antibes?”

“Quite sure.” Her look was determined. “Why would I want to do that?”

“You said yourself that it was too quiet here. I thought perhaps…” He put his hands on her shoulders as he went to stand behind her for a moment. “I’m going to be gone all summer, Deanna.”

Her shoulders stiffened in his hands. “All summer?”

“More or less. The Salco shipping case is too important to leave in anyone else’s hands. I’ll be commuting back and forth between Paris and Athens all summer. I just can’t be here.” His accent seemed stronger now when he spoke to her, as though he had already left the States. “It will give me plenty of opportunity to check up on Pilar, which should please you, but not any opportunity to be with you.” She wanted to ask him if he really cared, but she didn’t ask. “I think the case will take the better part of the summer. About three months.”

It sounded like a death sentence to her. “Three months?” Her voice was very small.

“Now you see why I asked if you’d like to go to Cap d’Antibes. Does this change your mind?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. It doesn’t. You won’t be there either, and I think Pilar needs a break from me. Not to mention…” Her voice drifted off.

“My mother?” Marc asked. She nodded. “I see. Well then, ma chère, you will be here all alone.”

Dammit, why didn’t he ask her to go with him, to commute between Athens and Paris. For a wild moment Deanna thought of suggesting it to him, but she knew he wouldn’t let her go. He liked to be free when he worked. He would never take her along.

“Can you manage alone?” he said now.

“Do I have a choice? Do you mean I could say no and you wouldn’t go?” She turned her face up to his.

“You know that’s not possible.”

“Yes, I do.” She was silent for a time and then shrugged with a small smile. “I’ll manage.”

“I know you will.”

How do you know dammit? How do you know? What if I can’t? What if I need you?… What if…

“You’re a very good wife, Deanna.”

For a brief second she didn’t know whether to thank him or slap him. “What does that mean? That I don’t complain very much? Maybe I should.” Her smile hid what she felt and allowed him to dodge what he chose not to answer.

“No, you shouldn’t. You are perfect the way you are.”

“Merci, monsieur.” She stood up then and turned away so he would not see her face. “Will you pack yourself, or do you want me to pack for you?”

“I’ll do it myself. You go to bed. I’ll be there in a while.”

Deanna watched him dart around his dressing room, then disappear downstairs, to his study, she assumed. She had turned off the lights in the bedroom and was lying very still on her side of the bed when he returned.

“Tu dors? Are you asleep?”

“No.” Her voice was husky in the dark.

“Bon.”

Good? Why? What did it matter if she were asleep or not? Would he talk to her, tell her that he loved her, that he was sorry he was going? He wasn’t sorry and they both knew it. This was what he loved to do, gad about the world, plying his trade, enjoying his work and his reputation. He adored it. He slid into bed, and they lay there for a time, awake, pensive, silent.

“Are you angry that I’m going away for so long?”

She shook her head. “No, not angry, sorry. I’ll miss you. Very much.”

“It will pass quickly.” She didn’t answer, and he propped himself up on one elbow to study her face in the dark room. “I’m sorry. Deanna.”

“So am I.” He ran a hand gently across her hair and smiled at her, and she turned her head slowly to look at him.

“You’re still very pretty, Deanna. Do you know that? You’re even prettier than you were as a girl. Very handsome in fact.” But she didn’t want to be handsome, she wanted to be his, as she had been so long ago. His Diane. “Pilar will be beautiful one day too.” He said it with pride.

“She already is.” Deanna said it dispassionately, without anger.

“Are you jealous of her?”

He almost seemed to like the idea, and Deanna wondered. Maybe it made him feel important. Or young. But she answered him anyway. Why not? “Yes, sometimes I’m jealous of her. I’d like to be that young again, that free, that sure of what life owes me. At her age it’s all so obvious: You deserve the best, you’ll get the best. I used to think so too.”

“And now, Deanna? Has life paid you its debt?”

“In some ways.” Her eyes held a certain sadness as they met his. For the first time in years he was reminded of the eighteen-year-old orphan who had sat across from him in his office wearing the little black Dior dress. He wondered if he had truly made her unhappy, if she really wanted more. But he had given her so much. Jewels, cars, furs, a home. All the things most women wanted. What more could she possibly want? He looked at her for a very long time, his eyes questioning, his face creased with a sudden thought. Was it possible that he really did not understand?

“Deanna…?” He didn’t want to ask, but suddenly he had to. There was too much in her eyes. “Are you unhappy?”

She looked at him squarely and wanted to say yes. But she was afraid. She would lose him; he would leave her, and then what? She didn’t want to lose Marc. She wanted more of him.

“Are you unhappy?” He repeated the question and looked pained to realize what the answer was. She didn’t have to say the words. Suddenly it was clear. Even to him.

“Sometimes I am. And sometimes not. Much of the time I don’t give it much thought. I miss… I miss the old days though, when we first met, when we were very young.” Her voice was very small as she said it.

“We’ve grown up, Deanna, you can’t change that.” He leaned toward her and touched her chin with his hand, as though perhaps he might kiss her. But the hand fell away, as did the thought. “You were such a charming child.” He smiled at the memory of what he had felt. “I hated your father for leaving you in that mess.”

“So did I. But that was just the way he was. I’ve made peace with all that.”

“Have you?” She nodded. “Are you quite sure?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because I sometimes think you still resent him. I think that’s why you continue to paint. Just to prove to yourself that you can still do something on your own, if you ever have to.” He looked at her more closely then, his forehead wrinkling into a frown. “You won’t ever have to, you know. I’ll never leave you in the condition that your father did.”

“I’m not worried about that. And you’re wrong. I paint because I love it, because it’s a part of me.” He had never wanted to believe that, that her artwork was part of her soul.

He didn’t answer for a time but lay looking up at the ceiling, turning things around in his mind. “Are you terribly cross that I’m going away for the summer?”

“I told you, I’m not. I’ll simply paint, relax, read, see some of my friends.”

“Will you go out a great deal?” He sounded worried, and she was amused. He was a fine one to ask about that.

“I don’t know, silly. I’ll let you know if I’m asked. I’m sure there’ll be the usual dinner parties, benefits, concerts, that sort of thing.” He nodded again, saying nothing. “Marc-Edouard, are you jealous?” There was laughter in her eyes, and then she laughed aloud as he turned to look into her face. “Oh, you are! Don’t be silly! After all these years?”

“What better time?”

“Don’t be absurd, darling. That’s not my style.” He knew that was true.

“I know that. But, on ne sait jamais. One never knows.”

“How can you say something like that?”

“Because I have a beautiful wife, with whom any man in his right mind would be crazy not to fall in love.” It was the most elaborate speech he had made to her in years. She showed her surprise. “What? You think I haven’t noticed? Deanna, now you are being absurd. You are a young and beautiful woman.”

“Good. Then don’t go to Greece.” She was smiling up at him again, like a very young girl. But he didn’t look amused now.

“I have to. You know that.”

“All right. Then take me with you.” There was an unaccustomed note in her voice, half teasing, half serious. He didn’t answer for a long time. “Well? Can I go?”

He shook his head. “No, you can’t.”

“Well, then I guess you’ll just have to be jealous.” They hadn’t teased like this in years and years. His going away for three months had produced an assortment of very odd feelings. But she didn’t want to push him too far. “Seriously, darling, you don’t have to worry.”

“I hope not.”

“Marc! Arrête! Stop it!” She leaned forward and reached for his hand, and he let her take it in hers. “I love you… do you know that?”

“Yes. Do you know as well that I love you?”

Her eyes grew very serious as they looked into his. “Sometimes I’m not so sure.” He was always too busy to show her he loved her, and it wasn’t his style. But now something told her that she had hit home, and she was stunned as she watched him. Didn’t he know? Didn’t he realize what he had done? The wall he had built around himself, surrounded by business and work, gone for days or weeks, and now months, and his only ally Pilar? “I’m sorry, darling. I suppose you do. But sometimes I have to remind myself of it.”

“But I do love you. You must know that.”

“Deep inside I think I do know.” She knew it when she recalled the moments they had shared, the landmarks in a lifetime, which tell the tale. Those were the reasons why she still loved him.

He sighed. “But you need a great deal more. Don’t you, my dear?” She nodded, feeling at once young and brave. “You need my time as well as my affection. You need… enfin, you need what I don’t have to give.”

“That’s not true. You could have the time. We could do some of the things we used to. We could!” She sounded like a plaintive child and hated herself for it. She sounded like the child who had hounded her father to take her along. And she hated needing anyone that much. She had sworn long ago that she never would again. “I’m sorry. I understand.” Her eyes lowered and she withdrew.

“Do you understand?” He was watching her very closely.

“Of course.”

“Ah, ma Diane…” His eyes were troubled as he took her in his arms. She didn’t notice; her own were too filled with tears. He had said it at last. “Ma Diane…”