Summer’s End

7

Marc-Edouard Duras walked along the Via Vèneto in Rome, glancing into shop windows and occasionally casting an admiring glance at a pretty girl wandering past. It was a brilliantly sunny day, and the women were wearing T-shirts with narrow straps, white skirts that clung to shapely legs, and sandals that bared red enameled toes. He smiled to himself as he walked, the briefcase under his arm. It didn’t make sense really, this brief sojourn in Italy, but after all, why not? And he had promised… Promised. Sometimes he wondered how he could promise so easily. But he did.

He paused for a moment, an aristocratic figure in an impeccably tailored gray suit, waiting for the machine-gun spurt of Roman traffic to hurtle past him, casting itself hurly-burly in all directions, sending pedestrians scurrying in flight. He smiled as he watched an old woman wave a parasol and then make an obscene gesture. Écco, signora. He bowed slightly to her from the opposite side of the street, and she made the same gesture to him. He laughed, glanced at his watch, and hurried to a table in a café. Beneath a brightly striped umbrella he could take refuge from the sun and continue to admire the energy and ecstasy that were the very essence of Rome. Roma-it was a magical city. Perhaps the promise had been worth keeping after all. For an instant, but only that, the abortive conversation with Deanna crept into his mind. It had been almost impossible to hear her, and he was relieved. There were times when he simply couldn’t deal with her, couldn’t reach out to her, couldn’t bear to imagine the pain in those eyes or hear the loneliness in her voice. He knew it was there, but it was sometimes more than he could handle. He could cope with it in San Francisco, in the context of his ordinary routine, but not when he was in the throes of a professional crisis abroad, or when he was at home in France, or… here, in Rome. He shook his head slowly, as though to brush away the memory of her voice, and found himself gazing longingly up the street. He couldn’t think of Deanna now. Couldn’t. No. Not now. His mind was already a thousand miles away from her as his eyes sifted through the crowd: a pretty blonde, a tall brunette, two very Roman-looking men in light linen suits with thick dark hair, a tall Florentine-looking woman, like something in a Renaissance painting, and then he saw her. Striding gaily down the street with her own inimitable gait, the endless legs seeming to dance across the sidewalk as a brilliant turquoise skirt caressed her thighs. She wore the palest mauve silk shirt, delicate sandals, and a huge straw hat that almost hid her eyes. Almost. But not quite. Nothing could hide those eyes, or the sapphire lights that seemed to change with her every mood. They changed from the brilliance of fire to the mystery of the deep blue sea. A rich chestnut mane swept her shoulders.

“Alors, chéri.” She stopped only inches from him, and sensuous lips offered a smile for his eyes alone. “I’m sorry I’m late. I stopped to look at those silly bracelets again.” He stood to greet her, and for once the chill reserve of Marc-Edouard Duras was clearly shattered. He wore the face of a boy, and one who was very much in love. Her name was Chantal Martin, and she had been a model at Dior. Their top model, in fact, for six and a half years.

“Did you buy the bracelets?” His eyes caressed her neck, and as she shook her head, the chestnut hair danced beneath the hat he had bought her only that morning. It was frivolous, but delightful. And so was she. “Well?”

Her eyes laughed into his. She shook her head again. “No, again I didn’t buy them.” Unexpectedly, she tossed a small package into his lap. “I bought you that instead.” She sat back, waiting for him to open it.

“Tu me gâtes, petite sotte.” You spoil me, silly little one.

“And you don’t spoil me?” Without waiting for an answer, she signaled for a waiter. “Sental… Cameriere!…” He approached instantly, with a look of pleasure, and she ordered a Campari and soda. “And you?”

“Inviting me to drinks, too?” She never waited for him to take matters in hand. Chantal liked to run her own show.

“Oh, shut up. What’ll you have?”

“Scotch.” She ordered it the way he liked it, and he watched her eyes for a long moment as they sat beneath the umbrella. The beginnings of the lunchtime crowd swirled colorfully around them. “Will you always be this independent, my love?”

“Always. Now open your gift.”

“You’re impossible.” But that was precisely what had always fascinated him about her. She was impossible. And he loved it. Like a wild mare running free on the plains of Camargue. They had gone there together once, the land of the French cowboys and the beautiful, wild, white horses. He had always thought of her that way after that. Untamed, just a fraction out of reach, yet more or less his. More or less. He liked to think it was more rather than less. And it had been that way between them for five years.

She was twenty-nine now. She had been twenty-four when they met. It was the first summer that Deanna had refused to join him in France. He had felt odd to spend a summer without her; it had been awkward to explain to his family, insisting that she hadn’t felt well enough to travel that year. No one believed it, but they had only said so behind his back, wondering if she were leaving Marc-Edouard or merely had a lover in the States. They would never have understood the truth-that she hated them, that she felt ill at ease, that she had wanted to stay at home, to be alone, to paint, because she detested sharing Marc with them, detested the way he was when he was with them, and detested even more watching the way Pilar became like them. It had been a shock for Marc-Edouard when she refused to come, a shock that left him wondering what it would mean now that she would no longer spend the summers with his family in France. He had decided to send her something beautiful, along with a letter asking her to change her mind. Remembering the eighteen-year-old wistful beauty who had sat in his office that day so long ago, he had gone to Dior.

He sat through the entire collection, making notes, watching the models, carefully studying the clothes, trying to decide which ones were most her style, but his attention had incessantly wandered from the outfits to the models, and in particular, one spectacular girl. She had been dazzling, and she had moved in a way that spoke only to him. She was a genius at what she did, whirling, turning, beckoning-to him alone, it seemed-and he had sat breathless in his seat. At the end of the show he had asked to see her, feeling uncomfortable for a moment, but barely longer. When she walked out to meet him in a starkly narrow, black jersey dress, her auburn hair swept up on her lovely head, those remarkable blue eyes alternately clawing and caressing, he had wanted to seize her and watch her melt in his embrace. He was a rational man, a man of power and control, and he had never felt that way before. It frightened him and fascinated him, and Chantal seemed very much aware of the power she had. She wielded it gracefully, but with crushing force.

And instead of buying Deanna a dress, Marc had bought Chantal a drink, and another, and another. They had finished with champagne at the bar of the hotel George V, and then much to his own astonishment, he heard himself ask her if she would let him take a room. But she had only giggled and gently touched his face with one long, delicate hand.

“Ah, non, mon amour, pas encore.” Not yet.

Then when? He had wanted to shout the words at her, but he hadn’t. Instead he had courted her, cajoled her, showered her with gifts, until at last she acquiesced, demurely, shyly, in just the way that turned his heart and soul and flesh to fire beneath her touch. They had spent the weekend in an apartment he had borrowed from a friend, in the posh surroundings of the Avenue Foch, with a miraculously romantic bedroom, and a balcony looking out on gently whispering trees.

He would remember for a lifetime every sound and smell and moment of that weekend. He had known then that he would never have enough of Mademoiselle Chantal Martin. She had woven herself like thread beneath his skin, and he would never be quite comfortable again except with her. She drained him and enchanted him, and made him almost mad with a desire he had never felt before. Elusive, exotic, exquisite Chantal. It had gone on for five years. In Paris, and Athens, and Rome. Wherever he went in Europe, he took her and of course presented her in hotels and restaurants and shops as “Madame Duras.” They had both grown used to it over the years. It was simply a part of his life now, and hers. A part of which his partner, Jim Sullivan, was acutely aware, and his wife, thank heaven, was not. Deanna would never know. There was no reason to tell her. It took nothing away from her, he told himself. She had San Francisco and her own little world. He had Chantal, and a much wider one. He had everything he wanted. As long as he had Chantal. He only prayed that it would go on for a lifetime. But that was a promise Chantal would never make.

“Alors, mon amour, your present, your present, open it!” Her eyes teased and his heart soared. He pulled open the box. It was the diver’s watch he had admired that morning, saying it would be fun to have for their trips to the beach and his stays in Cap d’Antibes.

“My God, you’re mad! Chantal!” It had been monstrously expensive, but she waved his objections away with a disinterested hand. She could afford it now that she was no longer at Dior. Three years before she had retired from the runway and opened her own modeling agency. She wouldn’t let him set her up in an apartment in Paris to do nothing except her hair and nails and wait for him. She refused to be dependent on anyone, least of all him. It irritated him sometimes, and frightened him as well. She didn’t need him, she only loved him, but at least of that he was sure. No matter what she did when he was in the States, she loved him. He was certain of it. And the perfection of their time together cemented that belief.

“Do you like it?” She eyed him coyly over her Campari.

“I adore it.” He dropped his voice, “But I love you more.”

“Do you, m’lord?” She arched an eyebrow, and he felt a rising at his crotch.

“Do you require proof?”

“Perhaps. What did you have in mind?” She eyed him evilly from beneath her hat.

“I was planning to suggest lunch out in the country somewhere, but perhaps…” His smile matched hers.

“Room service, darling?”

“An excellent idea.” He waved to the cameriere and quickly paid their bill.

She stood up languidly, letting her body sway gently against his for a tantalizing instant, then began to weave her way through the crowded tables, casting a glance at him over her shoulder now and then. He could hardly wait to get her home. He wanted to run back to the hotel, holding fast to her hand, but she walked at her own pace, in her own style, knowing that she had Marc-Edouard Duras precisely where she wanted him. He watched her, amused. In a very few moments he would have her precisely where he wanted her. In his arms, in bed.

In their room he began unbuttoning her blouse with alarming speed, and she brushed him away playfully, making him wait before she’d let him reveal what he was so hungry for. She fondled him with one hand and nipped gently at his neck, until at last he found the button to her skirt and it dropped to the floor, leaving her in transparent pink lace. He almost tore at the blouse now. In a moment she stood naked in front of him as he softly moaned. She undressed him, quickly and expertly, and they fell together on the bed. Each time they made love was better than the time before, and ever reminiscent of the first. It left him sated, yet still hungry, eager to know that they would soon be joined again.

She rolled over in bed, lying on one elbow, her hair tousled but still beautiful. She watched him silently, smiling. Her voice was a husky whisper near his ear as her fingers played slowly across his chest and down toward his stomach. “I love you, you know.”

He looked at her intently, his eyes searching hers. “I love you too, Chantal. Too much perhaps. But I do.” It was a remarkable admission for a man like Marc-Edouard Duras. No one who knew him would have believed it. Least of all Deanna.

Chantal smiled and then lay back with her eyes closed for a moment, and there was concern in his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Of course.”

“You’d lie to me, though. I know it. Tell me seriously. Are you all right, Chantal?” A look of almost frantic worry crossed his face. She smiled.

“I’m fine.”

“You took your insulin properly today?” He was all fatherly concern now, the passion of the moment before forgotten.

“Yes, I took it. Stop worrying. Want to try your new watch in the bathtub?”

“Now?”

“Why not?” She smiled happily at him, and for once he felt totally at peace. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

“I always have something else in mind. But you’re tired.”

“Never too tired for you, mon amour.” And he was never too tired for her. The years between them vanished as he made love to her again.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when they lay quietly side by side again. “Well, we’ve taken care of this afternoon.” She smiled mischievously at him, and he grinned in answer.

“You had other plans?”

“Absolutely none.”

“Want to do some more shopping?” He loved to indulge her, to spoil her, to be with her, admire her, drink her in. Her perfume, her movements, her every breath excited him. And she knew it.

“I could probably be lured back to the shops.”

“Good.” The trip to Rome had been for her anyway. He was going to have to work hard that summer, and Athens would be dull for her. He knew how she loved Rome. And he always made a point of bringing her. Just to please her. Besides, he was going to have to leave her for the weekend.

“What’s wrong?” She had been watching him very closely.

“Nothing. Why?”

“You looked worried for a moment.”

“Not worried.” But it was best to get it over with. “Just unhappy. I’m going to have to leave you for a couple of days.”

“Oh?” Her eyes iced over like a winter frost.

“I have to stop off in Antibes to visit my mother and Pilar before we go to Greece.”

She sat up in bed and looked at him with annoyance. “And what do you plan to do with me?”

“Don’t make it sound like that, darling. I can’t help it. You know that.”

“Don’t you think Pilar is old enough to withstand the shock of knowing about me? Or do you still find me so unpresentable? I’m no longer the little mannequin from Dior, you know. I run the biggest modeling agency in Paris.” But she also knew that in his world that didn’t count.

“That’s not the point. And no, I don’t think she’s old enough.” In what concerned Pilar he was oddly stubborn. It irritated Chantal a great deal.

“And your mother?”

“That’s impossible.”

“I see.” She threw her long legs over the side of the bed and stalked across the room, grabbing a cigarette on her way, turning to look at him angrily only when she had reached the window at the opposite side. “I’m getting a little bored with being dumped in out-of-the-way places while you visit your family, Marc-Edouard.”

“I’d hardly call Saint-Tropez an ‘out-of-the-way place.’” He was beginning to look annoyed, and his tone showed none of the passion of the hours before.

“Where did you have in mind this time?”

“I thought maybe San Remo.”

“How convenient. Well, I won’t go.”

“Would you rather stay here?”

“No.”

“Do we have to go through this again, Chantal? It’s getting very tedious. What’s more, I don’t understand. Why has this suddenly become an issue between us, when for five years you have found it perfectly acceptable to spend time on the Riviera without me?”

“Would you like to know why?” Suddenly her eyes blazed. “Because I’m almost thirty years old, and I’m still playing the same games I was playing with you five years ago. And I’m just a little tired of it. We play make-believe games of ‘Monsieur and Madame Duras’ halfway around the world, but in the places that matter-Paris, San Francisco, Antibes-I have to hide and slink around and disappear. Well, I’m sick of it. You want an exclusive arrangement. You expect me to sit in Paris and hold my breath for half the year, and then come out of mothballs at your command. I’m not going to do that anymore, Marc-Edouard. At least not for much longer.” She stopped, and he stared at her, stunned. He didn’t dare ask if she were serious. For a terrible instant, he knew that she was.

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’ve been giving it a lot of thought lately. The Americans have a perfect expression, I believe: ‘Shit or get off the pot.’”

“I don’t find that amusing.”

“I don’t find San Remo amusing.”

Christ! It was useless. A small sigh escaped him, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Chantal, I can’t take you to Antibes.”

“You won’t take me to Antibes. There’s a difference.”

And what’s more, she had added San Francisco to the list of her complaints. That startling bit of information hadn’t escaped him either. She had never even wanted to go to the States before.

“May I ask what brought all this on? It can’t just be your thirtieth birthday. That’s still four months away.”

She paused, her back to him, as she looked silently out the window, and then slowly she turned to face him again. “Someone else just asked me to marry him.”

Time seemed to stand still. Marc-Edouard stared at her in horror.