Chapter 10 May 1995 Lily Jacobsen—Program Manager #7
A tender carrot melted in my mouth. I asked him how the studying was going.
He told me he felt confident about the police stuff but was struggling with the culture générale section.
“ ‘Name the site of the nuclear plant in Alsace-Lorraine,’ ” he said, “Or ‘What year was Julius Caesar assassinated?’ ”
“That sounds hard, but I bet you’ll ace it.”
“I wish I had your optimism. Most people don’t pass on the first try. What about you? How long have you worked at the library?”
“Five months.” It felt like longer. “Before that I taught English.”
“It’s hard to become a teacher here.”
To teach languages in the public school system, university students had to pass a difficult competitive exam and master translation. They also had to have French nationality.
“Not when you’re working with adults,” I explained. “My former boss hired any native English speaker with a pulse.”
We heaped more couscous onto our plates. I didn’t want to talk about my jobs—past or present—and changed the subject. “Why do you want to go to Texas?”
“When I was little, my grandpa and I watched a documentary on NASA. The astronauts said, ‘Houston, we have a problem,’ and this steady voice guided them. As a kid, I always wanted my own Houston to help solve problems—when my mom passed, I also lost my dad, in a way. He became a workaholic.”
I knew all about fraught relationships and tilted my head in sympathy.
“Now that I’m an adult, I’d love to see the NASA Space Center.” He shrugged. “A dream trip if I pass the exam.”
“Was your grandpa a detective, too?”
“He didn’t make that rank, but he was good at understanding people.”
I knew it was my turn to offer something about my life. I wished I could talk to Chris about Mary Louise. He seemed really understanding. But the hurt was too fresh to discuss.
Instead, I brought up something else that weighed on me: Odile, and the quandary of whether to share what I’d learned by reading Margaret’s memoir. Should I mail a copy to Odile or stay out of it?
“If it were me, I’d want to hear about an old friend,” he replied.
It felt good to talk to Chris, and I took his advice seriously. I thought maybe I’d send the copy, and Odile could decide if she wanted to read it.
He and I finished our tea, and the waiter brought the check. I offered to pay, but Chris wouldn’t accept. “You can treat for ice cream.”
I held a hand to my stomach. “But not tonight.”
“Definitely not.”
Good. Another date in the near future.
“Do you want to switch over to French?” I asked as we walked down rue de l’Université, toward my apartment.
“I prefer English. It’s more direct, and there are fewer decisions to make.”
“Like the formal and informal,” I said with a groan. “It’s always hard for me to know if or when to switch.”
“In the library,” he said, “when you first came to say hello, would you have used ‘tu’ or ‘vous’?”
“I would have wanted to use ‘tu,’ but to be on the safe side, I would have used ‘vous.’ ”
“Same for me. We’re not students any longer—so, the formal. But it adds a barrier, when I only want to get close to you.”
We stopped walking. Somehow, we were already at the door of my building.
I didn’t remember which streets we’d meandered down, didn’t remember waiting at stoplights to cross.
I could only focus on him. We faced each other.
He took my hand and placed my palm over his heart. It pounded as hard as mine.
I brushed my lips against his. He kissed me back.
I ran a hand through his hair, something I’d wanted to do from the first moment I saw him.
Soft and warm, it caressed my fingers. I felt a thrum of desire, of happiness, of fear.
It felt too good, it felt too right, which meant it was too good to be true. I pulled away.
“I should get going,” I said. “See you at the library?” Before he could say a word, I slipped inside and closed the door behind me.
Usually, the best part of a date was afterward, when Mary Louise and I curled up on the futon with cocoa and conducted the postmortem: what he wore, what he said, how he kissed, would there be another date, did he like me as much as I liked him?
In our jammies, we pondered what we’d wear the next time we went out and if it was too soon to meet his friends.
Sometimes, when I described a date, she didn’t like what she heard and cautioned me.
Make sure he doesn’t have a girlfriend back home.
Or, Go slow. You have time. Other times, when I doubted, even for a minute, she would say, He likes you, he definitely likes you.
How could he not? Her optimism was the sweetest of lullabies, and I fell asleep to the sound of her certainty.
But now, here was a beginning that could really go somewhere, and Mary Louise wasn’t around to share my joy.
I entered the dark, stale-smelling studio.
I was alone, and desperate for her company.
Chris was right, who wouldn’t want to hear from an old friend?
I’d slipped a copy of Margaret’s memoir into a manila envelope and addressed it to Odile.
At the post office, I stood on the threshold, unable to mail the pages.
Margaret had painted a different picture of the past, of Odile’s memories.
What if the contradictory perspective upset Odile?
What if it gave false hope for a reconciliation?
I didn’t want to cause her any pain, knowing she’d already been through so much.
So the envelope sat on the corner of my nightstand.
Where I stared at it, or it stared at me.
On Mr. Hayes’s first morning back from Washington, he approached my desk. From the scowl on his face, I feared the worst.
“Something disturbing took place in my absence. Let’s talk in my office.”
Maybe he’d heard about Mike Roth’s threat and wanted to check on me. I was touched, since he’d never uttered a kind word or shown any concern. Mr. Hayes closed the door behind us.
“You complained about me to a trustee?” he shouted.
“What? No!”
“The second I leave town, you go crying to Jennifer de Narp?”
It took me a moment to process this—my conversation with her was the furthest thing from my mind.
“She saw I was upset and asked what was wrong. I didn’t think—”
“Damn straight you didn’t think. Next time, keep your mouth shut.”
Mr. Hayes didn’t give me time to respond before he flung open his office door.
I slunk back to my desk. This job was supposed to be a low-stress way to cover my rent so I could write, but it was all-consuming.
Had I made all the arrangements for the authors?
Contacted the bookseller? Ordered taxis for the trustees?
Would Mr. Hayes fire me because I hadn’t booked a big name?
Would my end-of-the-year statistics be good enough?
Would I even last that long? I’d made so many mistakes.
… I felt like a loser. Sometimes, I wanted to go back home to Montana.
I missed Odile and my family. But I’d vowed not to return until I was a published author. I just had to try harder.
Statistics:
Times a day I wonder if Meg is really Margaret: 5
Times a day I pick up the phone to call Mary Louise: 5
Times I daydream about Chris: 5
Times I worry that my boss hates me: 17