Chapter 7
She read his biography, which said very little about him personally, mostly about his training, his gallery shows, and the museums around Europe where his work had been exhibited.
There was an email address at the end of it.
She looked at it for a long time, left it on the screen, and went to pour herself a glass of sherry to give her courage.
She set the glass down next to her computer, took another sip, and then wrote a brief letter, saying only that she had enjoyed seeing his recent work online, and that she could see and appreciate how his style had matured and grown even richer over the years.
She added that she hoped that he was well, and signed it.
Marie-Aurélie didn’t know what she expected from it.
At most just a friendly response. Or maybe he wouldn’t answer.
Clément had been on her mind ever since Dominique asked about him in December, when she was in Paris.
Marie-Aurélie felt faintly ridiculous reaching out to him after so long.
He was an old man now, a year older than she was.
There had been a photograph of him on the gallery website, but it must have been an old photograph, since he looked much younger than his age would be now.
She finished the glass of sherry when she hit send, and went to bed.
She felt a little foolish for having sent the email, like a note passed in the back rows of a classroom to a boy one liked.
Dominique had awakened memories of a lost time when Marie-Aurélie and Clément were young.
He had been handsome and passionate and crazy about her, but she hadn’t been ready to let go of the memories of Armand.
She had spent many more years after that clinging to them.
Marie-Aurélie had been forty-three then, and Clément was forty-four.
He had wanted to marry her and she wouldn’t.
He had wanted children, and she didn’t want any more.
Dominique had just entered college and she felt too old to start again, and would have felt foolish doing so.
More than anything, it felt like a betrayal of Armand, and negation of her love for him, to love another man.
Clément had been serious and madly in love with Marie-Aurélie.
It had only been an infatuation for her.
He was intelligent, charming, and talented, and very serious about his art.
She remembered reading somewhere that he had married a year or two after she rejected him.
She didn’t blame him. He had a right to happiness and she to her memories at the time.
It was too early for her after Armand’s death.
She fell asleep thinking about him, and was shocked in the morning, when she glanced at her computer, to see a response from Clément’s email address.
She hesitated before opening it, and her hand shook when she did.
He had probably thought her foolish. She sat down to read it, and was surprised by the length of his response.
He admitted to being stunned to hear from her and hoped that she was well.
She guessed that he had probably assumed she was dead by then, which she might have thought of him too, except that she had seen his work from time to time, so she knew he was alive recently.
Clément wrote to her that he was working as much as ever, and currently preparing a show for a museum in Barcelona and another for his gallery in Paris, so clearly he wasn’t slowing down.
He said he had often thought of her over the years, and was happy to know that she was well.
He said that he had had a warm, satisfying marriage to a fellow artist, and she had passed away ten years before.
They had no children, but had shared thirty years of marriage before she died.
He had a house in Normandy, where he spent a lot of his time now, with a studio there.
He hoped that she would come to his next opening, or perhaps they could have a glass of wine sometime, or lunch if she preferred.
She could hear his familiar voice in the email, and he seemed as open and warm and accessible as ever.
Marie-Aurélie waited several hours until she had dressed and thought about it before she wrote back.
She didn’t want to look overly anxious, or desperate, and she questioned herself thoroughly about why she was writing to him.
She hated to admit it, but she was lonely, and the idea of having a glass of wine or lunch with a man made her feel alive again, which she thought was pathetic, but the truth.
She responded to everything he said, and he didn’t write back that day.
But she had another email from him the next morning.
She smiled when she saw it. It was like a gentle tennis game as their emails went back and forth through the miracle of internet connection.
She was actually enjoying it, although faintly embarrassed to be having exchanges with a man. It made her feel womanly and young.
At the end of his email, Clément shocked her by inviting her to lunch.
He said that he was currently in Normandy, but he was coming to the city at the end of the week, and invited her to lunch on Friday at Le Grand Véfour, which was an elegant bistro at the end of the Palais-Royal.
She hadn’t been there in years, but had always liked it, and feeling very daring, she accepted his invitation.
She felt very bold and adventurous having provoked it with her initial email.
He added at the end that she would be quite startled to see him, since he was now a very old man.
She answered graciously that she was as much older as he was, and not in the first or even the last blush of youth herself.
He sent an emoji of him laughing, which made her smile.
If nothing else, she was having fun. She felt as though she was up to mischief, which made her feel like a woman still in the world.
She spent the entire week worrying about what to wear.
She would have consulted Dominique but didn’t want her to know what she had done, even though her daughter had provoked it by inquiring about him, and reviving long-forgotten memories of a charming, handsome man who had been enamored with her and found her attractive, though she thought it unlikely that they could rekindle any of it now in their eighties.
But it was a sweet memory, and it seemed harmless to meet him for lunch.
It was all very respectable, and they weren’t doing anyone any harm.
They had both lost their partners years before, and Marie-Aurélie suspected that Clément, painting alone in Normandy, was as lonely as she was.
At least he had his painting to fill the void his wife must have left when she died.
It sounded like it had been a good marriage, from the way he wrote about his late wife.
On Friday morning, Marie-Aurélie took particular care about how she dressed.
It was a dreary gray January day, cold enough to snow.
She wore a pair of boots she had bought recently, an old black Givenchy skirt, an elegant black Chanel jacket Dominique had given her for her last birthday, with a soft pink blouse under it, and a chic black Balenciaga coat, which was a favorite.
Her hair was neatly swept up in a bun. She wore her makeup as she had done it for years, just enough to enhance her looks without looking garish.
She wore gold earrings and put on gloves in the cold weather, and looked slim and elegant as she left her house and had her driver take her to the Palais-Royal.
She walked into the restaurant feeling nervous, realizing she hadn’t had lunch with a man in twenty years.
Her legs felt shaky under her as she glanced around the restaurant and told the ma?tre d’ who she was meeting.
He walked her immediately to a table in the best part of the restaurant, and she recognized Clément immediately.
He looked as handsome and distinguished as ever, just with more lines in his face and his dark hair now white, just as hers was.
He stood up to greet her wearing a well-cut dark blue suit, white shirt, and navy tie.
She noticed immediately how impeccable he looked, which was unusual for men his age, especially widowers.
They usually had the slightly disorganized look of someone who no longer knew when to get a haircut or get his suit pressed, and couldn’t decide on the right tie without someone to tell him.
He was meticulously put together, and looked more like a businessman than an artist. He wore success well, and he looked very pleased to see her.
He had the same warm smile she remembered perfectly, and he touched her hand and told her how happy he was that she had accepted his invitation.
“And you’re just as elegant as ever. You were the chicest woman I’d ever known. And nothing has changed.”
“You must be going blind then,” she said with a smile. She felt coquettish being with him, which was a feeling she had long since forgotten. He made her feel like a woman, and not an antique.
He asked after Dominique and Marie-Aurélie told him about her grandchildren, and she asked him about the shows he was preparing.
They commented on current events and politics and had similar views.
Listening to him made her wish she still traveled, but traveling alone was too stressful for her.
New York was too hectic, and Los Angeles too far.
The time flew, and it was three-thirty when they left the restaurant, among the last to leave, after a remarkably elegant meal.