That was my cue. “Mom, I don’t know if you’ve met Nate. This is Nate Redmond. He’s my . . . seatmate.”
“I think you’re more than that, Nate.” My mother held out her hand to be shaken. “I’m sorry about earlier, rushing in without introducing myself. I’m sure you can understand, given the circumstances. I’m Suzi Clements Blakely. Thank you for being here.” My mother charmed, and Nate shook hands on command.
“Your tea.” Beckman placed a teapot and mug in front of my mother. Whatever had been discussed outside, he looked triumphant, like he’d won this enormous prize and now he was going to bask in the victory. “Food will be ready soon, sleepyhead!” Beckman announced, looking at me like I was a college kid back home from term. That did it.
“Can I talk to you a second, Mom? Privately.”
“Let me finish this tea. And, Polly, I’ll take one of those croque monsieurs. A half. Did you make those? They smell delicious. And how about some fruit? Thank you so much.” My mother settled in like a frequent guest who expected excellent hospitality. Nate made another round with coffee, and I was beginning to sense that coffee was Nate’s one and only food skill.
Accommodating my mother, Polly switched into service mode. “I put mushrooms in them. It’s my signature.” Leave it to Polly to feel the need to improve on a classic French dish. “Joanie, what can I get you? Nate, do you want of these, too?”
I exchanged glances with Nate. I needed to talk to my mother about the notebooks, about Beckman, about that photo from Paris Match. And then we needed to hear the whole story about why and how Peter Beckman pulled off the heist of the Panthéon Sketchbook. But it appeared that Suzi Clements Blakely’s agenda was our focus, and she wanted brunch. My questions would have to wait, but not for long. “Sure, I’ll take the other half of my mother’s.”
The random collection of humans in this beautiful kitchen in Normandy made me think of the meals that often happened at our house in Pasadena when friends of my parents would come for dinner, then end up staying over for brunch. My father, if he wasn’t at his studio, would make omelets and squeeze orange juice. My mother would lay out fruit, nuts, yogurt, granola. A guest might take over setting the table with plates, linen napkins, and silver. I remember Judy Chicago wandering around our yard, assembling an arrangement for the table from olive branches, pomegranates, and late-winter roses. Impromptu, but perfect. You never knew who might be there or show up. This moment had the same feel.
Beckman was serving himself at the buffet Marianne had set up, clearly pleased at the scene, too. Like this was what he had planned all along.
The only time in my life when my mother got completely furious with me was New Year’s Day 1997, when I returned home from the Rose Parade clearly hungover and miserable. Following a grand Pasadena tradition, I had spent the New Year’s Eve of my senior year of high school camping out on the Rose Parade route, in anticipation of Polly’s triumphant ride down Colorado Boulevard. Also in a grand Pasadena tradition, I drank too much schnapps to counteract the cold and paid for it the next morning. It was a miserable night on the hard ground, once the thrill of being on the loose at midnight with thousands of other high school kids had worn off. I slept through most of the parade and arrived at home needing a shower, a hot breakfast, and permission to lie on the couch the rest of the day, but my mother went nuts.
To say I wasn’t in the fast lane in high school was an understatement. I was the kind of teenager who really enjoyed her duties as president of the French Club. My idea of a good time was staying up late to do the cooking before the crepe sale we sponsored every Valentine’s Day. I was hardly a party girl, so the fact that my mother, who had, in fact, been a party girl on an international scale, came down on me so hard that day was surprising. My father had simply chuckled a bit, handed me an aspirin, and offered to make me an omelet and some coffee. But my mother’s response was more befitting of finding me in a crack den than hungover from some New Year’s Eve overindulgence.
“Do you want to end up in rehab? Is that what you want? A ninety-day stay at Las Encinas?” she screamed, referring to the celebrity rehab in town. She then proceeded to list every celebrity offspring that had gone offtrack and ended up in jail, therapy, family court, or Vegas for a quickie wedding. The litany was impressive, like she’d been gathering information from Hello! magazine for years to throw back in my face. I was shocked that she had thought through this all so deeply.
During her rant, I hung my throbbing head, assuring her I didn’t have a problem, didn’t need rehab, and wasn’t headed down the same path as So-and-So’s kids who we used to ski with in Aspen, and she backed off. And I haven’t had another shot of schnapps since 1997.
After the death of family friend’s son from an overdose years later, I realized that my mother wasn’t mad at me; she was scared for me. I wasn’t exactly a coal miner’s daughter. My childhood, with its exposure to all sorts of glamour, glitz, and bad behavior, was privileged in ways that are hard to explain to civilians who’ve never experienced a backstage pass or private elevators in hotels. What I had was access to a very fast life if that’s what I wanted. A couple of phone calls on a Saturday night, and I could have been out clubbing until dawn thanks to the upper du jour and in recovery by nineteen. But my mother didn’t have to worry. She and my father had done a good job scaring me straight with their endless tales of friends who never really lived up to their potential because their vices got in the way. Plus, being in control was more addictive to me than being out of control.
As my mother and I stood in the library, looking at my father’s notebooks, the anger and the fear welled up in me like it had so many years ago in my mother. I was mad, but I was also scared. I had so much to tell her, about Paris and Jacques and everything that had happened over the past four days, but first, I had to get to the bottom of a few issues. I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to the questions I was about to ask.
“I like Nate. He’s adorable. Is he your adventure? Or something more?”
“I think my adventure.” I felt disloyal admitting it, but there it was. Nate was a Revenge of the Nerds rebound situation, and I’m pretty sure I was the girl he’d one day refer to as You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Me That One Time I Went to a Conference in Paris. “I’m not ready for anything more right now.”
“Well, I approve of whatever he is.”
As always, her approval resonated with me. I opened notebook #20 and removed the envelope. “I dug around in the notebooks yesterday. I needed to understand what happened during the Bright & Dark time period. I found this.” I handed her the photo and the letter.
She read slowly and studied the picture for a half minute or so. Finally, she spoke. “Peter’s a poet, isn’t he? I take it you have some questions for me.”
“Yes. Let’s start with why you’ve been lying to me my entire life about the great love story of Henry Blakely and Suzi Clements?”
“Now, Joanie . . .”
“This photo was taken weeks before Bright & Dark and months after you allegedly fell madly in love with my father in Pasadena and married him on the spot and moved to Paris. Is that whole story bullshit? What really happened between you and Beckman and”—I hesitated—“my father?”
“You make some valid points.”
“Come on, Mom. Valid points?”
She knew she was in deep. “I owe you an explanation.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Why don’t we take a minute here to breathe and appreciate the moment.”
“Jesus, Mom.”