When she came into the room, he rose quickly and came over to her, kissing her on the cheek as the maid withdrew, leaving the door open just enough for respectability. “Margie,” he said. “I’m so glad to see you looking so well. I was so worried about you. How are you feeling?”
She accepted the kiss and sat down gently, slowly in the chair he led her to. How different she felt now. A handsome man was in this room with her, a man who a few years ago she had been so swayed by, and now she felt calm and cool, almost emotionless.
“Better, thank you. And thank you so much for coming to my rescue. I’m sorry to say I was too ill to notice, but it seems you were my knight in shining armor.”
Robert smiled, a thin, heartless thing. He sat down in the chair facing her. “It was only good luck I was passing through Paris when you were ill. I’m glad to have been able to help.”
“Good luck,” Margie echoed, though she wasn’t sure it was true. Maybe if she had stayed, she would have been able to find another job eventually. Maybe Sebastien would have changed his mind. Maybe . . . With effort, she pulled herself back to the conversation. “So how are you finding Washington after all this time?”
Robert’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment, as though he were marshaling his strength. “It’s different, isn’t it? How long were you in Paris?” he asked.
“Three months,” Margie said. Three months, five days, and twelve hours, she thought. Forever, she thought. Not long enough, she thought.
“So you had a little time to get acquainted with the European style of things. It’s all so different than here, isn’t it? The war changed them. Everything over there is freer. It seems so contained here by comparison.”
Looking around the dark parlor, the same heavy furniture, the same ugly, flocked wallpaper, the same fireplace—which was lit, despite the warmth of the day outside; the house always seemed chilly—Margie nodded. “It does.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and Margie imagined they were both mourning what they had lost in Europe, both wishing they were back there. “So what will you do now?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve been invited to join the family business.”
“Invited?”
An expression crossed his face and he closed his eyes again. Leaning forward slightly, he lowered his voice. “Margie, we’ve known each other a long time.”
“Years,” Margie said. Her voice sounded so hollow. Would it always be like this? She wondered what she should do. Could she go back to Paris? To have the baby there, to have a life there. It was so cheap; she wouldn’t need much. She couldn’t live at the Club with a child, but she could find someplace like it, a similarly small, sunny room, and they could live there, the two of them. On what? her conscience asked meanly. And where would the baby go when you were working? The tiny flame of hope inside her that had sputtered to life died under the harsh wind of reality.
“So let’s be honest with each other. Can we?”
Margie looked at him, expressionless. “Of course.” Why not? What was the use of all these charades? Any taste she’d had for the rules and limitations of polite society had disappeared in Paris, had been crushed under the enthusiastic swell of the people she had met, the artists whose emotions overflowed every conversation they had, who could argue passionately about Surrealism and dreams and the messages of Cubism, who saw through different eyes. What was the point of pretending things you didn’t feel?
“My parents have told me that if I don’t join the business, if I don’t settle down, I’m cut off. They said I’ve played for far too long, that it’s time for me to grow up.”
The maid came in, carrying a tray with tea and thick, tasteless cookies no one had asked for, and Robert leaned back in his chair quickly. “May I pour?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” Margie said, and the maid nodded and disappeared. When the door had closed—almost—again, Margie turned to Robert. “I’ve been issued a similar ultimatum. What are you going to do?”
Robert shot her a quick, soulless smile. “I’m going to join the family business and settle down, of course.”
“Is that what you want?”
He raised his hand to his head and needlessly smoothed down his hair. He had missed a spot when he was shaving; Margie could see a bit of stubble at his jawline, and it made him softer to her, reminded her that underneath his bravado, he was only a person. A person who had been kind to her. It was hard to see through her own pain and fear; her misery covered everything in a gauzy dimness. Light refracted back at her, illuminating the cracks in her own heart instead of allowing her to see anyone else’s.
“No,” he said. “But it’s fair, isn’t it? They’ve supported me, let me do as I pleased for years, in exchange for only a few requests, like acting as an escort for the season.” He nodded at Margie and she smiled quickly, a perfunctory recognition of the night he had served as her escort. His words sounded so much like Sebastien’s. Duty. A debt to be paid.
“And my sister, Eliza—you went to school with her, didn’t you?”