Family Ties Page 11

  “We had no choice. My parents died. But Damien might feel really abandoned by the two of you. I suffered terribly from the loss of my parents all through my teens. I think I blamed them for dying, although I loved my aunt a lot and she was terrific and like a mother to me. But she’s not my mother, she’s my aunt.”

  “We’ll explain it to him later on.” Jean-Louis smiled at her as he lit a Gitane. “Françoise isn’t ready to give up her career. And she can only do what she’s doing, at this level, for a few more years. It would be a shame for her to stop now. And I can’t. I’m sure he’ll understand,” Jean-Louis said confidently. Liz wasn’t so sure how he’d feel later about parents who hadn’t been willing to make the necessary adjustments for him and thought only of themselves. In some ways she thought they treated him like a toy. She was still grateful for the sacrifices Annie had made, which she was even more aware of now. She couldn’t imagine what her life would be like if she had been raising three children now, of the ages she and her siblings had been when Annie got them at twenty-six. Liz didn’t think herself capable of it, now or at any age, which made her admire Annie even more for all she’d done.

  “I couldn’t do it either,” Liz said fairly, “but I wouldn’t have a kid. I don’t want to screw up someone else’s life.”

  “We’re not,” Jean-Louis assured her, blind to what they weren’t doing for the boy. And with that Damien walked into the room. The movie had finished, and he was hungry. Jean-Louis put some cheese and pâté on a plate for him, and opened a box of the macaron cookies they had bought that afternoon at Ladurée. And Damien seemed perfectly content with that. He lived on pizza and sandwiches when he was with his mother. His father always had better things to eat. But he didn’t look unhappy or malnourished, and he was easy to be with. He had learned early to adjust to the grown-ups around him and not cause any trouble. If he did, they sent him away. Liz thought it was a hard life for him and not one she would have wanted to give a child, nor the one she had had with her aunt, who had adjusted herself to them and given them a secure, happy childhood. Annie always talked about how lucky she was to have them. Lizzie was more grateful than ever for her now, in the context of her own life, and how hard it was for her to juggle what she had on her own plate. And she was sure it wasn’t easy for Françoise and Jean-Louis either. But Damien was paying the price for it. She never had. She had had a perfect childhood, under the circumstances. And even with that, she was shy of long-term commitments now. She had never told a man she loved him, for fear that if she did, he might die or disappear, and she didn’t think she had ever been in love. She was still asking herself the question about Jean-Louis. She was attached to him, and she enjoyed him, but to her love was something much deeper than this, from which there was no turning back. She had never given up her option to end a relationship or leave. And this was the extent of the commitment she wanted for now. She couldn’t even imagine having a child with him. And surely not at twenty, as Françoise had done. Jean-Louis often said that he’d like to have another one sometime. Liz was not planning to volunteer.

  Lizzie played cards with Damien for a little while, and with his new train again, and then Jean-Louis put on another DVD. And eventually the irresistible little boy with the big green eyes and red hair fell asleep on his father’s bed, and Jean-Louis scooped him up and put him on the narrow bed he had set up for him in a tiny room, where he stayed when he was here. They were taking him back to Françoise the next day.

  Liz and Jean-Louis spent a quiet evening talking and drinking wine after Damien fell asleep. They talked mostly about fashion, and the editors and photographers they knew, the politics at various magazines, particularly hers, and their careers. They were comfortable and compatible, had the same interests, knew many of the same people, and worked in the same milieu. It was an ideal situation for both of them. And a perfect way to spend New Year’s Day. She cuddled up next to him when they went to bed that night. She didn’t want more than this, and she liked staying with him in the funny little attic apartment in Paris, and the loft in New York. They didn’t make love that night because Lizzie didn’t want Damien to walk in on them, and there was only one bathroom in the apartment, although Jean-Louis assured her he wouldn’t hear anything and never woke up during the night, but she didn’t want to risk it and traumatize him. She felt responsible for him while she was there.

  They all woke up at the same time the next morning, and Damien appeared in their bedroom doorway in the same clothes he’d worn the day before. Jean-Louis hadn’t wanted to wake him by trying to take them off, and he hopped onto the bed with them and asked what they were doing that day. Jean-Louis said they were taking him back to his mother after breakfast, because he and Lizzie had to get ready for work the following morning, and they had a lot to prepare.

  “My grandma is coming tonight,” Damien said happily. “Maman is going to London tomorrow, to work. She’ll be gone for five days.” He already knew the plan and seemed happy that his grandmother was coming. “We have ice cream every day when my grandma is here,” he explained to Liz, and her heart went out to him. Ice cream didn’t seem like enough to make up for parents who were so seldom there, and so self-involved when they were. She hoped that his grandmother made it up to him as best she could.

  Liz made toast with jam for all of them and boiled an egg for Damien, while Jean-Louis made café au lait and gave some to the boy too. He served it in bowls, the way they did in the old cafés. It was delicious, and Damien had a milk mustache from the fragrant brew. Liz drank all of hers.

  They were back at Françoise’s Moroccan lair on the rue Jacob by eleven, and Damien was happy to see his mother, although he looked wistful as he said goodbye to his father. Jean-Louis explained that he would be in Paris for two weeks, and he planned to see his son again soon, and Damien looked happy about it. It was obvious that he loved his father.

  There was a man at the apartment when they got there, and he looked very young to Lizzie, no more than nineteen. And she recognized him after a few minutes. He was a young British model Vogue had been using a lot recently, and he was very sweet to Damien when they walked in. He talked to him like another kid, and Damien seemed to know him. His name was Matthew Hamish, and Jean-Louis knew him too. He seemed slightly annoyed about it after they left, which surprised Liz. And the comments he made about the young British model almost made her think that he was jealous.

  “Are you jealous of him?” she asked as they walked away from Françoise’s building.

  “Of course not. Who she sleeps with is none of my business.” He didn’t know that for sure, but Matthew had been lying on the couch bare chested, in jeans with bare feet, and looked like he had just gotten out of the shower when they arrived. “I just think it’s a little foolish to have people come and go in Damien’s life, who aren’t important to her.”

  “How do you know he isn’t?” Lizzie asked with interest. He definitely sounded jealous to her. Françoise had been more gracious to Liz than Jean-Louis had been to the young male model. He’d barely spoken to him, and Françoise had thanked her for taking care of Damien and been warmer at their second meeting than the first.

  “He’s not her type,” Jean-Louis answered somewhat tersely, and changed the subject. But Liz could see that he was annoyed for a while. He finally relaxed when they went back to his apartment. They both had calls to make for the shoots they were doing the next morning, and Liz was sorry they wouldn’t be working together. Hers was a big jewelry story that she had been setting up for months, and he was shooting the cover for the April issue of French Vogue.

  They went downstairs to a nearby bistro for soup and a salad at dinnertime, and when they went back to his place afterward, they made love. His irritation over Françoise and the British model seemed to have dissipated again, and Lizzie realized that he was just being territorial. No one liked to be faced with their ex-lover’s current significant other, no matter how over it was. And she realized that their openness with each
other, mostly because of Damien, was very French. But in any case Jean-Louis was in good spirits again when they went to bed that night, and they both fell asleep with their arms around each other. Jean-Louis had set the alarm for five A.M. They both had to be on their sets by six. And as she fell asleep, Liz found herself thinking about Damien. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Her heart ached at the life he led. He deserved so much more than he was getting. It almost made her wish that she and Jean-Louis would be together for a long time. And who knew, maybe they would. So far their days in Paris had been perfect.

  Chapter 11

  Liz was one of those meticulous editors who tried to anticipate every possible problem in advance. She hated surprises, particularly bad ones, and did everything to avoid them. But in spite of all her careful preparation, she had a dozen knotty problems to deal with on the set the next day. They were shooting outdoors on the Place Vendôme, and the first thing that went wrong was that it started to rain. They placed a huge tent over the models and filtered in artificial sunlight. It took them longer to set up, but it was manageable. They had set up heaters against the freezing cold. But one of the models said she was getting sick anyway and didn’t want to work.

  The clothes in the shoot were secondary, and she and the stylist had chosen several simple black and white dresses by an American designer, two of which had gotten stuck in French customs and couldn’t be released, so they had to make do with what they had. And the stylist substituted a great-looking white shirt for one of the dresses, which worked. The whole focus of the shoot was the jewelry Lizzie was featuring, and that was their worst problem. All of the jewelers she had worked with to pull pieces had sent what she had chosen, but one of the more important jewelers had substituted several pieces she didn’t like. She called him immediately, and he apologized, but he had sold the pieces she had picked, and never told her. Worse yet, he was a designer in Rome so she couldn’t go back and find something else. She raced to two of the jewelers she was working with in Paris, during a break in the shoot, but she didn’t find anything there she liked, and she was short three or four pieces for the shoot. It was the kind of stress and aggravation she hated but that just couldn’t be avoided sometimes.

  “Jesus, I should have read my horoscope for today,” Lizzie complained to the head stylist. She had no idea what to do. She reorganized the jewelry for several of the shots, but no matter how she rearranged it, she came up short, and this was a major story. The editor in chief in New York was not going to care that a model had been sick, two dresses were stuck in customs, and four major pieces of jewelry that they had planned to feature had been sold. Lizzie sat quietly in a chair at the edge of the set with her eyes closed, trying to figure it out. She was good at pulling rabbits out of hats, but this time she was coming up dry. One of the assistant stylists approached her after a few minutes, and Lizzie waved her away. She didn’t want to be bothered right now. Jean-Louis called her too during his own lunch break, and she told him she was up to her ass in alligators and she’d call him back. He said his shoot was going great, which only irritated her more. She had her own problems right now. As she turned off her cell phone, the young assistant approached her again.

  “I’m sorry, Liz. I know you’re busy, but Alessandro di Giorgio is here.”

  “Shit,” Lizzie said through clenched teeth. He was one of the important jewelers whose pieces they were using, and the last thing she needed now was a nosy jeweler who wanted to be sure that his work was the most important in the shoot. Some jewelers were like stage mothers, and she didn’t need one of them telling her what to do, or trying to sweet-talk her into giving him a better spot. “Can you tell him I’m off the set?” She had never met him personally and had dealt with him by e-mail, and all of his big pieces had been sent with armed guards from Rome.

  “I think he knows you’re here,” the young stylist said apologetically. She was terrified and fresh out of school. This was her first big job. She knew Liz’s reputation as a perfectionist, and given everything that had gone wrong that morning, she was scared to death someone would take it out on her. Fashion was a high-tension business, and when things went wrong at a shoot, invariably shit rolled downhill. She was at the bottom of the hill. Liz looked at her in annoyance but was polite.

  “I don’t have time to talk to him right now. I’m trying to figure out what the fuck to do about the three pieces I don’t have. Four, to be exact.”

  “That’s what he wants to talk to you about. He said he had to come to Paris anyway, to see an important client, and he has several other pieces with him you haven’t seen. He stopped by the set, and I told him what happened, and he was wondering if you’d like to see what he’s got.” Lizzie stared at her in amazement and broke into a smile.

  “There is a God. Where is he?” The young girl pointed to a tall blond man wearing a tie and a dark blue suit, carrying a large briefcase, and flanked by armed guards. He was looking straight at her with a cautious smile. As he approached her, he looked just like the photographs she had seen of him, and he was impeccably dressed.

  “Miss Marshall?” he asked her quietly, as both guards stood slightly back but close enough to take action if he were attacked. “I understand you have a problem. I will be meeting with a client this afternoon, and I saw the shoot happening here. I thought I’d walk by. My client will be upset if I bring her fewer pieces, but she’ll never know what she never saw. And you can send them back to me later. I’ll tell her there was a delay in my atelier, if you select some of the pieces she was interested in.”

  “There must be a patron saint for jewelry editors who are in a jam,” Liz said gratefully. She was a great admirer of his designs.

  “I’d rather not show you the pieces here,” he explained. “I’m sure you understand. If you have a few minutes, I have a suite at the Ritz. We could go there.” The hotel was literally twenty yards away, as she looked at him with wide eyes. He spoke perfect English, with a slight Italian accent.

  She felt like a bum walking into the Ritz next to him, in his perfectly cut suit. She was wearing leggings, running shoes, a sweatshirt, and a raincoat, and for once she didn’t even have high heels in her bag. And she hadn’t even bothered to brush her hair at five A.M. She’d just jammed it into a clip, drunk a cup of Jean-Louis’s coffee, and run out the door. And now she looked a total mess.

  She was impressed to see that Alessandro di Giorgio had an enormous suite on the Vendôme side of the Hotel Ritz. He was using it to see private clients, and without hesitating, he opened the lock on the briefcase and took out a dozen pieces of breathtaking jewelry in diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. The pieces were even bigger and more impressive than what she had planned to use from the other jeweler, and it meant that there would be more di Giorgio pieces in the spread, but at this point she had no choice, and it was the most beautiful work she had ever seen.

  “Do I dare ask who your client is for pieces like this?” She was fascinated. They were huge.

  “The wife of an emir,” he said discreetly, but didn’t say which one. “Will this help you out?”

  “Oh my God, this is a miracle,” she said, looking at him with amazement.

  “Take whatever you like, whatever you need. I’ll make my excuses to the emir’s wife.” And this was good publicity for him too. He was well known in the States but much more so in Europe. He was the third generation of jewelers under his name. His grandfather had started the business, and his father was still alive and involved. Alessandro was thirty-eight and had been designing for his father for fifteen years. Liz had researched them carefully for the story and liked the fact that many of their pieces were unique and one of a kind, and that their work was so respected in Europe. They had stores in Rome, London, and Milan but none in Paris. He saw clients there himself, and it was just sheer luck that he was there today.

  Liz picked four of the biggest pieces, and Alessandro nodded as she chose. He could see the direction she was
going, and the look she wanted, and he suggested a fifth piece that he thought could work too. She agreed with him and added it to the others. He packed her choices in boxes and assigned one of his guards to go back to the set with her, and ten minutes after they had walked into the hotel, they walked out again, with Liz carrying an innocuous Ritz shopping bag with everything she needed in it and even an extra piece. She stood looking up at him when they got back to the set and didn’t know what to say. He had saved her ass, but saying that to a man as well-bred and polished as he was would have been rude. He was extremely polite.

  “You really saved my life.” She almost cried as she said it, and he smiled. “I’ll get everything back to you tonight, or tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Take your time,” he said calmly. “I’m here for three days. We have a number of clients to see in Paris.”

  “Do you ever come to New York?” she asked him. She really felt she owed him something for his generous help.

  “Not very often. We do most of our business in Europe. But I come once in a while. I like New York very much.” He looked younger when he talked to her. He was so serious and well dressed that at first she had thought he was much older. But she remembered now that he was only ten years older than she was.

  “Well, the next time you come to New York, I owe you lunch, or dinner, my first born, something.”

  “I was happy to help you. I hope your shoot goes well, Miss Marshall,” he said formally.

  “It will now, thanks to you.” She beamed at him, and he had no problem looking past the unbrushed hair and the work clothes to see that she was a beautiful girl.

  “Arrivederci,” he said, and then walked away and got into a chauffeur-driven Mercedes with the single armed guard, leaving the other guard with her since she had some of his most important pieces now.

  And half an hour later they got back to work. Her spirits were buoyed, knowing she had what she needed, and the photographer was excited when he saw the pieces. They were much more beautiful than the ones they had been promised by the other jeweler.