The Affair Read online

  She flew past Jen’s desk, barely looking at her, clutching a thick stack of files from the meeting to her chest. She had appointments lined up all day long and was in a rush.

  “Do we have a cover?” Jen smiled at her.

  “Not yet. I have to make a confidential call. I’ll probably be on for fifteen or twenty minutes. Hold my calls till then,” she said, as she reached her office and paused in the doorway. Jen sat just outside.

  “The stack on your desk is already pretty bad,” Jen reminded her. “Another twenty minutes and you’ll be buried.”

  “Can’t be helped. I’ve got to make this call. There’s a storm brewing.” She offered no explanation as to the nature of the storm.

  Jen raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask. She knew not to, and also that Rose wouldn’t have told her what it was about anyway. She rarely confided in anyone at work, even her trusted assistant. “I’ll hold back the invading armies,” Jen promised. She was good at her job, and Rose appreciated her for handling the million tiny details of her position so well.

  Rose walked into her office and closed the door, then sat down at her desk. She saw that Jen hadn’t been exaggerating. There was a tall stack of messages, printed emails, and other material on her desk. She tried not to look at it as she dialed the familiar number.

  She knew she wouldn’t be able to reach Olivia at that hour, so she didn’t call her. At thirty-nine, she had recently been appointed a superior court judge and would either be on the bench or conferring with lawyers in chambers. Olivia was Rose’s third daughter and Rose was proud of her, and the others. Olivia had an enormously responsible job now. She was married to Harley Foster, a federal court judge, who was twenty-one years older than she was. He had been one of her law school professors. They had a fourteen-year-old son, Will, and were a very serious, conservative family.

  Athena, her oldest, was never her first choice to call with a problem. She had a laid-back, philosophical, ultra-positive California take on life, and always told her mother that everything would be all right, even if it was obvious that it wouldn’t. Her perspective was entirely different from her mother’s and her sisters’. She had made other choices in her life. Athena was forty-three years old, had lived in L.A. for fifteen years, was a TV chef, had written the definitive vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, and owned her own vegan restaurants. She had lived with the same partner for thirteen years. Joe Tyler was a chef too, owned his own very successful restaurant in L.A., and was five years younger than Athena. They weren’t married and had no wish to be. They lived together and were happy as they were. They shared a flock of dogs that Athena referred to as her “babies.” She said they were the only ones she wanted. Athena said that marriage was a man-made invention that just didn’t work most of the time, and children weren’t for her. She was great with them, but content to play with other people’s children when she had the chance. That was the only “kid fix” she wanted, and Joe agreed with her.

  Rose had called her second daughter, Venetia, forty-one years old, a stunningly successful fashion designer who had set up her business fourteen years before, with the sound financial advice of Ben Wade, her venture capitalist husband. Venetia was a remarkable, creative woman, and always had been. She was fearless in running her business, and the designs she created always made a sensation. They were as odd and zany as she was, and she came up with creations that looked like trailer park meets Paris and Las Vegas, on steroids. When Rose first saw her designs, she couldn’t imagine who would buy them, unless they were as odd and eccentric as her daughter. But the clothes worked, and seemed to fulfill nearly every woman’s fantasy of how they wanted to look. There were sequins and leopard prints in expensive Italian fabrics, serious little Chanel-style jackets in white mink and denim to wear with jeans. She had priced them high to place them in the luxury market, and much to Rose’s amazement they took off and were a major hit. A year after she started her business, Mode did a feature article on her, and so did The Wall Street Journal. She was as tall as her mother, and her dark-haired, green-eyed, movie-star-handsome husband, Ben, was even taller. Venetia had a striking figure and went to the gym at five a.m. every day. She combined discipline and creativity, a blend that had made her a success. She had a wild mane of long curly red hair. The press called her the Golden Lioness, because she also had the Midas touch and a great head for business.

  She had gone to both Parsons School of Design and Columbia Business School. She and Ben had three very appealing although somewhat wild children, two boys, Jack and Seth, and the youngest, India, a girl. Venetia said she wanted more, but hadn’t convinced Ben yet. Somehow she managed to do it all, work, marriage, motherhood, just as her mother had. Unlike Rose, however, Venetia had a townhouse in New York that usually looked like a bomb had hit it, but she looked great, and so did the kids. They were all bright and lively, and her five-year-old daughter had her mother’s creative streak. She wanted to design sneakers with sparkles on them when she grew up.

  In spite of how busy she was, Venetia always took time to listen to her sisters’ or her mother’s problems, and gave them impressively good advice.

  When her assistant answered, Rose asked to speak to Venetia. She came on the line a few minutes later, happy to hear from her mother.

  “Sorry, Mom, I was in a design meeting. What’s up?” Rose never called her at that hour. They usually talked when Venetia was on her way home from work in an Uber, which was often the only time she got to herself. Once she got home, she helped the boys with their homework and the kids would monopolize her for hours.

  “I just heard something in a meeting that worried me, and I wondered if you know anything about it,” Rose said in a solemn tone.

  “Hemlines are getting shorter? If mine get any shorter, my customers will get arrested.” She laughed. But she realized then that her mother sounded serious.

  “It’s about Nicolas,” her youngest sister Nadia’s husband. “He’s supposedly having an affair with the girl who starred in his current movie, Pascale Solon. Has Nadia said anything to you? I haven’t talked to her in several days. I’ve been wrapped up in the September issue. I hope it isn’t true. Apparently, they outed themselves at the Cannes Film Festival last week. Doesn’t Nadia go there with him?”

  “Yeah, usually. She was installing a house in Madrid, so she probably didn’t go with him this year or she only stayed for a day or two. I haven’t talked to her. We’ve been playing phone tag. I saw something about it on the front page of a tabloid at the grocery store.”

  “You buy your own groceries?” Her mother sounded shocked. “What don’t you do?”

  “It was my turn to cook for the kids, and I stopped to buy frozen pizza.” They had a housekeeper and a nanny, but Venetia tried to cook for them once a week.

  “I feel better.” The women in the family were famously poor cooks, except for Athena, who made up for all of them and was a genius in the kitchen, if you liked vegetables.

  “I was hoping it was just the usual tabloid crap, since she wasn’t there. What did you hear in the meeting?” Venetia sounded worried too.

  “That Nicolas is having an affair with Pascale Solon, and she might be pregnant.”

  “Oh God, I hope that’s not true. Maybe the whole thing is just Hollywood hype, to promote the movie,” Venetia said hopefully. She didn’t want her little sister to get her heart broken. Nicolas had been a flirt when he was younger, but not recently. It was just part of the culture, since he was French, but Venetia didn’t have the feeling it went further than that. Nadia had never complained to her about it, or said he cheated.

  As she thought about it, Venetia was wearing one of her creations, signature leopard capri pants, a turquoise sequined sweater, and bright green alligator Hermès high-heeled pumps, with an armload of emerald and diamond bangles on one arm, a bracelet with a huge chunk of turquoise on the other, her red mane pushed up on her h
ead with a diamond chopstick through it. They were standard work clothes for Venetia, and somehow on her it all worked. She was a beautiful woman and could get away with it. She was an icon in fashion and had a style all her own. She had been outrageous with what she wore since she was a teenager, and had made a successful career of it as an adult.

  “I hope it’s not true,” Rose said fervently. “I just turned the girl down for the September cover, and I’m sure I haven’t heard the last of it. Especially if the rumor is true, about the affair. I don’t even want to think about a possible pregnancy.”

  “That just sounds like tabloid crap, Mom,” Venetia reassured her.

  “What do we do now? I don’t want to pry and upset Nadia if she hasn’t heard the rumor,” Rose said thoughtfully.

  “I’m sure she has. It’s probably all over the internet.” Venetia clicked on her computer, and there were half a dozen articles to choose from, and some paparazzi shots. “It might be true, about the affair at least,” Venetia said sadly, sorry for her youngest sister. “Call her, Mom. I’ll call her later. Let me know what she says. I can’t believe he’d be that dumb. He has a beautiful wife, a great marriage, they adore each other, two great kids, and he’s making an ass of himself with a starlet half his age? Pathetic. And way too French. Flirting is one thing, but this is awful for Nadia, if it’s true.”

  “I’ll call her. I’ll catch you tonight,” Rose promised Venetia, who went back to work a few minutes later, worried about her little sister.

  Rose sat at her desk for a minute, thinking of her youngest daughter. Nadia had done her junior year at the Sorbonne, following in her mother’s footsteps. She had met Nicolas then, out with friends one night at a nightclub, and they had fallen madly in love. He was six years older than Nadia and a graduate student in political science, and by the end of her junior year abroad, she said she was too in love with him to leave him and come home to New York. Her parents hadn’t been happy about it, but Nadia had been adamant and stayed in Paris with Nicolas. Nicolas was studying political science but wanted to be a novelist. Nadia transferred to the American University of Paris, and never came back to live in the States again. She had taken decorating classes in Paris after she graduated, and got a job as an intern working for a fancy decorator. She and Nicolas had married eleven years before, when she was twenty-five and he was thirty-one, after living together for several years. She had Sylvie, who was ten now, a year later, and then Laure, who was seven. Nadia was thirty-six and had her own successful business as an interior decorator. And Nicolas’s dreams had come true. He was the biggest bestselling novelist in France. He had been a political journalist for a while, until he wrote his first successful novel. He was charming and very bright. His parents had died in an accident shortly after he and Nadia married and he inherited everything as their only child, including their château in Normandy, which Nadia had helped him restore at the same time she opened her own decorating business.

  In some ways, Nadia was different from Rose’s other daughters. Like Venetia, she was artistic, although she applied it to homes instead of fashion. And she had a good head for business. But she was quieter than her sisters, and had inherited some of her mother’s British restraint. The others were all outspoken about their opinions. Nadia usually kept her views and plans to herself, until she did them. She was shy, but self-confident, and her clients loved her for her gentle ways, her discretion, and good taste. She never forced her opinions on them, but always managed to convince them of the choices she preferred and thought best for them, with stunning results. The houses she decorated often appeared on the covers of the best interior design magazines.

  While her sisters had argued with each other when they were younger, Nadia quietly forged ahead fearlessly in the direction she felt was the right one, and Rose had always been impressed by how brave she was. She rarely consulted anyone about her decisions, didn’t waver, and trusted herself even when she was very young, as with her decision to stay in France with Nicolas, and she had never regretted it.

  He had been good for her, and once they married and started a family, Rose respected how strong their relationship was. Nadia handled Nicolas’s fame with poise, as well as her business and their family. She ran his family château with ease and made it a beautiful home for them, seemingly effortlessly, despite her youth. Nadia always made her mother think of the adage “still waters run deep.” She was one of the most competent of Rose’s children.

  Rose often thought Nadia had the perfect life, a happy marriage, sweet children, a husband she adored, and who clearly loved her passionately. Every time Rose saw them together, he could hardly keep his hands off Nadia. Rose liked her son-in-law, and there was no question, he was a talented writer. He’d written five bestsellers in France so far, and was published abroad in translation as well. This was the second movie based on one of his books, and he was well known in France, and even in the States. He had everything he needed to be a happy man, and now he was having a flagrant affair with a young movie star.

  It broke Rose’s heart to think of it, and how Nadia must feel. It was a sure way to destroy the marriage that had been so happy and satisfying for both of them for eleven years. She had no idea what had gotten into him. At forty-two, he was old enough to know better, and too young for a midlife crisis, in Rose’s opinion. And Nadia wasn’t one to complain if she had a problem.

  Rose dialed Nadia in Paris, after she and Venetia hung up. She wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. Nadia was so private that Rose wasn’t sure she would open up to her. After asking about the children, and Nadia telling her about a new client in the South of France, Rose decided to take the plunge.

  “I heard something that worried me today,” Rose began gently, and there was silence at the other end. Nadia was smaller than Venetia and her mother and had dark hair. Athena and Olivia were blond, as Rose had been. Nadia and Olivia were much shorter than their sisters and mother. Nadia was a beautiful girl, the only dark-haired beauty in the family. Despite her dark hair, she had her mother’s blue eyes and creamy white skin. Her sisters used to say she looked like Snow White.

  Nadia sounded hesitant and subdued, and finally let out a sigh that sounded like air being let out of a balloon in a slow leak. Rose could almost feel her daughter’s shoulders drooping as she did. “I know what you heard, Mom. It’s about Nicolas. It’s in all the tabloids here. He made an ass of himself at the Cannes Film Festival, and the press is having a field day with it. I didn’t have the heart to call you.” She hadn’t called her sisters either. She was too upset.

  “Was he drunk?” Rose couldn’t imagine what had gotten into him.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I was working in Madrid. He says he got involved with her when he was making the film. She’s a beautiful girl,” Nadia said sadly. “I’ve been busy and he got carried away.”

  “You’re a beautiful girl too,” her mother reminded her, furious with her son-in-law. “Did you know, or suspect something?”

  “No, I never thought he’d do that. I trusted him completely. It all came out after Cannes, when I saw it in the papers. I feel like an idiot. Maybe it’s partially my fault. I’ve been working a lot, and very hard.”

  “Was it some kind of one-night slip?” Rose asked her. Not that she found that acceptable either. She had never cheated on her husband, nor he on her, to the best of her knowledge, in forty years of marriage, in spite of her career. One-night stands were not acceptable to her, but they were better than a serious affair.

  “No. He says he’s in love with her, or infatuated, or something. At the same time, he says it’s not serious. He’s confused. He promises he’ll get out of it, and he says he loves me and the girls and doesn’t want to leave me. He expects me to sit and wait.” As an only child, Rose knew he had been indulged and spoiled in his youth. This was more of the same to an extreme degree, at her daughter’s expense.


  Rose was deeply unhappy at what she heard from Nadia. “Has he done this before?” She was trying not to sound unduly shocked, or too judgmental, so she could be helpful to her daughter. Righteous indignation wouldn’t get them anywhere, although Rose was livid with him for hurting and betraying her daughter.

  “Once,” Nadia said honestly. “When I was pregnant with Laure. I don’t know what happened, some kind of panic and insecurity about his book not doing well and the responsibility of two children. He went crazy for about a month, and then he got out of it. It was with his editor at the time. He changed editors after that. That was eight years ago, and everything’s been fine since then. I never told you because it was over in a matter of weeks and it was some kind of aberration. It never happened again. He promised he’d never cheat again, and he hasn’t. Until now. This time, I guess the temptation of working with Pascale Solon was too much for him. I think it went on during the whole filming of the movie. And of course everyone knew but me. Then somehow he lost control at the Festival. Now the whole world knows. She’s a big star so it’s hard to keep it quiet. How did you find out?” She sounded tired and sad as she talked to her mother. It made Rose’s heart ache for her.

  “One of our stylists proposed her for a cover and mentioned the story.”

  “Does she know I’m married to him?”

  “No, she doesn’t. I didn’t say anything. I just came out of the meeting and called you.”

  “Do my sisters know?” she asked miserably. The whole situation was not only painful and breaking her heart, but with everything on the internet, it was deeply humiliating.

  “I called Venetia before I called you. I was afraid to upset you. I know you don’t like to talk about things if you’re upset and I didn’t want to intrude on you.”