The Beautiful Ones - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,67

wedding, which would allow them to travel in the summer, but Étienne’s new bride knew her name would stand out in the papers if she wed in the winter or fall. She was a tactician, Étienne’s wife.

“Nonsense,” Hector muttered.

“Come, now, let us go eat.”

“I can ask for food to be brought to my dressing room for the both of us. Is that not enough?”

“No. It’s a ghastly idea. It’s already annoying that you must eat your meals at that desk of yours, but I won’t do it. You can’t possibly be needed here every single moment of the day.”

“I am rehearsing a new routine,” Hector said. “A spinning glass box, and I wouldn’t want to drop it.”

“As if you’ve dropped a prop in your life.”

“It’s filled with water, and even a moderately sized shark. The weight of the device is not inconsiderable.”

“Hector, come along and forget about the shark for one minute.”

Hector sighed. He turned to a man with steely gray hair who was at that moment instructing two young women carrying cutouts of giant anemones, part of the scenery that needed to be set up.

“Mr. Dufren,” he said, “I am thinking of stepping out for an hour. Are there any pressing matters?”

“I think we can manage, Mr. Auvray,” Dufren replied.

Hector nodded and ducked beneath a cutout, heading toward one of the side exits. The painted backdrops and silver moons of the Royal gave way to the bright day outside as he opened a door. However, the vision of the boulevard, full of carriages and passersby, did not fill him with joy. Truth be told, he was most comfortable in the confines of artifice, in the perfect world created by the stage.

“Where would you like to go?” Hector asked. “Anywhere nearby. I can’t spare more than an hour.”

“How about the Golden Egg? There should be a table available at this time of the day.”

Hector nodded and they walked three blocks to the ostentatious restaurant known as the Golden Egg because the owner had decked every wall with a gilded mirror wider than two men. Any surface that was not covered by a mirror had wood paneling with inlaid paintings.

The food there was excellent and the service appalling, which was a requirement at any chic restaurant. Anyone who was somebody, or on the way to becoming somebody, was supposed to make an appearance at the Golden Egg. Hector had already made a requisite visit to the place and resented having to make another, but he decided to bite his tongue, lest he make Étienne cross. He realized that he was being insufferable and he did not want to be if he could help it, not when it came to an old friend.

They sat in chairs of plum-colored velvet, and the waiter handed them a menu. Hector ordered the soup before even glancing at the offerings, hoping it might be faster than another dish. Étienne and the waiter both frowned since it was bad manners to pick an item quickly, one must fret at the offerings and ask for advice, but Hector did not care what anyone thought when it came to his lunch.

“Tell me, then, how have you been?” Étienne asked.

“Busy,” Hector said.

“You look fatigued. It’s not that business with Valérie, is it?”

He’d let his hair grow even longer than usual, and the dark circles under his eyes testified to nights spent staring at the walls in his room. “The business with Valérie is done,” he said.

It was not the exact truth. He did not pursue Valérie any longer and had accepted that whatever they’d once had ended long ago, but this did not mitigate the heartbreak. The bruise he’d suffered, however, had faded from black to a faint yellow.

“To tell you the truth, I worry about Nina mostly,” he added.

I should have written to her, he thought while he unfolded his napkin and placed it on his lap. The waiter arrived with the wine and poured them each a glass.

Étienne made his selection for a main course and then turned toward Hector, an eyebrow quirked. “I don’t know if what I am about to say will make it better or worse, but I suppose I should tell you before you hear Luc babbling on about it. Nina Beaulieu is in the city and I believe she is fine.”

“Is she with her cousin?” Hector asked.

“No, she’s staying with those great-aunts of hers, I forget their names.”

Hector had not thought she’d return to the city. The notion left him speechless. Was she