Salt hung in the end-of-summer air as Atlantic seawater met Hudson River fresh.
The tables at Le Grenier were packed with a nice enough looking crowd, mostly middle-class types, including a reporter from the gala and what looked like ocean-liner passengers happy to be on terra firma. We chose a tight, shellacked wooden booth, built like something from the inside of a ship, where every inch counts. Le Grenier’s maître d’, M. Bernard, fawned over M. Rodierre, told him he’d seen The Streets of Paris three times, and shared in great detail the specifics of his own Hoboken Community Theater career.
M. Bernard turned to me. “And you, Mademoiselle. Haven’t I seen you on the stage with Miss Helen Hayes?”
“An actress?” M. Rodierre said with a smile.
At close range, that smile was unsafe. I had to keep my wits about me, since Frenchmen were my Achilles’ heel. In fact, if Achilles had been French, I probably would have carried him around until his tendon healed.
M. Bernard continued. “I thought the reviews were unfair—”
“We’ll order,” I said.
“One used the word ‘stiffish,’ I believe—”
“We’ll have the escargot, Monsieur. Light on the cream, please—”
“And what was it the Times said about Twelfth Night? ‘Miss Ferriday sufficed as Olivia’? Harsh, I thought—”
“—And no garlic. Undercook them, please, so they are not too tough.”
“Would you like them to crawl to the table, Mademoiselle?” M. Bernard scratched down our order and headed for the kitchen.
M. Rodierre studied the champagne list, lingering over the details. “An actress, eh? I’d never have guessed.” There was something appealing about his unkempt look, like a potager in need of weeding.
“The consulate suits me better. Mother’s known Roger for years, and when he suggested I help him, I couldn’t resist.”
M. Bernard placed a basket of bread on our table, lingering a moment to gaze at M. Rodierre, as if memorizing him.
“Hope I’m not running off a boyfriend tonight,” Paul said. He reached for the breadbasket as I did, and my hand brushed his, warm and soft. I darted my hand back to my lap.
“I’m too busy for all that. You know New York—parties and all. Exhausting, really.”
“Never see you at Sardi’s.” He pulled apart the loaf, steam rising to the light.
“Oh, I work a lot.”
“I have a feeling you don’t work for the money.”
“It’s an unsalaried position, if that’s what you mean, but that’s not a question asked in polite society, Monsieur.”
“Can we dispense with the ‘Monsieur’? Makes me feel ancient.”
“First names? We’ve only just met.”
“It’s 1939.”
“Manhattan society is like a solar system with its own order. A single woman dining with a married man is enough to throw planets out of alignment.”
“No one will see us here,” Paul said, pointing out a champagne on the list to M. Bernard.
“Tell that to Miss Evelyn Shimmerhorn over there in the back booth.”
“Are you ruined?” he said with a certain type of kindness seldom found in achingly beautiful men. Maybe the black shirt was a good choice for him after all.
“Evelyn won’t talk. She’s having a child, poorly timed, dear thing.”
“Children. They complicate everything, don’t they? No place for that in an actor’s life.”
Another selfish actor.
“How does your father earn your place in this solar system?”
Paul was asking a lot of questions for a new acquaintance.
“Earned, actually. He was in dry goods.”
“Where?”
M. Bernard slid a silver bucket with handles like gypsy’s earrings onto the table, the emerald-green throat of the champagne bottle lounging against one side.
“Partnered with James Harper Poor.”
“Of Poor Brothers? Been to his house in East Hampton. He’s not exactly poor. Do you visit France often?”
“Paris every year. Mother inherited an apartment…on rue Chauveau Lagarde.”
M. Bernard eased the cork from the champagne with a satisfying sound, more thud than pop. He tipped the golden liquid into my glass, and the bubbles rose to the rim, almost overflowed, then settled at the perfect level. An expert pour.
“My wife, Rena, has a little shop near there called Les Jolies Choses. Have you seen it?”
I sipped my champagne, the bubbles teasing my lips.
Paul slid her picture from his wallet. Rena was younger than I had imagined and wore her dark hair in a china doll haircut. She was smiling, eyes open wide, as if sharing some delicious little secret. Rena was precious and perhaps my complete opposite. I imagined Rena’s to be the type of chic little place that helped women put themselves together in that famous French way—nothing too coordinated, with just the right amount of wrong.