she was upset, and thought it undignified to do so. But she felt like a lioness whose cub had been injured by a hunter. She was out for blood, Jen could see it in her eyes. “I’ll be back in a while.” The meeting lasted longer than expected, followed by a slew of phone calls, and others she had to return. It was eight o’clock by the time she got home, and eight-thirty when she called Athena in L.A. She sounded as she always did, happy and relaxed, when she answered the phone. It was five-thirty in the afternoon for her, her show had gone well, she was going to one of her restaurants shortly, and then she was going to meet Joe later to go out to dinner. They had a casual life, she lived in clogs and her chef’s jacket all the time, and appeared on TV in exercise clothes sometimes. She had never aspired to her mother’s elegant, fashionable style. She was heavier than her sisters, and had never worried about her looks and weight the way they did. She was almost as tall as her mother and had a full, lush Rubenesque body, which Joe said he loved just the way it was. She had wanted to be a chef since high school. She loved food and the art of preparing it. Her theories were unorthodox and her recipes easy to follow, which had made her popular with the masses, first in California, and then all over the country.
Athena had never been the student her sisters were, she had her own tempo and lifestyle. She had studied cooking in Paris, Barcelona, Rome, and Milan, and became fascinated by vegan and vegetarian cuisine. Her cookbooks were a huge success, her TV show even more so. Her fans felt as though they had a personal relationship with her because she was so personable, and they wrote her adoring letters.
There were half a dozen dogs barking in the background when Rose called her. Two of them were rescue dogs, two were strays, and she had two others she’d gotten from breeders. Most of them were mixes, and one of them was huge.
“Stanley, get your feet off the kitchen counter,” she said in a firm voice as she answered the phone, and was pleased to hear her mother at the other end. They chatted for a few minutes about what she was doing, and she said she was going to be taping a show in Japan at some point. Rose told her about Nadia then, and Nicolas’s affair with Pascale Solon.
“Wow, that’s awful. Is she going to leave him?” Athena sounded worried about her.
“She hasn’t figured it out yet. I think she’s in shock, and he’s still involved with Pascale.”
“How terrible for her….Stanley, what did I just say?” Talking to Athena was always a three- or four-way conversation, which included several dogs, workmen, and people delivering groceries. Rose could never understand how four women could be so different. Athena’s world had nothing in common with her sisters’. They didn’t even like dogs. But Olivia, Nadia, and Venetia all had children, and Athena didn’t want any. At forty-three, she was perfectly content with her life as it was with Joe. He was a respected chef too, although he was less well known than Athena. She always seemed larger than life, and she lived in friendly chaos. “Maybe she should come here with her girls for a visit. I’ll suggest it to her. What’s happening with them this summer? Will he be with the girlfriend or with her?” Just asking the question turned her stomach. Athena didn’t like the situation either.
“I didn’t even think to ask,” Rose admitted. “The whole story is so unnerving, and I feel so sorry for her.”
“Maybe they should try couples therapy. We did a few years ago, when we started fighting about the restaurants, mine and Joe’s. The therapy really helped.”
Her mother smiled at the idea. “Nicolas is French. Can you really see him going to therapy? Men don’t rush into that in France, or even here sometimes.”
“Yeah, but I can see it if he wants to save his marriage.”
“Maybe he doesn’t,” Rose said. “He’s not promising to break it off anytime soon. He wants Nadia to give him time.”
“For what? So he can continue sleeping with the girl? I don’t think so. She ought to lower the boom on him now, and see what he does.” It was a simple, direct approach. Rose