Charlotte glared through her big smile. Pointing out Blanche’s weight loss was different from saying she looked great, which I damn well knew.
Blanche pulled her hand from the drawer to wave her fingers in front of my face, showing off her Art Deco wedding ring. ‘That’s not the only change.’
‘Congratulations,’ I said for Charlotte’s benefit.
‘You look wonderful, Blanche.’ Charlotte grinned. ‘And congratulations on your marriage. Someone local?’
‘Oh no,’ Blanche said with a little gasp. ‘Nobody from here—certainly. I had to go to Paris to find him, and find him I did! Just in time, too. In Paris, on vit mal.’ She chuckled. ‘Everyone goes hungry. I was wasting away under the strict rations those Parisians live under in the Occupied Zone when I found him. I’ll plump up in no time. He’s German, so now I get things others can’t.’ She laughed, and her teeth bucked out from mouth.
‘You don’t say—’
Charlotte jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Just in time for gaining weight for the pregnancy,’ she said. ‘That’s why you’re here shopping at Mamans et les Bébés, isn’t it? You have a baby on the way?’ Charlotte smiled with the word baby.
Blanche rubbed her belly’s sagging skin as if she were several months along. But in truth it was hard to tell how far along she was under all that flab.
‘And what news of you, Adèle? Last time I heard about you… let’s see… you were off to become a nun? Rumour has it you were frightened about the wedding night.’ She smiled. ‘Gérard is a big man…’
I turned slowly to Charlotte, eyes wide. ‘Is that what you told him?’
She shrugged, and Blanche had a giggle, enjoying my reaction.
‘Charlotte!’
‘You didn’t see how angry he was,’ she said, eyes glancing once to Blanche, lowering her voice.
I took a deep breath—the last thing we should be doing is having this conversation in front of Blanche Delacroix.
I turned to Blanche. ‘Truth is I had cold feet,’ I said. ‘I’m back now.’
‘Yes, you certainly are.’ Blanche plucked a lacy brassiere from the drawer and inspected the cup size as if she gave a damn. ‘I heard you’ve been trying to make up with him, bringing Gérard his lunches at the Parc.’ She glanced up from the drawer, and I could see a thousand questions floating behind the irises of her eyes.
‘Sure have been.’
Blanche grinned, coy-like, and it irritated me a great deal. It was the same smile she used to give me at the salon. I knew, just like before, that no matter what I said, all of Vichy would know about our conversation the moment she left.
‘Adèle is doing her best,’ Charlotte blurted. ‘And we are proud of her for having a change of heart and coming back to us.’
‘The runaway bride had a change of heart.’ Blanche tucked the brassiere back into the drawer after holding it to her chest and realizing it was made for a woman even smaller. ‘Interesting.’
‘Now she’s here helping me.’ Charlotte put her arm around me. ‘I’m not sure what I did without her.’
‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.’
‘I like to try new things, is all. I’m very choosey.’ I felt my dimples pop. ‘Spending my life setting hair sounds like a dreadful existence. Life is worth experiencing, is it not? Gérard invited me to an important soirée, and honestly, I don’t want to wake up many years from now, old and weary and thinking back on my life and wondering… what if.’
Blanche squinted her giant brown eyes until they looked normal size—I squinted back. There was no more talk about Gérard.
‘Speaking of old women,’ Blanche said, ‘did you hear about the résistant outside the Hotel du Parc today?’
‘You mean the old woman they dragged to the cemetery? I saw it myself. She never said a word.’
‘It’s the silent ones you need to look out for,’ Blanche said.
‘That makes sense to me, Blanche.’ Charlotte subtly rearranged the items Blanche had disturbed in the drawer. ‘Those silent ones.’
‘The woman wasn’t doing anything, Charlotte, and the more she sat doing nothing the more guards she attracted.’
‘Don’t you know what’s going on in Paris?’ Blanche chuckled through her big teeth, putting her coat back on. ‘That woman was making a statement. Her shabby dress, sitting with her legs propped up, her woman parts exposed and pointed at our nation’s seat—it’s a metaphor. She’s blaming Pétain for her misery, her sons and husband most likely working in a munitions factory instead of at home.