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“Oh yes. The one with hair like pig bristles. Crumpled and worn suit,” Henri said, sounding delightfully haughty with his thick accent. “He is enamored with the young mademoiselle.” Henri discreetly placed a small calling card next to my plate.
“Oh dear, you have an admirer.” Mama gestured with a quick tilt of her head toward a table where a dashing young man sat with a group of people. He had hints of copper in his dark blond hair and friendly, lively eyes. The women were dressed in the suits so popular here in Paris. Coco Chanel’s influence, they’d told us in the shops.
I glanced down at the card. James West.
“Not French, then?” I asked Henri.
“Oh, no, mademoiselle. Very English.”
“A proper Englishman,” Papa said, with emphatic enthusiasm. “Excellent.”
“He’s a very poor Englishman.” Henri didn’t lower his voice. In fact, his resonant tone seemed to rise to a new decibel. Could my admirer hear him? “And he cannot afford to send over champagne. A book editor.” His tone dipped drily. Apparently, Henri didn’t hold editors in high esteem. “He can barely afford his own dinner. They’re celebrating. One of the others has published a book, in America.”
“Would you please thank Mr. West for us?” Papa asked. “Tell him we couldn’t possibly accept. Instead, send a bottle to their table from me.” He reached into his coat and pulled out one of his own calling cards and gave it to Henri.
“So many lords,” Henri said, as if we weren’t sitting within earshot.
Mama’s eyes sparkled. She scooted to the edge of her chair and straightened her posture. “He’s an editor? How exciting. I wonder what book and who the author is?”
“We can invite them up to the apartment,” Papa said. “And find out for ourselves.”
“Oh, Alexander, could we?” Mama asked. “I’ve always wanted to know a real author and editor.”
As if he could say no to that.
My apartment waslight and airy with tall ceilings and ornate carvings in the fireplace mantel as well as arches over doorways. It had come furnished with brightly colored sofas and chairs and intricately designed tables. Everything very French, Papa had commented when we first arrived. He’d also made sure the flat had a piano, a baby grand that took up a large portion of the sitting room.
Our merry group of artists gladly accepted our offer of drinks and dessert upstairs.
“Tell me, Miss Barnes, do you plan to stay here all by yourself for the entirety of your stay here in gay Paris?” Mr. West asked.
“We’ve hired a maid. Gabriella,” Papa said, gruffly. “I have several good friends who live here as well, who’ve promised to look in on my daughter several times a week.” This was not true, but Papa wanted it to seem as if I were well looked after.
“I’d be honored to provide my services,” Mr. West said. “In any way needed. And please, call me James. All my friends do.”
James West’s friends consisted of the author Sebastian Cooper and his wife, Paula, as well as an artist who called herself Saffron Pierce. Saffron wore baggy trousers splattered with paint and a man’s shirt with a tie loosely knotted around her neck. Her companion, a slight man who appeared to speak only Spanish, lurked nearby like a shadow. A young American woman with blond curls, red-stained lips, and a dress with rows of fringes that Jo had told me were only worn by dance-hall girls rounded out the group. She introduced herself as Sandwich, a nickname presumably given to her by the friends now gathered in my Parisian flat. As thin as a whippet, with skin so white I imagined her as nothing more than a moonbeam.
To my surprise, Papa and Mama seemed to take them all in stride, without an iota of disruption in their manners. We must have seemed quite provincial to them. Mama with her silk and pearls and me with my conservative drop-waist dress. Papa wore a perfectly tailored dark suit that hung just right from his slender frame. Thank you, Mr. Olofsson, I thought again. For the first time in my life, I could see the “Lord” in Papa’s title. He commanded the group into submission, insisting on opening wine and suggesting a board of cheese for our dessert. Cheese, which he pronounced fromage in a decent French pronunciation.
Mama and I escaped to the small kitchen to prepare our offering of cheeses. Papa stayed behind with our guests to open wine.
“We need Lizzie here to tell us how to arrange these attractively, but we’ll do our best.” Mama unwrapped one of the soft cheeses and placed it on the wooden board we’d found in the cupboard. “Such a lot of different cheeses here in France. I had no idea of all the varieties. Had you?”
“Certainly not.” I’d never heard any word for cheese other than our very American one and felt quite out of my element. How would a girl from a frontier town in Colorado survive in Paris with these sophisticates? If only Cym were here, I thought. Then I could bear it. She would lift her haughty chin and give them that look that silenced all critics.
Fortunately, we’d shopped that afternoon for what Papa called essentials, including soft cheeses named Brie and Camembert and a hard cheese he called Cantal, but that looked exactly like our cheddar cheese from home. In addition, there was another hard cheese the clerk had described as the French cousin to the Swiss gruyere called Comté. Lastly, Papa had purchased a cheese that smelled of my brother’s boots. Blue cheese, he’d called it. More like stinky cheese, I thought now as I unwrapped it. “Mama, is it supposed to have these strange blue lines?” I held my breath as I bent closer to inspect.
“Yes, that’s why they call it blue, I suppose,” Mama said.
Papa had had several cases of wine delivered to the apartment as well, saying I would need them for entertaining. I’m not sure how he knew this would be essential or that we’d have guests that very night, but he seemed in his element here in Paris.
“It’s unfortunate we gave Gabriella the night off,” Mama said.
“No, we don’t need her,” I said, stepping back to admire our work.
A burst of laughter drifted in from the other room, followed by Papa’s smooth voice. I glanced at Mama. She looked pretty in the orange light of the kitchen. The sun had disappeared already, leaving behind orange and pink stripes in the sky.
“Mama, I don’t know if this was a good idea,” I said. “We don’t know these people.” I thought about Lizzie’s worry about the debauchery of Paris.
“Not to worry. Cheese after dinner never hurt anyone.”
“Not that. I mean, leaving me here in Paris. I don’t want you to go. I can’t do it.”
She drew me to her. “Listen closely. None of the people here are any better than you. You’re as talented as any of them, if not more so. You remember this—you’re a Barnes. Do you see your Papa out there? He’s not intimidated.”
“He’s from this world.”
“Yes, and we’re not, but you will be soon. This new world will shape your thoughts and make you see everything differently. You’ll learn many new lessons, from the different cheeses to meeting interesting people.”
I’d have to trust her on that. Right now, I longed for the comfort of my sisters and brothers. And a very Lizzie meal of chicken stew and her fresh bread.
