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“Yeah, buddy. Right.” The guy scoffs. “And you expect me to believe it?”
“I expect you to use your brain cells, take the once-in-a-lifetime offer, and call yourself a cab, sooner rather than later.”
I can’t decide if what he’s doing is romantic, crazy, stupid, or all three. I wonder if Arsène used grand gestures on Grace. I decide that, yes, he did. He’s a nonconforming, eclectic person. Then I wonder what kind of fiancé he’d been to her. Somehow, I don’t see him stressing out about babies in the same way Paul had. He seems eerily self-assured and calm. He’d be in no hurry to reproduce just to prove something.
“How’re you gonna pay me?” the guy asks.
“Apple Pay. Right now.” Arsène raises his phone between them, arching one thick eyebrow.
“Fine.” The guy turns his attention from Arsène to his girlfriend in the passenger seat. “Sorry, babe. I’ll make it up to you.” Then he turns back to Arsène. “Why’re you doing this, anyway?”
“My date is cold.” Arsène gestures toward me. I duck my head and pray no one can see my face.
“That’s one expensive date if you ask me. She better put out.” The guy gives Arsène his phone number and steps out of the car. “C’mon, babe. I’m taking you to Peter Luger. We’ll order all the starters too.”
Arsène signals for me with his hand to join him, and we both slide into the BMW. It’s weird to be in someone else’s car. With the scent of their deodorant, the half-finished gum pack in the cup holder, the unfamiliar tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror.
“You’re so embarrassing,” is my thank-you to Arsène as we resume watching the movie.
“You’re so welcome,” he replies generously, making me pink again.
“Please, I wanted to die.”
“Yes. Of hypothermia. And I was going to be an accessory, the last person to see you alive.”
“I can’t figure you out.” I squint at him. “You do nice things for me, but you are an asshole about it all the way through.”
He returns his attention to the screen. “Sounds like the antithesis of your late husband, who said all the right things but acted like an asshat.”
We’re more than halfway through the movie, though I cannot for the life of me concentrate, when Arsène speaks again.
“I don’t get it.” He tosses a handful of Skittles into his mouth. “The heroine is essentially a criminal and call girl, and her love interest, Paul, gets paid for sex. What’s so romantic about this film?”
“It’s about a girl in her prime!” I cry out. “She’s trying to survive and support herself and her brother who’s at war.”
“. . . by sleeping with strange men,” he finishes. “Didn’t women spend the last few decades burning bras to defy these kind of stereotypes?”
“Hold on.” I frown, tossing my gaze to him. “Aren’t I supposed to be the prude here?”
“If it helps, I think Paul’s a piece of work too. They deserve each other.”
“Which Paul?” I fire out. “This one or mine?”
“Ah!” He grins at me, and I feel beautiful and alive under his gaze. Like he is the Italian sun, nourishing me in ways I can’t explain. “Not so dull, are you, Bumpkin? The answer is both of them.”
“Well.” I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. “Women love this film.”
“I bet.” He looks around us, surveying the drive-in. Sure enough, it’s mostly couples, with some mother/daughter and girlfriends combos in the cars. “I don’t know why, but I’ve a feeling my mother loved this film. It reminds me of her.”
“Loved?”
“She died when I was six.”
I feel like I unlocked an impossible level in a video game, and now I need to really concentrate to pass it. This man has never opened up to me like this before.
“How’d it happen?” I shift my full attention to him.
“The usual rich-person way. A boating accident.” His jaw tics.
“You don’t like talking about it.”
“It’s not that.” He rolls his index finger over his five-o’clock shadow. “I’m just not used to it.”
He looks at me with a mixture of gratitude and relief. Really, no one spoke to him about this before? “Not that it matters. Apparently she hated my guts. Well, my father claimed she spent four weeks in total with me the entire time we were both alive.”
“What do you think?” I ask.
It’s wild that he was expected to believe the worst about his mother. Even if she wasn’t the best mom, why would you let your child know this about his late parent?
“I don’t know,” he admits. “She doesn’t seem like a villain from pictures and my very vague recollections of her, but as we know, Satan tends to arrive in a pretty package and a satin bow. Ask Gra—” he starts, then stops, remembering we’re not supposed to talk about them tonight. His expression turns flat. “Ask anyone who’s ever played with the devil.”
