Джанет Скеслин Чарльз - The Paris Library

The waiter cleared his throat. I’d forgotten we were in a busy restaurant, forgotten dear Margaret at my side. After le serveur took our order, Paul told her in halting English, “I’m not sure I could live so far from home. I admire you.”

“That’s kind of you,” she said. “I was terribly homesick, but then I met Odile.”

“Margaret has been an amazing help at the Library.”

Blushing, she said, “Do you have holiday plans?”

“Each summer, I help my aunt on the farm,” he said.

“Near Paris?” Margaret asked.

“In Brittany.”

“You’re going away?” I said glumly. The waiter brought our steak frites , but I was no longer hungry and picked at my fries.

After dinner, Margaret thanked Paul and climbed into a taxi. Under the soft glow of the streetlights, he walked me home. I didn’t know if I should hurry like I usually did or match his pace. I didn’t know if I should shove my hand in my pocket or let it dangle at my side so he could hold it, if he wanted to. Ascending the stairs, I wondered if he would lean down until his lips were on mine, until I could breathe him in like air. On the landing, he didn’t come closer. I hid my disappointment by bowing my head to search for the key, lost in the bottom of my clutch.

As I tried to fit it into the lock, Paul touched my wrist. I froze.

“I was going to ask you out,” he said.

“You were?”

“Then your father offered me a job.”

I dropped the key.

Paul liked me because of Papa. What a fool I’d made of myself, hunting him down at the station. I felt queasy. I needed to move to the other side of the threshold and close the door between us. Bending down, my fingers swiped at the key, but Paul was faster, grasping it in one hand, my elbow in the other.

“I’m qualified,” he said, righting me, “and frankly, need the raise to afford somewhere decent to live.”

I stared at the small blue button of his shirt. “Congratulations. When do you start?”

“I turned him down.”

“You did?”

“I never want you to doubt my feelings.”

My heart began to bloom. He covered my mouth with his. At first, my lips pursed like a starlet’s in the movies, then my mouth opened, and his tongue caressed mine. When Paul raised his head, I gazed at him in wonder, feeling that in the space of a languorous kiss I’d plummeted into Wuthering Heights .

ON BASTILLE DAY, when I arrived at Margaret’s flat, a butler led me to the sitting room, where portraits of snooty men looked down on me. Intimidated, I moved from them to the grand piano parked in the corner. It was as big as Papa’s car. My fidgety fingers hit a few notes. No one I knew had a butler or a grand piano—elements of novels, not real life. At the window, I could see the golden-domed chapel where Napoleon was buried. Indeed, the neighbors here were high-ranking. At home, we rarely opened the windows because of the coal dust that wafted over from the train station. The low ceilings made our dim apartment feel cozy on good days, claustrophobic on bad. The view from my bedroom was into the building opposite ours—ten feet away—where a line of limp girdles dried above Madame Feldman’s tub. Sunlight and splendid views were a luxury. Margaret wasn’t exactly the waif I’d pictured.

“Did we keep you waiting? Christina didn’t want to get out of the tub,” Margaret said, her daughter in her arms. The little girl hid her face in the collar of Margaret’s blouse, and all I could see were damp ringlets.

“We met at Story Hour,” I reminded Christina. “It’s my favorite time of the week.”

She perked up. “Mine too.”

A nanny came for Christina, and I trailed Margaret through her powder-blue bedroom to the dressing room, which was the size of Miss Reeder’s office. One wall was lined with couture day dresses, another with evening gowns, each worth more than a year’s salary. It was hard to believe that one woman had so much, and impossible not to gawk. The colors! Candy-apple red, toffee, peppermint, licorice! I couldn’t stop touching the gowns.

“Would you like to try one on?”

“Would I!”

I couldn’t decide, so Margaret handed me the black gown. I held it to my torso and floated around the dressing room. “Come on,” I said. “What are you waiting for?”

She pulled the green gown from the hanger and joined me in a bout about the room. I began warbling the words to “Mon Légionnaire,” and Margaret sang along, until we were out of breath from dancing and singing and giggling, and we fell onto a heap under the silken gowns.

“Am I interrupting?” The man spoke English with a strong French accent. His thin black mustache rivaled that of the provocateur Salvador Dalí.

Margaret and I stood, and she introduced us.

“ Enchanté ,” he said to me.

Because of his posh clientele, society papers called Monsieur the “Heir Dresser.” He did not confer with clientes about what they wanted. He simply knew what had to be done. I offered Margaret dull days repairing books; she offered me a date with Paris’s most sought-after stylist.

Margaret had me try on the black gown so her maid could hem it, then she sat me down at her Art Deco vanity.

“Paul’s a nice chap,” she said as Monsieur Z began to comb my hair.

“Do you think he and I have enough in common? He’s a policeman, and I’m, well, me.”

“Lawrence and his Cambridge cronies can recite sonnets. It doesn’t mean they know anything about love. Paul clearly cares for you, and that’s more important than his job title or the books he reads.”

I should have told her I appreciated her reassurance, but Monsieur Z massaged my scalp, and I gave into the pleasure. I didn’t realize how anxious I’d felt—about my burgeoning feelings for Paul, the painful distance between Rémy and me, my father neglecting us for his mistress—until the tension melted away. When Maman cut my hair, her comb tore through the tangles. Monsieur’s slid through my tresses like a knife through butter.

This was the first time I’d had my hair professionally styled, and I was mesmerized by Monsieur wrapping locks of my hair around the heated tong to create a sea of rippling waves.

When he finished with a flourish of his hands and a resolute “Voilà!,” Margaret proclaimed, “Just like Bette Davis. You’d make one hell of a femme fatale.”

As Monsieur Z tied Margaret’s hair in an elaborate topknot, she asked, “Do you think Miss Reeder has a beau?”

“The ambassador escorted her to the Library gala.”

“They say Bill Bullitt is a keen negotiator but that he has a roving eye. I know a Norwegian consul who’s perfect for her. I’ll advise him to become a subscriber.”

“He’ll have to get in line.”

When Monsieur Z finished styling Margaret’s hair, she didn’t look at the mirror; she looked to me.

“What do you think?”

“Gorgeous,” I said wholeheartedly. “Inside and out.”

She blushed, and I wondered how long it had been since she’d been complimented.

“Lawrence will fall in love with you all over again,” I said.

“Hardly… he’s very busy.”

“Too busy to tell you you’re beautiful?”

“Not everyone sees me the way you do.” She rose without a glimpse in the mirror.

She donned the strapless green dress and handed me the hemmed gown. The silk slid along my skin, so unlike the scratchy wool I wore in winter, the stiff linen in summer. She fastened my zipper, and for an instant, as I admired my reflection, I couldn’t breathe. My own dresses drooped over my torso like a tablecloth. This gown worked, cinching my waist, pushing up a bust I didn’t even know I had. Though I told myself the bodice was tight, I knew the cold sensation coiling around my ribs was envy. Margaret had so much, and I had so little.