"So, when did you see the light and fall for Michael?"

"We both went away to college. We would run into each other in New York on vacations, but we were seeing other people. Then five or so years later we both ended up working in the city. I was painting, trying to get galleries to show my work. I started working as a stylist to make money. An architectural magazine hired me to do a piece in Was.h.i.+ngton. Michael happened to be there at the same time...that's when we fell in love."

"That's a romantic story," Patrice said.

"Things were really good then," Lydie said, making Patrice wonder how they were now.

"Do you ever feel homesick for America?" Patrice asked.

The smile left Lydie's face, replaced by an expression dark and confusing to Patrice. A few seconds pa.s.sed before Lydie spoke. "Yes," she said finally. "I miss my mother...and father."

"You're an only child? So am I," Patrice said.

"We were a close family."

"'Were'?" Patrice asked.

Lydie nodded but said nothing. She looked so upset, Patrice felt a wave of tenderness toward her. But the moment was awkward; Patrice really didn't know Lydie well enough to press her. So she did what she felt most comfortable doing in these emotional situations: she bulldozed the conversation into something they could laugh over.

"My mother's planning to visit. I've known about it, in an abstract sort of way, for a while now. But now she's set the date-the last week in July."

Lydie looked interested. "Aren't you happy?" she asked.

"Not exactly," Patrice said. "She'll be exhausted the first week, pepping up just in time for August, when Paris closes down and heads for the beach. My mother hates the beach. And Didier and I plan to go to Saint-Tropez for the entire month."

"Can't you talk about it with her? Maybe convince her to change the dates?"

"You are making the obvious mistake, a.s.suming my mother is a reasonable woman. Once my mother makes her plans, they are cast in stone forever. You know, she's just like the meter maid who tells you once her pen starts writing the ticket it can't stop."

"Where does your mother live?"

"Boston."

"How can someone who lives in Boston hate the beach? With all that New England coastline?"

"Oh, she adores the sh.o.r.e sh.o.r.e-it's the beach she can't stand. You know-sand, sunbathing, fun. I'm just imagining the conflict between her and Didier. He goes on vacation to swim and get a tan. So do I, for that matter. But I can just see my mother, trying to drag us to the Matisse chapel at Vence or the ruins in Nimes. A trip to Europe doesn't count for her without one cathedral a day."

Lydie laughed. "Put her on a tour bus."

"She doesn't speak a word of French. She learned the language in college, but she feels it's the French's duty to speak English. She considers herself a patriot."

"How does Didier take that?"

"Oh, my G.o.d. It's like dueling anthems: she's 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and he's 'La Ma.r.s.eillaise.' You have to realize: my husband feels guilty every day of his life for being too young to join his father and brothers in the Resistance. He truly loves France. Never mind-tell me about your work. Done anything especially interesting lately?"

"Last week a fas.h.i.+on magazine hired me to do a piece on what men carry in their pockets. So I had to think up the types. A businessman, an artist, a tennis player, a priest-and then I went around town borrowing and buying things I thought each one would have in his pockets."

"Tell me what the artist had in his pockets," Patrice said.

"A tiny magnifying gla.s.s, eighteenth century. A bird's feather, some pastels in a leather case, a sketchpad from Sennelier."

"I love it. The businessman?"

"An Hermes agenda, a black fountain pen, let's see...a bill from Chez Edgard, and a sterling silver pacifier from Bulgari."

Patrice and Lydie laughed. "The pacifier's perfect," Patrice said. "Didier's a great businessman, let me tell you, but he's a real boy. He's in meetings all day long, or on the phone to New York, or wooing someone in the Far East, and I hold his hand."

"Well, it's important to have someone to rely on," Lydie said.

"Yes," Patrice agreed, watching Lydie's eyes cloud over. But Lydie's distraction didn't last long. She smiled, focused on Patrice.

"Today was interesting," she said. "I'm helping that young designer with his catalogue. I hardly ever do fas.h.i.+on work, and I'm not used to the models. They're so beautiful. But they act so cool-they seem to want want a blank look in their eyes." a blank look in their eyes."

Patrice, who had smoked cigarettes and practiced seeming aloof all through high school, could imagine that Lydie had never had a cool day in her life. All her emotions seemed very close to the surface; her expression changed constantly. "Their only purpose in life is to wear clothes, I'm convinced," Patrice said.

"Right, their makeup never moves. Anyway-" At the thought of what she was about to say, Lydie laughed so hard she had to stop talking. "Anyway, we arranged them in carts of cabbages. Cabbages up to the knees. Oh, the expressions on their faces-"

"Bye-bye blank stares," Patrice said. "So where did all this happen, anyway?"

"Here in Paris-in Chinatown."

"Chinatown is where Kelly goes on her days off," Patrice said.

"Your housekeeper, right?"

"Yes. It's the closest she can get to her culture here in Paris."

"How is she doing on the computer?"

"Pretty well," Patrice said. "Though sometimes I feel like such a s.h.i.+t for teaching it to her. Raising her hopes about getting to America, when there's not a chance in h.e.l.l."

"Like I told you-my parents immigrated."

"Immigration laws are much stricter now," Patrice said. "You know, I started teaching her the computer because I felt guilty employing an intelligent woman my own age to clean my house. Isn't that textbook n.o.blesse oblige n.o.blesse oblige?"

"I don't think so. I think it's really nice of you. Do you need the computer for your work?"

"Nope. I don't work. I'm just an amateur historian and a d.a.m.ned good cook. Will you excuse me for a minute? I'll get us some iced tea," Patrice said, heading for the kitchen.

Kelly stood by the sink. She peeled carrots with verve, the way she did everything else. If Patrice didn't know better, she might have thought Kelly enjoyed the work. Kelly looked up, smiled, but continued working. Her black hair was full and silky, cut in a perfect line. One or another of her sisters wanted to be a hairdresser and practiced on Kelly and the others when given the chance.

"Hi," Patrice said, going to the refrigerator for the bottle of iced tea and a lemon. "What are those carrots for?"

"For a salad, Mum. I thought it would be too hot for a warm meal tonight."

"Good thinking," Patrice said, pouring the tea. "As soon as you finish, why don't you start on the computer? That friend I told you about is here now."

"Okay, Mum," Kelly said.

Patrice smiled, at she always did, at the name "Mum." It sounded fond, a little funny, coming from a woman not much younger than herself. Kelly had started off calling her "Madame," and Patrice had wanted her to call her "Patrice," considering the slight age difference, but Didier had said it was unseemly for a servant to call the lady of the house by her given name. Somehow they had settled on "Mum."

"Hope you don't mind-I followed you," Lydie said from the doorway.

"No, that's okay," Patrice said, disguising the fact she was taken aback. No one took guests through the house in France the way they did in America. "Here's your tea." She handed the gla.s.s to Lydie. "Lydie McBride, I'd like to present Kelly Merida."

"h.e.l.lo," Lydie said, giving Kelly a big smile and shaking her hand. The gesture made Patrice happy. She leaned against the marble counter, sipping her drink.

"Kelly's a pretty name," Lydie said, making Kelly blush.

"Oh, I'm named for Grace Kelly, Mum," she said.

Patrice laughed, feeling a little jealous that Kelly would call Lydie "Mum," her own special name, right away. "I never knew that about your name," Patrice said.

"Oh, yes," Kelly said. "In the Philippines there are many people named after stars. In my province there are many Elvises."

"And your mother especially liked Grace Kelly?" Lydie asked.

"Well, she liked Myrna Loy better, but she wanted to name me an Irish name, in honor of my saint. I was born on St. Patrick's Day."

"How bizarre," Lydie said, suddenly looking delighted. "I was just thinking of St. Patrick this morning. My family has all sorts of odd connections to him."

"Oh, I hope this will bring us all luck!" Kelly said, clasping her hands together so hopefully it made Patrice's heart ache.

I don't think they take it very seriously in Madame de Montespan's circle, but it is true that at least they pay great attention to not separating any woman from her husband or her duties; they don't like scandal unless they cause it themselves.

-TO F FRANcOISE-MARGUERITE, JANUARY 1674 LYDIE SAT IN the breakfast nook trying out ideas for the catalogue of a company that sold only antique linens. This company received the bounty of attics, steamer trunks, and dowry chests from Paris, Vienna, Burano, and Cologne. Napkins, tablecloths, doilies, petticoats, collars starched and lacy, bed ruffles. The advertising agent had instructed only that it be romantic, an instruction that Lydie considered wholly unnecessary. the breakfast nook trying out ideas for the catalogue of a company that sold only antique linens. This company received the bounty of attics, steamer trunks, and dowry chests from Paris, Vienna, Burano, and Cologne. Napkins, tablecloths, doilies, petticoats, collars starched and lacy, bed ruffles. The advertising agent had instructed only that it be romantic, an instruction that Lydie considered wholly unnecessary.

She sighed, laid down her sketchpad. Ideas were not exactly flowing. When she was young and loved cars, mountains, and teaching kids in Harlem, her father used to call her his "radical tomboy." Lydie wondered what he would think of her now, messing around with antique linens. A picture of her father's face came to her, lean and handsome with its crooked smile. How disappointed he had been when she'd given up painting to become a stylist. He had considered it a materialistic business, using her art to sell things.

"I need the money," she had said. "It'll just be for a few years."

"That's what you think now," he had said. "But you'll get used to the money, and you'll never give it up."

He was right, Lydie thought, sitting at her table in Paris. She missed her father and she hated him. She felt a rush of hatred so strong it brought tears to her eyes. Yet once she started crying, all she could think of was how much she had loved him. The telephone rang. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and answered it.

"Allo," she said in her best French accent, made more nasal from crying.

"You sound just like a native," her mother said.

"Hi, Mom," Lydie said, thinking, as she often did when she heard her mother's voice, that it conjured exactly the speaker's face in a way voices seldom did. Its low, gravelly hint of Ireland was at once promising and mysterious, and it went along with Julia Fallon's smile, the way she would duck her head and seem to be smiling up at you. As if she had a secret.

"How are you? How's Paris? Are the roses in bloom?"

"The roses are beautiful," Lydie said, still sniffling, glad for the opening to talk about something simple. "Last week I walked through the Bagatelle, which is a little garden in the Bois de Boulogne. Sort of a secret garden..." At that second, Lydie had the solution: antique linens draped on rosebushes in the Bagatelle. At dawn, with the mists rising. "There were roses of every color-red, bright pink, yellow. Yellow so pale it's nearly white."

"I don't know why, but when I think of Paris, I think of roses," Julia said. "Our roses are beautiful right now."

"I bet," Lydie said. She envisioned the walled garden behind her parents' ground-floor apartment. She doubted there was another like it in Manhattan: sun shone into the garden all afternoon long. This was the lucky result of the block of buildings just west, none over four stories high, having been granted landmark status. No high-rise would ever replace them, and sunlight came over their rooftops into the Fallons' garden.

"I miss you, honey," Julia said.

"I miss you too." There was silence on the line. "How are you doing?" Lydie asked after a while.

"Oh, I get along. I had lunch with Aunt Carrie the other day. She sends her love. But I just don't have my old get-up-and-go."

"Mom, I think that's normal," Lydie said. "You've been through a shock." Sometimes she wished her mother wouldn't make her worry when she was so far away, but she knew Julia had to talk to someone.

"Are you still homesick?"

Lydie smiled because what came through in that question was Julia's fervent wish that homesickness would overcome Lydie and send her straight back to New York. "Just a little. I met a really nice woman."

Julia Fallon took the news with predictable silence. "That's wonderful," she said after a moment. "I'm sure that makes all the difference."

Lydie knew Julia had little use for friends outside the family, a fairly understandable policy considering all the Fallon and O'Neill relatives who lived in New York. Why should Julia make friends when her sister, brother-in-law, nephews, cousins, and great-aunt all lived within a two-block radius? For Lydie, an only child, that logic didn't apply.

"Is she French?" Julia asked.

"No, American. She's married to a Frenchman and lives here permanently. Can you imagine that?"

"Of course I can imagine it. I left Ireland for good at the age of twenty. On the other hand, I had your father and my sisters with me. I've always needed my family."

Lydie suddenly thought of Kelly, Patrice's housekeeper. Kelly leaving the Philippines reminded Lydie of her mother leaving Ireland: with other members of her family, in search of a better life. While Patrice could be called an expatriate, with all the word's implicit glamour and adventure, Kelly could only be called an immigrant.

"Well, Patrice has no family over here," Lydie said. "But she has a housekeeper she's very close to. I think she considers her a..." Lydie groped for the word. "Sister," with its boundless loyalties and resentments, seemed closer than "friend."

"It sounds good for both of them," Julia said, and Lydie supposed she was thinking of herself and the cardinal.

"Kelly wants to go to America."

Julia chuckled. "I can already tell you're thinking of a way to help her."

"No I'm not," Lydie said, surprised.

"Well, you will be soon. That's just the way you are. And America is the place for her to come. It's the only place in the world where the poor can get rich. Whatever else they say about your father, they can't say he wasn't willing to work."

"I know, Mom," Lydie said.

"We're coming up on his anniversary. Can you believe it's been a year?"

"No."

"I still can't get over it. Sometimes I don't believe he's gone," Julia said. Lydie could see her sitting there, that vacant look in her eyes. "Go to church and light a candle for him, will you, honey?"

"I can't do that," Lydie said.