"I am. My project is moving along a little better."

"That is good news." She touched his sleeve. "Come talk to me," she said, and Michael knew that she had been waiting for this moment too.

She led him to a staircase in a private section of the Louvre and they sat on the cool steps. Michael's elbows touched the stone wall on one side, Anne's bare arm on the other. He sensed the bareness of that arm right through the fabric of his jacket. She smelled faintly of perfume; she wore no makeup, and Michael noticed the sun had lightened the tips of her short, dark hair.

"How is Madame de Sevigne today?" he asked.

Anne sighed. "She is fine, thank you for asking. It is such a beautiful day out, I think she must be sunning herself in the Tuileries. I sit in my office on the top floor, gazing at the Seine, I envy her for being so free on a summer day." She laughed then, the cutest, most feminine laugh Michael had ever heard. "It is nice of you to play with me."

"Play?"

"Yes, you know-humor me. When I write about history I pretend quite a bit. I pretend to know the person, I pretend to follow her around. Not everyone understands that."

"Does Jean?" Michael asked.

"Oh, Jean." Anne sighed. "He understands, but it makes him impatient. Although we have taken a house in Brittany for August, I am thinking of not going. We are not getting along."

"That's too bad," said Michael, feeling his heart beating hard inside his chest.

"Don't feel too sorry for me. Where will you and your wife go for August?"

"We're staying in Paris."

Anne leaned toward him, touched his sleeve again in a way that seemed to Michael shy and charming. "Ah, my fellow prisoner of the heat. You know that Paris in August is unbearably hot? Do you swim?"

"Yes, but not in the Seine," Michael said, knowing the remark was stupid as soon as he said it.

"Actually one can swim on on the Seine-at the Piscine Deligny. Do you know it? It's that great barge tethered to the quai, across the Pont de la Concorde." the Seine-at the Piscine Deligny. Do you know it? It's that great barge tethered to the quai, across the Pont de la Concorde."

Michael knew it; Lydie called it the "Floating Pickup Joint" because the one time they had tried to swim there the entire pool had been packed with attractive people standing in chest-high water. None of the lanes were free for swimming. The impression was of bodies slick with suntan oil, a cacophony of voices, the water turquoise and sparkling.

"I don't think it's possible to swim at Piscine Deligny," Michael said. "To wade, yes."

Anne laughed. "Oh, did you go there on a Sat.u.r.day or Sunday? It's terrible then. Instead you must go early on a weekday, because then it is empty. I go three mornings a week and swim laps. You should try it."

"Maybe I will," Michael said. He stared at Anne, willing her to look at him. If she did, he would kiss her. But she seemed to be gazing at his hand, at the fingers of his left hand. One of which wore a wedding ring.

Lydie had to pa.s.s the Louvre to get to d'Origny Bijoutiers. She glanced up, wis.h.i.+ng she had time to stop in to see Michael, but she was nearly late for her appointment with Didier. That sort of unplanned visit was the sort of thing Michael loved, the sort of thing they had done constantly when they were first married. But Lydie didn't berate herself, the way she would have just days ago, before dinner at Patrice's. She felt good, excited about her meeting; she didn't want to waste time feeling sorry for anything. She just hurried along, wondering how the meeting would go.

The d'Origny offices overlooked the Place Vendome, the view from the front window bisected by the great bronze column. To Lydie, this was the most refined spot in Paris. The architecture was grand and pristine and uniform. Across the Place stood the Ritz. She crossed her legs and imagined her stockings were real silk. Except for the receptionist, Lydie had seen only men so far, and it struck her as funny that a jewelry company would employ no women.

"Madame McBride?" the receptionist said after five minutes. She tilted her head in a discreet manner and led Lydie down a walnut-paneled corridor to an office with an even larger window facing the Place.

"What a view!" she said to Didier, who was coming around his Louis XVI escritoire to kiss her cheeks. He seemed to bend from the waist, he was so tall. His black suit was impeccable, certainly custom-tailored, the perfect garment to wear to an office on the Place Vendome.

"You know, it is beautiful," Didier said, frowning as he faced the window, "but it is a f.u.c.king bore. Nothing happening out there. Just rich Americans going in and out of the Ritz."

Lydie laughed. "Rich Americans crossing the Place to buy baubles from you."

Didier scowled. "You would think so, but they come into the store looking for trinkets-little things like keychains and money clips that would make souvenirs for the people back home." Then his face relaxed into an easy smile. "But some want the big pieces. More j.a.panese and Arabs than Americans, these days."

"So, how can I help you?" Lydie asked.

"We just fired the man who was going to direct our next series of advertis.e.m.e.nts, and I would like you to take over."

"What was wrong with his work?"

"Everything," Didier said. "And I'll tell you, we're willing to sink a lot of money into these ads. We want to update the company a little. I've finally convinced the board that our image is too staid."

"Did your father start this business?" Lydie asked.

"My father's great-great-grandfather started it. He was jeweler to the last King of France. Yes-many of the crowns and scepters you see in the Louvre were designed by our house."

"And the offices have always been in this building?"

"Oh, yes." Didier laughed. He motioned Lydie to a tufted satin sofa and sat beside her. He lit a cigarette. "But of course the Place was not always so grand. It was just a swamp, and monks used to come here to b.u.g.g.e.r each other. They were cruising through the mud for pickups. You know, there were a lot of monks in Paris in those days, and many of them had their dwellings on the Rue de Castiglione, which then was just a dirt path. The intellectual monks on one side, and the brute monks on the other side. They drove each other crazy."

"With l.u.s.t?" Lydie asked.

"Absolutely," Didier said. "Those guys were always getting it up the a.s.s."

Lydie smiled, a little shocked that Didier would say such rude things about monks. She watched him reach for a black lizard portfolio and spread some photographs across his knees.

"These are the pictures I was telling you about," he said. Lydie examined the photographs, which showed set and unset jewels arranged on abstract forms covered with black velvet. A diamond and ruby tiara; a necklace of important sapphires; two unset diamonds; a brooch of diamonds and sapphires in the unsettling shape of an eye. All were wedged, nestled, or draped within folds of black velvet in a manner Lydie supposed the stylist had intended to be sensual.

"It's a little unimaginative," she said.

"It's a bore," Didier said. "It's like going into a jewelry store and asking to see the rings and watching the salesman hold out the display case."

"I think the stylist wanted the jewelry to speak for itself," Lydie said. "I mean, each piece is so striking." She couldn't stop staring at the eye.

"Of course it's striking-it's f.u.c.king diamonds, for heaven's sake. Look, we don't need to sell the jewels. They do that for themselves. But we need to perpetrate creativity, and we need to have a little fun."

"A little fun is good," Lydie said.

"I mean, that piece you did on Bulgarian royalty was fun. That old dutchess with the seven chins and the pearl choker hidden somewhere in there. I liked that."

Lydie smiled. She didn't bother to correct him, to tell him the dutchess had been Hungarian.

"You should know that the magazine editor was responsible for printing that photo," Lydie said. "I had another shot, one that I preferred, of the choker in the dutchess's jewelry chest. At least as boring as black velvet."

"Not so," Didier said, shaking his head. "Everyone wants to look inside a dutchess's jewel chest. That is fascinating. I would consider it a privilege, as long as you didn't rearrange what was there to make it more interesting or photogenic. Did you rearrange anything?"

"Yes," Lydie said.

"Well, that is the illusion. It is disappointing to know after the fact, but no one who read Vogue Vogue that month would have guessed. Except maybe another stylist-the rest of us would have been fooled. So, what do you think? Can you put my jewelry into a story?" that month would have guessed. Except maybe another stylist-the rest of us would have been fooled. So, what do you think? Can you put my jewelry into a story?"

"A story?" Lydie asked.

"A tale. Something that will live off the page."

Lydie sat back, thinking of the possibilities. She found jewelry one of the best items to style with; because it could be moved, worn, displayed so imaginatively, it was much easier to work with than, say, bra.s.s lamps or crystal animals. Telling a story to show off jewelry would be a cinch. She thought of fairy tales, with queens and princesses wearing sapphire crowns, of a jewel thief escaping on the Orient Express, of a s.p.a.ce explorer zooming through constellations of diamonds. Yet Lydie had not accepted a major project since moving to Paris. She had taken on small a.s.signments that might require an hour or two of research and an afternoon of shooting, things that could be wrapped in a day.

She thought back to that evening on the quai when she had stood on her toes to kiss Michael. She remembered feeling a s.h.i.+very sense of change, a hint of life getting back to normal. She had that same sense now. Didier sat across the desk from her regarding her with-what? She gazed back at him and decided it was appreciation. Lydie remembered his ideal, many-faceted woman, and wondered whether she measured up. She smiled at Didier.

"Yes?" Didier asked.

"Yes," Lydie said. They shook on it.

Michael sat on the terrace, looking over the Seine. It was ten o'clock and still not dark. A barge slid by, its engine thudding gently. Voices, jolly and a little raucous, carried up from the quai, and then they were gone. He stared at his book, not reading it. Lydie moved around inside, cleaning up after dinner.

He looked down the river, wondering where Anne lived. In the kitchen the water had stopped running; that meant Lydie had finished and would soon be out. What did it mean, that he would rather fantasize about Anne than spend time with his own wife? He saw Anne in his mind: so soft and small, nude, instantly responsive to his touch. He imagined his hand resting on the base of her back, where it curved into her a.s.s.

Here came Lydie, pulling a chair close. He thought of touching Lydie, of how she responded to his touch: she tightened. She didn't exactly pull away, but she drew into herself. She didn't want to be touched. Making love, she felt stiff, all bones and joints. Remembering how it used to be, how his secret image at the moment of coming with Lydie had been a mouth-kissing, open, warm and wet-he had to look away from her.

"I'm looking forward to working with Didier," she said.

"It sounds good," Michael said. He felt inflated with desire for Anne; it actually hurt to talk to Lydie.

"He's going to give me free rein. At least he says so now, but you know how people get. I'll come up with something, then just watch. He'll get into the spirit and start taking over. It always happens. Do you think it's a mistake to work for a friend of ours? Remember Billy Jenkins?"

Michael glanced at her. She seemed open, enthusiastic about her work again, quite a counterpoint to the shuttered, introspective Lydie of the past year. "Billy Jenkins?" he asked.

"Yes, remember? He married Oona Lydon, that girl from my high school cla.s.s. Remember I did a brochure for his motel chain and he refused to pay?"

"I'm sure Didier d'Origny is good for his debts," Michael said.

Lydie snapped to look at him. "Of course he is-I'm not saying that. But the business with Billy has totally ruined my friends.h.i.+p with Oona, and I wouldn't want that to happen with Patrice. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Michael said. He felt all twisted, deliberately misunderstanding Lydie so she would turn against him, allowing him to justify what he was about to do to her and their marriage.

"Michael," she said, her voice conveying a warning.

He stared into s.p.a.ce. Could it be possible that now, just as Lydie was turning a corner, he didn't want her anymore? Lydie, whom he had loved since high school, when she was too high-minded to pay attention to him, a jock?

"Is it my imagination?" she asked. "Or are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you," Michael said. That was true: he was long past being mad at her. He knew that he should try to explain the way he felt, the way his anger had turned into frustration and then into indifference. But talking about it might make things better between them and that would mean giving up his dreams of Anne.

"I wouldn't blame you if you were," Lydie said. "Sometimes I hate myself. I think about what happened: how I'm a grown woman in my thirties and I let my life fall apart just because my father died. I mean, that's not normal."

"He didn't just die, Lydie." Michael glanced at her, watched her tuck her hair behind her ears, felt tender in spite of himself.

"Sometimes I think I had a nervous breakdown," she said. "The way I just stopped functioning."

"Well, except for the first couple of weeks you didn't stop functioning."

"No, I have. I just haven't been feeling feeling things. I mean, I get up in the morning and do my work, but that's about it. I'm in a daze all the time." things. I mean, I get up in the morning and do my work, but that's about it. I'm in a daze all the time."

"I guess maybe coming to Paris was a mistake," Michael said. "I thought getting you out of New York would be the best thing. But you weren't ready to leave."

"It's not really fair to say we came to Paris because of me, because you wanted to get me out of New York," Lydie said. "We came because of your work."

"That's true," Michael said grudgingly, because that certainly wasn't all of it. But did she know how hard he had pushed to get it, thinking a year in Paris would be just what she needed to forget?

"I used to think coming here was a mistake," Lydie said. "But I'm changing my mind. I'm starting to feel better. I feel like..."

She laughed.

"What?"

"I feel just fine," she said. The way she smiled at him he could tell she thought the tension between them had lifted. He smiled back, then pretended to read his book. He thought of Lydie in her school uniform, the skirt a muddy purple tartan he'd never seen since. She had carried her books in a khaki knapsack and worn hiking boots to school every day, somehow managing to look more beautiful and s.e.xy than any of the other girls. It still hurt to recall that he had asked her out twice and been turned down both times.

Michael remembered how she had followed Father Griffin around. Her crush on him was so blatant, the way she hung around his office, took up any cause he espoused. The way she'd follow him anywhere and tutor so-called kids. Half of them were older than Lydie. Most of them had been kicked out of school and many of them were criminals. Michael remembered the time one guy grabbed Lydie's purse-while she was sitting right there, trying to teach him fractions-and took all her money. The news of it had circulated quickly through the school.

Michael had stopped Father Griffin in the hallway a couple of days later. He had the heaviest beard Michael had ever seen; Michael remembered thinking it unseemly for a priest to look as though he needed a shave at ten in the morning. "Teaching the hoods anything new these days, Father?" Michael asked.

"They don't have the advantages you do, Michael."

"No, but I hear they've got a new pair of boots, thanks to Lydie Fallon."

"Maybe that boy really needed that money-maybe his family was hungry."

"Probably starving."

"We weren't put on this earth to judge him," Father Griffin said. "Why don't you come with us next week? Maybe you'll learn something."

"You didn't even call the cops, did you?" Michael asked.

"Lydie didn't want to," Father Griffin said.

Because you didn't want her to, Michael remembered thinking. Now with hindsight, he could recognize his resentment for what it was: jealousy that Lydie loved Father Griffin instead of him. He gazed at her. She stared across the Seine, the Herald Tribune Herald Tribune folded in her lap. folded in her lap.

"Remember when your student stole your money?" Michael asked.

Lydie turned to him. "I haven't thought of that in ages," she said.

"Why didn't you turn him in?"

She frowned. "I don't remember. I guess because I felt sorry for him."

"I've always thought it was because the priest told you not to."

"Father Griffin? Oh, I don't think he'd have done that. But I have to admit, when I think of the sixties, I think of him. Peace, love, brotherhood, all that."