Everything about my life seemed permanent compared to Chere’s. We never talked about her family or childhood. She had melted that down and reused it, and transformed into this fascinating woman with freckles and curls and ridiculously kissable lips. I leaned across the table and yanked her toward me, and kissed her long and hard. That was probably the wine too.
“Let’s walk some more,” I said.
An afternoon storm was blowing in. I told myself that was why I took her to the apartment on Rue de Cambrai—to get out of the weather. The doorman greeted me and took us upstairs in the ancient elevator. Jean-Marc had been the doorman here since I was a child.
“What is this place?” asked Chere, looking down the chandeliered hallway as I keyed in the code for the apartment.
“One of my childhood homes.”
“Oh, wow,” she breathed, as I struggled with the rustic knob and the decades-old wooden jamb. The door opened once I put my shoulder into it. As soon as it swung wide, I thought, What are you doing, Price? I tried to convince myself I only wanted to share the early nineteenth century architecture and decorative castings.
“You used to live here?” She followed me inside, mouth agape. It was a grand apartment.
“It’s one of my parents’ homes,” I said. “They still live here part of the year. Not this part, thank God.”
“Your parents are alive?”
I chuckled at her shock. “Does that surprise you? I’m not that old.”
“It’s just…you never talk about them. I assumed they weren’t around anymore.”
“They were never around.” The words bled out, clipped and bitter. I walked through the foyer and into the main rooms, flicking on lights to illuminate high ceilings and finely carved shelves. The sofas and tables were slipcovered, and I didn’t bother to uncover them. With the white, and the cold, bare surfaces, it felt like a mausoleum.
Chere followed me, taking everything in. “Why didn’t we stay here instead of the hotel?” she asked.
“I hate this place.” I softened my voice. “And the hotel’s nicer. Room service, housekeeping, Wi-Fi. The modern luxuries.” I led her to the window overlooking the street. We were six floors up, just as we were in New York. It never occurred to me until now.
“Are those your parents?” she asked, eyeing a portrait in the adjacent room. After glancing at me for permission, she walked through the double doors to get a closer look at it. The portrait was ten years old at least, snapped at some society function, based on my father’s tuxedo and my mother’s diamond necklace and earrings. Chere turned back to me with a grin.
“I never pictured you having parents. You know, being someone’s son.”
“I was their only son. I had everything a child could wish for,” I said, and my breath slid through my lips in something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “We came here every year, for holidays, for vacations. Once we spent an entire summer.” I’d been a gawky adolescent then, not quite a teenager, but not a child. I stared around at the furniture, the walls, the grandness of everything which had barely changed over the years, then turned back to her. “I don’t know why I brought you here. This house depresses me.”
“Why?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. “My poor little rich boy problems. Daddy never loved me. Mommy was always drunk. The nannies hated me for being a spoiled, self-centered brat. But I had all this.” I waved my arm around the echoing, marble-floored chambers. My parents used to sit in one and shut me off in the other, with my nanny. The Turkish carpets were as bright as the sofas would be under their canvas covers, but when I was a child, everything seemed sad and colorless. I’d had no love and no power.
I didn’t say any of this to her. I didn’t know how to explain it, that early rejection that made me fear all rejection. If I didn’t want love, then it wouldn’t matter if I never got love. A captive in my dungeon was good enough. I used to dream of taking women captive. I dreamed of women who’d never want to leave.
I startled when she touched me. She put her arms around me and laid her head against my shoulder. “Really? Your mother was always drunk?”
“Yes.”
“Mine was too.”
I wove my fingers through her dark, glossy curls. “I can’t say I had a bad childhood, not compared to yours.”
“But you did. It’s okay. You can be less than perfect around me. You can feel sad about things you didn’t have.”
“I had nothing before you.”
My teeth clenched against more words, like I was giving a confession under torture. She blinked at me, her pretty face a mixture of confused emotions. Why had I brought her here? Why was I saying all this? Why couldn’t I be normal and romantic, and just tell her how much I loved her? I started composing a poem in my mind. You stood with me in the bleak, black house. Don’t let the light fool you.