LITMIR.BIZ

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“No. Nobody sent me.”

      Pepper tips the ash into the sand and hands back the cigarette.

      “Do you believe me?” Mrs. Dommerich asks.

      “I don’t believe in anything, Mrs. Dommerich. Just myself. And my sisters, too, I guess, but they have their own problems. They don’t need mine on top of it all.”

      Mrs. Dommerich spreads out her hands to examine her palms. “Then let me help instead.”

      Pepper laughs. “Oh, that’s a good one. Very kind of you.”

      “I mean it. Why not?”

      “Why not? Because you don’t even know me.”

      “There’s no law against helping strangers.”

      “Well, I certainly don’t know a damned thing about you, except that you’re rich and your husband died last year, and you have children and love the ocean. And you drove this car across Germany thirty years ago—”

      “Twenty-eight.”

      “Twenty-eight. And even if that’s all true, it’s not much to go on.”

      “Isn’t it? Marriages have been made on less knowledge. Happy ones.”

      That’s an odd thing to say, Pepper thinks, and she hears the words echoing: an act of faith. Well, that explains it. Maybe Mrs. Dommerich is one of those sweet little fools who thinks the world is a pretty place to live, filled with nice people who love you, where everything turns out all right if you just smile and tap your heels together three times.

      Or maybe it’s all an act.

      A little gust of salt wind comes off the ocean, and Pepper snuggles deeper into her cardigan. Mrs. Dommerich finishes the cigarette and smashes it out carefully into the ashtray, next to Pepper’s stub from the ride up. She reaches into the glove compartment and draws out a small thermos container. “Coffee?” she asks, unscrewing the cap.

      “Where did you get coffee?”

      “I had Jean-Louis fill it up for me before we left.”

      Pepper takes the small plastic cup. The coffee is strong and still hot. They sit quietly, sipping and gazing, sharing the smell of the wide Atlantic. The ocean heaves and rushes before them, unseen except for the long white crests of the rollers, picked out by the moon.

      Mrs. Dommerich asks: “If I were to guess who the father is, would I be right?”

      “Probably.”

      She nods. “I see.”

      Pepper laughs again. “Isn’t it hilarious? Who’d have thought a girl like me could be so stupid? It isn’t as if I didn’t have my eyes open. I mean, I knew all the rumors, I knew I might just be playing with a live grenade.”

      “But you couldn’t resist, could you?”

      “The oldest story in the book.”

      The baby stirs beneath Pepper’s heart, stretching out a long limb to test the strength of her abdomen. She puts her hand over the movement, a gesture of pregnancy that used to annoy her, when it was someone else’s baby.

      Mrs. Dommerich speaks softly. “Because he was irresistible, wasn’t he? He made you think there was no other woman in the world, that this thing you shared was more sacred than law.”

      “Something like that.”

      Mrs. Dommerich pours out the dregs of her coffee and wipes out the cup with a handkerchief. “I’m serious, you know. It’s the real reason I wanted to speak to you. To help you, if I can.”

      “You don’t say.”

      Mrs. Dommerich pauses. “You know, there are all kinds of heroes in the world, Miss Schuyler, though I know you don’t believe in that, either. And you’re a fine girl, underneath all that cynical bluster of yours, and if this man wasn’t what you hoped, I assure you there will be someone else who is.”

      Pepper looks out at the ocean and thinks about how wrong she is. There will never be someone else; how could there be? There will be men, of course. Pepper’s no saint. But there won’t be someone else. The thing about Pepper, she never makes the same mistake twice.

      She folds her arms atop her belly and says, “Don’t hold your breath.”

      Mrs. Dommerich laughs and gets out of the car. She stretches her arms up to the night sky, and the moon catches the glint in her wedding ring. “What a beautiful night, isn’t it? Not too cool, after all. I can’t bear the summers here, but it’s just the thing to cheer me up in November.”

      “What’s wrong with November?”

      Mrs. Dommerich doesn’t answer. She goes around the front of the car and settles herself on the hood, tucking up her knees under her chin. After a moment, Pepper joins her, except that Pepper’s belly sticks out too far for such a gamine little pose, so she removes her sandals, stretches her feet into the sand, and leans against the familiar warm hood instead.

      “Are we just going to sit here forever?” Pepper asks.

      Mrs. Dommerich wraps her arms around her legs and doesn’t speak. Pepper wants to tap her head like an eggshell, to see what comes out. What’s her story? Why the hell is she bothering with Pepper? Women don’t usually bother with Pepper, and she doesn’t blame them. Look what happens when you do. Pepper fertilizes her womb with your husband.

      “Well?” Pepper says at last, because she’s not the kind of girl who waits for you to pull yourself together. “What are you thinking about?”

      Mrs. Dommerich starts, as if she’s forgotten Pepper is there at all. “Oh, I’m sorry. Ancient history, really. Have you ever been to the Paris Ritz?”

      Pepper toes the sand. “Once. We went to Europe one summer, when I was in college.”

      “Well, I was there in the summer of 1937, when the Ritz was the center of the universe. Everybody was there.” She stands up and dusts off her dress. “Anyway. Come along, my dear.”

      “Wait a second. What happened at the Ritz?”

      “Like I said, it’s ancient history. Water under the bridge.”

      “You were the one who brought it up.”

      Mrs. Dommerich folds her arms and stares at the ocean. Pepper’s toe describes a square in the sand and tops it off with a triangular roof. She tries to recall the Ritz, but the grand hotels of Europe had all looked alike after a while. Wasn’t that a shame? All that effort and expense, and in a week or two they all blurred together.

      Still, she remembers a bit. She remembers glamour and a glorious long bar, a place where Pepper could do business. What kind of business had sweet, elegant Mrs. Dommerich done there?

      Just as Pepper gives up, just as she reaches downward to thread her sandals back over her toes, Mrs. Dommerich turns away from the ocean, and you’d think the moon had stuck in her eyes, they’re so bright.

      “There was this party there,” she says. “A going-away party at the Ritz for an American who was moving back to New York. It was the kind of night you never forget.”

       ANNABELLE

       Antibes • 1935

      1.

      But long before the Ritz, there was the Côte d’Azur.

      My father had used the last of Mummy’s money to lease his usual villa for the summer, perched on a picturesque cliff between Antibes and Cannes, and such was the lingering glamor of his face and his title that everybody

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