Mickey, for this favor of taking Bebe, even if it is for a short while, longer if you want, I will owe you a favor in return. Know that you will only have to ask and it will be granted. You can call me on it anytime.
As I said to you in my last letter, you are my only hope. Bebe needs a woman like you in her life. She’s become wild and uncontrollable. She’s the darling of the newspapers here. They can’t wait to print what she does next. Each escapade is worse than the last.
I’ve tried to be both mother and father to her, but what she doesn’t need right now is more indulgence from me. As it is, when I told her I was sending her to you for a vacation she only agreed to make the trip if I bought her a Russian lynx coat. I don’t know any other sixteen-year-old girl who has such a coat! Like a fool I got it for her. That’s how desperate I am to get her out of here.
The enclosed bank draft should cover all Bebe’s needs.
Mickey, listen to this foolish man’s confession and don’t think me maudlin. I love Bebe so much it hurts me to see her carrying on like some two-bit floozie. Behind my back my friends call her a tramp. This is breaking my heart. I’ve made some bad business decisions because of the affairs in my house. You will put me forever in your debt if you take care of Bebe and return her to me a proper young lady, like her mother, rest her soul.
Warm affection,
Sol
Mickey read the letter a second and third time. It sounds, she mused, like Bebe needs a keeper. Sol must be in quite a state. To admit he had failed with his daughter and had made some bad business decisions made the matter doubly serious.
For a moment Mickey almost forgot the jealousy she’d felt at having a pretty young lady as her guest. From what Sol was saying, Bebe didn’t sound like she’d be much of a companion for serious-minded Daniel. What in the name of God was she to do with her at the château? Paris and the town house would undoubtedly suit Bebe better, but there she’d need a chaperone. Mickey shuddered to think how that would shatter her present blossoming idyll.
Curious now, she turned the bank draft over in her hands. Money enough for two years! Mon Dieu! Sol must be desperate.
Her head was beginning to pound, the usual painful indication that she was upset. First Reuben with his need for a commitment, and now this. Perhaps she should settle things with Reuben first and go on from there. Reuben would be happy. She would be…happier?
With a sigh, Mickey rose from the table and stuffed the letter, envelope, and all behind a stack of heavy mixing bowls in the cupboard. Reuben would come looking for her soon, and she didn’t want him to see her agitation. She was supposed to take something to him. What was it?…Ah, yes, apples. Ripe, juicy apples.
“It’s about time!” Reuben called cheerfully as he watched her walking toward him, rubbing the apples on her sides to bring up their shine. “I was about to call out the gendarmes.”
“I had to go all the way to the root cellar for these,” she teased, holding up her gifts. “Here is your apple, darling.” She tossed one of the rosy treasures to Reuben, who caught it deftly. “You look frozen, Reuben. Look how red your hands are. Come, let’s go into the barn, where it’s warm and we can talk. Bring the lap robe from the backseat.”
Reuben’s heart thudded. Mickey was finally going to talk to him about their situation. At once he felt giddy and fearful.
Minutes later they were settled comfortably in a mound of sweet-smelling hay, the lap robe over them. Overhead the sun shot through the ceiling-high window, lacing them with streaks of pure gold. Now that her mind was made up to talk to Reuben, Mickey felt relaxed. Her features were softer, her eyes warmer, her touch more gentle as she leaned against him.
Reuben was aware of all these changes and certain now that he was making the right decision. “I want to marry you,” he blurted out.
Mickey was silent for a few moments. Idly she let her fingers trail through Reuben’s thick dark hair while she composed her answer. “Darling, there’s nothing I would like more, but it cannot be. What we have is so precious, I cannot take the chance that we’d ruin this wonderful feeling. Marriage, I’m afraid, would make all the difference in the world. The difference in our ages matters.” She hushed him gently with her fingertips to his lips before she continued. “One very special reason is the most important one to face: I can’t give you children, and one day, my darling, you will want children. Because I love you, I cannot take that away from you. Yes, you heard me right, I love you. I never thought I would say those words to any man, much less one half my age. I do love you, with all my heart.”
“I don’t care about children. I can always adopt children. I want you. I want us to grow old together.” He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t even thought about it, and now, as he read Mickey’s face, he wished he could take the words back. Old age for him was so far into the future it didn’t even bear thinking about. Mickey’s old age was…closer at hand.
“Ah, you see, it creeps in in soft, subtle ways. It will always be there, pushed far back into your mind until I do something to anger you or if I displease you and the devil will let you pull it out. In the beginning it won’t matter too much, but later, when it happens more often, you will start to pay attention and wish you had done so much earlier. It’s enough for me, Reuben, that I can admit to you openly, to say the words aloud, that I love you as I’ve loved no other man, and I’m sure I will never, ever, love this way again. Now that I’ve said the words, you don’t appear to like them. You are scowling, chéri.”
He was scowling. He felt angry, but he didn’t know exactly why. She was telling him what he had wanted to hear these past weeks. In her own way she was allowing him to see her vulnerability, the nakedness of her emotions, something she’d guarded so carefully.
“That pretty much makes me a gigolo, doesn’t it,” he said in a flat, emotionless tone. “I’m living off you, and so is Daniel. The word protégé is far too generous. I really haven’t done much now, have I? I’ve taken you to bed, made love to you, eaten your food, drunk your wine, polished your car, and lazed about. I really haven’t contributed much. In fact, I haven’t contributed anything.”
Mickey untangled herself from the lap robe and leaned up on one elbow. Her eyes were hot and smoky-looking in the sunbeam-laden shadows of the barn. “Never a gigolo, Reuben. My lover, oui. I understand why you think like this and how you must feel. I can’t change circumstances. But I can refute what you say about not contributing. Who is with me when I see to the cellars, the account books, speak with my men in the fields? You. Who helps me in a thousand and one other ways in my other administrative chores? You! Anyway, I want to give to you, I must give to you. That’s how I show my love.” Her eyes clouded momentarily. “I’ve taken your love, love that should have been saved for that special woman who will be at your side, bearing your children and walking beside you as you climb the ladder to success. I don’t know if it was wrong of me or not. Selfish, of course. What are we to do, Reuben? Think logically and help me to understand what we should do.”
It was hard for Reuben to get the words past his lips, but he had to say them. “How long am I to stay here? Till you get tired of me? No lies, Mickey. I heard the stories about you before I came here. They said when you tire of your lovers, you send them off with a fistful of francs and a jewel. Is that what you’ll do to me? I can’t even get Daniel and myself back to America. I need to earn money. I can’t just keep taking from you. For Daniel, yes; for myself, no.”
Tears burned Mickey’s eyes. “I’m not buying you, Reuben. Yes, I did that with one or two others. However, I never told them I loved them, nor did I pretend. It was what it was. The francs and the jewels were so they would have a nest egg. Or perhaps I hoped they would keep the jewel to remember me. I could never send you away. When it is time to leave, it will be you who will make the decision. I love you too much, I am too selfish to send you off. As for your passage to America, if you decide to return, I will lend you the money at an agreed-upon interest