“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 rate. I trust you to pay me back. If you stay, your business is helping me with the management of the wineries. I will have my ‘right hand,’ and you will have a ‘position.’ I’ll pay you a salary. If you can’t see yourself doing that, I can send you to Paris to look after several shops I have there. You can stay in my town house. Tell me what you think.”
“I think you are trying to push me away…manage a Paris shop,” he said with contempt. “And when will I see you? At your convenience?”
“I will not dignify that remark with an answer.”
“I want you to marry me.”
“I think you want too much. One never, ever, gets the whole pie. Only pieces, and some only get slivers. You see, what we have now is best. If there are to be changes, you will be the one to make them. You needn’t feel pressured. For myself, I could go on for the rest of my life like this.” Thinking about her last statement, Mickey knew it for the awful lie it was. How very difficult it was to be young.
Reuben felt as though he’d been kicked in the stomach.
Mickey could not bear to see the torment and defeat in his eyes. She pulled him to her and laid his head on her breast. “Life is never easy, chéri. I learned in my life that one must take happiness where one finds it. You don’t look back nor do you look forward. Enjoy it now because it may…Never mind, chéri. I love you and you love me. That is all we have to concern ourselves with. Ah, and we must remember our friend, Daniel. He is so happy, and we, you and I, are the cause of it. You and I together are lighting up the world for that young man. If you give him more time here, he will be better prepared to continue his studies and realize his dream. Perhaps what we should both do for now is think of Daniel and what is best for him. That way, neither of us will lose. But we must both agree. And after we agree, we must finish polishing the car.” She tickled him under the chin, her eyes sparkling, until he laughed, a deep resonant sound she loved to hear.
The bad moments were over—but not forgotten. On the other side of the car, as Mickey put her final efforts into the motions of her hands on the polishing cloth, her heart fluttered wildly. Just a few more days.
Chapter Seven
Sixteen-year-old Bebe Rosen, all ninety-three pounds of her, arrived in Le Havre aboard the SS Americus days after her father’s letter was delivered to Mickey Fonsard.
Bebe Rosen was thought to be a beautiful young lady, a consensus with which Bebe herself wholeheartedly agreed. She was just five feet tall, but gifted with those long, elegant bones that lend gracefulness and the appearance of height: of course, as might be expected in one so young and lively, she added to this illusion with outrageous high-heeled shoes. Most of her fellow passengers on the Americus thought her to be at least twenty years old, and because of the color of her hair, which could be compared
