dating as far back as Dwight Eisenhower, dipping into consulting work when he wasn’t the political flavor of the moment. And of course, there was his ambassadorship to France during the Nixon administration. What Charles did fell into the need-to-know category, hush-hush stuff that utilized his background in science—chemistry, Pépé said—with an expertise that had been in demand by the Pentagon and elsewhere in the military establishment. I had asked if Charles was a spy or in intelligence, and Pépé had smiled enigmatically, saying he’d occasionally wondered about that himself.
Charles had retired a decade or so ago, but it must have beentough to relinquish the glamour and trappings that came with the rank of ambassador, or even ex-ambassador, the fizzy excitement of the social and diplomatic world he and Juliette inhabited. The seductiveness of Washington’s power surely must have called to him like a Siren, tempting him to take what he wanted—everyone else did it—as his due after so many decades of service. Was he having trouble moving off center stage, becoming a spectator rather than a player? Did he need proof that he still had what it took, that he hadn’t been sidelined by younger, more virile men—and, God forbid, women—who replaced him? Charles, I guessed, was something of a chauvinist.
I said no, thank you to more champagne from an attentive waitress who wanted to top off my glass, since it was already making me light-headed. Or else it was the slowly blooming feeling that I had stepped onto the set of an old black-and-white movie where the last scene of a story that began long before I was born was about to be filmed. I have no idea what triggered it: Charles’s fifties-era attire, Juliette’s giddy coquettish airs befitting a much younger woman—and that portrait in the library—or the realization that all the other guests except me had probably come of age in the aftermath of World War II or earlier.
I caught a flash of white and gold across the pool, and then Juliette stood beside her husband, linking her arm through Charles’s and informing him in a low voice that the Hanovers were inside and dying to talk to him. I heard her quiet remark about an oxygen tank and not getting Mr. Hanover overly excited. He was in the library if Charles wouldn’t mind joining him there. Charles excused himself, and the other couple departed, leaving Juliette with Pépé and me. Something crackled in the air between her and my grandfather. For a split second, I felt like the child who accidentally stumbled into an intimate conversation between adults, overhearing a stray remark on a subject about which they felt vaguely ashamed.
“We’ve just had a greenhouse built behind the swimming pool.” Juliette seemed to be reaching for something innocuous to talk about. She waved a hand at a wrought-iron gate in the stucco wall and rambled on. “I’m so sorry Chantal isn’t here to see it. I miss her the most when I’m working in the gardens, especially among the roses. Would you like to have a tour?”
Of all the subjects she could have chosen, I wished she had brought up anything but my mother. I often thought Pépé grieved even more deeply than I did over her death, perhaps because he still hadn’t gotten over the devastation of losing his wife when he had to deal with the death of an adored daughter.
Juliette glanced at me as a courtesy, but I knew she’d been speaking to my grandfather.
“I’d love to see your greenhouse,” I said, “but if you’ll excuse me, I ought to find your powder room. You two go along. I’ll catch up later.”
Pépé shot me a martyred look as though he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions without a chaperone, but I gave him a bland see-no-evil look and smiled. He was a big boy; he could handle this.
The powder room off the foyer was occupied. As I waited, the noisy sounds of the kitchen staff preparing dinner floated down the hallway. My cousin would be
Charles had retired a decade or so ago, but it must have beentough to relinquish the glamour and trappings that came with the rank of ambassador, or even ex-ambassador, the fizzy excitement of the social and diplomatic world he and Juliette inhabited. The seductiveness of Washington’s power surely must have called to him like a Siren, tempting him to take what he wanted—everyone else did it—as his due after so many decades of service. Was he having trouble moving off center stage, becoming a spectator rather than a player? Did he need proof that he still had what it took, that he hadn’t been sidelined by younger, more virile men—and, God forbid, women—who replaced him? Charles, I guessed, was something of a chauvinist.
I said no, thank you to more champagne from an attentive waitress who wanted to top off my glass, since it was already making me light-headed. Or else it was the slowly blooming feeling that I had stepped onto the set of an old black-and-white movie where the last scene of a story that began long before I was born was about to be filmed. I have no idea what triggered it: Charles’s fifties-era attire, Juliette’s giddy coquettish airs befitting a much younger woman—and that portrait in the library—or the realization that all the other guests except me had probably come of age in the aftermath of World War II or earlier.
I caught a flash of white and gold across the pool, and then Juliette stood beside her husband, linking her arm through Charles’s and informing him in a low voice that the Hanovers were inside and dying to talk to him. I heard her quiet remark about an oxygen tank and not getting Mr. Hanover overly excited. He was in the library if Charles wouldn’t mind joining him there. Charles excused himself, and the other couple departed, leaving Juliette with Pépé and me. Something crackled in the air between her and my grandfather. For a split second, I felt like the child who accidentally stumbled into an intimate conversation between adults, overhearing a stray remark on a subject about which they felt vaguely ashamed.
“We’ve just had a greenhouse built behind the swimming pool.” Juliette seemed to be reaching for something innocuous to talk about. She waved a hand at a wrought-iron gate in the stucco wall and rambled on. “I’m so sorry Chantal isn’t here to see it. I miss her the most when I’m working in the gardens, especially among the roses. Would you like to have a tour?”
Of all the subjects she could have chosen, I wished she had brought up anything but my mother. I often thought Pépé grieved even more deeply than I did over her death, perhaps because he still hadn’t gotten over the devastation of losing his wife when he had to deal with the death of an adored daughter.
Juliette glanced at me as a courtesy, but I knew she’d been speaking to my grandfather.
“I’d love to see your greenhouse,” I said, “but if you’ll excuse me, I ought to find your powder room. You two go along. I’ll catch up later.”
Pépé shot me a martyred look as though he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions without a chaperone, but I gave him a bland see-no-evil look and smiled. He was a big boy; he could handle this.
The powder room off the foyer was occupied. As I waited, the noisy sounds of the kitchen staff preparing dinner floated down the hallway. My cousin would be
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