Read Online The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles by Katherine Pancol - Free Book Online
Authors: Katherine Pancol
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job! I should have written down my questions before going to a meeting like that. I have to learn to be quicker, to work smarter. I’ve been living like a studious little snail up to now.
Shirley turned out to be a great help with the Hepburn translation. Joséphine would jot down the English words and idioms she didn’t know, and run next door. Their landing saw a lot of back-and-forth traffic.
Jo would have loved to buy herself a computer, but she knew she couldn’t afford it.
In one column in her ledger, Joséphine listed her earnings, in the other, her expenses. She wrote down possible debits and credits in pencil, definite ones in red ballpoint. She tried to build in a small cushion, but in fact, she had no cushion at all.
One unexpected snag, and I’m sunk.
And she’d have no one to turn to. Before, she had been part of a team. Antoine had taken care of everything. When it involved paperwork, he would point, and she would sign. He’d laugh and say, “I could get you to sign anything.”
They still hadn’t discussed divorce, and Jo went on obediently signing the various papers he handed her—no questions asked, eyes closed—to keep the bond between them alive. Husband and wife. For better or for worse, for richer or poorer.
When Antoine came to pick the girls up at the beginning of July, it had been very painful for her.
The elevator door slammed shut.” ‘Bye, Mom, work hard!”
“Have fun, girls! Enjoy!”
Joséphine ran to the balcony and watched as Antoine loaded the girls’ suitcases in the trunk. Then she suddenly noticed something in the front, sticking out on
her
side of the car: an elbow in a red blouse. Mylène!
For a second, Joséphine had an impulse to run downstairs and grab the girls. But she realized that Antoine had a perfect right to do what he was doing. She slid slowly down onto the concrete floor of the balcony. Palms pressed against her eyes, she wept and wept. The same images kept running through her mind, like an endlessly looped film. Antoine introducing the girls to Mylène, Mylène smiling at them. Antoine had rented an apartment. The words “The girls and Mylène . . . Antoine and Mylène” kept coming back, like a refrain.
Joséphine took a deep breath and yelled, “Fuck this blended family shit!” Hearing herself swear startled her. She stopped crying.
That was the moment Joséphine understood that her marriage was really over.
That glimpse of red blouse means it’s over
, she told herself.
O-ver. Over and out.
She drew a red triangle on a piece of paper and hung it up over the toaster, where she would see it every morning.
The next day, she went back to her translation work.
It wasn’t until later in the summer when she went to Iris’s place in Deauville that she learned that Zoé had cried a lot that July.
“Antoine told the girls they’d better get used to Mylène because he was planning to move in with her,” Iris said one day in August. “That they had a joint project they would be starting in the fall. What kind of project? No one knows.”
“Those poor darlings are getting off to a bad start in life!” declared Henriette magisterially. “Lord, what we put children through these days!”
Joséphine hadn’t seen her mother since the scene in Iris’s living room in May, or spoken a single word to her. She wondered if their confrontation had given her the energy to work so hard.
“You get positive energy when you’re straight with people.” That was Shirley’s theory. “You were honest that night, and look how much you’ve accomplished on your own!”
The other day, in the narrow library stacks, Joséphine had bumped into a man she hadn’t seen coming. Her armload of books crashed to the floor, and the stranger stooped to help pick them up. He made a funny face at her, and she burst out laughing. She’d had to go outside to pull herself together.
She saw the man in the library another time, and he gave her a wave and a sweet
Shirley turned out to be a great help with the Hepburn translation. Joséphine would jot down the English words and idioms she didn’t know, and run next door. Their landing saw a lot of back-and-forth traffic.
Jo would have loved to buy herself a computer, but she knew she couldn’t afford it.
In one column in her ledger, Joséphine listed her earnings, in the other, her expenses. She wrote down possible debits and credits in pencil, definite ones in red ballpoint. She tried to build in a small cushion, but in fact, she had no cushion at all.
One unexpected snag, and I’m sunk.
And she’d have no one to turn to. Before, she had been part of a team. Antoine had taken care of everything. When it involved paperwork, he would point, and she would sign. He’d laugh and say, “I could get you to sign anything.”
They still hadn’t discussed divorce, and Jo went on obediently signing the various papers he handed her—no questions asked, eyes closed—to keep the bond between them alive. Husband and wife. For better or for worse, for richer or poorer.
When Antoine came to pick the girls up at the beginning of July, it had been very painful for her.
The elevator door slammed shut.” ‘Bye, Mom, work hard!”
“Have fun, girls! Enjoy!”
Joséphine ran to the balcony and watched as Antoine loaded the girls’ suitcases in the trunk. Then she suddenly noticed something in the front, sticking out on
her
side of the car: an elbow in a red blouse. Mylène!
For a second, Joséphine had an impulse to run downstairs and grab the girls. But she realized that Antoine had a perfect right to do what he was doing. She slid slowly down onto the concrete floor of the balcony. Palms pressed against her eyes, she wept and wept. The same images kept running through her mind, like an endlessly looped film. Antoine introducing the girls to Mylène, Mylène smiling at them. Antoine had rented an apartment. The words “The girls and Mylène . . . Antoine and Mylène” kept coming back, like a refrain.
Joséphine took a deep breath and yelled, “Fuck this blended family shit!” Hearing herself swear startled her. She stopped crying.
That was the moment Joséphine understood that her marriage was really over.
That glimpse of red blouse means it’s over
, she told herself.
O-ver. Over and out.
She drew a red triangle on a piece of paper and hung it up over the toaster, where she would see it every morning.
The next day, she went back to her translation work.
It wasn’t until later in the summer when she went to Iris’s place in Deauville that she learned that Zoé had cried a lot that July.
“Antoine told the girls they’d better get used to Mylène because he was planning to move in with her,” Iris said one day in August. “That they had a joint project they would be starting in the fall. What kind of project? No one knows.”
“Those poor darlings are getting off to a bad start in life!” declared Henriette magisterially. “Lord, what we put children through these days!”
Joséphine hadn’t seen her mother since the scene in Iris’s living room in May, or spoken a single word to her. She wondered if their confrontation had given her the energy to work so hard.
“You get positive energy when you’re straight with people.” That was Shirley’s theory. “You were honest that night, and look how much you’ve accomplished on your own!”
The other day, in the narrow library stacks, Joséphine had bumped into a man she hadn’t seen coming. Her armload of books crashed to the floor, and the stranger stooped to help pick them up. He made a funny face at her, and she burst out laughing. She’d had to go outside to pull herself together.
She saw the man in the library another time, and he gave her a wave and a sweet
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