Read Online Younger by Suzanne Munshower - Free Book Online

Barton!” she said brightly, smiling straight into that unforgettable face.
    “And a pleasure for me as well. My son has been telling me what a bright girl you are,” she said in soft, accented English. “Please, sit down.”
    Anna sank gingerly onto a high-backed satin bench more comfortable than it looked while Pierre sat on the velvet sofa. She kept her smile in place as the old woman pressed a brass button set into the table next to her and said, “We’ll have some tea, shall we?” It had just begun, and already this was turning out to be one of the strangest days of Anna’s life.

    They stayed less than an hour, almost long enough for Anna to get used to Madame Barton’s visage and definitely long enough for her to find the other woman très sympathique . She said she never went along when her son was discussing business. “Anyhow, I lunch almost every single day at Chez Jimmy. It is my tradition.”
    Pierre smiled fondly. “Jimmy’s an old Manhattan expat, and Maman has known him for decades. She’s his most regular of all regulars.”
    “I enjoy my own company, mon petit . Unlike some.”
    After they said their good-byes, both Barton and Anna stood silently until the elevator came and Monsieur Couret escorted them to the sidewalk. Once in the car, Anna started to speak, but Barton had already pulled a laptop out of his attaché case. “Sorry, Anna, but I need to take care of some things. Can it wait until lunch? Just another ten minutes or so.”
    “Sure,” she said, then sneaked a peek at his fingers on the keyboard. M-a-r-i-e-H-e-l-o-i-s-e, she saw. Oh, Lord, emailing Maman already? Was this rich, powerful man a mama’s boy?
    Only when they were ensconced at a table on the wide, awning-covered terrace of a restaurant in the middle of what Anna supposed was the Bois de Boulogne did she manage to say, “Your mother is charming.”
    Her comment was greeted with a short laugh. “Yes, she truly is. As are you, for saying that. Not the first comment most people have about Maman. Don’t look so abashed. I know she could be the poster child for plastic surgery gone wrong.”
    “What happened?”
    “She chose the wrong surgeon and demanded too much. He followed her wishes, then couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.” A waiter approached, poured two glasses of champagne, then took their food and drink order.
    Anna was poised to hear the job offer, but instead Barton began with, “I’ll tell you a bit about my mother. Do you know the name Madeleine Castaing? No? A raffinée Frenchwoman who, in the 1920s, was wooed and won by an older, very wealthy art dealer. Her dream had always been to host her own salon for artists and intellectuals, and her husband was happy to buy her a big house near Chartres where she could play the grande dame —it left him conveniently free to visit his mistresses.
    “Madeleine loved being surrounded by artists; she and her husband had scores of paintings by the Expressionist Chaim Soutine, who painted a brilliant portrait of her—it’s in the Metropolitan in New York. She wasn’t untalented, either. She ended up in Paris as one of the most famous antique dealers and interior designers in the world, with a legendary shop on the Left Bank.”
    “And she was a friend of your mother’s?”
    He barked another laugh. “Oh, not at all. She was older than Maman, plus Madame Castaing’s tastes were too flamboyant for Marie Héloise—lots of leopard-skin prints and such. The reason I mention her is that as Madeleine Castaing got older, into her seventies and eighties, she started hiding her age in a ludicrous way. She painted big eyelashes directly onto the skin around her eyes and wore a distinctive wig, an auburn bob that she padded inside with tissue paper in order to look taller. It had—get this—a visible chin strap, the purpose of which was to pull her sagging neck away from that once-beautiful face.” He reached down and pulled a photocopy from his case.