Véronique always sought her mother’s advice, and trusted her wise counsel, except about men. Marie-Helene still complained about the kind of spoiled, self-indulgent men Véronique dated. They were always after her for the wrong reasons, because of her fame as a supermodel, not for who she was as a person. But Véronique didn’t mind. She had fun with them, which was enough for now. She had her own apartment on the rue de l’Université in the fashionable seventh arrondissement on the Left Bank, which her mother had let her buy at twenty-one as a good investment. It was small, and useful for her to have her own place, but on weekends when she had no plans, she often stayed with her mother in the quiet, staid, residential seventeenth arrondissement where she had grown up. It was an upper middle class neighborhood for bourgeois families. Marie-Helene worked very hard in her law practice, and kept long hours too. They were both hardworking women, with an unusually strong work ethic.
Her mother was sixty-four now, and hadn’t had a man in her life in a dozen years, and no one she had ever loved as she had Bill. With Véronique and her law practice, she said she didn’t have time, nor the interest. Véronique had asked questions about her father as a child, but Marie-Helene didn’t like to talk about him. She said it made her too sad since his untimely death, so Véronique learned not to press her about it, and didn’t want to upset her, even now that she was grown up. She didn’t want to make her mother uncomfortable, and she knew as much as there was to know about her father, that he was American and a lawyer, and sixty-one when she was born. She had never asked her mother why they didn’t marry. Several of her friends had unmarried parents while she was growing up, and it wasn’t considered unusual or shocking, so that didn’t bother her.
Marie-Helene’s parents had been straitlaced, old-fashioned aristocrats with very little money. The family chateau, art, and furniture had been sold even before Marie-Helene was born. Her mother had never worked, her father worked in a dignified, small private bank in Paris. They hoped Marie-Helene would marry well one day, one of their own kind, and were unhappy when their daughter chose law as a career, but it had been lucrative for her. They hadn’t lived long enough to know that she never married and had had a love child, which would have horrified them. Véronique never knew her grandparents. The only relative she had in the world was her mother and it was enough for her.
They didn’t live extravagantly, but they lived nicely. Their apartment was genteel but not luxurious, and big enough for the two of them. It was decorated mostly with Marie-Helene’s parents’ remaining antiques. Véronique had no hunger for the glamorous life her own career could have provided her, and although she attended major social events in the fashion world, and had an apartment of her own, she was just as happy spending a quiet weekend relaxing and watching TV with her mother in the apartment where she grew up, that had always been home. It seemed perfect to her, and a safe refuge from the fast-moving world where she worked. Her mother was pleased that Véronique’s success hadn’t spoiled her, and she was always happy to come home. Her own small apartment never felt like home to her.
* * *
—
Véronique undressed quickly as soon as she came off the runway, and pushed her way through the crowd backstage to a small changing room where she had left her jeans and T-shirt. She pulled on motorcycle boots and called her mother before she left the Grand Palais, which was a magnificent Victorian glass structure where many fashion shows were held, as well as antique fairs and art events.
Marie-Helene answered on the first ring, as soon as she saw Véronique’s number come up.
“How was it?” she asked, always pleased to hear from her. She knew how busy her daughter was during Fashion Week, and didn’t expect her to call. She never attended the shows herself, which were by invitation only to the fashion elite, but she watched the videos online of every show Véronique was in.
“It was fine, nothing unusual,” Véronique said. “How are you?” In the madness of Fashion Week, they hadn’t spoken in two days, which was rare for them. They normally spoke at least once a day.
“I’m fine, crazy busy too, though not as busy as you are.” Marie-Helene smiled. She had seen the madness of Fashion Week at close range while Véronique had still lived with her. She missed that now that Véronique had her own apartment, although she came home frequently, for a meal or to spend the night when she had nothing else to do. “I have to go to Brussels next week. I’ll probably be there for about ten days. You can come and see me if you have a break.” There was a fast train that got to Brussels from Paris in an hour and twenty minutes, and residents of both cities went back and forth with ease, for business or social events. Marie-Helene had several clients there, since many wealthy families had moved to Belgium and Switzerland when the socialists came into power in France, and the rich began to leave to avoid punitive high taxes. So she went to Belgium frequently to see long-standing clients there.