“I’ll give you a sample menu. Egg sandwiches too, I assume.”
“Yes, that would be perfect. I know it sounds silly, but I want to impress her. She’s one of the most important interior designers in the States. Kind of a ‘grande dame’ and she’s very chic.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll do it up royally for her. Black suit and all.” He was still wearing jeans to work every day, which made the most sense given what they were doing. His mother kept asking him if he was sure it was all right with his employer and he wasn’t slipping in his standards. He promised her it was fine. “My mother will be relieved. She’s been worried about my workman’s clothes.” He smiled. He was looking forward to doing something fancier for one of her friends. “I’ll give the tea service a good polish before she comes.”
“Thanks, Joachim.”
Olivia heard from Audrey Wellington the following week. She called Olivia at home, on the number she had given her, and was delighted with the invitation to tea.
“Would you mind terribly if I bring a friend? I’ve known him for years. We’re going to look at a job together. I want his advice. His name is Jean Beaulieu. He’s a wonderful decorator. He does mostly yachts, but the occasional chateau.” Olivia had heard of him, and said it was fine to bring him. They were coming to the apartment in two days, and Olivia rushed to tell Joachim as soon as she hung up.
“There will be three of us. She’s bringing another decorator. Another very famous one, from here.”
“We will impress them to death,” he promised her. “It will be pure Downton Abbey,” he said, and she laughed. She had confessed to him how much she liked the show and wondered before she met him if he would be like the butler on the show. “I will do my Carson act,” he said with a grin, and had a sample menu for her half an hour later. She approved it, and she saw him polishing the tea service that afternoon. He enlisted Fatima’s help, the new Portuguese girl. She was proving to be immaculate, scrupulously honest, and a hard worker. Joachim had chosen well, a lot better than she had with the ill-fated Alphonsine she had hired.
* * *
—
The apartment looked beautiful. Everything was in order, the wood surfaces shone. The curtains looked splendid, Olivia had arranged white flowers in a silver bowl, and bought an orchid plant for the entry hall. All her new furniture, art, and decorating touches added to the charm of the apartment, and Joachim had everything in control in the kitchen. He had brought his mother’s tray, and his black formal butler’s suit, which he was wearing with a perfectly tailored white shirt, a black Hermès tie, and impeccably shined John Lobb shoes. He looked strikingly handsome and like a butler in a movie when Olivia saw him.
“Carson never looked that good,” she said to him, and he laughed. His tall, blond, Teutonic looks served him well, and were an asset along with his training and skills.
Audrey Wellington and Jean Beaulieu arrived five minutes later. She was visibly impressed when Joachim opened the door. She was wearing a navy-blue Chanel suit, with her still-trim figure and perfectly groomed blond French twist. She’d had two very well done facelifts over the years, and maintained them with Botox shots. She looked younger than her years, was energetic and very chic, as she sat in Olivia’s new Paris living room, while Joachim served an exquisite high tea. Jean Beaulieu admired her tea service and her utterly perfect butler, as Audrey smiled at her, holding one of the Limoges cups Olivia had bought with Joachim at an auction at the H?tel Drouot. She had gotten a service for eighteen, with only two butter plates missing.
“I was feeling very sorry for you, my dear, when I heard about the magazine. You did such a good job with it. I really enjoyed it. But now that I see you in your divine new Paris apartment, prettier than ever, with a most impressive butler,” she added, “I don’t feel sorry for you at all. In fact, I’m quite envious of you! Are you moving here?”
“I don’t know yet,” Olivia said. “I haven’t decided. I have the apartment for a year. Everything happened at once, the magazine folded. We had to do it, we held on as long as we could. My mother died at the same time, I emptied her apartment, and now I’m here. I haven’t figured out the next step yet. I’m keeping an open mind and seeing what happens.”