19
THE CHICKENS COME BACK TO THE NEST
I talked of Chanel, of Dior, of Givenchy and Balmain and Balenciaga, and at the customer’s request, sprayed them on my own wrist and arms. “For I would not wish to smell of this,” he said with a smile. He was a dark, rather mysterious person—saturnine, was the word in books—the sort one could imagine coolly spying on Nazis for the Resistance. HewasFrench, you see. “On loan from the Sorbonne,” he told me, “like a manuscript.”
We went through four scents, and still he merely said, “And the next?” after each one. Rosemary was looking daggers at me from the other end of the counter. She was unmarried, and the mysterious gentleman was most attractive, in a slightly frightening way. Or perhaps that was my guilty conscience.
“If you’ll tell me more about the lady,” I said, after the sixth sampling, “we could narrow the choices. Is she a cheerful, gay sort of person, or perhaps mysterious and alluring?”
“Is any American lady mysterious and alluring?” he asked. “I am Lucien de Valois, by the way, and you are?”
“Marguerite Stark,” I said. “Mrs. Stark.”
“Ah,” he said, the sardonic look in his eyes more evident. “A beautiful name followed by the ugly one, yes. A foreigner who has married a GI, perhaps?”
Rosemary said, “She’s French, is what. If you’d like to step over here, I can show you Emeraude, which is one of our top sellers.”
“And what house produces this?” Monsieur de Valois asked.
“It’s by Coty,” Rosemary said, “andsolovely. A classic.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, and so did one dark eyebrow. “Coty? That is not a classic name. It’s not even French. But bring it over here and show me.”
This was so evidently not what Rosemary had had in mind, I nearly laughed. But when Mr. de Valois smelled it—he had her spray it into the air rather than on her arm, which also didn’t please her—he waved a hand and said, “A poor copy of Shalimar. No, I’m afraid you must leave scent to the French.”
“Rochas Femme, then,” Rosemary said. “If you don’t like American things.” A bit of hostility in her voice now. It was a good thing Mr. Hendrickson, our department manager, wasn’t hovering.
“Bien sûr,”Mr. de Valois said, “the house of Rochas is well known.” He was almost too smooth to be true, and I wanted to laugh. Instead—for we were paid a commission on sales—I merely pulled the bottle out from its case. When I handed it to Rosemary, though, Mr. de Valois shook his finger in an arch, tsk-tsk way that I foundmostannoying—I was ready to believe hewasan aristocrat, as his name suggested, and of the arrogant type—and Rosemary handed it sullenly to me.
This time, he took my arm in his two hands, and I stiffened and tried to step back. He either didn’t notice or didn’t want to, though, because he merely put his face close to myskin and inhaled, then let me go and said, “Ah, yes.Femmeindeed. The scent of a woman.”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. I attempted to disguise it as a cough, but I didn’t think he was fooled, for his gaze narrowed. “You find me amusing?”
“No,” I said. “I find you rather forward, and I am married, as you see.”
“But one must be civilized about such things,” he said.
“Ooh,” Rosemary said. “You’re a naughty one.”
He switched to French. “I find this lady tiresome. Perhaps we can meet for a drink after you finish here? It’s nearly five o’clock; a civilized hour for a bottle of Champagne.”
I said, in English, “What else may I show you?” I was trembling a little under the surface, and was very much afraid he could see it. But I wasnot—no, I was most definitely not—going to give him the satisfaction.
“But why will you not speak French?” he asked, also in English. “When I’ve heard nothing but this barbarous version of English for months now? And what is your accent, for I can’t place it? British, of course, but beneath … no, I cannot place it at all.”
“She’s from Paris,” Rosemary said. “And we’re ‘barbarous’?I’mnot barbarous. I’m American, and you Frenchies should be thanking us. What did you do when Hitler came in? You ran away. Who fought to drive the Nazis out of France?Wedid.”
Mr. de Valois ignored her completely. “From Paris?” More of the cocked eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”
I was flushing now, and wished I weren’t. How did I get out of this? “Will you excuse me a moment? Rosemary, can you?—”
“Well, I’m not pleased to do it,” she said. “But I will.”
I was just slipping out from behind the counter when Mr. Hendrickson brought his somewhat portly self to join our party, his drooping nose practically aquiver. He resembled akind of dog called a Bassett Hound, and like a hound, he could sense trouble from across a room. For once, I was glad of him.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “Are you finding everything you need?”
“Mais non,”Mr. de Valois said. Was he even French?Couldanyone actually French be soterrificallyFrench?Heshould have had the striped blue shirt and baguette! “I am most disappointed, for the lady here will not speak to me in my language. Why employ a Frenchwoman who will not speak French?”
