“Have fun tonight. You looked beautiful at lunch.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Audrey said, sounding softer than she had in a long time. “Mimi can't have all the fun!” she said, and they both laughed. Her grandmother was very busy these days with George, and all her other suitors seemed to have been discarded. She had explained to Sarah after Christmas that she and George were “going steady.” Sarah had almost asked her if she'd been “pinned” or had his high school ring. It was nice to see them happy. There was a sweet innocence about them.

Sarah didn't hear from her mother until several days after her dinner date. By then, Tom had left town. He had left Sarah a message thanking her for the introduction to her very charming mother, and he promised to get in touch again when he came back to San Francisco. Sarah had no idea when that might be, and when she stopped by her mother's house on Saturday to drop off Audrey's dry cleaning, which she had promised to pick up for her, she noticed a vase full of long-stemmed red roses.

“Let me guess,” Sarah said, looking puzzled. “Mmm … who could those be from?”

“An admirer,” Audrey said, looking girlish again as she took her dry cleaning from Sarah. “All right, all right. They're from Tom.”

“Very impressive, Mom.” She could see at a glance that there were two dozen of them. “Have you heard from him since he left?”

“We're e-mailing,” Audrey said demurely.

“You are?” Sarah looked amazed again. “I didn't even know you had a computer.”

“I bought a laptop the day after he left,” she admitted, and then blushed. “It's fun.”

“Maybe I should open a dating service,” Sarah commented, amazed at all that had happened in just a few days.

“You could use your services yourself.” Sarah had told her that she and Phil had broken up. She hadn't explained it, she just said that they had run out of gas, and for once Audrey just let it go at that.

“I'm too busy right now with the house,” Sarah said. She was wearing overalls again and on her way there.

“Don't use that as an excuse, the way you do your work.”

“I'm not,” she said, looking stubborn.

“Tom said he would love to introduce you to his son. He's a year older than you are, and recently divorced.”

“I know, and he lives in St. Louis. That's not going to do me much good, Mom.” Or maybe Audrey, either, but it had boosted her spirits and her self-esteem to meet Tom.

“What about the architect you hired to work on the house? Is he single, and decent-looking?”

“He's fine, and so is the woman he's lived with for fourteen years. They own the business together, and a house in Potrero Hill.”

“I guess that won't work. Well, someone will turn up when you least expect it.”

“Yeah, like the Hillside Strangler or Charles Manson. I can hardly wait,” Sarah said cynically. She was feeling bitter about men these days. Phil had left a bad taste in her mouth, after his final escapade.

“Don't be so negative,” her mother scolded her. “You sound depressed.”

“No”—Sarah shook her head—“just tired. I had a lot of work at the office this week.”

“When don't you?” her mother said, walking her to the door, and then they both heard the bell on her laptop ring and say “You've got mail!” Sarah raised an eyebrow and smiled at her mother.

“Cupid calls!”

They kissed each other, and Sarah left. She was glad her mother's introduction to Tom had gone so well. Nothing much could come of it, with him in St. Louis, but it was nice for both of them. She had a feeling he was lonely, and Audrey was as well. Everybody needed roses from time to time. And e-mail from a friend.





Chapter 16


By the end of February, Sarah had copper pipes throughout the house, and parts of the house had new wiring as well. They were doing it floor by floor. In March they started laying the groundwork for the kitchen. It was exciting watching things come in. She had picked her appliances from books in Jeff's office, he was buying them for her wholesale. The house wasn't ready for her to move in yet, but it was going well. They told her the rest of the electrical work would be complete by April.

“Why don't you go on a vacation?” Jeff suggested one night when they were laying down templates in the kitchen, to make sure all her appliances would fit. She was putting in a big butcher-block island in the center, and he was afraid it would be too crowded, but Sarah insisted it would work. As it turned out, she was right.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” She laughed at him. “Am I driving you crazy?” No, he told her, but Marie-Louise was. She was on one of her tangents, hating everything about the States, including him. She was threatening to go back to France. It was that time of year, when she was missing spring in Paris. She didn't leave for her three-month summer there till June. He was counting the days, although he hated to admit it. But she was hard to live with at times.

“There isn't much you can do right now till we finish the electrical and the kitchen. I think if you go away for a few weeks, you might be able to move in when you get back. That would be exciting for you,” he said, suggesting the vacation again. He loved helping her with the house. It reminded him of when he had done his own in Potrero Hill. Hers was on a far grander scale, of course, but the same principles prevailed, although every old house had quirks of its own.

“I can't stay away from the office for that long,” Sarah complained.

“Give us two weeks then. If you go away in mid-April, I promise you can move in on May first.” She jumped up and down like a kid when he said it, and that night she thought about it with some seriousness.

She was of two minds about it. She never liked leaving her office. She had nowhere to go. And no one to go with. She hated traveling alone. All of her friends had children and husbands. She called a friend from college in Boston, but she was just getting divorced and couldn't leave her devastated kids. Sarah consoled herself by reminding herself that she couldn't have gone with Phil, either. He had never taken a trip with her in four years, only with his kids. She even asked one of the other female attorneys in the office, who said she couldn't get away at the moment. In desperation, Sarah asked her mother, who said she had just planned a trip to New York with a friend, to go to the theater and museums, so she couldn't go. Sarah thought of giving up the idea, and then decided to go alone. After that, the big decision to make was where. She always got sick in Mexico, and didn't think she should go there solo. She liked Hawaii, but two weeks there was too long. She enjoyed New York, but alone it was no fun. She still hadn't decided, when she was looking at her photograph of Lilli that weekend, and suddenly she knew exactly where she wanted to go. To France, to track her down. She remembered Mimi saying she had gone to see Lilli's French château once, where she had lived with the marquis she left her husband for. Mimi had said it was boarded up, but Sarah thought it would be interesting to see it, and get a sense of where Lilli had lived during her years in France. She had lived there, after all, for fifteen years before she died, a relatively long time.

Sarah went to talk to Mimi about it on Sunday, and found out where it was, apparently in Dordogne, relatively near Bordeaux. It sounded like a nice trip to Sarah. She had always wanted to see that area, and the châteaux of the Loire, if she had time. She loved Paris, and by Monday, Sarah had decided to take a two-week vacation in France. She was going to leave the day after Easter, and she told Jeff she was going to hold him to his promise that she could move into the house on May 1. It was six weeks away, and Jeff said he thought there was a good chance that they'd be ready. Sarah had already decided that she would have the house painted after she moved in. She was going to try and lay the carpet herself with Jeff's help, in the few small rooms where she was going to use it, like dressing rooms and an office, a small guest room, and one bath with a chipped floor. And wherever possible, she was going to do some of the painting herself. If not, it would cost a fortune and impact her budget. Besides, she thought painting some of the rooms would be fun, and learning to lay carpet gave her the illusion that she was saving money. Actually she had done well on the budget so far.

She told her mother and grandmother about the trip to France, Mimi wrote down all the information she had about her mother and the exact location and name of the château. She didn't know much more. Her own trip to find out had been disappointing, but Sarah didn't care. It sounded interesting to her, even more so if she could find someone who had known Lilli, although it was now more than sixty years ago.

For the next month, she caught up with everything she had to do in the office, and started packing her apartment, so she'd be ready to move when she got back. Most of what she owned she was planning to either throw in the garbage or give to Goodwill. All she really had to take with her were her books and clothes. The rest was awful. Looking at it, she wondered why she had hung on to it for so long.

Sarah spent Easter with her mother and Mimi. They had a nice Easter brunch at the Fairmont, and the following day Audrey left for New York. She was excited about it. Mimi was planning to spend a few days in Palm Springs with George, and work on her golf game, and Sarah was off to Paris. She had dinner with Jeff the night before she left.

“Thank you for suggesting the trip,” she said as they sat across the table from each other in an Indian restaurant. He had ordered his curry hot, and Sarah had ordered hers mild, but both were good. “I'm really excited about it. I'm going to check out the château where my great-grandmother lived.”