For the next eight days Nick was on top of the world. He saw Monique every day, most of the time at her Palm Beach mansion, but sometimes at his uncle’s condominium. They made love at every opportunity and it was always different. Monique was full of surprises. The second time Nick went to her house, for example, he found her in the back, swimming naked in the pool. She told him that she had given all the servants the day off. Within minutes they were frolicking and laughing on the grass between the garden and the pool.
Their affair was conducted in French. Monique taught him about food and wine. They shared their knowledge of French literature. One passionate night they argued about Andre Gide’s La Symphonie Pastorale both before and after lovemaking. Monique defended the pastor and laughed at Nick’s insistence that the blind Gertrude was “an innocent. “ Another evening, when Monique demanded that Nick wear a black Halloween mask and a pair of white leotards throughout their long French dinner, they read Jean Genet’s Le Balcon together as a prelude to sex.
The days raced by relentlessly, clothed in the magic of love and intimacy. Once Nick showed up at the mansion and Monique greeted him dressed in an incredible coat, a full-length Alaskan seal fur with indigo fox trim around the collars as well as down the lapels and framing the sleeves from the shoulders to the wrists. The coat was the softest thing Nick had ever touched, even softer than her tantalizing skin. His playful paramour had turned the air conditioning up as high as it would go so that she could wear her favorite coat. She was wearing nothing underneath it. After lovemaking that evening she dressed Nick’s naked body in one of her husband’s beaver coats, explaining the presence of half a dozen fur coats in Palm Beach with a simple “it’s our business and we like to have some things to show our friends and acquaintances in case they are interested.”
Nick professed his love with increasing zeal each time they met anew. Monique responded with her usual “je t’aime,” but would not reply to Nick’s insistent questions about the future. She avoided all questions about her relationship with Mr. Silver, except to say that he was a workaholic and that he stayed in Montreal most of the year. He had bought the place in Palm Beach primarily because Monique did not like the cold and wanted a more active social life than the one they had in Montreal. Monique usually spent the period from Christmas to Easter in Palm Beach; Teresa, who had just finished her spring break from her exclusive private school and had returned to Canada, came down as often as possible so that she could be with her mother.
Monique gave short, terse answers about her present life. But she waxed rhapsodic about her childhood in Paris. She never criticized her husband or complained about her married life. Yet she did tell Nick that her days with him had been the happiest time of her life. She also talked about some of her friends, but Nick never met any of them. They were always alone.
One day she picked him up in her Cadillac and they headed toward Key Largo so that he could do some diving at the Pennekamp Recreation Area. As always, she was wearing her wedding ring. On this particular day Nick had vowed to himself that he would get some answers about the future, and the constant presence of her wedding ring pissed him off. He asked her to remove it. She politely refused, then grew angry when he pressed her. She pulled the car off the highway in the marshland north of the Keys and stopped the engine
“It is a fact that I am married,” she said resolutely, “and taking the ring off is not going to change anything. I am in love with you, without doubt, but you have understood my situation from the beginning. If you cannot deal with it anymore, then perhaps we should just call it quits.”
Nick was shocked by her response. The thought of being without her terrified him. He apologized and professed his love. He began kissing her passionately and then jumped in the back seat. He told her that he needed her right then, that moment. She somewhat reluctantly joined him and they had intercourse on the back seat of her Cadillac. Monique was quiet and pensive most of the rest of the day.
On Friday, exactly a week after they had met, Monique took Nick to a tuxedo shop to have him fitted for a black tie dinner with some friends that she was having on Saturday night in her home. So finally he was going to be seen with her. “And,” Nick thought, “now she will talk about our future.” Nick was supposed to be in Boston on Monday morning and his parents were expecting him Saturday night in Falls Church, but he assured himself that he could drive all day (and all night if necessary, so pumped up was he in his love for Monique) to get to classes on Monday morning.
Nick was full of hope and dreams when he showed up at the Silver mansion on Saturday night. He looked elegant in his summer tux, and the smile with which he greeted Monique at the door could have won a prize. Even with the doorman standing by, he handed her a dozen red roses, gave her a kiss, and told her that he loved her. “Of course you do,” she said lightly, “doesn’t everybody?” She took him inside and introduced him to the four other people who had also come early as the “young man who saved our Teresa one day in Lauderdale.” Then Monique excused herself. It was her fashion, Nick later learned, to ask a few select friends to come early to a party, to greet them in casual attire, and then to return an hour or so later, when everyone had arrived, with a grand entrance. As Monique gracefully walked up the stairs of the mansion, Nick’s eyes followed her with an unmistakable look of adoration.
“Isn’t she magnificent?” Nick was asked by a relaxed, tanned man of about fifty who offered him a martini. His name was Clayton. “Once I was with her all weekend on their yacht, while Aaron was in Montreal. I thought she had invited me for a little diversion.” He laughed. “But I was wrong. She just wanted some company and I could talk about France and Europe. Come with me (he slipped his arm through Nick’s) and I’ll introduce you to the select group that was invited early today.”
Nick was treated with extreme courtesy by the other favored guests, but he was wary of their questions about Monique. He was, after all, a Southern boy, and if there was something to say about their relationship, it was her place to say it. So he answered politely but modestly and didn’t elaborate at all.
One of the two women at the bar, who introduced herself as Jane Somebody, said that she was Monica’s oldest friend in Palm Beach. (They all called her Monica. It was impossible for Nick to call her anything but Monique. Nick wondered if they could guess what was going on or if Monique had told them.) Jane was in her late thirties, plump and raucous, a heavy drinker and a chain smoker. She had once been fairly attractive but had lived too hard too soon. She was one of those people who touch everybody during a conversation. She made Nick nervous.
The other guests began to arrive. Jane and Clayton (as in Clayton Poindexter III of Newport and Palm Beach. Clayton, when asked by Nick what he did, answered, “NVMS.” Nick of course had absolutely no idea what that meant. Clayton laughed. “NVMS — No visible means of support — a term used to cover all bums.”) seemed to be acting as hostess and host in Monique’s absence. They introduced him to everybody. Nick had three or four martinis and told the Teresa story at least seven times during the first hour that he was in the Silver mansion.
Nick was becoming fairly spiffed by this time. He sang to himself as he took another martini off the cocktail tray being proffered by one of the servants. The alcohol had buoyed his spirits and made him feel somehow temporarily suave and debonair. Nick was on the patio talking to Monique’s “riding partner,” a lovely woman in her mid-twenties named Anne, when he heard scattered applause from the living room. “It’s Monica,” Anne said. “Let’s go see.”
The grand stairway in the Silvers’ colonial mansion rose to a platform maybe six feet above the living room floor and then split, with two different sets of stairs then continuing up to the second floor. Monique was standing on the platform, acknowledging the applause. dressed in a simple navy blue knit dress that seemed form-fitted to her perfect body. The back was cut way down, almost to the bottom of her spectacular hair (she turned around to please the forty or so guests), and, in the front, two thin pieces of cloth ran from her shoulders to her waist, covering each breast adequately but leaving plenty of cleavage to be admired. Entranced by the vision of his queen, Nick cheered lustily, a little too loud, “Bravo. Bravo.” Monique seemed not to hear his cheer. She had turned and was looking up the stairs.