Stare from the shadows as old friends and lovers spin 'round,
Then you remember, you've forgotten how laughter sounds
-- Steve Tilston, "Then You Remember"
"Does anyone know where Marie and Pete are tonight?" Jane asked those of the Anglo-Saxons-in-Paris klatch who had come through the February rain and cold to their favorite bar.
The others all looked at one another and shrugged. Jane regarded them all in turn with surprise. Tonight, for the first time in quite some time, everyone except Marie and Pete had shown up. There was Eric, from a suburb of London that wasn't far from where Jane had grown up but which she would never be caught dead visiting; Alexandra, the only Australian when she'd first arrived in town two years ago and still the only one now; Sandy, an American grad student who even Jane thought was a bit of a snob, but they couldn't very well just tell her she was no longer welcome; and Tom, the newest of the bunch, also from America but from a very different part from the sound of his accent, though Jane couldn't tell for certain.
It was really just as well in light of what Jane had planned. "Well, listen, I'll get this out of the way in case they do show up..." she began.
"They won't," Alexandra said. "They've...got a prior commitment." She then realized her mistake in speaking up, but it was too late to do anything about it.
"On a night like this?" Jane said, gesturing to the freezing rain outside the window. "Must be something awfully special."
Alexandra said nothing, but she couldn't help smirking a bit. She turned away from Jane so she wouldn't notice, and was delighted to catch Tom's eye. He smiled back at her, and not for the first time, set her heart aglow. That, combined with her knowledge of why Marie and Pete weren't there, moistened her panties for the umpteenth time that day.
"In any event, I'll get this out of the way now," Jane went on. "Valentine's Day is coming, and -"
"We know, you hate Valentine's Day," Sandy interrupted. "Don't worry, Jane, I'm with you as usual on that one."
"You don't really mean that, do you, Sandy?" Tom asked, looking aghast as he always did when Sandy said something unpleasant. He had that tender look in his eyes that had been driving Alexandra wild for weeks, but which never seemed to have any effect on Sandy.
"I totally do!" Sandy retorted. "One day a year for guys to pretend they're women and act all lovey-dovey? No thanks! Right, Jane?"
"Sandy, please!" Jane's patience with Sandy was running thinner every time they met, even as she couldn't help but be aware how much Sandy wanted to be her best friend. Even she was beginning to wonder just how big a fool sweet, quiet Tom was to be so smitten with Sandy. "I confess, I never was very fond of Valentine's Day, true, but that's got nothing to do with what I was going to say. What I was going to say is, as Eric and Alexandra remember, this Valentine's Day will be two years since Marie and Pete first got together. They were planning a Valentine's Day party, actually, that's how it happened."
"And it damn near ended in disaster," Eric reminded her with a meaningfully stern look.
"Yes, which was partly my fault," Jane acknowledged.
"What happened?" Tom asked. "Hard to imagine anything tearing those two apart."
"I don't want to talk about that right now," Jane said.
"I'll explain later, Tom," Alexandra said. There wouldn't be time tonight, but all the better to get him alone some other time.
"Anyway!" Jane said in her not-to-be-trifled-with voice. "Eric's right, it was a real mess, and I think that's cast a pall over Valentine's Day for them both ever since. So I want to break the spell this year."
"What've you got in mind, exactly?" Eric asked.
"Well," said Jane, "Look, those two are a couple of lovey-doveys, and they never had a real wedding, you will remember."
"Right," Eric said. To Sandy and Tom, he explained, "Marie has an Italian passport, so she can stay in Paris as long as she wants, but Pete only had a student visa. So when he finished his MBA last spring, they had to get married for him to stay here. No time and no money for anything elaborate, they went down to the
mairie
and that was that."
"God, that's not right for a couple like them!" Tom said. "Both of 'em a couple of hopeless romantics."
"Exactly," Jane said. "Plus, Valentine's Day still has kind of a nasty connotation for them. So I want to kill two birds with one stone and throw them a Valentine's Day party that can also be a sort of wedding reception for them, or at least a chance to celebrate their love like we never really got before."
"Who are you and what have you done with our friend Jane?" Alexandra quipped, drawing laughter all around, even from Jane.
"Yes, yes, I deserve that," Jane admitted. "That's why I want to do this. Now, joking aside, who's with me?"
Three hands shot up. Sandy, upon seeing she was the last woman not standing, raised her hand as well.
"Just please don't get all dictatorial on us if you want our help," Eric said.
"Somebody's got to be in charge," Sandy said. Then quickly she added, "And I'm not going to be the one!"
"I'll do my best," Jane said. "First order of business, I'll want their best pals, the gay French couple, what are their names?"
"Leonard and Francois," Alexandra said.
"You didn't really forget Leonard's name when he used to be Marie's boyfriend!" Eric needled Jane.
"Well, it was three years ago," Jane said. "And thanks, Alexandra. Yes, I want them to be involved too, and I guess we should also add her sleazy ex-roommate, Charles, was it?"
"Jean-Charles," Alexandra said, "And he's in Tahiti for the winter with his latest boy-toy."
"Gosh, you've got all the dirt!" Sandy said. "Now, explain this Leonard guy to me, he used to be her boyfriend and now he's with a man? Confused, is he?"
"Takes some people a while to come out of the closet, Sandy," Tom said. For an awful split-second, Alexandra feared he might be gay as well, then just as quickly she recalled what they all knew except for Sandy - that he had a crush on her that wouldn't quit. At least on that front Alexandra could hope for a change.
"Since you do know so much, Alexandra, can I ask you to approach Leonard and Francois about this the next time you see them?"
"Certainly." Jane did not need to know that would be in just an hour or so, or that it would be with Marie and Pete. The reminder made her want to squirm with equal parts nervousness and joy, but she did not want Jane asking any questions.
Alexandra still couldn't quite believe she'd finally worked up the courage to ask Marie and Pete if she could join the next of their communal baths. She'd been toying with it for ages, knowing all the while that they would surely welcome her - as, sure enough, they had - but she wasn't entirely sure just what had finally prevailed upon her to ask. Maybe it was the brutally gloomy European winter. Maybe it was that she envied what Pete and Marie had and wanted a taste of it.
Or maybe it was because it was her only immediate hope of any kind of intimacy while Tom was head-over-heels for Sandy.
With his lilting Southern American accent, unfailing politeness and boyish good looks, Tom had stolen Alexandra's heart from the first time Pete had brought him to the klatch back before Christmas. Currently a student at the same business school Pete had graduated from last summer, he had previously spent several years teaching English in Asia and had plenty of war stories to compare with Alexandra, who had spent the past two years eking out a living herself as a teacher at a local immersion school. But no amount of common ground seemed to put a dent in his subtle obsession with Sandy's cheerleader's grin and stylish clothes (she was wearing a tight black skirt that night, despite the winter's chill, and a flashy top, and had her shapely legs on display in sheer tights) and her talent for making a man feel like the only person in the room when she felt like it. She had, at some point, done that to Tom.
Tonight, at least, she didn't appear to feel like it. So Alexandra was free to regale Tom between sips of beer with her latest tale of a hapless pupil named Henri. "I was collecting homework and he didn't seem to have it, so I told him no play time and the poor kid burst into tears. Then while the other kids were off playing I sat down with him to go through his workbook, and it turns out he had done it!"
"What did he have to say about it?" Tom asked.
"He just said he didn't think he'd gotten it right and he didn't want me to see it," Alexandra said.
"And did he get it right?"
"All but one question! Poor kid."
"You think maybe he's got family problems?"
"I'm pretty sure of it," Alexandra said. "He's got two much older sisters, as in, they're already out of university and here he's only seven...I think he may have been a mistake."
"Or an empty nest kid," Tom offered.
"Oof, mistake kids are the worst," Sandy said. "My brother was one, and the way my parents always got on his case drove me crazy."
"Well, that sounds like their fault, not his," Alexandra said as gently as she could stand to.
"Either way, it shouldn't have been my problem," Sandy said. "If the brat had taken the hint and run away, I'd have had some peace."
Tom laughed, and even dared touch Sandy's knee affectionately. Alexandra took a long drink of her beer to keep from speaking for a while. She didn't trust herself not to snap at Tom that Sandy wasn't joking.
An hour and a half later in Marie and Pete's hot tub, Alexandra was at least glad she had something to vent about. She'd kept her feelings about Tom very much to herself up to now, but trying to keep a secret just didn't make much sense while she was naked with friends. "I'm really sorry, Alex," Marie said. "We have all noticed how crazy Tom obviously is for Sandy."
"And we've noticed she's kind of a jerk, too," added Pete. "He'll notice too, sooner or later."
"I think you're right, or at least I hope you are," Alexandra said. "Thanks for listening. I hope I didn't make my first time here too depressing for anyone." She looked around the tub at Marie and Pete, Leo and Francois, doing her best to look at their faces rather than their bodies, and smiled. Not for the first time, her hair clip - the only thing she was wearing anywhere on her body - somehow felt confining, and she gave some thought to letting her blonde locks down to droop in the steamy water.
