‘Your room is bigger than mine is,’ she said. She walked to the window. ‘I have a better view, thought. Just think, we are really in Paris! Want to go to Chez Billy for breakfast? That is what your guidebook recommends.’
‘No, I do not. I can’t’ he said. ‘You had better leave, Muriel.’
‘Oh. Okay,’ she said. She left.
Sometime she did that. She would put till he felt trapped, then suddenly pull back. You were so unprepared that you fell flat on the ground, Macon thought. You felt so empty.
He decided to phone Sarah. It seemed important to get in touch with her, although it was still night-time at home. He had to go down to the telephone in the hotel lobby.
Sarah sounded confused and sleepy. Who is that?’
‘Sarah, it’s Macon. I’m sorry I woke you but I wanted to hear your voice. How’s the weather there at home?’
‘The weather? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s light yet.’
‘I wish I was there. We could do some gardening today.’
‘But you heat gardening! Macon, are you all right?’
Yes, he was fine, he told her. He’d had a good flight over, and yes, maybe he was a bit tired.
Fried eggs, baked eggs, ham omelets, plain omelets. All day he walked blindly through the streets, writing notes in his guidebook. He did not go near Chez Billy. In the evening he returned to his hotel, leg muscles aching, and fell onto his bed. Two minutes later he heard a knock.
‘Look,’ Muriel said, coming in with her arms full of clothes. ‘Just look at what I bought.’ She held up for Macon’s inspection a red evening dress, coats and jackets and trousers.
‘Have you gone crazy?’ Macon asked. ‘What did all cost?’
‘Almost nothing!’ she said. ‘I found a place that’s like the granddaddy of all thrift shops. This French girl I met at breakfast told me about it. I said how nice her hat was and she told me where she got it. And I found my way there, using your book!’
‘But how will you get it all on the plane?’
‘Oh, I’ll take all this back to my room so we can go eat.’
Macon stiffened. He said, ‘No, I can’t.’
“What harm would it do to eat supper with me, Macon? I’m just someone from home you happened to meet in Paris!”
When she put it that way, it seemed so simple.
They went to the Burger King on the Champs-Elysees. Macon wanted to recheck the place anyway.
“Who’s looking after Alexander?” he asked her.
“Oh, different people.”
“What different people? It can really upset a child that age.”
“Don’t worry, he’s fine. Claire has him in the daytime and then Bernice comes in and cooks supper and any time Claire is going out with the General the twins will keep him or if the twins can’t do it then the General says Alexander can…”
Singleton Street rose up in front of Macon’s eyes, all its color and confusion.
After supper they returned to their hotel, and in the elevator Muriel asked, “Can come to your room for a while?”
The elevator stopped at his floor. “Muriel,” he said. “I’ve been married to her forever. Longer than you’ve been alive, almost. I can’t change now. Don’t you see?”
She just stood in her corner of the elevator, looking young and sad and lonely.
“Goodnight” he said.
He got out, and the elevator door slid shut.