Stevie disappeared and reappeared with a cup of tea. Decaffeinated vanilla tea. Stevie ordered it for her from Mariage Frères in Paris. Carole had become addicted to it while she lived there, and it was still her favorite. She was always grateful for the steaming mugs of it Stevie handed her. It was comforting for her. Carole looked pensive as she put the mug to her lips and took a sip. “Maybe you're right,” Carole said thoughtfully, glancing at the woman who had been her companion for years. They traveled together, since Carole took her on the set when she was making a movie. Stevie was a one-man band who made Carole's life smooth as silk, and enjoyed doing it for her. She adored her job, and coming to work every day. Each day was different, and a challenge. And it still excited her after all these years that she worked for Carole Barber.
“What am I right about?” Stevie asked, letting down her long limbs into the room's comfortable leather easy chair. They spent a lot of hours together in that room, planning things, talking things out. Carole was always willing to listen to Stevie's opinions, even if she did something different in the end. Although most of the time, she found her assistant's advice to be solid, and valuable to her. And to Stevie, Carole was not only an employer, but something of a wise aunt. The two women shared opinions on life, and often saw things the same way, particularly about men.
“Maybe I need to take a trip.” Not to avoid the book, but maybe in this case to crack it, like a hard shell that resisted and wouldn't open any other way.
“You could go visit the kids,” Stevie suggested. Carole loved visiting her son and daughter, since they seldom came home anymore. It was hard for Anthony to get away from the office, although he always made time to see her in the evening when she was in New York, no matter how busy he was. He loved his mother. As did Chloe, who would drop everything to run around London with her mother to play and shop. She soaked up her mother's love and time, like a flower in rain.
“I just did that a few weeks ago. I don't know… maybe I need to do something completely different … go somewhere I've never been before… like Prague or something… or Romania … Sweden …” There weren't a lot of places left on the planet where she hadn't been. She had spoken at women's conferences in India, Pakistan, and Beijing. She had met heads of state around the world, worked with UNICEF, and addressed the U.S. Senate.
Stevie hesitated to state the obvious. Paris. She knew how much the city meant to her. Carole had lived in Paris for two and a half years, and had only been back twice in the last fifteen. Carole said there was nothing for her there anymore. She had taken Sean to Paris shortly after they were married, but he hated the French, and always preferred going to London instead. Stevie knew she hadn't been back now in about ten years. And she'd only been there once in the five years before Sean, when she sold the house on the rue Jacob, or actually in a small alley behind it. Stevie had gone with her to close the house, and loved it. But by then Carole's life had shifted back to L.A., and she said it made no sense to keep a house in Paris. It had been hard for her when she closed it, and she never went back again, till her only trip there with Sean. They stayed at the Ritz, and he complained the entire time. He loved Italy and England, but not France.
“Maybe it's time for you to go back to Paris,” Stevie said cautiously. She knew that ghosts lingered there for her, but after fifteen years, she couldn't imagine that they would still affect Carole. Not after eight years with Sean. Whatever had happened to Carole in Paris had long since healed, and she still spoke of the city fondly from time to time.
“I don't know,” Carole said, thinking about it. “It rains a lot in November. The weather is so good here.”
“The weather doesn't seem to be helping you write the book. Somewhere else then. Vienna … Milan… Venice… Buenos Aires… Mexico City… Hawaii. Maybe you need a little time on the beach, if you're looking for good weather.” They both knew the weather wasn't the issue.
“I'll see,” Carole said with a sigh, getting out of her desk chair. “I'll think about it.”
Carole was tall, though not as tall as her assistant. She was slim, lithe, with a still-beautiful figure. She worked out, but not enough to justify the way she looked. She had great genes, good bone structure, a body that defied her years, and a face that willingly lied about her age, and she had had no surgery to help it.
Carole Barber was just a beautiful woman. Her hair was still blond, she wore it long and straight, often tied back in a ponytail or in a bun. Hairdressers on the set had been having a ball with her silky blond hair since she was eighteen. Her eyes were enormous and green, her cheekbones high, her features delicate and perfect. She had the face and figure of a model, not just a star. And the way she carried herself spoke of confidence, poise, and grace. She wasn't arrogant, she was just comfortable in her own skin, and she moved with the elegance of a dancer. The studio that had signed her first had made her take ballet. She still moved like a dancer today, with perfect posture. She was a spectacular-looking woman, and rarely wore makeup. She had a simplicity of style that made her even more striking. Stevie had been in awe of her when she first came to work. Carole had only been thirty-five then, and now she was fifty, hard as that was to believe. She looked easily ten years younger than she was. Even though he'd been five years younger, Sean had always looked older than she did. He was handsome, but bald, and tended to put on weight. Carole still had the same figure she'd had at twenty. She was careful about what she ate, but mostly she was just lucky. She had been blessed by the gods at birth.
“I'm going to run some errands,” she told Stevie a few minutes later. She had put a white cashmere sweater around her shoulders, and was carrying a beige alligator bag she'd bought at Hermès. She had a fondness for simple but good clothes, especially if they were French. At fifty, there was something about Carole that reminded one of Grace Kelly at twenty. She had that same kind of elegant, aristocratic ease, although Carole seemed warmer. There was nothing austere about Carole, and considering who she was, and the fame she'd enjoyed for all of her adult life, she was surprisingly humble. Like everyone else, Stevie loved that about her. Carole was never full of herself.
“Anything you want me to do for you?” Stevie offered.
“Yeah, write the book while I'm out. I'll send it to my agent tomorrow.” She had lined up a literary agent, but had nothing to send her.
“Done.” Stevie grinned at her. “I'll man the fort here. You hit Rodeo.”
“I am not going to Rodeo,” Carole said primly. “I want to look at some new dining room chairs. I think the dining room needs a face-lift. Come to think of it, so do I, but I'm too chicken to get one. I don't want to wake up in the morning looking like someone else. It's taken me fifty years to get used to the face I have. I'd hate to turn it in.”