The Secret of the Nightingale Palace Read Free

herself at least, that she lived a full life. She had changed out of her shorts and pulled on a sundress and a pair of pretty sandals she hadn’t worn in years. Over the course of the afternoon, she tried to talk to everybody. She ate a lot, too—five or six pancakes and she didn’t even know how much bacon. Generally, Pierre was only a mediocre cook, but he always had the best ingredients. His pancakes, which were nothing special on their own, became sublime with the addition of top grade New Hampshire maple syrup (judged superior by Yankee magazine) and butter from France. Under these conditions, people became ravenous. The African steel drum music and the coffee laced with Cuban rum certainly didn’t hurt.
    Anna had just finished a conversation about Argentinian tango when she heard Pierre call her name. He was standing at the stove, motioning to her with a tip of his head.
    Anna walked over. “Are you feeling like a slave over here?” she asked.
    Pierre, tall and broad shouldered, wore a long goatee that made him look, against all evidence to the contrary, like an ascetic. He was actually the most social person Anna knew. Now he leaned closer to her ear and whispered, “I like having a task. If I have to flit around and talk to everyone, I become cross and overwhelmed.” He was agile at the stove, moving swiftly on the balls of his feet, like someone playing Ping-Pong. He flipped a couple of pancakes.
    Anna opened the microwave and stuck her coffee mug inside. “It’s gotten a little cold. Do you mind?” she asked.
    â€œI’m surprised you didn’t do that earlier,” Pierre replied. All Anna’s family and friends knew that she was particular about what she put in her mouth. She called herself “discriminating”—she had one place for Chinese takeout, one café for coffee, one brand of pasta she deigned to buy—but others used less generous terms. Ford had called her “fussy,” and he had eventually refused to eat at Chi Chi’s with her because she sent her burritos back to the kitchen so many times.
    â€œStop it.” Anna whacked Pierre gently on the arm. When the microwave stopped, she pulled out her mug and took a sip. “Now it’s perfect.”
    Pierre grinned at her. “How are you doing?”
    She appreciated that he wanted to check on her. “I’m being the life of the party,” she told him. She felt good in her dress, and despite her time away from society, she was finding herself nimble enough, and even a little witty. “I was talking about Sartre.”
    â€œReally?” Pierre’s Mississippi was all plantations and bourbon, old money, cotton. His accent was so melodious and refined that it sounded, to Anna, almost British. When he said, “Faulkner,” it came out as “Faulknuh.” And when he said, “Are you bragging?” as he did right now, it sounded like “Ah you bragon?”
    Pierre had a sharp, angular nose, thin lips, and a long, narrow face. Each feature alone seemed slightly off balance, but somehow they combined to give him a look that was pleasing, though not quite handsome. “I’m not bragging,” Anna said. “I’m just happy because I’m so”—she hesitated to admit it—“out of practice.” Maybe her sister was right. It helped, after all, to get out of the house.
    â€œWhat did you say about Sartre, anyway?”
    â€œI said he broke Simone de Beauvoir’s heart.”
    â€œThat’s not talking about Sartre. If I started talking about Einstein’s relationship with Marilyn Monroe, I wouldn’t be discussing physics.”
    Anna pulled a last piece of bacon off of a platter by the stove and took a bite. “I didn’t say I was talking about philosophy,” she told him. “I said I was talking about Sartre .”
    Pierre set the spatula down on the counter and lifted a finger to