The Secret of the Nightingale Palace Read Free Page A

brush a stray curl away from Anna’s cheek. He said, “Show-off.”
    Pierre’s parties evolved into laid-back marathons of food, music, and conversation. Today, his Argentinian friends showed a rough cut of their documentary about Memphis blues. The guests, made sleepy from the pancakes and bacon and rum, lay sprawled across the sofas and the floor, some nodding off on their pillows. Anna remained near the stove. Pierre stood behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders in the easy affection that had, over the past few years, become natural to them. While Anna’s husband was healthy, her relationship with Pierre had been merely tangential. It deepened when Ford got sick, though, and Pierre, unlike some of their other friends, continued to visit them. Now, two years after Ford’s death, Anna considered Pierre an important presence in her life, though she always felt that the bond between them had a tear in the middle of it, where her husband used to be. When she was with Pierre, especially, she often found herself conjuring Ford. If he were here, would he have liked the film? He had always loved the blues, but would he have agreed with Anna that the movie was totally boring?
    Oddly, it was in part the thought of Ford that made Anna reach up at that moment and take Pierre’s hand. She felt a sense of inevitability, too, combined with certain looks that over the past few months had let her know that Pierre was there for her. It was Goldie’s call as well, and Sadie’s worry. It was the gauziness of her sundress, and the fact that looking at herself in the mirror that day, Anna had really, really liked what she saw. It was a recognition that her compulsion to conjure Ford didn’t help her feel better in any measurable way, and it was a fear that she could spend the rest of her life circling back to the same low-grade sadness. It was all of these reasons that compelled her just then to pick up Pierre de Rosset’s hand, slide it along her cheek toward her mouth, and kiss it. And by doing so, everything between them shifted.
    Over the past few months, Anna had contemplated the wisdom of allowing more to happen with Pierre. She could imagine herself with him, yes, if circumstances had been different—her own widowhood less raw, Pierre’s social life less, well, social . In the years that she had known him, she had watched him pass through several serious, though “not quite right” relationships, plus various passionate and brief affairs that had given his life a theatrical intensity. Anna had quite enjoyed her role as friend and impartial observer. She felt like a person with a front-row seat at the circus, able to watch heart-stopping feats without actually putting herself in any danger.
    With one gesture, kissing Pierre’s hand, then, Anna pushed herself into the ring. On the television in front of them, a grandniece was recounting her memories of W. C. Handy, Father of the Blues. Anna felt Pierre’s body step closer behind her, and though there was nothing terribly different in the way they might have appeared to others, the change felt so portentous that Anna was glad to be standing at the back of the room, where no one could see them. Pierre pulled her toward him, letting his chin settle onto the top of her head. He sighed. She didn’t hear it so much as feel it, full of heat and promise. Anna could not have said if the rest of the documentary was boring, because, though she kept her eyes on the screen, she didn’t see it.
    When the film ended, at around seven, an uncomfortable moment passed during which the filmmakers seemed ready to take questions. A few polite viewers offered vague compliments, but within minutes the guests were carrying the sticky dishes to the sink and looking for their backpacks and purses. Soon, everyone had left but Anna, who helped Pierre clean up while at the same time fighting a sudden urge to flee. Outside the window the sun