Clara chopped the ends off the fresh carrots and watched Peter toss the tiny new potatoes into boiling water. They’d have a simple dinner tonight of vegetables from the garden with herbs and sweet butter. It was one of their favorite meals in late summer.
“I don’t know who to feel worse for, Olivier or Gabri,” she said.
“I do,” said Peter, shelling some peas. “Gabri didn’t do anything. Can you believe Olivier’s been visiting that guy in the woods for years and didn’t tell anyone? I mean, what else isn’t he telling us?”
“Did you know he’s gay?”
“He’s probably straight and isn’t telling us.”
Clara smirked. “Now that would really piss Gabri off, though I know a couple of women who’d be happy.” She paused, knife in mid-air. “I think Olivier feels pretty horrible.”
“Come on. He’d still be doing it if the old man hadn’t been murdered.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong, you know,” said Clara. “The Hermit gave him everything.”
“So he says.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the Hermit’s dead. Isn’t that convenient?”
Clara stopped chopping. “What’re you saying?”
“Nothing. I’m just angry.”
“Why? Because he didn’t tell us?”
“Aren’t you pissed off?”
“A little. But I think I’m more amazed. Listen, we all know Olivier likes the finer things.”
“You mean he’s greedy and tight.”
“What amazes me is what Olivier did with the body. I just can’t imagine him lugging it through the woods and dumping it in the old Hadley house,” said Clara. “I didn’t think he had the strength.”
“I didn’t think he had the anger,” said Peter.
Clara nodded. Neither did she. And she also wondered what else their friend hadn’t told them. All this, though, had also meant that Clara couldn’t possibly ask Gabri about being called a “fucking queer.” Over dinner she explained this to Peter.
“So,” she concluded, her plate almost untouched, “I don’t know what to do about Fortin. Should I go into Montreal and speak to him directly about this, or just let it go?”
Peter took another slice of baguette, soft on the inside with a crispy crust. He smeared the butter to the edges, covering every millimeter, evenly. Methodically.
Watching him Clara felt she’d surely scream or explode, or at the very least grab the fucking baguette and toss it until it was a grease stain on the wall.
Still Peter smoothed the knife over the bread. Making sure the butter was perfect.
What should he tell her? To forget it? That what Fortin said wasn’t that bad? Certainly not worth risking her career. Just let it go. Besides, saying something almost certainly wouldn’t change Fortin’s mind about gays, and might just turn him against Clara. And this wasn’t some tiny show Fortin was giving her. This was everything Clara had dreamed of. Every artist dreamed of. Everyone from the art world would be there. Clara’s career would be made.
Should he tell her to let it go, or tell Clara she had to speak to Fortin? For Gabri and Olivier and all their gay friends. But mostly for herself.
But if she did that Fortin might get angry, might very well cancel her show.
Peter dug the tip of the knife into a hole in the bread to get the butter out.
He knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t know if he’d be saying it for his sake, or for Clara’s.
“Well?” she asked, and heard the impatience in her voice. “Well?” she asked more softly. “What do you think?”
“What do you think?”
Clara searched his face. “I think I should just let it go. If he says it again maybe then I’ll say something. It’s a stressful time for all of us.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
Clara looked down at her uneaten plate. She’d heard the hesitation in Peter’s voice. Still, he wasn’t the one risking everything.
Rosa quacked a little in her sleep. Ruth eased the little flannel night-shirt off the duck and Rosa fluttered her wings then went back to sleep, tucking her beak under her wing.
Olivier had come to visit, flushed and upset. She’d cleared old New Yorkers off a chair and he’d sat in her front room like a fugitive. Ruth had brought him a glass of cooking sherry and a celery stick smeared with Velveeta and sat with him. For almost an hour they sat, not speaking, until Rosa entered the room. She waddled in wearing a gray flannel blazer. Ruth saw Olivier’s lips press together and his chin pucker. Not a sound escaped. But what did escape were tears, wearing warm lines down his handsome face.