Rich Rewards by Alice Adams Page A

photo, and a long letter, which said, in part, “No, I have never met your friend Jean-Paul, but I have read about him a good deal in the press. You’d think a handsome man like that would get himself to a better barber, wouldn’t you?”
    The words brought back the nasal arrogance of Ellie’s voice, the loud echoes of inherited money.
    But I gave almost no thought to Ellie that morning, for there was Jean-Paul, staring out at me from a blurred black-and-white photograph. My hands were trembling, and my heart jumped around.
    Ellie was right about the haircut, at least; it was much too short, shaved above the ears, giving him somehow a Middle Eastern look, or maybe Yugoslavian.
    But his face.
    What had been soft and smooth and boyish had hardened; at fifty, or whatever Jean-Paul would be by now, he was leaner, more taut than he had been at thirty. One thing I thought of was how totally wrong Derek had been, in all respects: Jean-Paul had got thin, not fat. And I would have known him anywhere.
    He had a deeply lined high forehead, deep furrows down both cheeks, and still that dark indentation at the bottom of his chin. An anguished, perhaps an angry face. Silly Ellie had cut off the explanatory caption; the picture could have been taken at a political rally somewhere, or in the midst of a strike.
    I was terribly, hopelessly moved by that photograph.
    It was like falling in love with Jean-Paul for a second time, or maybe with a new, even stronger, even more exceptional Jean-Paul. And since I too, the person in love, wassurely older and wiser and in most ways stronger now, the emotion was intensified.
    When I was able to think clearly, or almost clearly, I began to run through various alternatives: I could write to him, or even telephone. After all, I never had, but people did call Paris—Derek was always making such far-off phonings. But I could not work out what to say. And there was always the slight but horrifying possibility that he would not remember me. I used to believe, in a very simplistic way, that one’s own feelings about a person are an accurate indication of how that person feels about you, which is of course ridiculous. I think that for a couple of men, at least, whom I did not much care about, I have been a major love; and it could plausibly be that way in reverse for me and Jean-Paul. There I was, twenty years later, pining away, and he could wonder at the sound or the sight of my name: Daphne
who
?
    The following week Ellie sent me another picture of Jean-Paul, this one clipped from some French newsmagazine.
    The second picture was entirely different from the first, almost not recognizable as the same person. The hair was still short, but tidily, even smartly so, just a trim neat cut. And he was wearing a nice tweed coat—in the first picture his clothes had been as ill-fitting as his hair. A striped tie.
    And he was smiling—a pleased, very interested and very sensual smile. Perhaps the photographer was a woman who attracted him? It was somehow an intimate picture, suggesting that possibility.
    And I did not know which Jean-Paul was the more forbidding, the impassioned political leader, or the sophisticated, elegantly turned out man.
    I had of course assumed love affairs for Jean-Paul, over the years. But I guess I had imagined that he would not haveput in too much time in that way, being so busy. Unlike me. But in that picture it looked as though he had put in a lot of time, a lot of love affairs.
    I could not work out an approach to him, nor what to say once I had thought of one.

14
    One morning Tony Brown came in considerably later than usual, at almost nine. He looked terrible, as though ashes had been rubbed into his beautiful warm brown skin. When he opened the door, I was sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast. I thought he must be sick, but I didn’t like to ask. Besides, we hardly ever had conversations beyond what was necessary in the way of directions from me, and his explanations about