The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier Page B

before I realized he was serious. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I gasped. ‘Let's wait till we get home!’
He laughed and grabbed a stapler. ‘What, you don't like my stapler? How about my straight-edge?’ He twisted the Tensor spot so the light bounced off the ceiling. ‘My mood lighting doesn't turn you on?’
I kissed him and zipped up my dress. ‘It's not that. I just think we should – maybe this isn't a good time to talk about it, but I've been thinking I'm not so sure about the baby thing. Maybe we should wait a little longer before we try.’
He looked surprised. ‘But we made a decision.’ Rick liked to stick to decisions.
‘Yeah, but it's been more traumatic than I'd expected.’
‘Traumatic?’
‘Maybe that's too strong a word.’ Wait a minute, Ella, I thought, it has been traumatic. Why are you trying to shelter him from this?
Rick was waiting for me to say something else. When I didn't he sighed. ‘OK, Ella, if you feel that way.’ He began to gather up his drawing pens. ‘I don't want you going through with it unless you're sure.’
We drove home in a funny mood, both of us excited for different reasons, both chastened by my bad timing. We had just passed the square in Lisle when Rick stopped the car. ‘Hang on a second,’ he said. He jumped out and disappeared round the corner. When he returned a minute later he tossed something into my lap. I began to laugh. ‘You didn't,’ I said.
‘I did.’ He smiled mischievously. We'd often joked about the forlorn condom machine on one of the main streets and the kinds of emergencies that would make anyone use it.
That night we made love and slept soundly.
The day Jean-Paul returned from Paris I was so distracted at my French lesson that Madame Sentier began to tease me.
‘ Vous êtes dans la lune ,’ she taught me. In turn I taught her, ‘The light's on but nobody's home.’ It took some explaining, but once she got it she laughed and went on about my drôle American humour.
‘I never know what you will say next,’ she said. ‘But at least your accent is improving.’
Finally she dismissed me, assigning extra homework to make up for the wasted lesson.
I hurried to catch the train back to Lisle. When I got to the square and looked across at the hôtel de ville , though, I was suddenly reluctant to see him, like the feeling you get when throwing a party and an hour before the guests arrive you want to back out of it. I made myself walk across the square, enter the building, climb the stairs, open the door.
Several people were waiting for help from the two librarians. They both looked up, and Jean-Paul nodded politely. I sat down at a desk, disconcerted. I hadn't expected to have to wait, to tell him with so many people around. I began working on Madame Sentier's assignment halfheartedly.
After fifteen minutes the library cleared a little and Jean-Paul came over. ‘May I help you, Madame?’ he asked quietly in English, leaning over, one hand on my desk. I'd never been so close to him and as I looked up, caught the particular smell of him, of sun on skin, and stared at his jaw line peppered with stubble, I thought, Oh no. No, not this. This is not what I came here for. A quivery panic rose in my stomach.
I shook myself and whispered, ‘Yes, Jean-Paul, I have –’ A slight movement of his head stopped me. ‘Yes, Monsieur,’ I corrected myself. ‘I have something to show you.’ I gave him the postcard. He glanced at it, turned it over and nodded. ‘Ah, the Musée des Augustins. You saw the Romanesque sculpture, yes?’
‘No, no, look at the name! The name of the painter!’
He read aloud in a low voice, ‘Nicolas Tournier, 1590 to 1639.’ He looked at me and smiled.
‘Look at the blue,’ I whispered, touching the card. ‘It's that blue. And you know the dream I told you about? I figured out even before I saw this that I was dreaming of a dress. A blue dress. That blue.’
‘Ah, the blue of the Renaissance. You know there is lapis lazuli in