Ch 86 Symposium, II
There was a decided spring to Bonnie's step the next morning as she took the straight-shot Rue du Quatre Septembre from the metro stop at the Place de l'Opéra in the direction of the INHA. And why not? She was in Paris, the air was crisp, the sky blue and she had an exciting day ahead of her. If the sidewalks had been less busy and the behavior not obnoxious, she would have swung her leather satchel as she walked and might even have executed a tiny twirl just for the pleasure of setting the flirty hem of her new dress to flaring. She was in so sunny a mood, she smiled indiscriminately at everyone and everything, and a few people, catching her eye, smiled appreciatively back. One cheeky municipal worker went so far as to let out a wolf whistle as Bonnie passed, a sound she, wisely, gave no sign of having heard.
She'd woken that morning with a far lighter heart, a change she owed entirely to Isabelle. Bonnie hadn't realized, until Isabelle relieved her of it, just how much the burden of not knowing how she'd alienated Bear had weighed on her. By the simple act of accepting as true that Bonnie had done nothing to merit such treatment, Isabelle had given her the inestimable permission to stop endlessly doubting and interrogating herself, and the relief was exquisite. Bear's withdrawal was no less of a mystery on that account, but she found she could better tolerate — and be patient with — being in the dark.
She'd timed her commute so well that, on arriving at the Institute, she had, as planned, the leisure to grab a complimentary coffee, and hobnob with the other attendees. Though she wasn't especially looking for Bear, when she did spot him in the crowd, she didn't hesitate to make her way toward him. He was speaking — or, rather, listening — to a portly, bespectacled gentleman, who, to judge by Bear's expression, was less than a sparkling conversationalist. His eyes lit with relief at Bonnie's approach, and, upon his introducing her, Bonnie greeted the stranger so cheerfully and with a smile so bright, he seemed momentarily dazzled, and, after the briefest exchange of pleasantries, took himself off.
Bear regarded her with a kind of puzzled amusement. "You're unusually perky."
She shrugged airily. "It's a carry-over from last night, I guess. I had such a wonderful time! It's really too bad you had to miss dessert. The crème caramel was spectacular."
"I can believe it. I'm not generally a big fan of mushrooms, but I get now why people rave about truffles."
"And the rest of your evening?" Bonnie forged on before she could lose her nerve. "Did you have fun?"
"It was all right. We went to a bar, had a few drinks. Stayed out a little later than was wise, so, you know…" He raised his disposable coffee cup. "Caffeine."
"Right." She took a swallow of her own French roast, and, her audacity not being quite equal to pressing him for details he seemed reluctant to share, she said instead, "I've been meaning to ask you: who's looking after Danny while you're away? Is he spending the week with Val?"
He hesitated but eventually replied, "No, he's staying with the Jolicœurs. It made for the least disruption to his schedule, and Caro insisted it was no trouble. In fact, to hear her tell it, it's me who's doing her a favor instead of the other way around."
"And it's working out?"
"By all reports. I've managed to get a hold of him or Caro every day, and apparently it's been nothing but smooth sailing."
"That's great. Next time you talk to him, will you tell him hello from me, and that I was asking about him?"
Again, he wavered. Then, "Yeah. Sure," he said, his tone more polite than promising.
Around them, conversations were breaking up, people were disposing of their trash, making for the snack bar exits. "Time to find our seats," Bonnie observed. "Which session are you heading to?"
"'Re-collecting Lebrun.' You?"
"I'm for 'Sincerest Flatterers: Imitations and Counterfeits.'"
They joined the slow-moving exodus. "You all set for this afternoon?" Bear asked as they inched along. "We could meet over lunch if you want, give your paper a last run-through."
This was her moment to admit that, inspired by the Beaumonts' example, she'd revised some of her paper the previous evening, but, as he was unlikely to approve the changes, she kept her own counsel. "I think I'm ready, thanks. I'll probably just find a quiet corner right before, and give my notes a final going-over."
Some hours later, she found that quiet spot in a tea shop she remembered having patronized on her last visit to the Galerie Vivienne. Though it was an easy walk from the Institute, she suspected Le Valentin was too humble an establishment to attract many conference attendees, and she was proved right. She enjoyed a light but satisfying lunch in pleasant solitude, and then, over a cup of fragrant Darjeeling, reviewed her presentation, start to finish, one last time. She had it down practically word-for-word, which should've given her confidence, but, in the event, did little to keep an attack of the jitters from coming on. She was not, unfortunately for her nerves, going to be speaking in the same small meeting room as the day before in front of, at most, thirty or forty people, but, as luck and the conference organizers would have it, in the Institute's auditorium which could easily accommodate an audience five times as large. Picturing herself taking the stage before a packed house of international scholars made her pulse rate quicken, and she was trying to regain her calm when her phone pinged with a message.
It was from Trev. "Thinking of you. Wish I was there. Won't wish you luck cuz you don't need it. You're going to kill it, kid."
She grinned, and texted back, "What are you, psychic? That's exactly the pep talk I needed. Thanks, coach. Talk later."
She reported to the auditorium well before the session's start, but, early as she was, her grandmother and Richard were there before her, waiting in the foyer and brimming with excitement and anticipation. There was no shortage, either, of other friendly faces. Dr. and Mrs. Cummings came over to greet her and Richard, be introduced to Angela, and assure Bonnie of their absolute confidence in her. Likewise, Rosalie Vincent, Henri Perrin, the Beaumonts, and even Étienne Blanchard stopped to wish her well and offer words of encouragement. Bear waited until everyone else had gone in to find seats to take her aside. "You're going to do great," he told her, looking her square in the eye. "If I didn't believe that, you know I wouldn't let you get up on that stage. You fought for the chance to tell this story because you believe it's important. So, tell it with the same passion and conviction that got you here, all right?"
They were just the right words to say, reminding her, as they did, of her commitment to gaining Madeleine the recognition she deserved. "Right," she said, feeling immensely more steady. "Got it."
If there had been a quiz administered after any of the three presentations prior to her own, Bonnie would have failed miserably. Seated in a front-row section reserved especially for the session's speakers, she gave every outward appearance of paying close attention, but in reality her mind too often strayed to her upcoming turn at the mic to allow her any but the most general idea of the propositions being advanced. At last, after a few introductory comments about Bonnie and her paper, the moderator called her up to the stage and yielded her the podium. It was show time.
At first, as she gazed out over the row upon row of red velvet seats and their silent, impassive occupants, Bonnie was seized by a kind of paralysis. In her alarm, she looked to where she knew her friends were sitting, and chanced to catch Bear's eye. He locked his gaze on hers, and, at his sober, encouraging nod, the panic, mercifully, ebbed away. She launched into the requisite thanks to the moderator and conference organizers, and then moved on to more personal acknowledgments: to Étienne Blanchard and Félicien Lavallière, for their help with source materials relating to their many-times-great-grandfather, Eugène; to Drs. Charles Cummings and Rudolph Baer of the Jeffersonian Institute, for their unfailing support and invaluable advice, and, finally, to her indispensable co-investigators, Richard de Clermont and Angela Montenegro, without whose efforts the remarkable story of the woman who came to marry Antoine Lebrun might never have come to light.
Once she was embarked on the meat of her remarks, the well-rehearsed words flowed easily. She suffered none of the technical glitches she'd been dreading, and, with every succeeding point she made without flubbing up or faltering, her confidence grew. She sensed from the stillness in the auditorium and the glimpses she had of their faces that the audience was engaged and interested, and, as for the members of what Bonnie thought of as her personal cheering section, her eye never fell on any one of them without their buoying her up with smiles of support or, in her grandmother's case, pride.
As she approached her final remarks and that portion of them she'd revised the night before, her success to that juncture emboldened her to go with the altered, less conservative version. "So, if not for money or advantage, why," she asked, "did Lebrun and Madeleine marry? What other answer can there be but love? We have all known people…" Here, she let her gaze rest ever so briefly on the Beaumonts. "… or we, ourselves, have been those people who, whether out of fears of rejection or inadequacy, or out of injured pride or weakness in the face of social pressures have lost, or renounced, a loved one, only, sometimes after long years, to be gifted a second chance with them and to find, in pursuing it, that the love we thought forfeited or destroyed forever has survived. I have no proofs to cite, but I, for one, would like to believe that, on meeting again and seeing each other regularly, Lebrun and Madeleine found the courage to revisit the past and forgive themselves and each other any real or imagined offenses, reviving in the process the love that, but for Blanchard's interference, might've blossomed some thirty years before."
She was only a few minutes more in summing up, and it was, finally, with considerable relief and a sense of accomplishment that she thanked the audience for their kind attention and stepped back from the podium. The applause that followed sounded thunderous to her ears, and even the moderator joined in the clapping before resuming control of the proceedings and opening the floor to questions. There were mostly calls for Bonnie to enlarge on, or clarify, certain specific points or details, but there were challenges as well, particularly to the notion that the changes to La Coupe d'amour were a result and a reflection of Lebrun's romantic disappointment, a suggestion one gentleman derided as "sentimental rubbish." Bonnie thought she handled herself well, but was nonetheless not sorry when the moderator, citing the session's running well over time, cut the QnA period short.
She was not allowed a quick escape, however. As, most of the audience heading up the aisles and out of the auditorium, she stepped down off the stage, a goodly number of others came down to meet her, some to make an observation or ask a question that hadn't been allowed, and others simply to congratulate her and share how much they'd enjoyed her talk. One woman held back, and when all the others had gone, introduced herself as a correspondent for Le Parisien. "I was hoping you could spare me a few minutes," she said.
"Oh!" Taken aback, Bonnie looked over to where her friends and family stood chatting together, biding their time. "I'm sorry! I flattered, really, but I have people waiting…"
The woman turned to follow Bonnie's gaze, and nodded. "I see, yes. Tomorrow, then? You're not returning to the States tonight?"
"No…" She wasn't flying back til Sunday.
"Look, I'd really like to do a piece on this," she pressed. "I can meet you anywhere, any time. How's tomorrow morning? At your hotel? It can be as early as you'd like."
They left it that Bonnie would contact her the next day to arrange a meeting, and, that settled, she was finally free to rejoin her friends, and be hugged, patted on the back, and generally made a fuss over. Angela, insinuating her arm through Bonnie's, announced, "I think champagne is most definitely in order, and I'd be very pleased if you'd all be my guests in raising a glass to my granddaughter." She smiled around the loosely-gathered group. "Who's with me?"
They all were, without exception, it turned out. "Lead on, dear lady," Dr. Cummings said. "We're right behind you."