Seduction by Molly Cochran Page A

them seemed to make a point of sneering at my clothes or wrinkling their noses when I’d come back after cooking school, as if I smelled bad. “Sure,” I said brightly. I didn’t want him to think of me as a total baby.
    “ Chèri ,” Joelle said, clearly talking to Belmondo. Then she went on in French, which sounded liquid and beautiful the way she spoke it, and gestured with her cigarette in its long holder. An ash flew off and landed on my tank top. Joelle ignored it, but Belmondo blasted her with his own rapid-fire French.
    He sounded really angry. Joelle blanched for a moment, but then recovered faster than I ever would have, and turned to me. “Darling, forgive me,” she said in English. “I forget you are a foreigner.”
    Just then the cocktail waitress came back and whispered something in Belmondo’s ear. He looked over at the stage, where the band was playing. The lead singer motioned broadly and spoke into the mike. I knew enough French to understand that he was inviting Belmondo to come up and play with them.
    A cheer rang out from the crowd.
    “Oh, no,” Belmondo said, resting his head in his hands.
    “Go ahead, darling,” Joelle said, touching his neck tenderly. “Everyone is calling for you.”
    Oh God, no, I thought. Don’t leave me here with Joelle. Don’t . . .
    But he did. I guess he had to, with everybody shouting and stomping and clapping. He shrugged apologetically and stood up. “I won’t be long,” he said before leaving.
    Which left me with Joelle, who managed to tear her eyes away from Belmondo long enough to glance at me as if she were observing a hair on her ice cream. I tried to smile. She introduced me to her date, Jacques, who thrust out his chin disdainfully, lit a cigarette of his own, and blew the smoke in my face. Charming.
    “So,” Joelle said, drumming her fingers on the table. “You are Belmondo’s new amant ?” she asked.
    “What? Er, no,” I said.
    “But then how have you . . .” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Never mind. Je m’en fou . So,” she continued, admiring her manicure, “how is it you come to this place with . . .” She nodded toward Belmondo, who was tuning a guitar onstage.
    “Well . . . ,” I waffled. Part of me wanted to slap her and stomp off, but I didn’t want to get all heated over what was probably Joelle’s naturally obnoxious personality. Besides, I understood that she might have felt trumped when I’d shown up her paltry butterfly magic with my canopy of stars. “Not really,” I explained. “I was washing up after dinner, and—”
    “Ah, the dinner. Yes. Very nice.” As an afterthought, she flashed me a big smile. “Sophie told me that you cooked.”
    “Then you were the only one she told,” I said.
    She waved me away. “In France, we do not ask who cooks. That is unimportant.”
    “Then why did she tell you?”
    Joelle blinked a few times, as if she were unable to compute what I was saying. Then she turned to Jacques, who had obviously been waiting for her to pay attention to him because he responded by grabbing her in a passionate embrace. She practically had to knock him out with her purse to make him stop. Meanwhile, onstage Belmondo had begun playing the guitar that one of the musicians had offered him.
    He was wailing. I was shocked at how good he was. His sound was like a cross between Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys and Jimi Hendrix—dark, bluesy, American . “Wow,” I said.
    “He is very fine, non ?” Joelle asked. “All the women love him. And he loves them.” She laughed, high, tinkly, and refined.
    “Oh,” I said. I didn’t want to talk during Belmondo’s performance.
    “He and I are very close,” she said, looking smug. Then, as if a thought had accidentally wandered into her brain, she blinked twice and her face brightened. “I know!” she exclaimed.
    Jacques, who apparently spoke no English, must have misunderstood her enthusiasm, because he grabbed her again, lips thrust