“That sounds fine, Mom.” She was grateful that her mother had invited Richard. Things had gotten very serious between them.
“I think I should probably mention something before you get here.”
“Is there something weird about him?” Meg sounded suspicious as Paris plunged in.
“Not weird,” Paris said cautiously. But all she could do now was tell the truth. “Just different. For me at least. He's young.” There was a silence at the other end of the phone, and she felt like the daughter instead of the mother.
“How young?”
Paris took a breath. “Thirty-two.” There, she'd said it, and Meg didn't answer for a minute.
“Oh. That's pretty young, Mom.” Meg sounded a little stunned.
“Yes, it is. He's very mature,” and then she laughed at herself. In fact he wasn't. He was totally age-appropriate, and sometimes she felt like his mother, except very certainly not in bed. “No, he's not,” she corrected. “He's a perfectly normal thirty-two-year-old, and I'm probably an old fool. But I'm having a wonderful time with him.” What she said was honest at least. There was no pretense about what she was doing.
“That's good.” Meg was trying to be mature herself, but Paris could hear that she was shocked. It was surely a departure from the ordinary, and not one her daughter had ever expected from her. “Are you in love with him?” Meg sounded concerned.
“I think I am. For now. But sooner or later he'll have to go home. We can't do this forever. He's basically taking some time off from his normal work. He can't do that forever either. He's working for a tiny magazine here, instead of
“If you're happy, Mom, that's all that counts. Just don't do anything too crazy. Like marry him.” Meg didn't think that would work although the age difference between her and Richard was far greater, but that seemed more normal to her, because he was a man. It was a shock to Meg to think of her mother with a much younger man. And later Richard reassured her. He didn't think her mother would do anything foolish, although a lot of well-known women seemed to be involved with younger men these days. And after she talked to him about it, Meg felt better.
It was Wim who was shocked. “How old is he, Mom?” he asked in a suddenly high-pitched voice. She told him again.
“That's like me going out with a four-year-old,” he said to bring the point home. Paris got it. He was upset.
“Not exactly. He's a grown man.”
“What's he doing with a woman your age?” Wim said in a tone of disapproval. The whole world was going crazy, as far as he was concerned. His father had left his mother and married a woman barely older than Meg, and they were having a baby, which seemed ridiculous to him, and in bad taste. And now his mother had a boyfriend nearly half her age, or close enough. Or actually the same age as his father's new wife. Young was certainly in. And Wim thought both his parents were nuts.
“You'll have to ask him,” Paris answered, trying to sound calmer than she felt. She didn't want either of her children to be upset, or to look foolish in their eyes and she was sure she did. But Bix reassured her again the next day. He thought Jean-Pierre was a terrific man. And Jean-Pierre himself seemed unconcerned. Whenever she brought it up, he brushed the age difference away, and she didn't feel it as a problem between them. It just sounded so bad. But in reality, it looked fine. No one ever stared at them, or seemed surprised to see them together, which was a relief for her.
And when her children arrived on the day before Christmas Eve, there was an awkward moment when she introduced them to Jean-Pierre. They all seemed to be circling each other and sniffing the way dogs did, checking each other out. But while Paris checked on dinner, Richard made an effort to break the ice. And before she knew it, everyone was talking and laughing, and teasing each other and making jokes, and by the end of the evening, they were friends. Even Wim. He and Jean-Pierre played squash with each other the next morning, and by the time they sat down to Christmas Eve dinner, he seemed more like their friend than hers. Their objections and concerns seemed to evaporate in thin air. It was a lovely Christmas, and at one point even Paris had to laugh. The world really was upside down. Meg was with a man old enough to be her father, who should have been going out with her mother, and her mother was with a man technically young enough to be her son. She was still thinking about it when she and Jean-Pierre went to bed that night. Her children were in the mother-in-law apartment downstairs.
“I like your children very much,” he said with a warm look. “They are very good. And very kind to me. They are not angry to you?”
