ABCD Prompt: The Twenty-Year Secret

The Twenty-Year Secret
By Alexandra Evans

Isabelle always gets herself into trouble and now I have to be in the middle of it all. Why are girls so stupid sometimes? Don’t get me wrong; I don’t hate females. I am one of them, after all. But I’d rather have a night out on the town with my boys, not sit at a Bistro all afternoon comforting a broken-hearted girlfriend whose American lover left her pregnant in Paris. It had been two weeks since she left him and she had gotten no call, no text, nothing. Kind of the modern French version of Madame Butterfly, you know? Anyway, this was twenty years ago, a time when we were young, around twenty two years old. Isabelle was sobbing about this baby that (surprise!) Wasn’t her husband’s. He was away on business at the time, which set the scene for that American man to have his perfect little rendezvous. Janice was just lonely, is all.

So we had the husband, Jacque, away on business. His wife, Isabel, stayed home and got herself pregnant by an American. This was the dilemma she posed us with twenty years ago. Our other friends told her to contact the secret lover, but that would have been the most ridiculous choice in the world. I mean, Isabelle was drunk 75% of the time she spent with him. It was just a mistake. So I told her to forget about him. Her husband had been wanting a baby, anyway. Why not just pretend the little Parisian American was half of Jacque? So that’s what she did. The happy family lived without knowing the truth until now. And all of the sudden I get a phone call from Isabel claiming it’s my fault. Good lord, what a mess.

This whole predicament seemed to come back into my life right when I answered the phone just a few minutes ago. Isabel was sobbing in-between exasperated breaths as she told me that her husband had just found out that his son wasn’t biologically his. It really was a heap of irony but Isabel found it absolutely devastating. Jacque is even threatening to leave her now because of this! In fact, they’re probably arguing about it right now. It was extremely difficult to hear her over her sobs but the story seemed to unfold somewhat like this:

Clyde, Isabel’s son, had just finished his sophomore year of college and was interested in applying for an internship with a company in France. His study at the lycee is marketing. Evian Water’s commercials appear in this US in English as well as here in French, of course. Clyde’s an amazing linguist and applied for an apprentice marketing manager that keeps in contact with American media in order to promote and sell the water in the States. After a series of interviews and waiting period of a few weeks, he was told that he got the position. This was during the family’s golden time, about a month ago. Jacque and Isabel were the perfect couple. Many people around here were jealous of how well they seemed to get along, manage their household, and take care of a son, who turned out to be quite exquisite. Jacque and Clyde went through their entire life thinking they were father and son while Isabel hid the secret, finding it rather easy to do so considering how well her family had turned out.

Such secrets are often revealed at some point, and this one was revealed through a partner of Evian that Clyde had to correspond with. His boss had asked him to get in touch with some American magazines and ask about pricing for ads in their upcoming issues. He called Elle, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, Seventeen, and Cosmo Girl. Then, he got to Women’s Health, the head of marketing of which was a man by the name of James Hubert Maxton III. They struck a deal, and Clyde’s boss was so impressed by his work that he allowed him to fly to America to oversee the photo shoot that was to take place in New York City at Hubert Maxton’s request.

Much to Clyde’s disappointment, he actually ended up being a nanny for Hubert Maxton’s children during the duration of his stay. On the plus side, he was given free shelter, food, and nightly talks with Maxton himself during which Clyde acted as a type of therapist for the poor man. His family was in shambles; his wife was having an affair with the cook’s brother and his children were all failing in school and proclaiming to drop out when they turned sixteen and get tattoos of their favorite movie stars on their necks. It was a rather sad situation, but the worse of news didn’t come until Hubert Maxton started to go deep into his past, telling Clyde that he still felt guilty for never contacting his French lover back in 1988. He wanted to come back and visit or at least call but felt guilty because he didn’t want his girlfriend (now his wife) to find out.

“Why don’t you try to contact her now?” Clyde asked.

“Oh, God no, my boy. I could never go through with it.”

“Well, why not? I’m sure she would love to hear from you again.”

“I just don’t think I can do it,” Hubert sighed. “It was such a horrible thing for me to do- to just run off like that and never call again. Perhaps it’s better if I let her think I forgot about her. Maybe she’s happy and married like me. I should just let it go.”

“Hubert,” Clyde started, “you need to contact her again, just to let her know you exist. I’m sure she’s been wondering about you for years.”

“Maybe. I don’t know if she’ll want to speak to me, though.”

“The choice is up to you. But as an unbiased opinion, I urge you to contact her,” Clyde got up and proceeded with his previous task of organizing the children’s backpacks.

Over the next few weeks, similar conversations arose until Hubert decided to show Clyde some memorabilia from his rendezvous. Upon seeing the photograph of the slender, dark-haired lover from twenty years ago with her sparkling azure-blue eyes matching the crystal waves of the ocean in the background, Clyde suddenly felt his entire being halt.

“Where did you get these photographs?” Clyde spat out, amazed.

“Well, I took them, of course, during my stay in Paris. That’s Isabel, the one I’ve been speaking of.”

Clyde packed his bags and was back in Paris within three days. A week went by before he found the courage to contact Hubert, who was surprised to hear that he had left so quickly. “Why did you leave so suddenly?” he asked.

“I just felt the need to return home,” Clyde said.

“To Isabel,” Hubert stated.

“To my mother,” Clyde replied.

“I hope you find work with an impressive company,” Hubert said. “If you ever need a recommendation, you have my number.”

“Thank you,” said Clyde.

“Of course,” Hubert smiled from across the universe. “Tell Isabel I said hello, will ya?”

“I will,” Clyde said and hung up.

Through a series of conversations with his mother, who eventually broke down and admitted everything to her son and husband, we have come to this point. I sit, thinking of the story ten times over in my head as Clyde, Isabel, and Jacque sort out the messy pieces of the past. Slowly, they’ll pick them up. But unfortunately, the picture will never quite be acquiesced within the frame that Isabel hung her family in so many years ago. As I have previously mention, I suppose things like this come back to haunt us eventually. Maybe she shouldn’t have listen to me at that café on the summer day of our youth.

The family will be fine. I’m banking on a phone call from my dear Isabel tomorrow saying everything’s sorted out. It always is between those two.