French Exit

The author details how Frances and Joan met at summer camp when they were young. Joan was an outsider, belonging to the nouveau riche, while Frances was from older money and more popular. She befriended Joan, and although Joan collected many more friends over the years, she is still Frances’s only friend.

While on the phone, Frances debates telling her friend about her current financial problem when a lizard appears and runs across her feet and into her bedroom. She hangs up and calls Malcolm in his bedroom. He comes to her bedroom, but when the lizard darts out from under the bed, Frances tells him to pack their bags and meet her in the lobby. They rent suites at the Four Seasons, and that night, Frances dreams of a plum, just out of her reach. When she wakes up, she orders one from room service but finds it disappointing.

Frances cancels her meeting with Mr. Baker the next morning, and she and Malcolm return to their apartment. The doorman has killed the lizard for them and gives her a letter from Mr. Baker, who wants to meet the following day, telling Frances she needs to face things.

Malcolm is late meeting his fiancée, Susan, for lunch. She asks if he has told Frances about their engagement or made plans to move out of his mother’s apartment. He confesses that he hasn’t, and she realizes that he will never move on. She tells him to leave and, as he goes, wonders why she is in love with him.

Mr. Baker was an admirer of Frances’s late husband, Franklin Price, while he was alive. Franklin was an intimidating lawyer who defended the most indefensible clients. He focused on making money to the exclusion of any ethical boundaries, and defended the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, among others.

Franklin died of a heart attack in his prime, and Frances scandalized society by discovering his body, then leaving for a ski weekend without calling the police. Later, there were rumors that Frances spoke to her cat as if it were the incarnation of her husband, and this strange twist has made her story a legend.

Mr. Baker doesn’t feel guilty about the state of Frances’s finances—he warned her repeatedly over the years, but it only seemed to make her spend more. Now, he tells her that her money is gone, and her property will be repossessed by the banks. She tells him she had planned to die before the money ran out, and he advises her to sell whatever she can before the bank takes it. That night, she tells Malcolm the news.

Frances negotiates with the man they’ve hired to sell their belongings. When he resists her offer, she threatens to burn down the house with her possessions inside, in which case he would get nothing. He agrees to her terms, and after he leaves, she and Malcolm have a drink to celebrate.

While everything in their apartment is being sold, Frances and Malcolm move back into the Four Seasons, where they retreat to their respective suites, and Frances develops an interest in reality television. Joan offers Frances a loan, which she refuses, and then suggests that Frances and Malcolm move into her Paris apartment.

At first, the idea depresses Frances, but they continue to drink wine with their lunch, and the plan steadily looks better. By the time lunch is over, it is decided, and they leave the restaurant holding hands. At home, Frances collects the money from selling their possessions.

Malcolm and Susan go swimming, and he talks to her about when he was younger, at boarding school. He says that before his father died, neither of his parents paid any attention to him, failing to even celebrate his birthday. He hadn’t known his parents at all, and upon the news of his father’s death and his mother’s consequent behavior, he felt only embarrassment.

However, shortly after his father died, when Malcolm was 12, Frances came to the boarding school and took him away. Frances hired a tutor, Ms. Mackey who taught him French and took him out for lunch every day for two years, at Frances’s suggestion. When Malcolm was 14, Ms. Mackey missed several days of work, and he went to her address. When she answered the door, he was shocked to realize that she was poor. He returned home, and Frances discovered Malcolm was in love with Ms. Mackey. She fired the tutor, and he never saw her again. Instead, Frances decided that Malcolm’s education would consist of him going to museums, alone, five hours a day, five days a week.

Listening to this story, Susan thinks about the first time she met Malcolm. She’d just broken her engagement to Tom at college graduation. She was hiding upstairs during a party at her parents’ house when Malcolm came out of her dead father’s closet, wearing his watch. He asked her for a date, and afterward, she let him keep the watch. Their relationship developed slowly and, at first, platonically. She hadn’t expected to fall in love with him. When she told him, he didn’t say it back, but he held her hand.

When Susan discovered that Malcolm still lived with his mother, she was uneasy. Finally, she convinced Malcolm to invite her for dinner, and Frances spent the night subtly insulting her. After Susan left, she tried to convince herself it was normal but knew that Frances would try to keep them apart. Now, in the swimming pool, Susan realizes she was right. Malcolm announces that he is moving to Paris with Frances for an undefined length of time, and Susan realizes she will have to give up on him.

When Frances tries to check out of the Four Seasons, her credit cards are declined. To save their cash for Paris, they sneak out of the hotel. They return to their apartment, but the doorman can’t let them in. Small Frank, the cat, is on the sidewalk, and they take him to Mr. Baker’s office, where Frances picks up their remaining cash, putting 170,000 euros into her purse.

They arrive at the ship terminal to board the cruise they will take to Paris. The ticket agent won’t let them bring Small Frank aboard. Frances decides to leave him, and while the agent is berating her for her heartlessness, Small Frank sneaks aboard the ship. Upon boarding, Malcolm is immediately seasick and takes to his bed. Frances keeps him company, drinking and talking about her past lovers. She tells him about her first day with Franklin, when he ate a cupcake at Tavern on the Green with a knife and fork.

Frances goes to her own cabin, and Malcolm calls her several hours later. His seasickness has subsided, and he has explored the ship and found a psychic medium. He wants Frances to come see the medium with him, but the idea of the future makes her nervous. Approaching the medium’s tent on the deck, Malcolm hears an older woman crying and a younger woman consoling her. He goes into the tent and startles the medium, who shrieks and scares him away.

At dinner, Frances tells Malcolm that a man told her they are five miles above the ocean floor, and she wishes she didn’t know it. A waiter takes Small Frank away, and Frances follows. Malcolm watches people on the dance floor and sees the woman who was crying in the medium’s tent earlier that day. She is wearing a pink gown and a tiara, and throwing confetti. He sees the medium walking by, stops her, and introduces himself. Frances returns with Small Frank, and they invite Madeleine, the medium, to have a drink with them. Madeleine gives Small Frank a funny look, but she stays.

Later, Malcolm and Madeleine drink and talk. He tells her about the tension between Frances and Susan. She tells him that the woman in her tent was crying because Madeleine told her she is dying. They go to Madeleine’s cabin and have sex. When Malcolm goes to leave later, he hears knocking on the door. He doesn’t want to answer and doesn’t want a confrontation, so he stands in the middle of the floor with his eyes closed until the knocking stops.

Frances talks to Small Frank while she gets ready for bed, wondering how she will sneak him into France.

On the last night of the trip, Frances and Malcolm eat at the captain’s table. He is a handsome man, and flirts with Frances, but she appears not to notice. When she asks, he tells her they are actually closer to three miles from the ocean floor, which makes her feel better.

Malcolm talks with the ship’s doctor, who is also at the captain’s table. The doctor tells him that the woman Madeleine predicted would die actually has died. They believe she had a heart attack as the result of being upset after she was told she would die, and Madeleine is fired.

The doctor takes Malcolm down to the ship’s morgue and shows him the woman’s body, still with confetti in her hair. He tells Malcolm that, on average, one person dies for each day they are at sea. Disturbed, Malcolm leaves but is unable to find his room and falls asleep in the corridor. When he wakes, the sun is rising.

Frances and the captain go to his quarters. She expects to have sex with him, but he can’t sustain an erection. He isn’t particularly bothered by this, which she admires. Instead, they lie naked together, and she tells him about her governess, Olivia.

Frances recounts that at a certain point in her youth, around the age of 11, she became beautiful, and people treated her differently. Simultaneously, she became aware that her family was wealthier than most. She began to act cruelly, making cutting comments like those she heard coming from the adults in her sphere. One night, she lashed out at Olivia, who slapped her hard and left without speaking. The next morning, Olivia acted as if nothing happened, and Frances never told anyone. She understood Olivia’s act to be one of pure communication, strictly between them.

After the captain falls asleep, Frances returns to her own cabin. Small Frank meets her at the door with an irritated expression, but Frances refuses to feel guilty.

The next morning before they disembark, Frances drugs Small Frank with Valium and puts him into her purse. After a moment’s thought, she takes the Valium as well. Malcolm sees Madeleine, and they follow her through customs. Frances is acting strangely, and the customs agent warns Malcolm that she can’t die in France.

On the train from the port to Paris, Malcolm sits with Madeleine. She tells him that she can see a green aura around a person when they are dying. Madeleine doesn’t have a ticket, nor the money to purchase one. The conductor decides not to kick her off the train, and after he leaves, she mentions that Malcolm could’ve bought her a ticket, but it hadn’t occurred to him. She leaves, annoyed, and Frances wakes as they arrive in the train station in Paris.