Lost in Paris

by Elizabeth Thompson

  That’s true, but I’m not sure we’ll be ready to announce the discovery in ten days, much less incorporate it into the tour.

  “When is your meeting?” I ask.

  “It’s tomorrow.”

  “Is there any way you can push it off a few weeks? At least until after the tour launches?” I ask. “I know it’s important, but right now, we need to put the tour first.”

  “Will it be any easier to get away after everything is rolling?” Marla asks. “I think we’re going to be even busier.”

  She has a point.

  When I hesitate, she says, “This is about family, Hannah, or at least someone who was important to Granny Ivy. Maybe you need to rethink your priorities.”

  I bristle inside, but I do my best to keep a neutral face.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “I could make it a quick trip. Say, down and back in the same day. Leave tomorrow morning and then come back tomorrow night.”

  “But Marla, even if you take the TGV, the trip down there will take hours. It’s not like going from Paris to London. How can you get there, meet with Étienne Armand, and get back in the same day? Plus, don’t forget we have that presentation to Procope brasserie on Saturday afternoon between the lunch and dinner rushes.”

  “No worries, if I can’t do the round trip in one day, I’ll catch an early train Friday morning. So, really, since I’m working Saturday helping you with the presentation, Friday should be my day off. And since the trip is about the manuscript, which could help the tour, it’s sort of work related.”

  “Sort of. It’s not an essential trip right now given everything else we have on our plates. A few days ago, we agreed that we would work hard and be extra focused until the tour launches. Then we will all be due some extra time off.”

  It’s the truth. She agreed to it, but she has that determined look on her face that says she’s already made up her mind. She’s going to Antibes.

  “Will you get me the tour numbers before you go?” I say. “Emma will ask and I’d like to know where we stand on bookings. Two months of tours is a good start, but we can’t build a business on that.”

  “Sure thing.”

  We’ve barely finished the conversation when she’s texting again. My gut tells me she’s not texting with Étienne Armand.

  Something doesn’t smell right.

  But giving her due credit, Marla has surprised me in some regards. I want to believe I can count on her. I’ll never know unless I allow her to show me.

  “Okay, go ahead and make the trip to Antibes, as long as you’re back for the Procope presentation. Is that a deal?”

  “Absolutely. As soon as I look at the train schedule, I’ll send you my itinerary.”

  She turns her attention back to her phone.

  “Thanks, that would be great,” I say. “But before you do that, I need to talk to you about something else. Can you please give me your full attention for a moment?”

  She keeps tap-tap-tapping away, her gaze pinned to her phone. “Sure, what is it?”

  I refuse to speak until Marla stops whatever she’s doing on her phone. After the silence stretches on for a while, she looks up at me, blinking as if she missed something.

  “I’m waiting for you,” I say. “Are you finished?”

  “Of course.” She puts her phone down and sits up straight.

  “Tallu called. She lost her job in London,” I say. “I’ve offered her a temporary job helping with the launch. If she likes working for Heart to Heart and living in Paris, I’ll keep her on to help you with bookings.”

  Marla’s face brightens. “Does that mean I’ll be her boss?”

  “No, if she stays on permanently, it will mean you’ll be working together to book the rest of the tours we need to schedule.”

  Marla frowns. “I hope she realizes she can’t horn in on the groundwork I’ve already laid. I’ve worked hard to establish my territory.”

  That’s exactly the competitive fire I was hoping to stoke.

  “I’m sure T will understand that. I’ll let the two of you work it out, but I have to level with you. I need bookings. We’re ten days out and you haven’t shown me anything beyond the first two months of tours.”

  “Fine,” she says curtly as she stands and gathers her purse. “I’ll get you numbers before I leave tomorrow. But right now, I have something else I need to take care of.”

  * * *

  SURPRISE, SURPRISE. NOT ONLY did Marla not make it down to Antibes and back in a day, like she thought she could do, but she’s been away three full days. She left on the twenty-fourth. It’s early evening of the twenty-sixth and she appears to have fallen off the grid.

  She was a no-show for today’s Procope presentation where I introduced Heart to Heart and Les Années Folles tour to the manager, with the goal of securing a discount in exchange for making the brasserie a meal stop on the tour.

  I managed without her, of course, just as I have my entire life.

  It’s clear nothing has changed. Marla promises the moon and then does as she pleases. I have no idea what she’s up to. The only explanation she offered for the delay was a quick text yesterday saying the trip was taking longer than she expected. When I asked why, she texted that she would fill me in when she got home. Frankly, right now, I don’t have the time or energy to worry about her. I need to invest the best of myself in the business.

  She did give me the numbers before she left. In total, we have almost three months of bookings locked down. But a lot of them came from the main Heart to Heart office, not Marla.

  It’s good to know I have Tallulah up my sleeve. I can count on her. She’s arriving tomorrow. I can’t wait to see her. Right now, her phone is propped up on a pillow. We’re FaceTimeing as she packs for the trip.

  “Did it feel weird not to go to work this week?” I ask.

  “Nah, it’s a relief.”

  “The good thing about this temporary position is if you fall in love with Paris and Heart to Heart, I can make your position permanent. The harder you work, the more you get paid. You’ll be doing me a favor by igniting Marla’s competitive streak. She was doing great for the first couple of weeks, but she’s been a bit scattered this week.”

  “Hello, love. I miss you.” I hear Cressida’s voice in the background. She leans in so I can see her pretty face and then she picks up the phone. “I’m so jealous that T gets to see your new place. When can I come?”

  “Anytime you want. As long as you don’t mind sleeping on an air mattress.”

  Cressida claps her hands, which shakes the phone and gives me a view of T’s bedroom ceiling. “Yay! It will be like glamping. All I care about is seeing you and the sooner the better. I’ll figure out when I can come and let you know. Of course, if it would be better for you, I can stay in a hotel. Oh! And speaking of hotels, why on earth isn’t Marla staying with us while she’s in London?”

  “What do you mean? She’s not in London. She’s in Antibes. She was supposed to get home yesterday, but she was delayed.”

  Cressida looks confused. “Apparently she’s in London now. Or at least she was last night.”

  A bad feeling settles over me. “What makes you think she’s there?”

  Cressida wrinkles her brow. She and T exchange a look. “Maybe I read the picture caption wrong. Hold on, let me look.”

  Cressida sets down T’s phone, returning it to its place on the pillow. I watch her look something up on her own cell. In the background, T moves in and out of the frame with stacks of folded clothing. A moment later Cressida holds her own phone up to T’s to show me the Daily Mail Celebrity’s Twitter page.

  “Look at this photo,” Cressida says. “That’s our Marla having dinner last night with none other than sexy Martin Gaynor.”

  “No. That’s impossible,” I say. “Let me pull up the page on my computer. Hold on.”

  Sure enough, late last night, the tabloid tweeted a photo of Marla sitting at a table with the man I saw pulli
ng out of the driveway that day we went by his house. Martin Gaynor. There was no mistaking that jet-black hair and long, pallid face.

  The caption reads, “Spotted! Reclusive punk rocker Martin Gaynor dines with unnamed beauty tonight at a snug table at The Clove Club.”

  I click on the photo and it takes me to additional pictures of the two leaning in, all cozy-like, at the table. Another shows them looking uncomfortable as they walk away from the restaurant. The final photo shows him holding a door open for her as she climbs into the same car he was driving when I saw him.

  I double-check the date. It was last night.

  Why would she lie to me? Why not just tell me she was going to London to meet up with Gaynor? That’s probably why she insisted on taking the manuscript to Dr. Campbell rather than mailing it, too. She was probably with Martin that night in London before we left for Bristol.

  She’s free to see who she wants, even relive her groupie days for all I care, but why did she have to lie about it? Why is she so adamant that she’s changed her ways?

  “Are you okay, love?” Cressida asks.

  No, I’m not. I feel like an idiot for trusting her. I should’ve seen this coming. “I’m fine. I need to go because I need to take care of something before I leave the office.”

  “Why are you in the office on a Saturday?” Cressida chides. “You’re a workaholic.”

  I shrug. “You know my job has never been the traditional nine to five. It’s especially busy in these days before the tour launches.”

  Tallulah leans in so that her face is in the frame. “No worries, lovie. I’ll be there tomorrow to help you.”

  “I can’t wait, T. Text me your arrival info and I’ll meet you at the station.”

  There’s a chorus of goodbyes before the call disconnects.

  All sorts of thoughts swirl around my brain as I contemplate what to do and how to handle Marla—everything from firing her for lying to me about why she needed the time off to insisting that she buy me out of the Paris apartment, which would amount to selling the place.

  Right now I need some breathing room, so I grab my coat and my keys and head out for a long walk to nowhere.

  * * *

  ON THE MORNING OF the twenty-seventh, Marla texts to tell me her train will arrive at 3:34 p.m.

  You little sneak, I think. I wonder if she’ll come in with a bogus story about meeting with Étienne Armand.

  I contemplate letting her go through the entire spiel before I pull the “gotcha” routine, but the thought of listening to her lie to me twice makes me sick.

  Make no mistake—there will be fireworks. I don’t know how our fledgling relationship can survive this whopper.

  When she gets to the apartment, she’s startled to see me sitting there.

  “Oh! Hannah. I thought you’d be at the office.” She glances at her phone. “It’s only four o’clock. Is everything okay?”

  “How was your trip?” My voice is flat.

  She rolls her bag past me toward the bedroom.

  “It was good. I have so much to tell you.”

  “Do you?”

  She gives me a double take. “Yes, I do. Are you okay?”

  “How was Antibes?”

  “It’s gorgeous down there,” she says as she toes out of her boots. “I mean, it’s the textbook definition of paradise. The weather was beautiful. Sunny with highs in the low sixties. I wish I’d had more time to look around. We’ll need to make another trip because Mr. Armand couldn’t see me. It was basically a waste of time.”

  “Really. A no-show, huh? So your lovely holiday and the money you spent going down to Antibes were all for fun? Not a single business-related thing to show for it?”

  She frowns as she studies me. “Well, in that regard, yes. I mean, it’s my fault. I’ll own it, but it was only three days and they stretched over a weekend. So, really it was only one day—Hannah, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Look, Marla, let’s cut to the chase. I know you didn’t go to Antibes.”

  “Yes, I did. I have my train ticket—”

  “Stop lying. I know you were in London.”

  She flinches.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw a picture of you and Martin Gaynor getting cozy at The Clove Club Friday night.”

  Her cheeks flush and she presses her lips into a thin line. She knows she’s busted.

  I wait for her to speak first. It takes her a minute to find her voice. She walks around to sit on the sofa across from my chair, and I brace myself for another pile of lies.

  “I did go to London, but I went to Antibes first.”

  She digs in her purse and hands me a piece of paper. “It’s my itinerary.”

  I take it from her and verify that it says Paris to Antibes, Antibes to London, London to Paris. The dates match up.

  “Okay, fine. So you thought you’d cloak a little trip to groupie town in family business? You said you’d go down and back in one day or at the most a day and a half, which you knew wasn’t going to happen. You even guilted me into the time off by telling me my priorities were messed up.”

  “It’s not what you think, Hannah.”

  “Then you’d better start explaining. What happened with Armand? Did you get your times mixed up?”

  “Not exactly. I didn’t have an appointment with him.”

  “Marla! You went all the way down there without an appointment?”

  “He wouldn’t return my call. I thought I’d drop in and see him in person. But when I got there, he wasn’t there.”

  I throw my hands into the air, and get up and walk into the bedroom to get my purse. I have to meet Tallulah at the train station in an hour. The sooner I can get out of here, the better.

  She follows me into the bedroom. “Hannah, don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad. I just don’t get it. You’re a grown woman, and if this is how you want to live your life, that’s on you. But you need to take responsibility for the job I hired you to do. In that regard, you did lie to me. You contrived a wild goose chase to hook up with Martin Gaynor.”

  I grab my handbag and coat and walk to the foyer. Again, she follows me.

  “I wasn’t hooking up with Martin Gaynor in London. I know that’s what you’re thinking, but I went because I needed some information.”

  I shrug into my coat and wait for the rest of her bogus explanation.

  “I wanted the circumstances to be different than this when I told you, but…”

  I wait some more.

  “Hannah, I went to London looking for information about your father.”

  My blood runs cold. I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a bucket of ice water.

  “I didn’t want to tell you until I knew I had something solid. There was no plausible reason for a business trip to London. So I figured if I went to the Armand foundation first, I could justify running by Martin’s on the way home.”

  “London is hardly on the way home from Antibes. It takes a half day to get there.”

  “Yeah, eleven hours, to be exact.” Marla shrugs. “That’s why I was gone so much longer than I thought I’d be, but I was out of the apartment and that was half the battle.”

  My heart is pounding so hard I’m afraid I’ll crack a rib.

  “Are you saying you have news about my father?”

  She chews her bottom lip nervously.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then it’s hardly justifiable. I can’t believe you’d bait me like that. After all these years? That’s a new low, Marla.”

  I walk to the door.

  “Please don’t be mad at me. I just— I can’t tell you… yet.”

  I turn back to her. “But you do know who my father is?”

  She nods. “I can’t tell you yet. I need a little more time.”

  She must think I’m an idiot. As I open the door, I say, “I’m going to ask Levesque to recommend someone to sell the apartment because I can’t do this anymore.”

&nb
sp; June 1930

  Paris, France

  Dear Diary,

  I thought Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald had been traveling. As soon as I finished her wardrobe, she told me they were leaving to get away from the crazy life in Paris. But recently, I learned that she has been in and out of hospitals in Switzerland after suffering a nervous breakdown.

  That day at Harry’s Bar, she was so obviously distraught; I feel bad that I didn’t make more of an effort to help her. However, she seemed in better spirits when we met for her fittings. She was elated with the clothes and even paid me on time.

  I had no idea she was teetering so close to the edge until Andres and I bumped into Scott near the Jardin du Luxembourg. When we asked after Zelda, he mumbled something vague. Upon learning he was in Paris alone, Andres insisted we go somewhere for a drink. After a moment’s hesitation, he agreed. Once he’d gotten a few down the hatch, he opened up about Zelda’s ailments.

  Surely having to put one’s wife in an asylum takes its toll, but Scott seemed weary and lifeless. It was as if even our company was too much for him to bear. Scott without Zelda is like champagne without bubbles.

  Something Scott said in particular haunts me. He said it felt like it was only a few years ago that people were stepping aside to let us, the younger generation, run the world, because our young, fresh minds saw things clearly, with hope and ambition. He hung his head and pronounced that perhaps it was time for us now to pass the mantle to the next generation. If we couldn’t live with the intensity of youth anymore, what was the point in even trying?

  Twenty-Four

  January 29, 2019—10:00 a.m.

  Paris, France

  Two days after I caught Marla in the Martin Gaynor lie, Dr. Campbell called. Based on the style of the prose, the age of the paper, and typewriter ink, he is as certain as he can be that the manuscript is the work of Andres Armand.