The Adventures of Mademoiselle Mac 2-Book Bundle

by Christopher Ward

  An hour later, the gendarmes were satisfied that nothing was missing and no damage had been done, and the only mysteries were the smell of fog, now scattered, and the sound of gunfire, now disputed. They were more annoyed at the repeated security alerts and the incompetence of the strike-breaking substitute guards. Minus his overalls, wig, and fake beard, he stepped out under the arcade of the Richelieu wing, lit a Gitane cigarette and spotted one of the waiters at the Café Marley.

  “Bonsoir, Monsieur. Follow me.”

  “Bonsoir, Gilles.”

  “Another false alarm?”

  “Oui, I’m afraid so. The fourth this week, or is it the fifth? This darned strike.”

  “Your customary noisette, Monsieur?”

  “Oui, merci, and a tiny Armagnac as well.”

  “Bien sûr. An occasion?”

  “Yes, I’m celebrating a perfect September evening, Gilles.”

  Two

  “You should never ask ‘Do you want more tea? It suggests gluttony,” asserted Penelope, “just ‘Would you like some tea?’”

  She pretended to pour a thimble-sized cup for a stuffed mouse dressed as a ballerina. I knew it was up to me to serve imaginary slices of lemon cake to an expectant Hop the kangaroo, Norm the bunny, and my personal favourite, the long-suffering Bussi the chimp. As Penelope looked on critically, I performed my duties with an experienced hand. I pushed out of my mind the fact that we were many years removed from this sort of thing and concentrated on paying off my debt to Penelope for leaving her at the mercy of Mademoiselle Lesage for a week last summer in Paris while I tried to save the city from perpetual darkness and the destruction of its most important historical monuments. Really!

  I knew that the slightest resistance on my part could bring out the doll wedding finery.

  “Bussi, more ... I mean, would you care for a spot of tea, old boy?”

  Penelope’s eyes narrowed; I was on shaky ground here, although a part of me suspected she was long since done with the tea parties of our preschool years and was just torturing me because she could. I also wanted to borrow her safety pin bracelet, the only cool piece of jewellery she owned as far as I was concerned, for my return trip to Paris. Penelope, as usual, read my mind.

  “You used to love doing the special menus as I recall, Mackenzie.”

  I winced. Only Penelope at her most superior and my grandpa could get away with calling me anything but Mac. I also used to love the Playdough hair salon, too. Penelope sighed and got up, signalling the end of our fourth tea party this week.

  “So, what do you need for your trip? If you didn’t borrow anything, you wouldn’t have any luggage. How about my cute little pirate blouse and the leather vest with the big buttons?”

  “Umm, how about the bracelet that Gerald gave you,” I said meekly, referring to Penelope’s first real boyfriend.

  (Let it be acknowledged that the boyfriend concept was foreign to me. There were some maybes, a couple of could bes, but no wannabes that I knew of.)

  “Pas de problème,” said Penelope, pulling it out of a giant jewellery box and holding it out. She pulled it back just as quickly and eyed me suspiciously. “As long as you don’t wear it with corduroy, denim, or anything Pippi Longstocking would be seen in.”

  That covered my entire wardrobe, unfortunately, but when I pictured the Russian Church on rue Daru in Paris, done up for a wedding, I knew she had a point. Dutifully being Penelope’s paper doll, I suffered through a frilly fashion parade till we settled on a simple velvet dress, short jacket, and boots that pinched like crazy, but which I had to admit looked pretty cool. She slipped the bracelet in place and stepped back.

  “Voilà! Not bad at all.”

  Looking at myself, I suppressed a grin and said, “Okay, if you say so, Madame Chanel.”

  “I see a young tousle-haired Parisian garçon with a shy smile in your future, Mac.”

  “Right. Hey, let’s get our bikes, go to the top of the canyon, and race all the way down through Lower Mandeville. We haven’t done that in ages.”

  Penelope closed her eyes and slowly exhaled. “I’ll have Daddy deliver your outfit before you leave tomorrow. I’m pretty sure my bike’s got a flat.”

  Fashion — la mode, as they call it in Paris — had eluded me completely. My mom and Penelope’s efforts had gone to waste; they might form a support group any day. My mom says every wardrobe needs basics and a few “statement” pieces. My statement is “I couldn’t care less.” Or is it “I could care less”? I can never remember. Mind you, I do appreciate scarves, thanks to Sashay, the bride-to-be, and the fact that a scarf pretty much saved my life. There’s a great ad here: “Stylish! Warm! And it prevents you from tumbling to your death from the spiky rooftop of a twelfth-century Gothic cathedral. On sale now!” But that’s another story, one you may already know if you heard about my first trip to The City of Light.

  Three

  We made it, no thanks to my parents. At the end of a packing frenzy, my mom had to sit on her suitcase. To no avail, my dad tried his best tactics. “Where are you going to put all the cool stuff you buy at the Bon Marché?”

  My mom had to step in when my dad tried out his French on the check-in person at American Airlines. “Voici, ma femme. Voici ma fille. Voici les billets de ma femme et ma fille.”

  My mom did the hissing stage whisper voice. “They don’t speak the language of every destination, you know.”

  Dressed in seasonal finery, Paris looked like a different city than the one I’d seen six months earlier, but just as magical. The seventh arrondisement, one of the twenty districts that make up the French capital, was decorated in dreamy blue and green lights over the narrow streets and there was hardly a Santa in sight. We stayed at the oh-so-cool Hôtel Costes on rue Faubourg St. Honoré in the heart of the fashion district, beautifully decorated and so ready to welcome my mom’s credit card. My dad was excited about the chilled out DJ compilations from the hotel. I cannot lie, I loved the window displays at the Galeries Lafayette and le Printemps on Boulevard Haussmann, and I happily reclaimed kidhood and stood on the little ramp they set up so the tykes can see the mechanical twirling bears and ballerinas. Penelope would be in ecstasy. We skated in front of the Hôtel de Ville, overlooking the Seine. My mom and dad held hands and whispered to each other.

  On Christmas Eve we made our way to the Cathédral Alexander Nevsky, the Russian church on rue Daru, for Rudee and Sashay’s wedding. The side street was jammed with taxis all the way to the Parc Monceau and around the Place des Ternes as Rudee’s fellow cab driver pals, including his best friend and bandmate, François “Dizzy” Caboche, came to celebrate the occasion they all would have bet heavily could never happen.

  Lit by hundreds of candles, the church was packed with a colourful collection of Parisiennes: the riverbank booksellers, known as the bouquinistes, the waiters and waitresses from the bistros and brasseries, and, of course, the cabbies with their wives, husbands, kids, and one extra-large bouvier named Odile. Sashay’s theatrical friends were dressed in capes and chapeaux, in velvet, satin, and sequins in blinding burgundies, shades of saffron and iridescent blue, and of course wearing scarves, Sashay’s trademark. The river rats, Rudee’s pals from the waterfront, seemed to have made the most effort to rise to the occasion, done up in spiffy nautical gear, not a one to be seen chewing tobacco. Blag LeBoeuf wandered in late, rolling his eyes at the grandness of the setting, but it was his date, Tawdry, who owned the spotlight during their entrance, balancing on six-inch heels attached to leopard print thigh-highs and a form-fitting shiny black off-the-shoulder gown. In the tiny sanctuary of the church, playing a relatively sedate version of “La Vie en Rose,” The Hacks, Rudee’s band minus Rudee, wearing matching pink tuxedos, dropped a couple of beats at the sight of Blag’s date. I sat with my mom in the front pew alongside Magritte, the stylish Parisian police inspector, and Madeleine, the taxi dispatcher, whose wheelchair was decorated in ribbons and roses. We watched with pride as my dad filled in adm
irably on organ for Rudee, who was otherwise occupied, cursing to himself in his little apartment above the church, hastily sucking mints to cover his beet breath and tweaking his formidable comb-over into wedding day helmet form.

  The ceremony went off without a hitch — oh, wait a minute, they did get hitched! The Hacks wobbled through a spirited version of the Wedding March. Rudee beamed and Sashay performed an impromptu twirl down the aisle to oohs and ahhs, spinning her wedding veil like the scarves in her gypsy dance. Rudee’s enthusiastic “Do I!” response during the vows broke up the room.

  Afterward, my dad had his arm around my mom, gliding her towards Dizzy’s cab. “Wasn’t that romantic, honey?”

  “Hmm-mmm. Kind of like that movie La Belle et la Bête.” We’d watched the original Beauty and the Beast in French class one time when our teacher had laryngitis, and it was kind of romantic, but I think my mom’s comment had another intention.

  “Never thought I’d see the day.” My dad smiled and shook his head. “And I understand that Rudee is moving into Sashay’s place until they find something of their own.”

  “Sashay has declared her apartment a beet-free zone,” I informed them, “with cooked cabbage only on Saturdays.”

  “Allons-y mes amis Americains!” said Dizzy with a flourish as we approached his car, parked in the cluster of cabs outside the church. My mom eyed the trombone-shaped exhaust pipes and paisley interior with suspicion.

  The Café Taxi, shortened to CAFTA thanks to a couple of burned-out bulbs, was decorated in a scarf motif in honour of the bride, transforming the place into a gauzy supper club, tables pushed to the sides with an area for dancing and mingling set up in the middle. In one corner there was a small stage for The Hacks to perform on. Would Rudee play his own wedding party?

  My parents were clearly mystified by the reception I received as we wove through the crowd, where I was greeted by cabbies, many of whose names I didn’t know.

  “Little Mac, allo!”

  “There she is!”

  “Welcome back, la petite acrobate!”

  Dizzy had been charged with keeping a lid on my Bastille Day exploits from last summer. I introduced the parents to Mink Maynard, the rhyming drummer and vocalist for Rudee’s band, The Hacks.

  “Mademoiselle Mac, I’m glad you’re back.”

  Mink and my dad were soon deep into musician talk. “I hear you guys are doing some of the old songs that Rudee and I wrote back in the day.”

  “Hey King Daddy, what do you say, let’s jam tonight, so I can hear you play,” Mink said, using my dad’s old band nickname.

  Just as the band was setting up on the stage, Sashay and Rudee arrived to cheers and whistles. Rudee rushed to the stage and grabbed the microphone.

  “Hello, partypants!” he shouted. “Merci, mes amis and a special thank-you to my friends who flapped here from America.” Rudee shot me a smile and I managed a little wave back. “My fellow chauffeurs, I no longer have to spend my nights drinking your tar coffee and listening to your wind up my sleeves.” This classic Rudee-ism brought a roar of laughter from the room and an expression of disbelief and amusement from my mom. Rudee pressed on, at times incomprehensibly. “From this foot forward, I will be with my Queen of Dreams, Sashay D’Or! So let’s unwrap this party, toast my beautiful bride, and dance until the cabs come home!”

  It became as wild and celebratory an occasion as anyone could have wished. My mom and I cheered loudly when my dad sat in for Rudee with The Hacks and performed “Transatlantic Train” and something called “Onion Heart.” This was topped only by Rudee doing the organ solo in “Gâteaux to Go” with his nose. Madeleine followed this up by wheeling her chair through the crowd to present the lucky couple with a wedding cake in the shape of a giant beet, in honour of Rudee’s deep love of “the king of vegetables.” Fortunately for Sashay, and all concerned, the icing was strawberry.

  Dizzy asked me to dance, and I was glad my lack of coordination was covered up by his free-form craziness on the dance floor. He caught me smiling.

  “I call this ‘the tree,’” he said, and I could picture the waving arms as branches.

  “Nice! Great party.” I looked around CAFTA at the full-on merriment. “Think you can top this for New Year’s?”

  “Funny you should mention that,” said Dizzy, twirling around like he was at some hippie folk festival. “Every New Year’s there’s an annual taxi road rally. This year it’s hosted by the Marseille Marauders, the nastiest lot of drivers you’ve ever seen. After forty-eight hours of driving the back roads, the race ends up on their home turf.”

  As fascinating as this was, I had a feeling Dizzy had a reason for telling me this right now. I nodded with as serious an expression as possible given that we were on a dance floor and my partner, a full-grown man, was waving his arms Indian god-style, doing “the tree.” To say nothing of the fact that his best friend had recently performed an organ solo with his nose. At his own wedding.

  “The Marauders’ advantage is mighty, given that the trouble-making spectators are almost as bad as the drivers and the road conditions.” Dizzy gave his head a little shake like he was trying to dislodge a bee. “Their leader is Margot Mallard, a most unsavoury woman.” Dizzy’s lip curled at the thought. “Our team, the Parisian Partypoppers ... Rudee’s idea —” I figured “ — won last year, and at our victory party at the Arc de Triomphe, the Marauders vowed revenge.”

  “This sounds amazing, Dizzy, I wish I could be there to cheer you on.”

  “Yes ...” Dizzy paused and pursed his lips. “Madeleine has chosen the three drivers and their three navigators, and this year she assigned Rudee to be Blag’s guide, as a symbol of solidarité, given that they decided to forgive and forget their long, stormy past.”

  “I hope Rudee keeps his cool,” I said. “How is he with directions?”

  “Welllll ...” said Dizzy, “last year, one of the clues involved a ‘fork in the road,’ and Rudee was convinced it was a lunch stop ... you can imagine.”

  I could. “Yes, I get the picture.” I strongly sensed there was more to come.

  “Hmmm, yes ... but it’s a somewhat bigger picture,” he said, looking around to see who might be listening. “You see, Sashay booked their honeymoon on a Mediterranean cruise ship, leaving tomorrow and returning January second to Nice.” Dizzy eyed me with a serious expression, no longer dancing “the tree.”

  “But Rudee will miss the rally,” I said.

  “Exactement,” replied Dizzy.

  “And Blag won’t have a navigator.”

  “Précisement.”

  “And no other driver in his right mind would agree to drive with Blag.”

  “Absolument.”

  “And you’re thinking ...”

  “Vraiment.”

  Really? I thought. Dizzy didn’t look like he was joking, even slightly. “Surely Americans aren’t eligible.”

  “Normalement, non. But you were given the Pomme Verte by Magritte last year, the highest honour for a non-French citizen.”

  “Yes, vraiment.”

  “And after your adventures in the underground together, you and Blag are friends.”

  “Absolument.”

  “And you couldn’t possibly say no to your old pal Rudee Daroo, especially on his wedding night.”

  “Exactement,” I answered mechanically. “No, wait! Dizzy, this is crazy. I can’t do this.”

  “Why not? You would provide a considerable weight advantage, particularly if you weren’t wearing a heavy metal bracelet.” Dizzy indicated Penelope’s safety pin jewellery. “At the very least you’d serve to counterbalance Blag’s weight disadvantage.”

  “I’ve got a flight in two days. And I have a holiday reading list for school. And my best friend Penelope’s birthday party. And my mom would never let me do this in a million years. Did I mention my occasional bouts of motion sickness ... half the time I was in Rudee’s cab, I had my head between my knees practicing my mom’s yoga breathing.”r />
  “Yes, the smell of beets while in motion will occasionally induce nausea.”

  It took a second before he laughed and I realized he was joking, but only about the last part.

  “Dizzy, I’m sorry.”

  He smiled and held up his hand. “It’s okay, Mademoiselle Mac. I understand. Rudee will understand. Blag will be fine — he’d probably rather be on his own.”

  “I feel really badly, Dizzy, but I just can’t be in the road rally.”

  “It’s fine. By the way, did my dancing make you dizzy?” I laughed and he started up with “the tree” once more, so I joined in enthusiastically.

  I’d only seen Sashay from afar this evening, and even though last summer’s events had made us close, she now seemed as mysterious as ever. Whether she was walking down the aisle at the Russian church, dancing circles around a spellbound Rudee at CAFTA, or turning her head to take her vows, her movements were gracious and mesmerizing. I’d seen her take an audience vividly back to their childhood days with her gypsy dance of dreams, and I wondered if she was living out her own dream today. She surprised me by throwing a scarf across my eyes from behind, but I knew from the lavender scent who it was. She embraced me and held me with her eyes as only Sashay can.