“Correct and correct,” Maxime said. “Tell them what happened the next week.”
Jacquie smiled. “I came to the match.”
“And?” Maxime became animated.
“And he was brilliant.”
“Three goals,” he said. “I have never played so hard in my life. She was my good luck charm.”
Somehow, I expected them to have met in front of the Mona Lisa or at Monet’s gardens. I suppose it was a cliché fantasy, but I liked it.
Maxime continued. “Then the next week, I went to her apartment to pick her up for dinner, but I was early so I stopped into an art shop, and I see this man putting tiny pin pricks of ink onto paper. I had been painting all my life, but never even considered ink drawings before — and never with the pin pricks. I brought her back to the shop with me, and she told me to give it a try. I said no, but the next week after we went to see a film, she gave me a bottle of black ink and a needle pen. I figured, what have I got to lose? I can invite this beautiful girl to my studio and convince her to take off her clothes perhaps?”
Jacquie burst into laughter and swatted him with our couch pillow. “You were trying to seduce me?! You are such a rat!”
“Trying, nothing. I think if you will recall —” he started.
“Maxime!” she scolded.
He bowed his head in playful deference to his wife. “So you see my wife has brought me nothing but good luck since the day I met her.”
“It’s been a hard few years, though,” Jacquie told us with a serious tone.
“It has, but it was Jacquie who found this beautiful guest house for us to live,” Maxime said buoyantly. “Life will give us troubles, but as long as I have you, I know it will turn out for the better.”
I glanced at Jack, whose eyes had beaten me to the gaze. We contained our smiles. It was always comforting to be with other couples who’ve been through hard times, but were still optimistic about their future together.
In bed that night I told him I thought we made the right choice with them. He agreed. “Are you that in love with me, Jack?”
“Mais oui, cheri,” Jack said, rolling closer to me. “Life, eet will hand me zee troubles, but wis you by my sides, eet weel all be for zee better.” With that, he nuzzled his face into my breasts and muttered something in bastardized French. I knew he was speaking French gibberish, but it sounded pretty authentic as his lips moved down my stomach. Either his “bleus” and “rues” were convincing, or my ability to discern had gone completely out the window.
* * *
During Maxime and Jacquie’s first few days with us, they spent most of their time getting settled. They made a short list of repairs that needed to be done — things that no one would notice until trying to live in the guest house. Tom and Robin were eager to meet our guests, so we arranged a lunch on one of the days that Tom was sealing their windows.
“Do you have anything special you’re planning on working on here?” Robin asked solicitously as she sipped her wine.
“No,” Maxime said charmingly. “We will see.”
How a French accent could make anything sound sexy was beyond comprehension. I’ll be honest. If Jack said, “No, we will see,” I would tell him to get his lazy ass into gear and make a plan. Yet we excused the Frenchman as spontaneous and artistic.
“Both your and Robin’s ankles are broken?” Maxime asked.
Robin jumped in too quickly. “Mine is broken. Lucy’s is just a sprain.”
Oh yeah, well I once had a ruptured disc, I refrained from saying.
Jacquie smiled, utterly unperturbed by the fact that Robin was obviously smitten with her husband. “Would you like Maxime to draw a picture on your cast?”
“Would I ever?” Robin jumped.
“He does hilarious caricatures,” Jacquie said. “Maybe he could do one of you and put it on your foot so you can always be reminded of the funny way he sees you.”
Meow!
Tom pronounced the artist’s name Maxim, like the men’s magazine, not as a dig but as an honest mistake. “You say on your list there’s a crack in the bathroom mirror, but I was in there this morning, and no crack, Maxim.”
“I know, it is crazy!” Maxime said with his usual flamboyance. “I apologize for my mistake. It looked cracked to me, but it is fine.”
“Don’t sweat it, bro,” Tom said. “You just saved these guys a couple bucks. Probably just a hair or something made it look like a crack at the time.”
“No, it was a crack,” Jacquie said. “I saw it.” She paused awkwardly. “I mean, who cares about these little cosmetic things? We are so grateful to be living on this beautiful property with you generous patrons.” She lifted her glass to toast us.
* * *
As I drove Adam to preschool the next morning, my cell phone rang. Anjoli charged forward without introduction. “We’re waiting for Kimmy’s pregnancy test results,” my mother announced. “It takes a few minutes, so we’re doing a little chanting while we wait. I need you to join in. What is that noise in the background?”
“Raffi,” I said flatly, knowing she’d be unfamiliar with the children’s folk singer or his mega hit, Baby Beluga. Surely she’d think it was a song about caviar.
“Well, tell him to be quiet. I need you chanting with us, darling. Can this Raffi person join us in a simple chant for fertility?”
“It’s a CD, Mother,” I informed. “It’s Honky,” I told Adam.
“Honky!” he shouted. “I say hi to Honky!”
“Mother, Adam wants to say hello,” I said, handing the phone to him in the back seat of the minivan.
“Honky, Adam go to school with Max,” he told her. He stopped to listen. “Okay, Adam try.” Then he began speaking unrecognizable sounds. I glanced at him through the rear-view mirror. “Mash mash boo boo,” he struggled.
“Give Mommy the phone, honey,” I said, reaching my arm back. “Are you asking him to chant for Kimmy’s positive pregnancy test results?” I asked.
“What could be more powerful than a baby beckoning another baby?” Anjoli asked. “Was he closing his eyes, darling?”
“I don’t know.”
Anjoli sighed with disappointment. “His eyes needed to be closed so he can block out any distractions. Okay, you close your eyes and repeat after me —”
“Mother, I’m driving,” I said. “Can I call you back after I drop Adam at preschool?”
“The test will be done by then, darling. Can you pull over? Do they really care if he’s a few minutes late?”
I couldn’t believe it, but I was searching for a turnout in the road. As much as I loathe to admit it, there’s a small part of me that holds hope that maybe some of Anjoli’s hocus pocus really could work. After all, what was the harm? If my cousin had her heart set on conceiving a child with an anonymous Ivy League grad student with good teeth and an ear for music, I would support her in that. Isn’t that what family was all about?
I silenced Raffi, taught my two-year-old a chant, and spent the next thirty seconds feeling equally ridiculous and hopeful.
“Shit!” I heard Kimmy cry in the background.
I opened my eyes. “Negative?” I asked.
“Strike one, darling,” Anjoli said cheerfully. “Not to worry, it simply means that was not the baby for us.”
A half-hour later, Spot called from my mother’s purse. I knew it was him because neither Kimmy nor Anjoli had any idea that I was listening.
“I wanted a Libra baby!” Kimmy sobbed.
“There there, darling,” my mother consoled her. “Trust that there’s a plan wiser than ours. Look at the long and arduous journey Lucy had to motherhood. It seemed so difficult at the time, but now we know that Adam was the perfect baby for Jack and Lucy, and he arrived at the perfect time in their lives.” My eyes welled. Who was this kind and sensitive woman? “Now, darling, wipe away your tears and put your chin up. We’ll go to SoHo for lunch and afterwards we’ll buy a knockout outfit for your next trip to New Haven. You
’ll find someone even better this time. Someone even better looking who’s not shooting blanks.”
Chapter Ten
By March, only one thing had changed remarkably. Rather, I should say, one person had undergone a complete transformation of character. She had gone from charming guest to wicked witch in two weeks. In her constant fights with Maxime, she threw plates at him (ours!), overturned furniture (ours again!), and broke a window with her horrific operatic shrill (you already knows whose window it is). I’m not entirely convinced it was her screaming that broke the glass, but the timing was perfect, so I like to think it was her horrendous pitch that shattered the glass. Jack’s and my dream was slowly becoming a nightmare.
There were still a few inches of snow on the ground and a chill in the air around our home. My love for the new place hadn’t waned, though I had grown tired of limping on my slow-healing ankle. I tried to stay focused on what was positive. Adam was enjoying his new preschool. Jack and I were sustaining our marital renaissance. Kimmy was still religiously trolling around Ivy League campuses desperately seeking sperm. Well, that wasn’t necessarily positive, but she wasn’t breaking anything other than a few preppie hearts.
My family remained as crazy as ever. Aunt Bernice called with her weekly Snatch Report, praising with an evangelical zeal the benefits of a hair-free crotch. And Anjoli held steadfast to her motto: “I’m fabulous. Why tamper with perfection, darling?” (Of course, this was incongruous with her lifelong pursuit of healing, but I learned at age eight not to correct my mother.)
Oddly, the house was still in a state of auto-repair.
Jack and I were slightly concerned about Maxime, who seemed frustrated by his lack of creative inspiration. He was pleasant about it, but we could sense he was growing impatient with his inability to complete a single drawing since arriving at our arts community.
“That mall you sent me to was a joke!” Jacquie snapped as she came in from an afternoon of shopping. All she seemed interested in pursuing during her stay in the United States was consumption. It was a close tie between shopping and complaining, and it was tough to tell which was in the lead since she often did both simultaneously.
During her first week with us, I accepted Jacquie’s invitation to go shopping, thinking it would be a nice chance for us to get acquainted. I shot self-conscious and apologetic looks at salespeople as Jacquie pulled at blouse seams and spat that the stitching and fabric were low-quality. She insulted the designers’ choices of color and pattern, then tried to bargain with the saleswomen. “This is more shopworn than something I would find in a thrift store,” Jacquie barked at the owner of an upscale boutique next to the café where we ate lunch. “I’ll give you eighty. Not a penny more.”
The owner of the store smiled politely and explained that the items on the sale rack were already marked down, and that none of her merchandise was negotiable. With a white bouffant hairdo and a long string of pearls that hung down to her burgundy silk blouse, the shop owner looked like the matriarch of a soap opera. I would have been far too intimidated by her regal presence to dare haggling.
“You want me to pay one hundred twenty dollars for a second-hand sweater?” Jacquie snapped as I tried to bury myself under a nearby jewelry counter.
The woman seemed unbothered. “I don’t want you to make any purchases you’re not entirely comfortable with, dear,” though it was clear from her tone that she found Jacquie anything but dear.
Jacquie raised an eyebrow. “Because all sales are final, right?”
The woman paused, patiently, but was clearly annoyed by the exchange. “My dear, I’ve lived in this community and run this business for forty years now. My hope is that customers leave fully satisfied with their purchases because having to return to the shop for a refund is a dreadful waste of time.”
“That advice is the best thing in this wretched little store,” Jacquie shot as she tossed the top over a lavender velvet chair. “Let’s get out of here, Lucy.”
This reminded me of shopping with Aunt Rita.
I bought a pair of chandelier earrings I only somewhat liked just so I could show the shop owner that I was not a pain in the ass like Jacquie.
I hadn’t been shopping with her since that day, but when she returned from her trip to the mall, Jacquie had obviously not changed her ways. In fact, every day when she returned from her shopping excursions, it was with a long list of complaints about everything she bought.
“An absolute joke!” she said, punctuating her disdainful comment by dropping four oversized shopping bags. “Crowded with Americans and their pitiful American clothes.”
Wearing our pitiful American clothes or selling them in the stores? I wondered, before I realized it didn’t matter.
“If anyone ever wonders why Americans are so fat, all they have to do is look at one of your wretched food courts.”
“Jacquie, don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?” I asked.
“You’ve obviously never been to Paris,” she sniffed.
“Actually, I have,” I said. “I adored the people we met there. It’s really quite a gift you have, perpetuating stereotypes about the French while simultaneously ridiculing Americans. Any other entire nations of people you’d like to characterize with sweeping generalizations? Anyway, aren’t you American?” I asked.
“Spending a few years in the U.S. does not automatically convert me to Americanism.”
I laughed. “This is true, but spending an entire two weeks shopping very well might.”
She breezed through the living room, making me wonder why she was in my house and not her own. Jacquie waltzed toward my pantry and grabbed a 12-pack of toilet paper. “Perhaps you can make it through the spring with one roll, but we need more!” She about-faced and huffed out the front door, asking if I knew where to find Maxime.
“Probably in your home,” I said.
“You mean in my shanty!” she said, the door slamming behind her. I watched her storm down the dirt path to the guest houses, wobbling in her absurdly high heels.
* * *
I longed to hear a voice of comparative sanity. I dialed Anjoli’s cell phone.
“Lucy, darling!” she greeted me brightly.
“How are you, Mother?”
“F-a-b-u-l-o-u-s,” she whispered. “I tried your idea. You remember when you suggested walking Spot in the park every day?”
“Oh yes!” I replied. “Is the exercise helping his trichotillomania?”
“No, he’s still chewing at every last hair he’s got on those little paws, but I must tell you, he’s quite the gentleman magnet,” she said, beaming. “I found the most adorable little collar and matching leash for him, and he is the hit of Washington Square Park. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t get stopped by at least one attractive man who wants to quote unquote chat about dogs. I wish I had come up with this years ago.”
“So he still has his nervous disorder?”
“I took him in for chakra spinning, and the doctor said he was simply going through a phase,” she said. “Hello!” she brightly greeted someone in the park. “He’s a toy Chihuahua.” She paused while I heard a man speak. “I know, isn’t he a sweetheart? He’s the most sensitive little soul.” Another pause. “Really?! Well I certainly would be interested in that!”
“Mother!” I shouted into the phone. “I’m still here.”
“Excuse me,” she said. “Lucy, let me call you back, darling. This gentleman says he knows another dog who was cured of trichotillomania by a pet therapist on the Upper West Side who specializes in canine nervous disorders.” She paused again as I heard the man add something. “That’s nice, but my little Spot isn’t anorexic.” She signed off.
I walked down to Maxime and Jacquie’s place. Before I reached the door, I heard them shouting at each other. Maxime accused her of becoming a complete lunatic since their arrival. I couldn’t agree more. Then he began sobbing that he was a failure as an artist. “I have nothing! I sit here all day
and look at the paper and nothing. I do not even have the ideas anymore!” Oh my. I knocked lightly and immediately regretted it. The door flew open and Jacquie stood at the entrance with her hand on her hip.
“What?!” she snapped.
“I’m going in to town to get Adam from preschool and wanted to see if there’s anything you need,” I offered. “Maybe some toilet paper.”
“My husband has lost his art!” Jacquie barked. “Unless you can buy that at your American supermarket, then no.”
“Jacquie!” Maxime scolded. “Do not be rude to our hostess. She has done nothing to you.” He addressed me, “Please, please forgive my wife. When she is tired, she gets very angry.”
“Do not apologize for me!” Jacquie yelled. “I am not a child!”
“You are acting like one, Jacquie!” Maxime said. “Please, Lucy, we need nothing from the town. Thank you for asking.” He then turned to his wife and began speaking harsh words in French. She replied in kind.
I returned to the house and was surprised to see that Jack had come back early from running his errands. He unloaded new tubes of acrylic paint, canvases, and brush cleaner. “Getting ready to do a new painting?” I asked.
“Painting Adam,” he said as I followed him into his studio. I couldn’t help imagining our toddler covered in royal blue. “I’m thinking kind of a cubist thing where each section has him breaking out and doing a different thing.”
“Ah, the fractured life of a toddler?” I suggested.
“Yeah, fragmented but all coming together,” he said.
“Sounds interesting. I heard a poem once written by a mother that was just single words strung together that were elements of her baby’s life. They were obviously all independent words and ideas, but she put them together in such a way that they still made sense, but not really. It was confusing, cluttered, and bordering on nonsensical at times. Still it had a fun, lyrical quality about it.”
“Like kids,” Jack added.
“Like kids. Hey, I’m about to head over to the school to pick up Adam. Wanna join me and maybe we could all do something together? Adam has been saying he wants to go see that new movie about those clay sea creatures.”
The Queen Gene Page 7
