by Alix Nichols
My chest clenches.
Liviu takes after me, which is great because I can look at him without thinking about his father. But when he tilts his head and smiles like this, he’s all Marius. The resemblance is striking.
“Dana?” I hear Thomas’s voice.
He and Liviu are by the door, waiting for me.
I slip into my shoes and grab my purse. “Let’s go!”
When we turn onto Boulevard Poissonnière, I take in the long, barely moving line that slithers outside the theater entrance. “OK, folks, brace yourself for a good half-hour wait.”
“No waiting,” Thomas says.
Liviu and I stare at him, almost expecting him to whip out a magic wand. But it turns out he bought premium tickets for the mezzanine. Those seats come with a drink of your choice, and popcorn, and a perfect view of Le Grand Large—the theater’s famous twenty-one-by-eleven-meter screen.
They also cost a lot. Fifty apiece, I believe. Maybe more. Which means that inviting Liviu and me to “tag along” has set Thomas back at least a hundred euros.
“You really shouldn’t have,” I protest.
Aside from being merely our neighbor, Thomas just opened his practice. Doesn’t he have loans to pay back?
He waves dismissively. “I had a great first month. Besides, it’s a pleasure, trust me. This is Liviu’s first ever James Bond, his initiation to the world of black ops and cool cars. I had to make it memorable.”
What, pray, can I say to that?
We walk in, bypassing the line as if we were VIPs.
On the second floor, I point out one of the wall frescos to Thomas in case he’s never paid attention. “See how it’s part mosaic, part painting?”
He nods.
“It’s an illustration,” I explain. “To a children’s song that was popular in the 1930s when Le Grand Rex was built.”
His gaze travels from the painted scenes to the narrow mirror running along the wall. “A river?”
“The Seine.”
“And the old lady is…?”
“Mother Michel, the heroine of the song, who is looking for her lost cat in Paris.”
We enter the Great Hall and settle into our ridiculously comfortable VIP seats with our popcorn, champagne, and a soda for Liviu. The movie previews begin. I sit back and take a slow, appreciative sip from my flute. It’s hard not to admit that the experience is far from unpleasant, so I try to savor every aspect knowing there might never be a repeat.
I pat my seat and whisper, “A couple of years back, the owner was renovating the Great Hall, and the theater’s Facebook page announced they’d be selling the old foldaway seats for ten euros apiece.”
“That’s cheap.”
“It was the deal of the century.” I cluck my tongue. “I was here at dawn on the day of the sale, as were dozens of other fans of this theater and movie buffs.”
“Did you manage to snatch one?”
“Nope. No one did. Management finally showed up and told us they’d changed their mind and were giving all the seats away to charities.”
His screws up his face. “Bummer.”
“Like you said.” I set my glass down. “It’s honorable what they did, but still, I was so disappointed.”
A short time later, the movie starts. It’s fast-paced, clever, and a lot of fun… until the scene where 007 jumps on rooftops.
I can’t look.
At home when Liviu and I watch TV and there’s a scene involving people and heights, I typically develop a sudden desire to use the bathroom. But that trick won’t work here. Not unless I’m willing to walk in front of a dozen people, blocking their view, and do it again on my way back.
So, instead, I just close my eyes.
Bad idea.
Triggered by the scene in the movie, bittersweet memories rush into my head. Truth is they’re more bitter than sweet. Besides, I’m in Le Grand Rex, having a fun time. The last thing I want to think about now is the tragic autumn of my seventeenth year.
I rub my temples in an irrational attempt to dislodge those thoughts.
But they resist. And then they counterattack.
9
Growing up, I was blissfully unafraid of heights.
As was Marius.
Our courtship from our eight-floor balconies gave us countless things to comment on, from swallows in the sky to tiny people down on the ground. We shared our first kiss out there. When our bodies began to yearn for more, all he had to do was jump over the low panel separating his balcony from mine, and we’d go to my room and make out.
Sometimes, we would watch a secondhand DVD. I’d bought a respectable collection of old movies for cheap at a bric-a-brac sale. Most were from the fifties and sixties, but a good chunk was from the eighties, and quite a few from the nineties. I was determined to watch them all before I finished school and had to look for a job.
One day, we fooled around until both of us were naked in bed with Marius on top of me.
He gave me a questioning look as if to ask, Are you sure?
I wasn’t. Nor was he.
On some level, we knew we shouldn’t do it, or we should do it differently, taking precautions. But we also knew we didn’t want to stop. In that moment with our bodies on fire and our eyes locked, I think nothing short of the Earth’s complete and total annihilation could’ve made us stop.
“Yes,” I said.
What happened next was wonderful. It was even better the second time, and then the third, and then the fourth. Marius bought condoms. The school year drew to an end, but even in the middle of finals, we’d sneak in an hour together. With every tryst, we learned each other’s bodies, our likes, and dislikes.
Both of us graduated with good grades.
Marius got into the law school of his choice. That meant a well-deserved holiday, at last. We had the rest of summer and early September to enjoy carefree lovemaking until Marius’s classes started, and I joined the labor market.
We were having the time of our lives when we got caught.
Marius’s parents went ballistic. There was a lot of yelling in their apartment that night. Most of it was about Marius being too naive and stupid to get involved with a girl like me.
“Just look at her mother,” Mrs. Radu shouted. “Look at what she wears, how she talks, the kind of men she dates. Like mother, like daughter. They’re the worst kind of trash.”
The walls between apartments in our building were so thin we could hear every word.
Some of Mrs. Radu’s tirades were self-directed, regretting they hadn’t moved out of this trashy area earlier, before I got a chance to turn their son’s head.
The next day, I found a note Marius had slipped under our door. He was being shipped across the country to spend the rest of his break with his paternal grandparents. But we’d talk every day and devise a plan. He’d be back in Bucharest before I knew it. He’d be eighteen by then and could live as he pleased.
A few days later, Marius’s parents had the flimsy panel between our balconies replaced by a tall brick wall. Seeing as they were moving out soon, I wondered why they’d even bothered.
Then, in early September, I realized I’d missed my period. By weeks.
I didn’t tell Marius. Instead, I went to the nearest pharmacy and bought a pregnancy test. It confirmed my fears. I must’ve gotten pregnant that first time before we started using protection.
I told Mami. She told Mr. and Mrs. Radu.
They came by late in the evening and offered to pay for my abortion. They told me that if I cared for Marius, I shouldn’t endanger his future.
Mami agreed with them that it was the only reasonable thing to do.
I wanted to talk to Marius about it, but he wouldn’t answer his phone. An appointment was made at the hospital for next afternoon. Mami went to work in the morning, locking me in the apartment on Mrs. Radu’s advice to be sure I didn’t get cold feet and run away.
I was out on the balcony when I heard Marius shout my name.
> “Is that you?” I went to the wall and bent forward.
Grabbing my hand, he kissed it, his eyes on the wall. “What the fuck is this?”
“A wall.”
“My parents’ doing?”
“Yes.” I hesitated. “So, you heard the news. Is that why you came back?”
“What news?” He sounded worried. “What’s wrong, Dana? Are you all right?”
Turned out his grandpa hid his phone yesterday. It made him suspicious. So, he “borrowed” some money from his grandma’s purse, bought a one-way bus ticket, and traveled all the way back to Bucharest.
I told him about the pregnancy.
He said he was going to come over to my place, so we could talk properly in private.
“You can’t. I can’t open the door from inside. Mami has my keys.”
“Then I’ll climb over.”
I began to say it was a dumb idea, much too dangerous, when he pulled himself up onto the railing, gripped the wall and threw one leg around it.
I remember laughing nervously. “You’re nuts.”
He grinned. Then, within a split second, his foot slipped. He lost purchase and fell.
The next thing I remember is his body splayed on the ground.
Pain—duller now but just as bitter—makes my head droop to my chest.
Liviu nudges me with his pointy elbow and whispers, his voice full of disbelief. “Mami? Are you sleeping? Seriously? You just missed the coolest chase scene ever!”
I open my eyes and stare at the screen, but I’m too far gone. My flaming mind refuses to acknowledge we’re in Le Grand Rex in Paris, thirteen years after the morning of Marius’s death.
Grief destroyed his parents. Mrs. Radu had to be put on meds and taken to a special clinic to protect her from harming herself. Mr. Radu coped through rage. When he was home, I could hear him smash things and bellow at the top of his lungs. The day the Radus moved out, he told me it was all my fault.
“You got my beautiful boy killed and my wife deranged,” he said. “I hope you live a miserable life.”
Against Mami’s advice, I decided to keep the baby.
To say I wasn’t ready to become a mother would be an understatement. But I just couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t end that tiny amalgamation of cells, which was all that remained of my love, of my angel. How could I not give it a chance?
How could I not give myself a chance to catch a glimpse of Marius again?
The plan was to contact an adoption agency and ask them to find a loving couple who’d be OK with telling the child about his birth parents, and letting me visit on occasion.
But it’s true what they say about the best-laid plans...
My plan began to go slide off course the day I saw my baby’s face on the final prenatal ultrasound. Suddenly, the concept of visiting him “on occasion” lost its appeal. I knew I’d want more.
The moment I held him against my chest for the first time, said plan came to a screeching halt.
And when he began to suckle, his round face a picture of bliss, the plan stuck its tongue out at me and made a U-turn.
I ended up doing the opposite of what I’d intended to do.
I kept Liviu.
10
The autumn break has started. Liviu is in Bucharest with Mami. I lead a dissolute life of not cooking, going to bed late, and getting up late, since I don’t need to make Liviu breakfast or help him pack for school. Now that my schedule has shifted, I no longer see Thomas in the mornings. In fact, I’ve only seen him once after our outing to Le Grand Rex.
It was at the gym, but we couldn’t really talk because Alcinda’s gang and Manon were waiting for me.
I haven’t tried to tell him that Manon isn’t my partner, and I’m into men. Maybe because I’m still hoping I can give up men altogether. For Liviu’s sake, and for my own, I no longer want to have a boyfriend I can’t respect. As for a man I could respect, why would he be interested in me?
Consequently, tonight, like last night, and the night before, I plan to spend my evening with a good book and a cup of tea.
Just as I’ve curled up in my armchair, Baloo zooms to the door and starts to bark hysterically. There’s a knock on the door.
“Coming, coming!” I call out.
Shushing Baloo, I fumble for my slippers. Must be someone living in the building. Given the late hour, it’s likely Peter, an English exchange student—first chambre de bonne on the fifth floor—coming home from a party at the Cité Universitaire. And he’s just realized he’s locked himself out. Again.
Or it could be Berthe—third floor right of the elevator—needing to run her symptoms by me before deciding if she should call an ambulance. She suffers from stage IV hypochondria, and I’m her voice of reason in times of great panic.
Finally finding my slippers, I rush to the door. As is my habit, I spy through the peephole before opening. Only it isn’t Berthe or Peter. It’s Nico.
Shit, shit, shit!
Don’t overreact, Dana. Reason with him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.”
“I’m completely sober,” he says.
I rack my brain for a polite way to tell him to get his completely sober ass out of my building before I call the police.
“Dana, I value my new job and my new life too much to do anything stupid. You have nothing to fear.”
What do I say to that? Awesome?
“So, will you let me in?” His voice is calm, his tone placating. “All I want is to talk.”
“You could’ve called.”
“It’s not the same as talking tête-à-tête.”
He treated me dreadfully for a year, made scenes, hit me when he was drunk, scared the living daylights out of Liviu… Can’t he see why I don’t want a face-to-face conversation with him? What I want is to never see him again.
“Liviu is away, right?” Nico says. “You’re all alone in there.”
“Have you been stalking me?”
“Oh, come on, Dana, for old times’ sake?” He rolls his head on his shoulders. “Why won’t you give a man his chance?”
“Because I’m not an equal opportunity employer.”
He frowns.
I should’ve refrained from irony. He doesn’t get it.
“You already had your chance, and you blew it,” I say. “Now, it’s over between us. Really, really, completely over.”
He knits his brows. “You don’t understand. I’m a new man now, a different man. Call my mom and ask her, if you don’t believe me. Ask my friends. I will never hurt you again, Dana. Ever.”
“That’s good to hear, but I’m still asking you to leave.”
There’s hesitation in his eyes. I pray that reason will prevail.
“Nah,” he finally says. “Since you won’t let me in, I’ll just camp here and we’ll talk when you come out in the morning.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“I want my second chance, Dana.”
He might be a man transformed, new life and all, but the entitled brat in him is still alive and kicking.
“Newsflash,” I say. “I’m not Jesus. I don’t owe you a second chance.”
He smiles. “You’ll come around.”
I growl in frustration. “You want me to call the cops, is that it? You stupid man. Do you want them to arrest you?”
“Why would they arrest me? I haven’t touched you. I just want to talk.”
Minutes pass.
“You were bluffing,” Nico says. “You’re not calling the cops.”
He opens his backpack and pulls out something that looks like… a sleeping bag? It is a sleeping bag! The bastard came prepared.
Spewing cuss words, I get my phone.
Now what?
I could, of course, execute my threat and call the police. But if it’s true that he’s quit drinking, and landed a respectable job—and I believe he has—I am loath to d
o something that might send him back to square one.
And the bastard knows it.
Someone enters the building. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
It’s the party boy, Peter!
“I’m your concierge’s boyfriend.”
The cheek of him!
“He is not,” I say loudly. “He needs to leave.”
“The lady said leave.” Peter pulls out his phone. “I suggest you leave, or you’ll be forced to.”
Through the peephole, I can’t see Nico camping on the floor, but I can hear the sleeping bag rustle. Then I see Nico rising. His expression is conflicted. I bet he’s trying to gauge how serious Peter’s threat is. When he looks the young man over, I realize he’s sizing him up.
Sweet Jesus, please! Don’t let this happen. Don’t let them brawl on my account.
My prayer has been answered, because Nico shoves his sleeping bag into his backpack. “Fine. I’ll leave.” He trains his eyes on the peephole. “But I’ll be back at the crack of dawn. And we will talk.”
When he’s out the door, Peter checks if he’s really gone.
He returns a couple of minutes later. “I saw him jump into a cab.”
Thanking him profusely, I decline his offer to come down at dawn. He’s done enough.
“I’ll handle it in the morning,” I say with as much self-assurance as I can manage, and send him on his way.
There’s just the minor, teeny-weeny question of how. How should I “handle” my dumb ex when he comes back in the morning?
I dial Manon, but my call goes straight to voicemail. Reception in her building is sketchy, so this comes as no surprise.
Next, I call Jeanne. She used to live in my building, and she’s a friend. Granted, not as close as Manon, but close enough to ask for help. Jeanne and Mat have an apartment in the neighborhood. They split their time between there and Baleville up in Normandy each week. Unfortunately, it turns out they are in Normandy tonight.
On impulse, I dial Thomas. We’d exchanged phone numbers before the movie outing. I shouldn’t be calling someone who isn’t family or even a friend, strictly speaking, at this time of the day. I know that. But he lives just a few blocks down the street.
