Paris, Adrift

by Vanda Writer

  She stretched her arm across the back seat, feeling the softness of the leather. “A little piece of heaven.”

  “You wish he was here instead of me?” I couldn’t look at her as she answered, so I looked out the back window.

  “I never said that.”

  “You said Richard was supposed to be here.”

  “He was. That was the plan before his mother became ill. I know how to handle Richard when we’re together in a husband-wife situation. I don’t know what to do with you. That’s all I meant.”

  “Do with me? Like a poodle?”

  She laughed. “I don’t think of you as my poodle. It’s uh, two women, uh. . . the world’s set up for a man and a woman so I don’t know how. . . Oh, I can’t do this. Look, Al, I don’t have the words to explain. You’re the one who’s good with words. But since we’re on the topic of Richard . . .”

  “Do we have to talk about him?”

  “No. Except—there is something I probably should tell you because of your involvement with my career. Richard’s been, uh, talking about having a baby.”

  “Then let him have it and leave you out of it. You’re too old.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s not safe to have a baby at your age. You’re thirty-eight. You could be forty before you get pregnant. That’s dangerous.”

  “Forty. I haven’t heard it said out loud before. I keep trying not to think about it.”

  “Then don’t. You don’t have to. We’re still building your career. It’s going to get much bigger. Now is an important and sensitive time.” Dan Schuyler’s face whooshed through my mind. My stomach turned over. “No. You cannot have a baby.”

  “Should I tell Richard you absolutely forbid it?”

  “Yes! Jule, you’ve never talked about wanting one. Is this something you want?”

  “Well, it’s something women are supposed to want. All the magazines say you’re not a real woman until you have a baby. My gynecologist said I should hurry. If I get much older it wouldn’t be advisable for me to get pregnant, but if I don’t have a child, she said I would it regret it for the rest of my life. Haven’t you ever wondered. . . ?”

  “No! Jule. You are a real woman. No baby could make you any more real than you are right now. You don’t need a baby. You need to sing.” I turned to stare out the window again. “Thinking of him on top of you—sweating, huffing and puffing, making ugly gurgling sounds. He’s hairy, isn’t he? I bet he is. All hairy like a gorilla, bouncing up and down on you and slobbering all over you and putting his thing inside you and—”

  “My goodness,” she laughed. “You make it sound like such a miserable ordeal.”

  “Well?”

  She put a hand on the side of my face and, bending toward me, she kissed me, and oh, wow, did she kiss me. “Take your clothes off,” she whispered.

  “Are you out of your mind? Someone could come.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Jule, we’re not kids anymore. We can’t do things like we used to. We have a whole stateroom upstairs where we can—”

  “Not there. I can’t. I want to see you naked against these red cushions.” She kissed me again and started to unbutton my blouse.

  “Jule, no, this is not the place.” I held her hands in mine; I imagined Dan Schuyler opening the car door behind her. I’d been waiting for almost a year and four desperate days on this ship to be this way with her. Damn that Schuyler. If I pushed her away now, would she hate me forever? She loved having sex in places you weren’t supposed to.

  “I know what you like, Country Girl,” she said, running her fingers up one of my legs. I was melting at her touch. There was no Dan Schuyler, no betrayer, no Broadway musical. “I bet Bette Davis and Paul Henreid didn’t do this in the back seat of their car,” she said as she unsnapped one of my nylons and pushed it away from my garter belt. Her tongue dabbed at mine and I was falling, falling . . .

  There was a bang. I jumped away from her. “My God! What was that? We’re not alone down here.” My heart pounded. And not with passion.

  Juliana looked out the window. “A police dog.”

  “A police dog!”

  “In a crate. A German Shepherd. Not loose. My goodness, calm down. You’d think someone was after you. Poor guy, stuck in that crate. And he’s none too pleased about it. Can’t say I blame him. They keep the dogs their owners are taking to Europe down here. Relax. Why so jumpy? You need this.”

  She slid her hand under my skirt and unsnapped the second nylon.

  “Uh, Juliana, we shouldn’t . . .”

  “I know.” Her fingers crawled up my leg again. I was growing more powerless by the minute. She slid to the floor and pulled my underpants down to my knees.

  “Uh, Jule . . .”

  “I know. We shouldn’t, but I gather I’ve put you through a lot this trip. This’ll be my gift.” She slid my underpants down to my ankles.

  “Oh, Jule,” I moaned, “you are making it so hard for me to be sensible.”

  “Good.” She slipped off my shoes, then pulled my stockings and underpants all the way off. She tickled the insides of my legs. My good sense had almost evaporated. “Uh, uh, Jule, suppose someone walks by the car.”

  “Smile,” she said as she put her head under my skirt.

  Chapter Seven

  Alone on the deck, my body wrapped tightly in a shipboard blanket, I lay on a chaise lounge. We were moving quickly toward Le Havre, and yet it felt as though we weren’t moving at all. The whole world had gone to sleep. There was only me and the ship and the largest sky I’d ever seen. No stars. We were drifting in the upper half of a huge eggshell with a visible line marking where the sky met the ocean. It wasn’t hard to imagine why the early explorers feared falling off the edge of the earth.

  I stood, dropping the blanket. I was so small within that expanse of sky. A dot in the ocean. Barely seeable. And yet—I knew. In that moment, I knew what I had never known before and may never know again. I mattered . . .

  * * *

  It was dark and cold as we stood on the deck of the ship watching the tugs pull us into the dock at Le Havre, France. I could smell the thick fishy smell of the water and hear the slosh of the ocean against the side. We stood huddling near the railing, our coats wrapped tightly around us. It must have been the damp cold that was keeping us awake at half past three in the morning.

  Despite the cold and dark, the deck was alive with activity. Stewards ran back and forth with luggage, and women held onto their hats, fighting against the wind. People scurried every which way looking for family members, friends, and misplaced luggage. Waiters ran about with trays of coffee, drinks from the bar, bowls of Post Toasties in milk, and blankets to keep the cold at bay.

  Scott leaned heavily on the railing, looking down at the water as the ship came close to the dock and ropes were thrown to the waiting workers. He wore a tan cashmere jacket that I was sure Max’s tailor had made. I stood near the back wall beside an empty chaise lounge, watching him. Had there been any sign? Anything that would point to him as my betrayer? How do you look within another person’s heart to see what’s truly there? I had to give it up. Scott and I would be working together in Paris. I couldn’t work with him in a cloud of suspicion, and he’d done nothing to make me suspect him. I had to give it up or I wouldn’t last this trip. He was my friend. I needed to hang on to that. Unless he did something that made me think . . . He wouldn’t. We were going on this foreign adventure together.

  He lit a Lucky. “Scott,” I said, running over to him. “Don’t tell me you’re still smoking.”

  “Oh, yeah. One or two or nine a day.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t expect to like it so much. I should stop, shouldn’t I?”

  “I do
n’t know. I thought your religion . . .”

  “Yeah, well, this trip has given me time to possibly rethink some things.”

  “No kidding? Like what?”

  A few stevedores jumped onto the ship and worked together to secure it. The waves rolled gently under our feet.

  “Hey, Scott,” the sax player said, coming over to us. “I don’t like the way they’re handling the instruments down there. I’m worried.”

  “Let’s go,” Scott said as he led the way down the steps to the lowest deck.

  He’s so conscientious, I thought. If he’d done what Dan said, he would literally shrivel up and die of guilt.

  I turned and saw Dan Schuyler talking to Juliana. My heart sank into my stomach, and for a moment, I didn’t move. Was he telling her? Blackmailing her right on the ship? Implicating me?

  He offered her a cigarette and she accepted. She only smoked when something upset her. He lit her cigarette and then his own. I took a deep breath and marched over to them.

  “Hello, Dan,” I said with the strongest, most commanding voice I could muster. It was the first time I’d called him Dan.

  “Hello, Alice. Or should I call you Al?”

  “Alice will be fine, Dan.” I tried to stand taller and make my voice deeper.

  “Well, Miss Juliana,” Dan said, “it’s been a pleasure sailing the ocean with you. I know the time will come when I shall have the honor of working with you and your great talent. You belong on Broadway, and I am just the man to bring you to that majestic height.”

  “I appreciate your kindness, Mr. Schuyler—Dan, if I may.”

  “You may.”

  “Alice told me that you have a script you’d like me to consider.”

  “Yes!” He beamed.

  “But I am a nightclub singer. That’s where my career began and that’s where it’ll end. I love the closeness of the audience, the personal contact.”

  “Well, maybe Miss Huffman can convince you. What do you say, Miss Huffman? Are you going to convince Miss Juliana that Broadway needs her?”

  “Juliana does what she thinks is best for her career.”

  “Oh, does she now?” He grinned at me like we were co-conspirators.

  “Well, I must join my party. I’ll undoubtedly see you both in Paris. Won’t I, Miss Huffman—Alice? With good news.” He nodded at us both and left.

  “What is he talking about? What good news? I’m not going to do his play.”

  “I know. He likes hearing himself talk.”

  “You’re sure there isn’t something I should know?”

  “No. Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  She took a puff of her cigarette and blew out the smoke as we floated under the inky dome of sky that spread over us. Passengers exited down the gangplank. Juliana joined them with me following behind her. As she stepped onto solid ground, she lit another cigarette that she bummed from one of her fans. She was oblivious of the large muscled stevedores in torn T-shirts that were rushing past us onto the ship to get the trunks. They yelled to each other in a hoarse French that I surmised was laced with French cuss words. The night was still thick with dark, and the air was wet and smelled of salt. Lights from a nearby bridge sparkled in the distance.

  I had no time to wonder at my new surroundings or marvel at the strange sounds of another language dripping easily from the tongues around me. There was work to do. “Scott, Scott,” I called, running toward him as he put his suitcase down and lit a cigarette. His eyes scanned the crowds, looking for me.

  “We’re over here.” I pushed through the people hurrying to greet loved ones. “You get yourself, the guys, and the instruments through customs. The train’s supposed to be on the other side. When you get to Paris, take everything over to the Lido before you check in at the hotel. Juliana and I will meet you at the hotel this evening for dinner.”

  He nodded and headed toward the musicians, who were lighting up cigarettes.

  Juliana stood near the docks, her silk shawl draped loosely over her head. She stared out at the ocean as she lit another cigarette. There was something bothering her. It worried me. It worried me that what was bothering her was me. Me being here with her in France. “We’re not Shirl and Mercy,” echoed through my brain. What had she meant? I walked over to her. The sky seemed a little lighter and the moon a little fainter. A yellow beam from an approaching tugboat floated through the early morning fog. The Seine lapped rhythmically at the dock. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Home,” she sighed and blew out a stream of smoke.

  Chapter Eight

  I took a sip from my brandy. “Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?” Juliana asked, stepping into my room. She wore her peach and white chiffon bathrobe. “It’s only nine in the morning and you’ve been up all night. You don’t want to end up singing, ‘Sand Man,’ down in the hotel lobby. Do you mind that I walked in without knocking?”

  “Of course not.” There was a small pain at the bottom of my stomach that she even needed to ask.

  “I wanted to thank you, Al.”

  “For?”

  “For this. Arranging the separate accommodations.”

  “Oh, that.” I took my drink to the picture window, pushing aside the curtains. Beyond the window was a shallow balcony and beyond that—Paris.

  “Well, we do have this convenient door between us,” she went on.

  “That’s because it’s a suite.”

  Paris was out there and I should be overjoyed, but all I felt was weighed down and burdened. The oppressive heat in our unair-conditioned room wasn’t helping. Juliana and I were in separate rooms with a “convenient door” between us, and Dan Schuyler lurked beyond these walls, ready to tear down everything Juliana and I had worked for.

  “This is a lovely hotel you put us in.” She went on trying to make light conversation. “I guess my room is larger than yours, especially for Paris. Rooms are usually so small here.”

  “You’re the star.”

  “But both are decorated nicely.”

  “No, they’re not. A lot of beat-up wood.” I sipped my drink and continued to stare down onto the street. Richard, not wanting to spend too much money on our Parisian experiment, had reserved a moderately expensive hotel. Juliana’s canopy bed was the most striking thing in the suite with its many-layered, lush-green curtains draping the bed in delicate folds.

  “The rugs are shabby and the elevator shakes,” I went on.

  “Perhaps. I’ve been going over the schedule you arranged for me. It’s quite extensive.”

  “Let me see.” I put my drink down on the desk and sat on a nearby chair. “This schedule’s impossible. You can’t do this.”

  I’d set up a grueling schedule for Juliana to keep her so busy Richard would have no time to . . . to do whatever he might want to do with her. But now Richard wasn’t here; I was. It was me who was stuck with this schedule. Damn.

  “You get right to bed,” I told her. “Now. You’ve got a gigantic day tomorrow. I’ll work on getting you out of some of this.”

  “You must have thought all of that was important when you made the arrangements. I’m not complaining. I know you’re only doing what’s best for my career.”

  Am I? I looked down at the list in my hand. She was booked at the Lido for two weeks. That’s all I could get, but I was hoping for an extension. In between rehearsing at the Lido, I had arranged for her to be interviewed on a few French radio stations and I’d set up some live television appearances. In case they didn’t extend her at the Lido, I had her booked at a club in Provence and another in Marseille. No breaks in between. She was scheduled to open the new show at the Lido in only three days. That would barely be enough time to load in the sets, rehearse the costume changes, and get comfortable on a stage she wasn’t used to. Billy Pres
ton, the director who’d been working on this new show with her in New York, wouldn’t be flying into Paris until tomorrow night. How could I have done this to her?

  “Let’s go out tonight,” Juliana said, sitting on my bed. “It’s your first night in Paris. We can’t spend it in the hotel sleeping.”

  “We’re here for your career. You need to be in top form. That means lots of rest.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll rest, but let’s go out tonight.”

  “You’ve got to eat.” I picked up the house phone. “Bring up a glass of . . . Huh? What? English?”

  “Let me try,” Juliana said, taking the phone. She made some lovely sounds into the phone and my heart swelled. She held the phone against her breast. “He does speak English, but only to certain people. You just became one of those people. Don’t abuse the privilege. His name is Monsieur Girard Fournier. Address him as Monsieur Fournier and always begin with ‘bonjour’ before requesting anything. When you’re ready to hang up, always say ’merci monsieur.’ He’s on during the day.” She handed the phone to me.

  “Uh, hi there. Bring up a glass of—”

  “Monsieur, monsieur!” Juliana whispered loudly.

  “Monsieur!” I shouted. The monsieur shouted back at me, “Bonjour!”

  “Oh, yes! Sure. Bonjour! Bonjour!”

  Juliana hid her eyes behind her hand, shaking her head.

  “Bring up a glass of orange juice and one scrambled egg white for Miss Juliana. Thanks. I mean, merci, Monsieur Four—Girard.”

  Juliana moaned, “Fournier. Never call him by his given name. You don’t know him. The French don’t understand our informality.”

  I hung up the phone and both Juliana and I took a relieved breath.

  “I can’t eat before I sleep,” Juliana said. “I’ll get fat. You eat. I’ll drink the orange juice.”

  “You have a long way to go before you get fat. You have to eat a little something or you’ll be a rag.”