Romancing the Dark in the City of Light

by Ann Jacobus

  Summer pulls Moony out the door behind her. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  They get on his scooter under the glow of a streetlight. “No offense,” Summer says, “but just give me a ride over to the bus stop by the Métro.”

  “Okay, you insist.” He starts the motor.

  “If I can completely stop drinking, then I’m not powerless, right?” she says into his ear. “So I’ll stop. No question it’ll help me get my schoolwork done. Among other things.”

  “That’s great,” he says.

  She pauses. “Thank you,” she says softly. “For coming with me.” His generosity floors her.

  He turns his head around. At the same moment she leans forward. Their helmets clunk and their noses brush. They both freeze.

  Then he kisses her on the lips.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Summer kisses Moony back, tentatively at first. She’s drawn in, then carried off in what’s deep and warm as a tropical river that she feels in every watery cell of her being. Through their lips flows a time-lapse video of hot springs bubbling up through soft earth, vast verdant wildernesses budding, growing, and coloring through seasons, under rainstorms of drama, moon phases of heartache, with one sun truth shining above it all:

  Despite the fact that she’s a huge pain in the ass, Moony likes her.

  Maybe even loves her.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Summer is safe and strong and capable when she’s with Moony. When her lips are connected to his, she’s—

  Her eyes pop open.

  She’s not strong or capable. Or safe. She’s a freaking black hole and no one should connect to her. Talk about being in a bad place for a relationship.

  Then Kurt’s cold kiss jolts her with mega-guilt.

  Summer pulls away from Moony’s lips. She cannot do this. She was just kissing Kurt and Moony knows nothing about him.

  But it was so different, so empty, with Kurt. He has some unhealthy force over her and gains strength from her weakness.

  Summer hesitates; Moony does, too. Their faces hover a few centimeters apart. She breathes in the smell of his clean skin, the old leather from the helmet strap. Cookie breath. He’s so right.

  She leans back slowly.

  And she’s so wrong.

  Moony turns around and puts the scooter in gear. Summer holds on to him with one arm and grips the seat edge with the other. They fly across the river to the Métro entrance. She straps her helmet to the back with his bungee cord, and says, “Thanks again. See you.” She doesn’t look him in the eye, even though he’s watching her closely. Instead of standing right there at the bus stop, she runs over to and down the Métro stairs.

  Yes, her heart is thudding, she’s hyperventilating, and it feels like she’s going to die, but she doesn’t care.

  Echoes of that woman witness’s scream from when the lady was killed at Étoile station fill her head as she rumbles along beneath Paris, staring at the grit and old chewing gum on the filthy floors. She tries to make sense of the evening. Her blood buzzes, her stomach roils, she can’t breathe. What should she do? Pretend it didn’t happen? She’s acting like a thirteen-year-old, she knows. On top of everything else. She groans aloud. The noise of the train, the lights, the people crowding near her, it all feels like a glacier chunk is about to crash down on top of her.

  She wishes they hadn’t just kissed!

  No, she’s glad. It’s the one true thing that’s ever happened.

  But she’ll ruin it for sure.

  * * *

  Ice tinkling in glasses tells Summer that Mom is back and sitting in the living room with someone. She smooths her hair and tries to collect herself.

  “Hi, dear,” Mom calls. “Come on in.”

  “Howdy, Summer. How ya been, darlin’?” Wild Winston stands. “Happy Friday the thirteenth.”

  Summer rolls her eyes, but gives him a peck on the cheek. “I thought you left,” she says.

  “Well, I had business in Frankfurt last week.”

  Summer goes to the table where all the bottles are on a shiny silver tray, and makes herself a Perrier. She squeezes a lime slice into it. It tastes shockingly weak. Blech. But clean.

  Winston says, “I visited your school on Wednesday.”

  “You did?” Summer spins around. Crap!

  “You weren’t there.”

  “I was sick.”

  “I talked to the head of the school, the dean of students, and the college counselor.” He swills a swig of scotch.

  “Yeah? And?” She plonks the crystal glass down and crosses her arms over her chest. He is not her parent. Or her boss. He’s a freaking employee, wannabe boyfriend, and she hasn’t liked him since she was six and he talked to her like she was a chubby, useless idiot.

  “Summer, darlin’, you understand what’s at stake here, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve got to pass this semester. Graduate. And then you’ve got to enroll in college as soon as possible. Time’s wasting.” He smiles as if to reassure her that he’s on her side.

  She’s grinding her teeth and stops. “I know. I’m working on it.”

  “I understand you got off to a good start, but that you’re already up the creek in most of your classes.”

  Mom says, “They said you’re still not passing your classes.”

  Summer thrusts out her chin. “I said I’m working on it.” They’re both looking at her hard, trying to read her, trying to figure out why she can’t accomplish this seemingly simple task. “This school is hard. They demand a lot. Coming in the middle of the semester may have seemed like a good idea, but I’m having to learn everything they’ve already done the two months I wasn’t here.”

  “I understand that. But no one can do it for you. You’re a very intelligent girl,” he says.

  Summer wishes the compliment were true. “I have a tutor. My friend Moony. I’ve turned in all my work. I’m preparing for finals. I will graduate.”

  Winston looks at Mom and she shrugs. He says, “The terms of the will are ironclad. Your grandpa saw to that.”

  “So everyone keeps reminding me,” she mumbles.

  Winston ignores her. “And as the executor I have to confirm that you are following them. You gotta help me here a little, darlin’.”

  If he calls her “darlin’” again she’s going to leap over the coffee table and jam her fingers up his nose.

  She sighs. Autopilot responses. Everyone’s trying to get to “yes” here. “Look, I just came back from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Moony went with me. I’ve, um, stopped drinking. That will help me concentrate full time on my studies. I’ve got it under control.” She holds out the glass of Perrier as proof.

  Mom’s eyes open wide. Winston’s surprised, too. “I didn’t realize you had a drinking problem,” he says.

  “I guess it’s gotten worse lately,” says Summer.

  “I—That’s great, sweetheart,” says Mom. She looks like she’s trying to calculate a long row of numbers. “Why didn’t you—Good for you.”

  “That’s great,” Winston echoes.

  “Is there anything else?” Summer asks. She wishes Winston wouldn’t keep hanging around. He’s so annoying. And Mom went away with him. What is up with that?

  “Keep up the good work,” says Wild Winston.

  I flipping intend to, thinks Summer. But not for you.

  For Moony.

  She could deserve him one day. By all that is good, she will deserve him.

  Then she’ll kiss him.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Summer sits at the desk in her room, chewing her nails, and with great focus completes a French assignment. What is Moony doing? What’s he thinking? She reads as much of Dante’s Inferno as she can stand, which isn’t much. Smoke is practically coming out of her ears from the mental effort as she tries to finish reading the assignment on flea-ridden medieval France. She struggles to keep the taste of Moony’s lips on hers from constantly interrupting her thoughts. If she co
uld just hug him daily—like at his apartment, forget about herself against his body, in his arms—she could do anything. Even become the girl he deserves.

  She could also really use a drink. But she absolutely will not. Just for today.

  * * *

  Later, after she’s written the first draft of an essay, she eats a yogurt in the kitchen, then goes to Mom’s room. Her mother’s smoking in bed propped up against her upholstered headboard, reading reports of some kind. Camus is curled at her side asleep.

  Summer knocks on the open door.

  The usual half-full glass of vodka and grapefruit juice sits on her bedside table, on top of a Paris Match magazine. Les Guignols de l’info, the French Colbert Report with puppets, plays soundlessly on her TV.

  “What is it, dear?”

  The old Limoges porcelain lamp painted with a silly Bo Peep shepherdess illuminates a small overnight bag open and half-packed on the floor.

  It reminds Summer of the time when she was in second grade and Mom tried to teach her French. They went around the room in the house in Little Rock naming things like la table, la lampe. Easy ones. That shepherdess lamp was there.

  Mom read her The Three Bears. Les Trois Petits Ours. She lets it roll out of her mouth the way Mom taught her. “Lay twah petee-toors.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Summer didn’t mean to say that out loud. She smiles and leans against the doorjamb. “You really shouldn’t smoke in bed.” Mom only started smoking again since Summer arrived to live with her.

  “It’s my last one. Is that what you came in here to tell me?” Mom puts the bound report down. “I didn’t know you were drinking … so much. I’m proud you’ve taken it into your own hands.”

  “Thanks.” Summer sends a silent thanks to Ouaiba, too, for not ratting her out.

  “I’ve already put the liquor away. Is there anything else I can do? To help?”

  “It’s fine. I know it’s up to me, and uh, I have to learn. How to not drink.”

  But Mom can help. By clearing up something Summer’s been wondering about for years. “I wanted to ask you. You met Dad in your business, right?”

  Mom folds her arms. “Yes. When your grandfather hired my firm.” She ran a public relations company contracted by Barnes Chicken back in the nineties when the public realized how much the company exploited their employees, not to mention the poultry.

  Summer asks, “When did Winston come into the picture?” If he’s going to be hanging around she deserves to know the truth.

  Mom squirms weakly like a worm on a fishhook. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  Summer has her answer. Mom hooked up with Wild Winston before Dad died. Winston is still simpering around even though he and Mom are supposedly history.

  “No wonder you left Dad on the bathroom floor.”

  Mom stubs her cigarette out like there’s a big spider underneath it. “I could let you continue living in the dream world you’ve built around your father,” she says with cold steeliness.

  “I haven’t built a dream world around him.”

  “It’s time you knew what really happened.” Mom pauses and glares at Summer. “He killed himself.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Summer takes a step back and glares at Mom. “I’ve heard this from you before. Dad didn’t take care of himself, drank too much, yadda, yadda, and so on.”

  “No.” Mom doesn’t take her eyes from Summer. “I mean he committed suicide.”

  Summer flinches.

  Stiffens. Flash-freezes.

  She creaks and crackles from the inside out.

  The silence between them condenses.

  “I’ll be damned,” Summer finally says. It’s something Dad might have said. “I knew it. I knew it. Why did you never tell me? Why the hell are you only now telling me this?” Her voice sounds strangely cold and calm to her own ears.

  “Because your grandfather swore us to secrecy. He was mortified that his son killed himself.”

  “You mean everyone lied about it? Was there ever even a stroke at all?”

  “I believe there was a brain hemorrhage from falling. Only a couple of people knew the true story.” Mom sighs and rubs her eyes. “I’m ashamed I’ve kept it this long. In his usual dictatorial way, your grandfather made sure that the public never learned the truth. He had the state government, police, media, everybody in his pocket, so he generally got his way.” Mom shakes her head. “Your father died of an intentional overdose of narcotics. And alcohol, and a fall. It was complicated. But he killed himself. And he was thwarted by that old son of a bitch even in his final act of defiance.”

  The room is tilting. Act of defiance? Summer steadies herself against the wall. “Because he knew about you and Winston.”

  “No,” Mom says calmly. “I wasn’t ‘involved’ with Winston before your father died, by the way. Wally was depressed and alcoholic. A very ill and difficult man who refused all help. But I did not betray him.” She gets out of bed and walks to Summer, holds out her arms. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know how much he meant to you. He loved you very much.”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Mom lowers her arms and sniffs. “You do need to know this. Depression runs in that family.”

  “And I’m just like him!” Summer cries. With stiff ice legs, she strides down the hall and locks herself in her room. She ignores the knock at the door.

  “Sweetheart!” Mom says through the door. “You are not like him! Not like that! Please, open the door.”

  Summer says nothing and waits for Mom to go away. There’s a long silence then, “Summer, listen to me. I love you. I know you. You are your own person. You have your own strength.”

  So much like him indeed. Summer opens one of two vodka bottles still in her armoire, pours some in an empty Evian bottle, then the rest in a glass and downs it. Good thing she hadn’t thrown them out yet.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Summer leaves the apartment. It’s near midnight and she wanders along the boulevard as cars speed by and their wheels hum annoying high frequencies over the cobblestones. Just step off the curb.

  She digs her hands deep in her pockets against the cold. Snow flurries zig and zag at odd angles through yellowish streetlight beams.

  She really wants to look behind her, but won’t. She knows a sixty-mile-per-hour avalanche full of boulders and ice chunks and uprooted, cartwheeling trees is roaring down upon her.

  She wants to scream. Hell yes, they should have told her. A long time ago. So many dark secrets and such an effort to keep her ignorant.

  Her father. How could he? If he loved her. Leave her—on purpose—like that. She wants to kick him. He was supposed to have her back.

  Dad left her unprotected and alone. She knows he didn’t feel like he had a choice. But he did.

  Yet underneath all that churning frozen froth, the big puzzle pieces slide together, like glaciers. She knew it somewhere deep inside. And she completely understands why he wanted to do what he did.

  The anniversary, December 17, is in four days.

  Once when she was eleven, she waited outside of her dad’s study. She wanted to show him her excellent report card. He’d been in there, it seemed, for weeks. She had to screw up her courage to knock. He was just sitting in his reading chair with his head in his hands in the dark. “Dad?”

  He didn’t answer. Or move.

  “Dad?” she said louder, but shakier. She fought to keep herself from running out.

  He put out his hand, at first she thought to shoo her away. But he motioned her closer. He pulled her into a tight, desperate hug. His cheeks were wet with tears. Then he said, “Baby, remember. Don’t back down.”

  Summer turns into a side street and passes a bakery. An old Irish pub beckons next door. She slips inside.

  The copper-haired bartender wears a black and white rugby shirt. He smiles. “Bonsoir, mademoiselle.”

  “Top of the evening.”

  “What can I get you
?” he says with an Aussie accent.

  Summer thinks of Moony’s lips against hers. His hand in hers at the meeting. That hug. She will stop drinking, just not tonight. It’s already ruined, not-drinking-wise, anyway. “Irish whiskey?”

  “You’re eighteen?” For hard liquor.

  “I am.” She’d be glad to show him her Arkansas driver’s license.

  But he doesn’t ask for it. “Neat?”

  “Why not? Make that a double.”

  He pours and she downs it. “One more,” she says. “To savor.”

  “Rough day?”

  “The usual. But thanks.” When she starts telling a bartender her problems, she’ll know she’s in real trouble.

  He obliges. Summer pays then sits at a window table. A South African rugby game is on and a lone patron watches it, gripping his pint of Guinness. She realizes someone is sitting at the bar, very near where she was just standing. An older guy in a longish black coat and hat. As if feeling her stare, he turns around.

  Of course. Kurt is here. The world’s biggest jerk. She can’t believe his nerve.

  Bringing his drink, he walks over. “Mind if I sit down?”

  She stands. “Free country. Mind if I leave?”

  He laughs.

  She downs the rest of her whiskey and walks out. She’s pretty sure France is a free country.

  “Good night,” calls the bartender. Kurt doesn’t follow.

  Once outside in the damp, cold darkness, she cannot help spinning around to look in the window. Sure enough, Kurt’s watching her.

  He comes out before she can decide what to do.

  “You look breathtaking this evening.”

  She knows he’s full of crap. “How’d you get a drink without me to pay for it?”

  He grins. “It was on the house.”

  “You’re a total jerk and I don’t want to talk to you.” Her feet won’t march away though.

  “But you are.” He reaches out for her upper arm, but stops short. He gazes into her eyes. “Summer. I am so sorry about the fiasco in the catacombs. I couldn’t find you afterward and my phone was stolen.”

  He dragged her into the sewers and deserted her amid human bones piled beneath the city of Paris. She was assaulted and almost arrested. He’s narcissistic, probably sociopathic. But his eyes are boring into hers with such love and longing. He traces his cold finger down her cheek. He’s so beautiful she has to look down.