Romancing the Dark in the City of Light

by Ann Jacobus

  She hugs her sore ribs. “Along with my favorite flask.”

  “I saw you just as you were getting in the taxi. So I knew you were okay,” he continues. “I just got back from London.”

  “I was fine,” she grumbles. See? she tells herself. He’s sorry. There’s an explanation. But he must have gotten a new cell phone. Although how would he get her number?

  “May I make it up to you?”

  He pulls her to him, kisses both her cheeks, nuzzles her throat, and holds her. Her cold anger softens and melts, as her mind goes blank. Her physical attraction to him clouds her thinking. Plain and simple. He’s a freaking electromagnet who smells like he spilled an entire bottle of good cologne on his jacket. Yet the strong smell of, like, something decaying permeates the notes of spice and grass. She’s going to have to say something about his hygiene habits.

  She pulls away. “How did you find me?”

  He looks at her a beat, almost as if he can’t believe her question. He shrugs. “I’ve been thinking about you. A lot. A few blocks back, I veered down this way. I’ve never been on this street before and I decided to go in there to check it out.”

  “Woooh, psychic.” Not likely.

  Maybe he was in there already and she found him.

  “Come on,” he says, taking her hand. “This is my lucky day.”

  FORTY

  Summer and Kurt walk in comfortable silence. Holding hands in Paris! She’s not only forgiven him, she’s ready to flipping get engaged.

  No, not really. She is along for the ride, though. Like when someone drives dangerously fast. What do they have to do before you say something? Or before you scream at them to stop and let you out. For now, momentum carries her and she’s cool with going along.

  She doesn’t have the energy to fight it.

  They descend into the Métro. She feeds the turnstile a ticket and he elegantly vaults it. She shakes her head in disbelief. The ticket office window is right there, but the man inside doesn’t even look up. Kurt shoots her a triumphant smile. Her pulse and breathing have accelerated, being down here. But it’s like she’s on autopilot.

  Below, the train squeals to a stop and the doors open. They get on.

  Kurt takes the one open seat. “Thanks for the seat,” she says, but he pulls her onto his lap and wraps an arm around her middle. The physical contact makes her draw in her breath. She leans back into him and he caresses her neck with his chin. Then beneath her coat collar and sweater and shirt, he strokes the scar at the base of her neck.

  “Cut it out,” she says, getting up. From her Evian bottle she swallows a slug of vodka.

  They get off. He pulls her by the hand and jogs down a long corridor to another line. In the shadows of the glaring lights, Kurt looks over thirty.

  “What is the rush?” She’s sucking wind.

  He grabs her hand again and they ride the escalator to the platform below. Only a few people wait for the train.

  Kurt raises his chin in the slightest acknowledgment of a Romany woman sitting against the wall in a corner, a sleeping baby in her arms, and a dingy, long wine-colored skirt spread around her. She looks at him with a penetrating expression for a couple of beats then turns her head away.

  “Don’t tell me. You know her, too?” Summer asks.

  He smiles mysteriously.

  “Drink?” he asks, holding out his hand. Summer pulls out her plastic half-liter bottle.

  “To decisions,” he says, grinning. “And peace … of mind.”

  “Yeah, santé.” They each drink. “Where are we going now?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  Kurt leans out to look down the tunnel from the edge of the platform. He holds out his hand. Summer hesitates. He’s way too close to the edge. But he’s playing some sort of game here.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he says. “I’ve got you.” Like at Outward Bound camp—or group therapy. A trust exercise.

  “Which reminds me: Last time I listened to you I was beaten and robbed,” she says.

  He peers into her eyes. “That was out of my control. You don’t know the full story and you never asked what happened to me, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Just trust me.”

  “Fine.” She takes his hand. He pulls her to the lip of the concrete platform. Their toes hang over. She thinks of sparkly ruby slippers, then feels Kurt grip her firmly as they hear the faint rumblings of the train leaving the next station.

  “The light of your love…”

  “Chases the fear away,” she finishes. Thanks, Kentucky.

  Summer holds her breath and struggles to keep her balance above the gravel and the crumpled newspaper inserts and soda cans. Which rail is the high-voltage one? Has to be the far one. If she fell in, and stayed close to this side, she could climb out. As long as she beat the train.

  The train’s rumbling amplifies. She steps one foot back.

  “NO,” Kurt barks, then says softly, “Wait until the last moment.” He grips her hand. “Stay where you are. There’s a gap. The train won’t hit your toes. Just don’t lean forward.” Her head would get knocked off, she figures matter-of-factly, if she leaned forward.

  Last spring, at St. Jude’s, boarding school number four, she went up to the school tower alone. She sat on the ledge, her feet dangling, and one of the kids below had yelled up to her, “Do it! Jump!” She had not been thinking about leaping, exactly, rather about her recent humiliation with the debate team cocaptain-who-shall-not-be-named, and the betrayal of her friend Grace, and her impending flunking of senior year, meaning she had to stay at this hellhole school yet another semester or more. Among other things. She contemplated it at that moment—to fly away, but then didn’t want to give those a-holes below the pleasure, even though it was tempting to aim for one of them.

  People shuffle to be in place to board the train that is now visible in the tunnel. They shoot her wary or disapproving looks. The noise crescendos and the rush of stale, warm air ahead of the lead car blows across her face. The train bursts through the tunnel at the other end, screaming toward them. She closes her eyes, her whole body electrified.

  Not the third-rail-fried way.

  “See?” he says. “Adrenaline rush.” He laughs.

  Brakes screech as the train slows.

  A firm hand grabs Summer’s upper arm. “Mademoiselle!” a man snaps, jerking her backward a second before it passes her. He rattles something off about danger and stupidity. It wouldn’t have hit, or even touched her. Only come very close.

  She looks at Kurt. He’s laughing. She grins but is shaking. She wonders why he just did that. A trust exercise. Ridiculous. A rush, yes. It didn’t make her feel more alive, though, it made her feel completely apart. Like she was watching herself from behind.

  A low-heeled black shoe on the tracks.

  The first time she saw Kurt, he said, “A deliverance.”

  Kurt is easy. Being with him is exciting, or at least unpredictable. No thought or work required. He wants her just as she is. He takes command. She can follow his lead.

  She loves Moony but to become the girl he deserves is impossible.

  FORTY-ONE

  Summer gets out of bed Saturday midday. She didn’t sleep much but it’s time to escape the twisted tendrils of sheet and duvet before they strangle her.

  She’s hungover, exhausted, and last night is foggy and unreal. Did she really go to an AA meeting? Did Mom really tell her that her dad offed himself? Then she played chicken in the Métro with Kurt?

  For chrissakes.

  Moony.

  Did she really kiss him?

  Yes.

  That kiss glimmers like a ruby lying amid the pile of stinking fish guts and coal and rusted car parts that was last night. Like a ruby-throated hummingbird in her rib cage. A gift for that kickboxing fairy.

  Okay, enough lame metaphors. Deserving him will be a freaking long and winding road.

  Thank god, it’s a new day.

  She fi
nds her plastic water bottle and empties the vodka into the toilet. Again. Followed by the rest of the bottle that’s in her closet. And the other full one.

  She had a bad night, but this is a new start. As she pulls on her clothes she studies the framed photo on her dresser of her dad. He’s about her age, in a University of Arkansas Razorback baseball uniform holding a bat. He grins boyishly, rosy cheeked. Handsome.

  He coached her Little League softball team when she was seven. One humid spring evening, a girl hit a homer when the bases were loaded. All those kids came running in and Dad was jumping up and down by home plate, so excited, high-fiving the kids. Then he hugged her and her mom.

  He was healthy once. He taught her to swim and play tennis. He stopped drinking for a long time, too. They read and watched the whole Lord of the Rings series together twice and three times, respectively. They’d sneak off together regularly to get cheeseburgers and blue Icees that they both loved and Mom forbade.

  She wonders what happened to him, how depression set in, the choices he made. Things probably piled up on him like they have on her. And he probably tried really hard to get his shit together. Like she’s trying.

  Summer plops on her bed and opens the history reading on her tablet.

  Those kids in Moony’s mom’s classroom had such life in their eyes. They aren’t old enough to be all jaded and tired. She hopes anyway.

  What’s interesting is that when she’s with kids, she feels like things will be okay.

  It’s always a fair exchange, too. She teaches them how to float and then do the breaststroke; they give back in respect and real growth and laughter. Like that kid who was dying to share the Robot Hamster story with her. She smiles. When she makes an effort, they make one back. That’s more than she can say for most people.

  Kids usually like her, too.

  Why?

  Maybe because they are less discerning? That would be kind of hard to swallow. Older people know better, that she’s a poor excuse for a human being.

  But no, when she was a little, she was very picky. She didn’t like adults who patronized or dismissed her. Like Wild Winston. Kids are judgmental, too. They’re totally perceptive and they don’t like people who try to bullshit or talk down to them. They want adults to be “real” with them, confident and respectful, and help them figure out how to navigate this hard and sad world. And they love to laugh.

  Ha. She could be their example of what not to do.

  She needs to be around kids more.

  She needs to contemplate this further. Maybe talk to Karen.

  Summer glances at the time, and refocuses on reading and taking notes on Charlemagne. But now Moony’s face as he gazed into her eyes in his room keeps interfering. He kissed her, so the next move is up to her. She should call him before she loses the nerve. He probably won’t call her, and she so doesn’t want things to be awkward between them. Then she can study in peace.

  “Hey,” she says when he answers.

  “S’up?” he replies. He sounds neither happy nor unhappy to hear from her. Maybe he’s trying to be neutral, or maybe he’s mad about that kiss.

  Maybe he’s sorry.

  Her stomach sinks. “Nothing much.”

  There’s a long pause. She wants to blurt out, It was freaking hard to call you and you’re destroying me with enthusiasm here. But instead she says, “Um, thanks for going with me last night. This really is the first day of the rest of my life.”

  “Good!” He does say this enthusiastically and it relaxes her a little. “And no prob.”

  She hears talking in the background. “Where are you?”

  “Home.”

  “Are you in the middle of something?”

  “Uncle’s here.”

  “American?”

  “From Kuwait.”

  “Oh. Nice.”

  He says quietly, “Have to take him to the Louvre. Then dinner. You?”

  “Nothing much here.” Another pause. “I guess I’m going to study.”

  “Later, then.” He says it so fast, like he can’t wait to get off. It super-chills her.

  She chokes out, “Okay. Good. Have fun.”

  Disappointment weighs and pokes her like a chain mail T-shirt. As she could have predicted, they’re pretending nothing happened. Or he’s really sorry he kissed her.

  As he should be.

  No, she’s relieved. It is much better this way.

  She pours herself an OJ in the kitchen, and seriously considers adding vodka. Good thing she poured all hers out. She’s just taking a sip when the house phone rings. She jumps.

  “Hello?” she answers.

  “Summer? It’s Kurt.”

  She gulps. “Oh. Hey. What’s up?” She tries to sound casual. Her heartbeat is what’s up.

  “I can’t stop thinking about you. I really need to be with you. Will you come see a movie with me?” he asks.

  She doubts he can’t stop thinking about her, but what the heck. She’s glad.

  She hesitates two seconds. “Sure.”

  “I’ll meet you in front of the Gaumont Ambassade. On the Champs. Seven o’clock? Several movies are showing then. We can choose.”

  “Great. See you there. Um, thanks for calling,” she adds lamely. She needs a break. A movie will distract her fine. There’s no harm in it and if Moony’s going to ignore her, then it’s all she can do.

  A much-needed spurt of energy fuels her hasty change into a gauzy white blouse and a pair of her new skinny jeans. She spritzes on some of Mom’s Dior perfume, combs her hair, and brushes her teeth. She smears a little barely pink lip gloss on her lips.

  It’s not that far, so she walks while the moon rises over the city, disappearing and reappearing beneath drifting, heavy clouds. She mouths the words of a Kentucky song. Don’t deny the depth of the darkness, oh, nooo.

  The multiplex movie theater is surrounded by wall-to-wall people, and cars and elaborate tangles of Christmas lights pack the long Champs-Elysées. A huge queue snakes out from the ticket booths for the eight movies showing. She sees Kurt from a block away. He stands out, standing in line.

  His back is to her, his thick hair gleaming. He holds a cigarette. The collar on his black coat is turned up. And the soft red scarf around his neck flaps in the bracing wind. He turns as she approaches and smiles broadly.

  “Hi,” she says.

  He flicks his cigarette on the sidewalk and embraces her with a leisurely kiss on each cheek. Only a hint of that cologne attempts to mask his strong, unwashed, bitterly sour odor. Does he notice her Dior?

  “I have a present for you.” He pulls a newspaper-wrapped package from his coat pocket and hands it to her.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  He doesn’t answer. She tears off the newspaper to reveal a sterling silver flask, older and more ornate than Dad’s. Beautiful.

  “I can’t accept this.”

  “Of course you can. It’s my fault you lost the other one.”

  “That’s true.” It looks exactly like one that caught her eye at Les Puces.

  “Je t’en prie.”

  “Wow. I don’t know what to say.” So much for refusing expensive gifts from gentlemen.

  “A tiny token of my affection for you.”

  Now all the times she’s paid for them and all the times he disappeared mean nothing. No one’s ever given her such a thoughtful gift before.

  “Thanks.” She gives him a hug. The flask sloshes. “Anything in it?”

  “Open it and see.”

  “Oh. I kind of…” She trails off, then says almost inaudibly, “I’m not drinking.”

  Kurt laughs heartily. “You were last night.”

  “You don’t have to be quite so amused.”

  “It’s very good cognac. One sip won’t hurt.”

  One day at a time. She can’t very well not drink from this gorgeous gift. She pushes Moony from her thoughts. A little won’t hurt. The key is keeping it to a little.

  “‘I can resist a
nything but temptation,’” she quotes, opening the stopper top and taking a slug of strong, smooth cognac. It tastes like heaven. “Aaaah.”

  “Oscar Wilde,” says Kurt.

  “Yep. He’s in Père Lachaise, you know. This is so excellent. Care for some?”

  He takes a pull then hands it back. The bourgeois couple in line ahead give her disdainful looks. Summer takes one more sip, savors the burn, then puts the flask in her jacket pocket.

  “I thought we might see the Chainsaw Chicks movie,” he says. “It’s so deliciously depraved.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “I, uh, those are kind of sick.” That’s the only film up on the marquee that she has no desire to see. She would rather watch an incomprehensible French movie. She can’t believe they are even showing that here.

  “You can close your eyes in the rough parts. It gets easier. This one is very well done and it’s version original.” In English.

  Small hard lines that she’s never noticed crinkle his eyes. He could be a lot older than she thought, which gives her a sort of woozy feeling. That and Chainsaw Chicks. She takes another draw of cognac.

  But he laces his fingers in her gloved hand. Old guys go for younger women, even if they’re homely. Maybe that explains things. But how old is he? Thirties? Maybe it only shows now because he’s been up all night or something.

  “Fine,” she says. “Have it your way.” Her excitement from before has morphed into abdominal dragonflies. Mutant ones on meth. Yet her thick fatigue makes it so hard to think.

  He makes a show of pulling out a smooth black Italian leather wallet to pay. Then makes a show of finding it empty, so Summer pulls out a twenty. She gets the French popcorn sucré and a diet Coke and he gets nothing. She does like standing beside him. Hey, look, everybody! I’m on a date with a hot guy.

  The theater is only half full and smells like stale popcorn, but they sit in the very back with empty seats on either side. He’s still holding her hand like he thinks she’s going to bolt. It has crossed her mind. But she pulls away to open her new flask and pours as much cognac into her “Coca Light” as will fit and chugs. Then he puts his arm around her shoulders.