Hidden in Paris

by Corine Gantz

  By the time Lola’s daughter woke up, Lucas was driving past Place de la Concorde, rue de Rivoli, Jardin du Luxembourg, and the Louvre, and Annie didn’t try to stop him. Lola said “Oh, Lia, look at the beautiful old buildings. The Eiffel Tower. This is it, Lia! We are in Paris!” Lia looked unimpressed, but on Lola’s face was a touching expression of hopefulness and vulnerability. Whatever kind of woman Lola might be, Annie understood that she was before everything a mother. And in that single way, she and Lola were the same.

  Lola felt drained of all strength. What had she done? But she needed to be strong as Annie introduced her boys who uncrossed their arms to shake her hand gravely. Simon showed no sign of waking up, so Lola carried him over her shoulder fast asleep from room to room, conscious of the three pairs of eyes that followed her every gesture and, of course, of Lia’s anger at her. The way Annie’s boys bombarded her with questions inquisition style and argued with each other confused her. Was she making a good impression on them? “Your baby, there,” Laurent told her, “he’s drooling all over your shoulder.”

  “So, Einstein,” Maxence answered. “That’s why he’s a baby. Duh!”

  “How tall are you?” Paul, the five-year-old, asked.

  “That’s rude to ask.” Maxence said.

  “You’re rude,” Paul responded.

  “Put a lid on it, all of you,” Annie said, and, to Lola’s surprise, the three boys did.

  Annie took Lola and Lia up the creaking stairs and made a dramatic pause, her hand on the knob of a room. “Lola. I’m giving you the pink room, but I must warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart.” They entered a large room basking with warm light. Lola felt a bit of a shock at the sight of the almost entirely pink room. In the center was a smallish canopy bed with a powder pink gauze curtain. The window that opened to charming rooftops was draped with sumptuous candy-color striped silk. The only furniture was a miniature desk painted glossy red, an antique armoire lacquered in black, and an armchair covered with raspberry velvet. “I reupholstered it,” Annie said, like an apology, “with vintage fabric. It’s a bit like stepping inside a box of valentine chocolate, this room, no? But I had fun. It’s my girly-girl room.”

  “I love it,” Lola exclaimed, meaning it.

  “The walls were a piece of work. Took me forever to mix the plaster evenly and get just the right shade.”

  “Did you make that?” Lia asked, pointing to slightly darker polka dots painted haphazardly on the walls.

  “Not finished yet.”

  “And that?” Lia showed the gauze veil on the canopy, which was covered with miniature silk daisies.

  “I used hot glue, stupidly, and the glue kept on melting the gauze. A real drag. In typical fashion, instead of stopping and getting the right glue, I continued. When I start being creative, I’m possessed.”

  “It’s pretty,” Lia said.

  Lola took notice of this rare show of endorsement. “This is charming and lovely,” she insisted.

  “Well, it’s...me,” Annie responded. “I bet you guys are accustomed to the best.”

  The children’s room did not get the same response. The room was barely large enough for the two children’s beds and the large trunk between them. The smallness of the room and the low, slanted ceiling gave it a tree house feel. The wallpaper added to the effect with a mossy shade of green adorned with rather gory hunting scenes, dead ducks, guns and scattered feathers.

  “I’m not sleeping here,” Lia exclaimed.

  As on cue, Simon started whimpering.

  “The room’s plenty ugly, I must admit,” Annie said matterof-factly. “It’s got the previous owner’s touch, and I never got around to decorating it.”

  Lola tried to put Simon down, but he climbed up her body like a small marsupial and reassumed his position. “Oh, it will be just fine,” she said.

  “I hate this place. I’m still not sleeping here,” Lia said.

  “They’re starting to feel the jet lag,” Lola apologized.

  Annie looked at Lia. “Think of it as a blank canvas. We can make this room anything we want it to be. Sky’s the limit.”

  Lia considered this. “Pink like the other one?”

  “If you can convince my boys. They hate pink. I personally think it’s the new black.”

  “I like purple, too.”

  “Only if you help me. I can’t do it by myself,” Annie responded.

  Lola watched the exchange between her daughter and this perfect stranger with incomprehension and a maybe a tinge of jealousy.

  How did this materialize?” Lucas cried out in delight an hour later when Annie placed a steaming dish of chicken lasagna and a large Salade Niçoise in the center of the dining room table. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Annie said for Lola’s benefit. She did feel a touch of pride at her planning skills. She had prepared the lasagna and washed the ingredients of the salad the day before, then warmed up one dish and tossed the other with homemade vinaigrette, and a meal was ready to eat within a half hour of arriving from the airport.

  It did not get easier to find things to say during dinner. But thank heavens for Lucas who spoke at length about various American presidents, foreign policies, current art exhibitions in Paris that she had to not miss, the weather, and whatnot. Lola responded the best she could, eating with one hand, an impressive balancing act since Simon was back to sleep over her shoulder, but she spoke charmingly, making every effort to seem approachable and tried, unsuccessfully, to include her daughter in the conversation. Meanwhile, Paul and Laurent goofed off throughout dinner and Maxence wasn’t making eye contact or speaking. But since Annie was herself having trouble making eye contact, could she blame him? Maxence was staring, and that was rude, but then again, what was she doing? She did not so much look at Lola as detail her inch by inch, goggling at her, counting the pores on the skin of her nose. She found no flaw, though she wondered about that mouth. Where did she get that mouth? Was it from an Angelina Jolie body part catalogue? Whoever had mouths like this? And her breasts were huge. Huge!

  After dinner, Lola took Lia and Simon to bed and Annie walked Lucas to the door. “Your job here is done,” she whispered to him. “Very well done. Please be back tomorrow at 6:00 AM sharp for further assignments.”

  “Would 4:00 AM be too soon?” he whispered back. “As a matter of fact, I never want to leave this house again.”

  “Oh, she’s that hot, huh?”

  “There’s something too perfect about her makeup, though,” he said, whispering lower. “And her nails are strange.”

  “How strange?”

  “They seem fake.”

  She laughed, “they are fake.”

  Lucas opened his eyes wide, “how can one fake nails?”

  “Never mind. It’s an American thing.”

  “Her lips,” he said wistfully “are... pornographic. And those breasts...”

  “Always the poet,” Annie laughed as she pushed him out of the house. She rounded up the boys and together they tiptoed upstairs, whispering and giggling, unclear as to how to navigate a house that already smelled and sounded different. In bed, peeking from under his blanket, Maxence said, “aren’t they weird? I think they’re really weird.” She straightened the cover and moved the hair away from her nine-year-old’s eyes. “What’s so weird about them?”

  “How do I know?” Maxence shrugged.

  “How tall are they?” Paul wondered, his eyes closing already.

  “It’s time for bed,” she said. She went from Maxence, to Laurent, and then to Paul for kisses and hugs.

  “I love you a gazillion,” Paul said in her neck.

  “I love you a googolplex,” Annie whispered back.

  Annie went back downstairs to clean the dishes, relieved to be finally alone with her thoughts. She filled one of her Japanese cast iron teapots with water. Each time Johnny had come back from Japan, it was with a teapot, each one a small piece of art. “For your collection,” he would say.

>   “Why do you call it my collection? It’s your collection,” she remembered saying.

  “It’s my collection for you.”

  “I think I should come along the next time you go to Japan. Choose a collection for myself.”

  “Next time? What’s the big hurry?”

  She put the teapot on the stove and began cleaning the dishes. Of course she never ended up going to Japan, but that’s hardly what bothered her. What bothered her is that she no longer had any desire to. Here she was, encouraging strangers to start over, but the fact of the matter was, she was stuck in her solitude, her circular thoughts that revolved around a single day less than three years ago. She rinsed a pan and moved it to the drying rack to the right of the sink.

  “Your water is boiling,” said Lola’s voice.

  Annie jumped. “Oh goodness, I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Lola was wearing jeans and had taken off her makeup. Her face looked a bit strained from lack of sleep, but beautiful. “Didn’t mean to make you jump,” she said as she took the pan from the drying rack and began to wipe it dry. Annie cringed in horror. Now, during her teatime? Her solitude, invaded? “You don’t have to do that!” she said rather bossily. “You must be exhausted. Go to bed!”

  Lola seemed nonplussed by her tone. “I want to,” she said nonchalantly. “I could use a cup of herbal tea too.” She took a wet plate from Annie’s clenched fingers and began drying it. “I guess I’m the one who gets to sleep in the duck room tonight. Lia and Simon are sound asleep in my pink bed. So,” she added, “Lucas doesn’t live here, then?” Annie was appalled. Did she want to make conversation now? “Heck no!” She said.

  “Have you ever been married?” Lola asked.

  “Once,” was Annie curt response.

  “You’re divorced?”

  Annie’s answer came out sounding rehearsed. “My husband, the love of my life, was killed in a car accident two and a half years ago. D.O.A.” Lola looked at her and stopped wiping. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “So am I, believe me,” Annie said, removing her plastic gloves. She resigned to the fact that her solitude was ruined for now. Would any place in the house be safe from now on? She offered Lola a cup of tea, and the two of them stood at the sink. Annie did not invite Lola to sit down in the hope to hurry things up. Maybe she should have. Lola was tall enough to make her—along with the entire kitchen—seem smaller. And shouldn’t she have looked worn out from all those hours of traveling? Instead, in her jeans and white shirt, she had a calm, groomed air about her, a quiet loveliness and effortlessness that was mesmerizing. Annie’s inadequacy flared up in a big way. Lola pulled up a chair and sat at the kitchen table without being invited to. Of course. This was her house now. Annie sat down too, feeling defeated. “If you want to call your husband, or ex, or someone this is the perfect time,” she told Lola. “It will be morning for him.”

  Lola took a sip of her tea. “Truthfully, I’d like to postpone that a while.”

  Annie had a vague premonition. “What do you mean by a while?”

  Lola seemed to be stalling. “What do you mean?”

  Annie looked at her significantly.

  “Mark should be coming back home from Atlanta in two days,” Lola finally said. “I wrote a postcard and mailed it to him from New York where we changed planes on our way here. So...”

  “So?”

  “So, with a little luck, he’ll be fooled for a while.”

  “You. Did. What?” Annie gasped.

  “I sent a postcard from--”

  “You did not take your children and fly to another country without his okay, did you?”

  Lola stared at her cup. “Well, it’s very complex.” she said with a bit of a rattle in her voice.

  Annie’s heart began pounding. Was she harboring fugitives? “You’re not doing anything illegal are you?” She had sounded terribly accusatory and belligerent and regretted her forcefulness immediately. Lola open her mouth to answer but Annie spoke instead, trying to soften her stance. “You did say on the phone that he was abusive.”

  “It’s a question I keep asking myself,” Lola said. “What’s the definition of abusive?”

  “Is he physically violent?” Annie asked. At that point, she needed Lola to say yes.

  Lola hesitated, looked away. “He, yes, he is violent...can be quite violent, yes,” she said. “But he is very remorseful each time. That’s the thing about him, he always comes back and apologizes. I have to give him that. But then, he does it again. The situation at home was getting unbearable. He is so unpredictable. And it’s gotten so much worse with the stress of having children.” She lifted her face. “You know what I mean. Men get so jealous of the attention.”

  “I know precisely what you mean,” Annie lied. The boys had been nothing but a strong, wonderful bond between her and Johnny. “You poor thing, and the children! How bad is the hitting, I mean, is it hospital-bad?”

  Lola’s eyes filled with tears and she looked away. Annie had clearly been tactless, grilling her about something very painful like this must have felt like the Inquisition. “Frankly, I’m here to try and not think about Mark for a while, get a fresh start and...” Annie had to ask. She had no choice. “Just promise me you’re not doing anything illegal coming here.” Lola thought for a long moment. “I...I told him I was moving to New York. I’m not doing anything wrong by moving to France instead.”

  “Was there ever a restraining order against him?”

  Lola looked at Annie. “Oh, definitely. I can do anything I need to protect the kids. I’m allowed.”

  They sat in silence. Annie felt the weight come off. There was a restraining order. The husband was a bad guy. This was not illegal. She was doing a wonderful deed, helping a woman start over.

  “I love him, you know,” Lola said.

  Annie knew exactly what Lola meant; she knew the ache. She could feel it in her throat, so she made a joke out of it. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what part of him is so lovable?”

  “Well, he’s gorgeous, mainly!” Lola said, and she had such a contagious laugh that Annie had to laugh too. It was in that instant of silliness that an imaginary veil lifted and Annie’s preconceived ideas about Lola were thrown out the window.

  That night, Annie lay in bed not sleeping, but not exactly anxious either. Maybe this could work. Maybe this would work.

  Chapter 8

  Warm water was slowly filling the bathtub. Naked in front of the mirror, Althea watched her emaciated shoulders, her hollow stomach, her hipbones, her legs like tortuous sticks, her knees like giant knuckles. What had happened to her? She had only wanted to be thin. Her mother had told her again, as she was saying goodbye, that she looked like a concentration camp victim. But if she did look so terrible and sick, then why would her mother do nothing about it but insult her? Of course, it would not be fair to blame her mother for what she was about to do.

  Her dad had given her that check to go to France and this was as close to communication as they were going to get. He was encouraging her to go away, but did he not mean it figuratively as well? Did he possibly want her to run for his own sake rather than hers? Her parents were not equipped to save someone like her from herself.

  She looked at her studio apartment through the open door of the bathroom where she stood; the curtains, the refrigerator, the mirror, the computer, the neat stacks of files and papers, the bowl full of apples that said, “Eat me, eat me,” but never, ever, fed her. She felt no physical pain besides hunger.

  It would be like going to sleep. There would be no real pain there either. In fact, all she could imagine was relief. She would slowly become weaker, and then fall asleep. The tub was nearly full. In a few minutes, life would sweetly drain out of her. On the side of the tub was the sharp knife she used to peel apples, the knife sharp enough to make this effortless. She considered the knife for a minute, touched the blade gently and felt its power. She turned off the faucet, the bath now full, and stepped in
the warm water. She lay in the water and looked at her wrists. If only there was someone she could ask one last question. If only there was someone, somewhere who would be able to tell her how to get out of this skin. Someone who could tell her that things could be different.

  She let go of the knife, jumped out of the water, wrapped herself in a towel and got out of the bathroom. Her whole body shivered now with cold and fear. She turned the pages of the paper, searching for the ad. She finally found it, her fingers shaking out of control, and dialed the number of that woman in France.

  Annie felt herself pulled out of the womb of slumber with forceps. For an insomniac such as herself, being woken up in the middle of a deep sleep was unwelcome to say the least. In the dark, she felt clumsily for the ringing telephone on her bedside table.

  On the line, the voice was barely a whisper. “It’s Althea,” it said. Althea? The young woman from Cincinnati who had asked many questions about the ad three days ago? Annie let her head sink in the pillow, her hand softened its grip on the receiver and she nearly let sleep engulf her. “It’s the middle of the bloody night here, darling.”

  “I don’t feel...good. At all.” The voice was plaintive, like a small child sick in the middle of the night.

  What was that, transatlantic night therapy? Annie mumbled, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  “I think I want to die,” said the murmur.

  An icy tingling traveled Annie’s spine and she sat up in a jump. “Non, non, non, non, non,” she said in French. “Nobody’s dying!” Why call her for God’s sake? “Where are you right now?”

  “Home.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Not to contradict someone suicidal. Could she call 911 from France? Of course she couldn’t call 911 from France. “Are you okay right now?” Annie asked, speaking fast. “Right this minute, are you bleeding anyplace? Did you swallow anything? Is someone with you?” Sweet Jesus, why call her?

  “I can’t live like this. I really can’t.” Althea said blankly.