The movie star had opened a laptop computer on the old-fashioned wooden kitchen table. Marie leaned over to look. Marie had not had sex with the movie star, but the outside world seemed to think otherwise.
“Motherfucker,” he said. “I can’t believe this. I am in France.”
“It’s not the best country,” Marie agreed.
“Fuck,” the movie star said.
“You cursed,” Caitlin said. “Mommy says no cursing.”
Marie kissed the top of Caitlin’s head. She wished that Caitlin would stop thinking about her mother. It would take more than chocolate mousse. Marie stared at the images on the movie star’s computer and she knew that she was supposed to be upset. Instead, Marie was fascinated. This was what she looked like. Her hair had gotten long. Her arms were thin, but also strong. This was how Marie looked, out of prison. She looked good. The picture had been taken inside the Famous Palace Hotel. Marie was wearing her new Chanel halter top. Caitlin was on her lap, with her pretty white-blond hair.
Marie did not necessarily like France, but she did like her life; she appreciated life outside of prison. She had had so much fun during dinner at the hotel the night before, eating the expensive food the movie star had bought for her.
“Does Caitlin’s nose look sunburned?” Marie said, peering at the laptop. She would not want Ellen to see this photo and become angry.
The movie star shook his head.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
Marie noticed a second photo on the Web site; Eli Longworth was leaning over the table, staring directly into Marie’s abundant cleavage.
“My fiancée,” Eli said, “is flat-chested.”
Marie hadn’t worried about the photographer. She had been intent on the meal, one of her best ever. The movie star clicked on to three other Web sites and there were those same two pictures, over and over again.
“You really are famous,” Marie said.
“I told you.”
Marie helped herself to a cup of coffee. Someone had made a pot, though there was no chef in sight. She found milk in the refrigerator, and she poured some into her coffee and also a cup for Caitlin. It occurred to Marie, staring at the contents of the refrigerator in this borrowed French villa, that Ellen would eventually see these pictures on the Internet and she would know where Marie was. It said so in the caption: the Famous Palace Hotel. Marie with her daughter, drinking champagne, laughing. Ellen would come, she’d come to Nice, she’d find the movie star, but she wouldn’t find Marie. Because Marie had been asked to leave. Asked politely, but asked nonetheless. The movie star did not seem to mind Marie at the moment, drinking coffee in the kitchen, breathing the same air that he breathed, but soon she would have to go.
But where?
Back home? To her mother’s house? That was precisely where she had not gone after prison, the place where she was grudgingly expected, where she was still expected to pay back her debt from the car she had driven to Mexico, a car that had been worth next to nothing. If the police were looking for her, they would have already contacted Marie’s mother, told her what she had done. Marie knew whose side her mother would take. Her mother would turn her in to the authorities. Send her back to prison. Marie had no doubt.
Sometimes Marie still could not believe that she had gone to jail. She had run off with her boyfriend; it had been young love. She had done nothing wrong. She had not robbed the bank. She had not shot the security guard. The court-appointed lawyer didn’t put up much of a defense for Marie. The white middle-class jury looked at Marie and Juan José with thinly veiled disgust, and she was charged and sentenced, an accessory to murder.
This time, Marie thought, giving Caitlin her milk, this time Marie was guilty. Caitlin was on the wrong side of the ocean.
“You know what?” Marie said to the movie star, not caring what he thought, because a random idea had popped into her head. “I don’t have an e-mail address. Actually, I must have one, I had one before I was arrested, but I haven’t checked it in forever. Since before prison. I am like an old person. Like that president who did not know about scanners in supermarkets. That is what I am like.”
Marie felt a sense of deprivation, looking at the movie star’s sleek laptop computer. Her picture was on a page full of celebrities. George Clooney had broken up with his girlfriend, a former cocktail waitress. But it was not just the computer she didn’t have, that she was being forced to give up. It was the refrigerator full of food. Real French cheeses and bottles of sparkling water and cured meats and fruits and vegetables. French yogurt. Marie didn’t want to leave. She had not had time to take a proper bath.
“You really are going to have to leave,” the movie star said. He did not say this gently.
Marie would not be rushed. She drank her coffee. It was good coffee. She had poured her coffee into a bowl. She closed her eyes and she saw Ruby Hart shaking her finger at her. Always giving Marie lectures in the laundry room, that was the part of their friendship Marie had not liked.
“Can’t you just call her and explain?” Marie said. “The fiancée? She’ll believe you. Because she is an angel. Aren’t we having a nice time together?”
Marie was surprised by the urgency of her request.
“Look,” Eli Longworth said, but he no longer looked at Marie. “This isn’t going to work out.”
“I can give you the blow job,” Marie said. “If that’s what you want.”
The movie star sighed.
Marie noticed a beefy-looking man in a suit standing in the doorway. She had not seen him enter the room. His face was stern. It was like a scene from a movie. He had been sent in to deal with her.
“Who is this guy?” Marie said, incredulous.
“Philippe will drive you into town,” the movie star said. “When you are ready.”
“After I finish breakfast,” Marie said.
“Fine,” the movie star said.
He no longer liked Marie, which was not a problem in itself, because she no longer liked him. It was unfortunate that she still liked his villa.
Marie got up from the table and returned to the refrigerator. She helped herself to butter and jam, fruit and cheese and a slab of salami. She took a baguette from the counter and broke it in half, and then sliced it down the center, the way Benoît had taught her. She gave Caitlin a piece of this baguette. She allowed Caitlin to put her hands in the jam jar.
Marie returned to the table and proceeded to eat. The movie star and the man in the suit watched Marie, the expressions on their faces deadly serious. Clearly, they regarded Marie as a threat. Marie ate until she was done eating. She did not want to leave, but she also suspected that the man in the suit would forcibly remove her if she did not go on her own. He might call the police.
“I am ready to leave,” Marie announced.
As if it were her choice. As if she knew exactly where she would go. As if she was not insanely scared of the situation she was in. Marie had no idea where she would go. She had nowhere to go. Her picture was on the Internet. She could not stay in Nice.
She looked at the movie star.
He drank his coffee and continued to curse at the computer screen, behaving as if Marie was already gone. Marie picked up Caitlin and carried her upstairs to gather their things.
Alone in the master bedroom, Marie found the movie star’s wallet in the pockets of his expensive jeans.
“Look, Caty Bean,” Marie said to Caitlin, who was jumping on the movie star’s unmade bed. “Rich people are careless.”
Caitlin continued to jump. Marie hoped she would not fall off. She opened the movie star’s wallet. There was no money inside. Marie removed a credit card and put it in the back pocket of her new jeans, but then she returned it. What could she do with his credit card? He was famous. She couldn’t possibly use it and get away with it.
Still.
Marie put the credit card back into her pocket after all, a souvenir, and then, on an impulse, reached for a small green glass
rabbit that was perched on the windowsill.
Marie moved the rabbit in front of the window pane. The bright light of the day shone onto the glass, spreading streaks of translucent green down the white walls and across the wood floor. Caitlin slid off the bed and tried to chase the beam’s light with her hands, smearing red jam on the white wall.
“It’s a magic rabbit,” Marie said.
“A magic rabbit,” Caitlin said.
“The airport,” Marie told the driver, surprising herself with how simple it was.
She had to go home. Not back to her mother in the suburbs, but to Mexico, to the place that she belonged. It was so obvious. Marie would return to Juan José’s family. To his tiny, dark-haired mother, dressed in black, who would be thrilled to see Marie again, to have a piece of her son’s life, returned to her.
Marie spent nearly all of her remaining euros on the plane tickets. Roundtrips were less expensive than one-ways; to go one way was to be considered a potential terrorist and Marie was not that. She had to pay full fare for Caitlin. Before long, she would also have to buy Caitlin new shoes, and replace the books and the toys and the clothes and whatever else it was that Caitlin wanted. That was a worry for another day. In Mexico, Caitlin would play with her Mexican cousins. She would learn to swim in the warm water. She would no longer require things.
Caitlin behaved for Marie in the airport. She sat in her stroller, clutching her glass rabbit, while Marie made her purchase. Her hand shook as she handed over her thick wad of cash, and then her passport and then Caitlin’s passport, knowing that the airport could be the place she would be apprehended, arrested. Marie had eluded the police in Paris, but her picture had been plastered all over the Internet. They could be looking for her in Nice. It was the right thing to do, leaving fast. The movie star had done her a favor, pushing her out the door.
Marie’s money was accepted. She was given the tickets. She was going to Latin America. Nazi Germans had escaped to the same hemisphere at the end of the Second World War to live long, happy lives.
“I want to hold the tickets,” Caitlin said.
“Are you going to be careful?” Marie asked Caitlin. “With the tickets?”
“Yes.”
It was not the kind of question Marie had ever asked Caitlin before. She used to rely on Caitlin’s judgment completely. Only recently, on the train, Marie had entrusted her with this responsibility and Caitlin had performed ably. The hostility in Caitlin’s eyes seemed only fair. She used to be an equal to Marie, would tell Marie when she needed a nap, when she needed to eat, when it was time to go to the park. Now, Marie made all the decisions. The nature of their relationship had changed. They were no longer friends; Caitlin had become Marie’s responsibility.
Caitlin snatched the tickets from Marie’s hand.
“Be careful, Caty Bean,” Marie said.
She would not fight with Caitlin, not there, in the airport.
Marie took the glass rabbit from Caitlin’s lap and tucked it between clothes in her backpack. They had only so many nice things left between them.
There was a McDonald’s in the airport in Nice. Marie gave Caitlin a choice between McNuggets and a cheeseburger. Caitlin chose the McNuggets. She dipped them in the sugary dipping sauce and they shared an order of fries. They did not go to the bathroom. Caitlin boarded the airplane like an experienced traveler. She took her seat and she buckled her own seat belt.
“I am a big girl,” she told Marie.
Staring out the window of the airplane, crossing back over the Atlantic Ocean, Marie let herself remember all of them: Juan José’s family, their names and faces coming back in a rush. Uncle Roberto, who had lost a leg in a traffic accident. His older sister, Carmelita, who had three different children from three different men. Maribel, Juan José’s favorite niece, the smart one who wanted to go to college in America. His nephews, Tito and Diego and Ernesto. And Juan José’s cousins, though Marie had never bothered to learn their names. Marie remembered the chickens, in front of the cement-block house, running behind it, sometimes making their way inside. Marie missed the chickens and the beautiful blue ocean.
Mexico was where she belonged. What she had been searching for, all along. The idea made Marie feel happy. There was a place she would be wanted, loved. She belonged with Juan José’s family. She was his widow. They would embrace her, make Caitlin one of their own, just one more child thrown into the mix. They could disappear in Mexico, live out their lives in peace and tranquillity. They would learn Spanish, Marie and Caitlin.
Caitlin would love the chickens.
Marie had forgotten so much.
She had remembered the name of the small town, but she had forgotten about the público, the van from the airport that traveled along the ocean highway, picking up a seemingly never-ending stream of passengers along the road.
Juan José and Marie, they had arrived in relative luxury, in a car, an air-conditioned car. It was her mother’s car, and that had made Marie’s mother angrier than anything else, more than the fact that she had run off to Mexico with a bank robber, that she had been arrested. Marie’s mother had tried to add the theft of the car to the list of charges against Marie, but the prosecutor had not been willing. She had not visited Marie in jail. Even the parents of murderers visited their children in jail.
“You won’t remember this,” Marie whispered, smoothing Caitlin’s hair, looking out the dirty window at the stray dogs lining the roads, at the children selling oranges and packs of Mexican gum.
From the moment they’d gotten off the plane, Caitlin didn’t seem to like Mexico, where strangers touched her blond hair and she was blinded by the bright light of the sun. In the público, crammed between passengers, squashed onto Marie’s lap without a car seat or a seat belt, Caitlin wailed, her screams rising above the mariachi music blaring from the radio.
Marie had remembered the beach, only steps away from his mother’s cement house, but she had forgotten the poverty. How could she have forgotten? Juan José had robbed a bank to help his family, and all of that money had been confiscated once he was caught. Juan José’s family had only gotten poorer since then. His mother’s black hair, pulled back into a tight bun, had turned gray. Juan José’s older sister, Carmelita, had become old. She was both fat and pregnant.
These two women stared at Marie, standing on their doorstep, carrying a little blond girl. They seemed to take in the backpack and the stroller, Marie’s exhaustion. And yet the expressions on their faces were blank. There were no chickens in the yard.
“It’s me,” Marie said. “Marie.”
Marie looked into the cement house. The first thing she noticed was the long crack in the plasma TV mounted on the wall, the same TV Juan José had insisted on buying so many years ago, despite his mother’s objections. Marie also recognized the frayed armchairs, the yellow velvet sofa. The woven rug on the floor. A framed photo of Juan José hung on the wall above the couch, a photo Marie had never seen before. Marie walked into the house, past Juan José’s small, frowning mother and his large, forbidding sister; she wanted to look at that photo.
She had not imagined him after all. All these years, in prison, missing him, he had been real. Marie sometimes worried that she had made him up, that their happiness had been a fabrication of her imagination. All that passion. But there she was, standing in his living room. Juan José was grinning at Marie from the wall, so young and so beautiful. He was wearing a dark suit, a white shirt, a bow tie still untied, he was standing on the beach. Barefoot.
Marie remembered that day, that moment on the beach. She had never seen the photo before, but she had taken it; it must have been the day before the police arrived. Marie had been wearing the white dress she would get married in. Following his mother’s orders, they had dressed in their wedding clothes to make sure that everything would fit. And then, when Juan José’s mother had left them alone for a second, to get more thread, they had snuck out of the house, giddy as children, running to the beach. Becau
se they had wanted to see how they would really fit, together, and they had, of course, fit just fine. They had kissed, wearing their wedding clothes, and maybe that was almost the same as being married. The dress, Marie remembered, was too long, trailing all the way down to the white sand. Marie had forgotten that, too.
She had forgotten that moment on the beach, before Juan José’s mother had come after them, furious. She had screamed at them, cursing them in Spanish, and they had ignored her, because they had been happy. Juan José loved his mother, he had robbed a bank for his mother, but he also had never paid her much mind. Marie stared at that beautiful picture, the groom, her groom, and she felt relief but also a fresh wave of sadness, a flood of grief for Juan José. She was going to marry him. That had been real. They had been real. The devastation she had felt, waking up day after day, staring at the ceiling from the top bunk of her prison, knowing that she would never see Juan José again.
She had loved him.
He had loved her.
She should have never come back. She should have stayed in France where baguette sandwiches were overpriced, where movie stars were everywhere for the taking. She should be back in jail where it didn’t matter what she ate, how she was dressed, what she accomplished. Where every single day was planned, unexceptional and unexamined, sheets and towels, uniforms in industrial-sized hampers waiting to be washed and folded. It would not be so awful to go back. It would not be the very worst thing. If her job in the laundry was waiting for her. If Ruby Hart was still there.
Marie was standing in Juan José’s living room and she was crying. It was embarrassing, tears streaming down her cheeks, frozen in front of his photo. Caitlin tugged on Marie’s hand, worried.
Bad Marie Page 14
