Paris, Before You Die

by Mary Bowers

  “He actually said that? That Grayson Pimm drove his son to suicide?”

  “That’s not the point, Nettie. People talk like that. He still had his hackles up after Grayson was so ignorant to him. I mean about rescheduling the trip so that he ended up on the one with Grayson. All that stuff about his back – whenever anybody gets too elaborate when they’re telling you something, look out.”

  “Oh dear.” She was quiet for a heavy moment. “And how would he know that Grayson Pimm would be on this tour,” she asked, not really wondering. She answered her own question: “Social media. We tell the whole world when we’re grabbing a hot dog at the food truck. Of course he posted it when it was something as big as a tour of Paris. And if Henry was monitoring Grayson Pimm’s social media – or more likely, Lauren’s . . . .”

  “Yup.”

  They walked on without replacing their earplugs, looking slightly worried, until they reached the chapel and Danny gave them a stern look.

  Chapter 6

  They entered the darkness of La Sainte-Chapelle, adjusting their eyes to light filtering through blue, red and glaring white glass. Along the walls, negligently roped off, were various chunks and decorative bits that had fallen off the chapel over the centuries, as if nobody knew what to do with them now.

  Danny began to speak of a long-ago king and his devotion to his God. He would come to the chapel even in the middle of the night to pray, Danny said, alone in his prayers and his spiritual needs.

  Nettie looked around the stone walls and felt how small the place seemed. Not because it was full of tourists, but because it was an alone kind of place. The king, (a Louis – the tourists would quickly forget which one), came here to worship privately when the need was upon him.

  She worked her way over to her niece, who was clinging to Lauren in a protective way, though she always seemed to end up behind her and not beside her. The three women stood in a group for several quiet moments. Nettie could hear Danny through her earbuds, but she couldn’t see him as he finished his brief introduction before leading them upstairs to the grand chapel. Grayson Pimm stood six feet away, disconnected but nearby.

  “It’s hard to know how to gather it in, isn’t it?” Nettie said. “To know just what to think of such a place; to try to understand the people who built it, or how on earth they even managed to build it. There’s a sort of psychic echo in here, as if the king were very sad.”

  “I never feel as if I’m quite getting it all,” Twyla said. “It’s like some kind of total enlightenment is just out of reach, even when you can see everything right in front of you.”

  “A little underwhelming, wouldn’t you say?” Grayson said, looking at the rubble. “Of course, the chapel itself, upstairs, is more impressive, but don’t expect to be awed until we get to Notre-Dame.”

  Nettie adjusted her face and turned an admiring look upon him. “Of course you’ve seen all this before.”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Come to think of it, I attended a string quartette concert here after a business meeting one time. It showed up better at night. In the daylight, you can see all the decay. And of course, this is kind of the basement. Come on. The big show is upstairs.”

  “Dear me,” Nettie murmured to her niece.

  “Aunt Nettie,” Twyla warned, knowing that fluty tone in her aunt’s voice.

  Up in the grand chapel, wildly illuminated by soaring glass and plunging chandeliers, brilliant in the daylight, Grayson gestured limply, said, “Ta-da,” then wandered off.

  “It must be so nice to have such a knowledgeable man with you as you travel,” Nettie said to Lauren fatuously.

  Lauren gave her a sloe-eyed look and shrugged. “He can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”

  They all laughed.

  “It’s lovely to see you again,” Lauren told Nettie. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  Nettie didn’t believe it for a second, but it was a nice thing to say. “I was flattered that you remembered me, dear. You were at an age where young people are all wrapped up in one another and don’t pay much attention to the old folks, especially aunts.”

  “How could I forget you? You haven’t changed a bit. And your husband being a private detective – all Twyla’s friends were fascinated – a real-life gumshoe! Back then it seemed so romantic. In reality, it was probably all just sitting in a car all night waiting for some guy to leave his mistress’s apartment building, but we thought it was so film-noir – beautiful adventuresses, dirty secrets, oily villains with knives in their socks. We thought your husband was hot stuff. But you never actually worked with him, did you? You don’t have his surveillance equipment and matchbox cameras, right?”

  “Not on me,” Nettie said, and they laughed.

  * * * * *

  “Leave that scarf alone,” Audrey growled as she walked past Kat. “People will think you’ve got a rash or something.”

  * * * * *

  “No, we’re just looking at the older chapel right now,” Margery said into her cellphone. “The big banana is coming up next – Notre-Dame. Then I’m going to try to hook onto them for lunch; just casually walk into the same brasserie and look surprised to see them.” She paused, listening. “Yes, the chapel is just like it was when we brought Billy here six years ago. It’s been here for seven centuries, Dan. A few more years aren’t going to make any difference.”

  She suddenly felt a presence close behind her and turned to see who it was. Nettie Tucker was walking away from her in one direction and Daisy Wilson in another.

  She frowned. “Listen, I gotta go. I am working, you know.”

  * * * * *

  Looking bored, Grayson Pimm had paced up and down the chapel until he finally came to an aimless stop at the far end, much deeper into the room than anybody else from his group seemed to have gone. But then, suddenly, Hannah Sorenson was standing beside him.

  After a moment of standing apart, they regarded one another silently.

  “We need to get together,” he said quietly.

  The way he was looking down at her seemed to throb against her chest. A patch of blue from the stained glass gave intriguing shape to his cheekbone, elongating the already sharp lines of his face. His eyes were darker than she remembered.

  “Patience,” she said. “We just got here.”

  “Look out,” he told her, “here comes that idiot, Donny.”

  “Danny,” she corrected, turning to smile at the guide.

  “Whatever,” he muttered.

  Approaching rapidly, Danny forced a smile and said, “Naughty, naughty, you’re not using your earbuds. We’re supposed to be meeting outside now, remember?”

  Hannah looked at her wristwatch, startled. “Is it that time already?”

  “No, it was that time ten minutes ago. Shall we?”

  “Sorry,” Hannah said.

  “Not nice to leave the whole rest of the group waiting,” Danny said cheerfully. “We mustn’t do that from now on.”

  They followed him out of the chapel, and Hannah, at least, looked chastened.

  Many members of the group gazed at Hannah and Grayson with interest as they came around the corner of the stone building to the meeting place in the courtyard, outside. Only Lauren wasn’t looking at them at all.

  Chapter 7

  “Oh my goodness! You’re here too?”

  Margery sailed into the brasserie and was invited to join the group. She hadn’t expected or wanted so many of them to have glommed together for lunch, but she’d just have to make the best of it. With proverbial eyes in the back of her head, she noticed (but affected not to) the two pretty blonds at a high-top in front of the window. How odd that they weren’t with the rest of the group, but then again maybe not so odd, all things considered.

  A substantial chunk of the Carmichael Global tour group had taken over two adjacent tables for four next to the bar. Nettie, Audrey, Kat and Henry were at one table, and the Pimms, along with Eric and Ashley Handler were at the one beside them, so close they could
talk without raising their voices. Margery headed their way and was beckoned over by Kat, who was already pulling up another chair.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk much,” Kat said, almost gushing, the complete Southern Belle by way of Chicago.

  The waiter, seeing that furniture was being moved, stood blinking for a few seconds, then came bravely forward. He offered his services in beautifully accented English, took drink orders, then moved off, graceful and efficient.

  “Where’s your niece?” Margery asked Nettie, settling in once the drinks were ordered.

  “Jack got her.”

  “Oh, wow,” Margery said. “Is this going to end up with shotguns?”

  “The man’s a menace,” Nettie said, easing back for her iced tea to be set before her. She looked up at the waiter and said, “The chicken.” Then, realizing she’d barked at him, she added, “Please. Thank you.”

  “Why are you so worried?” Henry asked. “Twyla’s a grown woman.”

  “In a physical sense only,” Nettie told him. “She hasn’t had much experience with men.”

  “She had a boyfriend in high school, didn’t she?” Lauren said from the next table. “I seem to remember her hanging around with a guy a lot.”

  “You mean Mac? Arnold MacKenzie? He was just a friend-friend. It was never a boy-girl thing.”

  “Oh, yeah, Mac,” Lauren said vaguely. “Little guy. Tight jeans.”

  Mac had been a six-footer who always carried a briefcase, but Nettie didn’t correct her. Across the table, Audrey smiled knowingly.

  Noticing the smile and the implied mindreading, Margery asked her, “As a psychic, I’d be fascinated to know what impressions you got in the churches this morning. Well, not Notre-Dame, I guess – too many impressions, probably. But that little chapel of the king’s. Did you sense him at all?”

  “I don’t think you had to be psychic to feel the vibes in there,” she said evasively. “You’re right about Notre-Dame, though. Too much going on, and I don’t mean in the past. It’s hard to appreciate grandeur when other tourists are knocking into you. But the Sainte-Chapelle . . . .”

  “I felt it too,” Nettie said. “I felt him. If he was lonely, that is. I felt something lonely.”

  “That’s it,” Audrey said.

  “What about you guys?” Margery said, turning to the other table. “Did you see any ghosts today?”

  “Oh, Christ,” Grayson muttered.

  “Not Him,” Margery shot back. “I mean the ghosts of lesser beings.”

  There was laughter, and Grayson frowned and looked around as if he’d rather be at another table, preferably in another restaurant. It would have been a good time to let the subject drop, but he seemed to have something on his mind that he couldn’t hold back. “I thought I saw something strange hovering around the chapel today.” He gazed across to the front window, and everybody else did too. “Sort of a doppelganger, if that means what I think it does.”

  Margery, looking fascinated, turned to Audrey. “You’re the expert. What exactly does it mean?”

  “Doppelganger? Literally, it means ‘double walker.’ I don’t think it specifically refers to a ghost, though. It’s the theory that everybody has an exact double somewhere.”

  “Ah,” Margery said. “I think that’s probably true. For instance – ” She waved her wineglass negligently in the direction of the two blonds. Hannah noticed and waved back, and they all smiled in return.

  Audrey told them, “The legend is that if the two exact copies ever meet, they’ll both die. But Daisy and Hannah don’t seem to have exploded yet.”

  “There’s always hope,” Grayson murmured into his glass before tossing off the rest of his drink.

  Lauren looked exhausted and gray. She drank deeply from her wineglass, then scanned the room for the waiter.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have another one until you’ve got some food in your stomach,” her husband said firmly.

  “Oh, I suppose you’re right,” Lauren said, setting the glass down.

  “She can have more wine if she wants to,” Ashley said spiritedly. “In fact, I think I’ll join her.”

  She held her empty glass up for the waiter to see from across the room and then pointed at Lauren’s empty glass, too.

  Eric, wide-eyed, glanced back, forth and across the table and remained silent.

  The brasserie was getting busier, and under cover of the noise Nettie leaned forward and told Margery, “Stop it. This is terrible.”

  Looking around blankly, Margery said, “Stop what? What’s going on, guys?”

  “Oh, please,” Nettie muttered.

  “Grayson seems to have a history with Daisy, and now it looks like he’s fooling around with Hannah,” Audrey said out of the side of her mouth. “Haven’t you noticed?”

  “And he brought them both along on the tour?” Margery said, apparently surprised into saying it too loudly.

  Lauren heard, and as her wineglass was being refilled, she watched the clear, white wine filling her glass as if she were counting off the ounces.

  “Of course he brought his wife to Paris,” Ashley said loudly. “A husband and a wife belong together. They should share everything, make memories to treasure as they grow old together.” She was staring at Grayson almost fiercely.

  “I’m going to the Men’s room,” he said, and he threw his napkin down on the table and left.

  Slowly, miserably, Lauren picked up her wineglass. Conversation at both tables became brittle and disjointed.

  By the time Grayson came back, his food had arrived and gotten cold.

  * * * * *

  After waving at the other tables, Hannah turned back to Daisy and said, “What do you think is going on over there? They don’t look as happy as they ought to be, at least not all of them. And the happy ones are a little too happy.”

  “I don’t know and I’m not likely to find out,” Daisy said sullenly.

  Pausing to consider her next question, Hannah cautiously said, “You and Grayson?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I don’t mean to be nosey. I just got the shaft myself, actually, so I can drink to that. It’s really why I’m here. I said I just ended a relationship at the group meeting because I still have trouble saying the word divorce.”

  “Not ol’ Grayson,” Daisy said recklessly. “He’s dumping both of us, only Lauren doesn’t seem to know it yet. Not too bright, that one. As a matter of fact,” she said, staring very directly into Hannah’s eyes, “everybody is getting the idea that he’s fooling around with you now. Surprised the heck out of me, because the last time I saw him before the tour, he said he was swearing off women altogether. Oh, not women – broads. He likes that word. Makes him feel like a gangster. Anyway, if you are involved with him, be warned. You may be his Paris hors d’oeuvre, but back in the States you’re going to be last week’s doggy bag, and probably end up in the garbage.”

  “Do I look stupid to you? I can spot a user a mile away, thank you very much. As far as I’m concerned, men like Grayson Pimm have ‘Do not touch’ tattooed across their foreheads.”

  Daisy was obviously surprised. “But I thought . . . aren’t you with the Minneapolis office?”

  “Of your company? No way. I work in an insurance agency right in White Bear Lake, where I live. I can ride my bike to work in the summer. I’d never take a job in Minneapolis. The commute would kill me.”

  In a little voice, Daisy said, “Sorry about that. Should I let the others know that they’re all wrong about you?”

  Hannah gave a nondescript glance across the room and said, “Nah. Let ‘em have fun. Little old ladies love that kind of gossip, and after this tour, we’re never going to see them again.”

  “They’re sort of cute together, aren’t they?”

  “Adorable,” Hannah said with heavy irony.

  “And there’s one thing about them that I like a lot.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They irritate the hell
out of Grayson.”

  “They do?”

  “Oh, yeah. I know him well enough by now. Unless there’s something about a woman that turns him on, he doesn’t want them around. Did you see the way they were trooping after him in the chapel? They’re such clinging little biddies.”

  Hannah smiled. “Living vicariously.”

  “Exactly.”

  * * * * *

  “Well, that was a filling lunch,” Margery said to Nettie as they walked out of the brasserie and the group strung itself out along the sidewalk.

  “You certainly were stuffing yourself, and I don’t mean with the croque messieur,” Nettie said pointedly.

  “I didn’t mean to be cruel, but when people make a spectacle of themselves, it’s hard to ignore it. What do you think, are they getting divorced as soon as they get home? Lauren doesn’t look like she wants a divorce. Is it that Hannah girl? Is she the one breaking up the marriage?”

  “Marriages don’t get broken up by outsiders,” Nettie told her shortly.

  Chapter 8

  Back at the hotel that night, Nettie told Twyla about all the drama at lunch.

  “I was talking it over with Audrey last night, and we agreed that divorce might be the best option for Lauren,” Nettie said when she’d finished. “I know you want to support your friend, and it’s not what she wants, but you should have seen her. She was absolutely miserable.”

  Guilt-ridden, Twyla said, “I should have been there.”

  “You couldn’t have helped. I was there, and there wasn’t a thing I could do. You could have only made things worse, like Ashley did. She tried to stand up for Lauren, insisting that she have another glass of wine, and I believe her intentions were good, but her meddling was what finally made Grayson get up and leave the table in a huff. I don’t think Lauren said two words to anybody after that, and she hardly ate a thing.”

  “She was always so vibrant in high school,” Twyla said. “I can’t believe how much she’s changed. Her spirit is broken. I think you may be right, Aunt Nettie. She needs to get away from him and start over.”