A Paris Apartment (35 page)

“Zee banker gaming … what do you call it? ‘Hooka’?”

April crinkled her forehead. “Uh, I’m not sure what you mean…”

“Hooky,” Luc corrected her. “‘A banker playing hooky.’ You’ll get it right soon, mon amour.”

Delphine pretended to pinch his ear.

“Zees man of mine ees trés terreeble.” Delphine shook her head and grinned. Her teeth were blindingly white and disturbingly straight, rendering her almost horsey, but in a good way. There were horse people and there were equestrians, and Delphine Vidal was the latter. “So zees ees sweet Avril! I hear very so lots of much about you! “

“I’m surprised Luc has even mentioned me,” April stuttered.

“Luc speeeks about you all zee time,” Delphine said, still beaming. “Zees is so ’appy to meet!”

“Oh, well, that’s very kind,” April said, though she was decidedly less “’appy to meet.” She hadn’t known English spoken horribly could sound so appealing. “Thank you.”

What had she been thinking? Of course Luc had a girlfriend. Why wouldn’t he? And what did it matter? Did she really envision herself hooking up with some Frenchman despite one (albeit perfect) night? Did she fancy herself Marthe and him Boldini? That she could walk into his apartment and he’d let her watch him paint until she felt normal again? Maybe next they could head to the morgue.

The woman probably knew about the other night, too. A pity-fuck, no doubt, Delphine offering her paramour for the greater good. She seemed exactly that progressive, and exactly that generous.

“Luc say you are from zee cee-tee of New York?” Delphine said, green eyes twinkling.

“Elle parle français,” Luc told his girlfriend as she struggled to form the words. “Ça va?”

“Yes. I ’ope to practice zee English!” Misunderstanding the directive, Delphine grinned ever wider, the ends of her mouth now somewhere near her earlobes.

“Trés bien, mon amour!” Luc smiled in return.

Where he’d been fidgety and anxious ninety seconds ago, the usual Luc was starting to reappear, the man April knew, or imagined she did, anyway. He made a few teasing remarks to Delphine about her English, then squeezed her backside. April snapped her head away so fast she kinked her neck.

Those hands. They’d been on her such a short time ago. April’s face blazed in embarrassment and anger.

“I. Have. To. Go,” Delphine said, separating each syllable. “Very so much
PLAY
-
zure
to meet you!”

She leaned in and bestowed upon April the double-cheek kiss.

“The pleasure is mine,” April quacked.

“Au ’voir!” Delphine danced away, waving over her shoulder. Platinum-and-diamond bangles twinkled along her arm. “À bientôt!”

As though a desert wind just flashed through the apartment, Delphine Vidal was gone, leaving Luc and April empty and dry-mouthed on his fancy wool and cashmere rug.

“Her English is very poor,” Luc said.

“She tried. That’s what counts. Is Delphine your girlfriend?”

Luc paused before answering.

“Oui,” he said at last. “She is. But understand, you are not the only one—”

“Does she live here?”

“Did you come to ask of my living situation?”

He sounded annoyed, as if April had no basis for the question. On the other hand, maybe she didn’t. April shook her head.

“I want to know,” she replied sheepishly and turned toward the window. “I need to know.”

“No,” he said and sighed. “She does not.”

“Where was she the night before the Fête Nationale?”

“Working on a transaction in Luxembourg,” he said. “Avril, why are you here? You said something was wrong. Let’s talk about that instead of my living situation. Although if you wish to continue on this path, indeed I might have a few questions for you as well.”

“Point taken,” April grumbled.

“Avril?” he said again, this time gently reaching for her arm.

“I dunno, Luc. Maybe I should just leave. It’s so long. Sordid.”

April inhaled deeply and studied Luc, wondering if she still trusted him enough to share the news. Somehow the answer was yes.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Well.” She exhaled. “I did come all this way. Bothered you in the middle of the afternoon”
—
saw things I shouldn’t have
—
“I guess. Well.… Remember when we were out the other night and my phone rang? And you said to take the call and I said no?”

“Oui. Your father. Ringing with birthday wishes.”

“Yes. Well, sort of. It was my dad, but that’s not why he called.”

April closed her eyes. She took in several more breaths. Everything inside her body churned.

“Avril.” She felt Luc shift on his feet. He brushed his fingers against her arm. “What happened? What is wrong?”

“It’s my mother,” she said, and her eyes popped back open. “She—well—she died. My mother died.”

Chapitre LVI

Once the words were out of her mouth, spilled onto the furniture and across the floor, April sank down onto Luc’s couch and buried her face in her hands.

“What do you mean, ‘she died’?” Luc asked. “When you were a teenager?”

“No,” she said and looked up without caring about her red and mottled face. “She died the night of my birthday, when we were at the firehouse. Although it was technically morning in California. Either way, while we were eating sausage my mother had a fatal stroke.”

Luc did not respond. He remained on the other side of the room, an eternity of space between them. It hurt her that he was so far away. It was physically painful.

“I do not understand,” he said. “You told me she already died.”

“No I didn’t. I never said that.”

“You did.”

“Name one time I said she had died.
One
.”

“Well, I can’t recall specifically, but surely you must have.”

“You misunderstood,” April said. “I realize I can be a little cagey about her situation, but obviously I wouldn’t have said she died when she was alive. That doesn’t even make sense.”

“I do not understand,” Luc said again, stepping even farther away from her. Soon he would be in the kitchen and April would have to shout. She wanted him to reach for her, to tell her it would all be okay.

“Forget it,” April said. “I’m so sorry, Luc. I never should’ve come. I’m a wreck and with Delphine”—she pointed halfheartedly toward the front door, the imprint of the “banker extraordinaire” still somehow visible—“Just forget it.”

April mentally berated herself. She wanted too much from Luc, too much from them, as if there were a
them
to begin with, when their only true connection was a contract signed by Agnès Vannier and Sotheby’s, the names Vogt and Thébault not even part of the document.

“Avril,” Luc said. “You must explain yourself. Your mother. Gone. Missing. When all this time she was here. You’ve lied to me.”

“I haven’t lied!” April snapped. “And she wasn’t ‘here.’ She was absolutely gone before I left for college. Physically, no. There was a body and it was hers. But to all intents and purposes the woman I knew disappeared.”

Luc frowned. He was trying to seem stern, angered by her withholding of information. But even from the couch and at that great distance April understood that the true face he was showing was one of concern, of worry.

“My mom has—
had
—early-onset Alzheimer’s,” April told him at last. “Do you know what that is? Is there a different expression in French?”

“I know what it is,” Luc said, his face still grim but starting to soften.

“The symptoms began when she was young,” April went on. “Extremely young. I was about fourteen when things started to go awry. Or, at least, I was fourteen when I started to notice. Mom was forty-two.”

“What happened?” Luc asked. “When things started to ‘go awry’?”

“Oh, ordinary stuff. Losing keys, forgetting to pick us up at school, confusion in grocery stores, not recognizing her own car. All the little things you can write off for a while.”

“Until you can’t,” Luc said, his voice like gravel.

“Right. Until there’s that one thing.” April slammed a fist into her palm. “Where you have to open it all up and look inside.”

“So what happened?” Luc asked again as he took a few steps closer. His feet were now partway onto the rug. “What was the one thing?”

“Do you really want to hear it?” April asked. “Because it’s a pretty fucking depressing story.”

“Yes. I want to hear it. You have to say it.”

April nodded, and for only the third time in her life, she told the story of the zoo.

Chapitre LVII

It was her brother’s tenth birthday. Due to their mom’s recent bout of forgetfulness, which was attributed to stress and lack of sleep, Dad decided there would be no formal party for Brian. It was too taxing. Instead Mom and her two children would enjoy a day at the zoo.

April was fourteen at the time, thus rather irritated by the endeavor from the onset. It was summertime and school was out. Her friends were at the beach, rubbing baby oil all over their bodies and lying across giant strips of tinfoil. April wanted to be there too, but instead was forced to meander around the hot, hilly zoo, surrounded by the smell of sweaty monkey fur and elephant feces plus one little brother who was hardly any fun at all.

The morning went as expected, namely with an excessive amount of time spent standing in the snake enclosure watching reptiles swallow small white bunnies whole. On the one hand, it was disgusting. On the other, at least the snake pit gave April relief from the heat.

When Brian finally tired of watching the demise of defenseless furry creatures, the three made their way to a hot-dog window. The lines were long, and what started out as treacherous boredom turned into something else entirely. About halfway through the line, their mother started to panic.

“Where are your parents?” she asked April, then Brian. “Are you two here by yourselves?”

“We’re with you,” Brian answered, confused.

“Mom, what are you talking about?” April looked around to make sure she didn’t see anyone she knew.

“There are bad people in the world!” their mother rasped, voice low, as if the “bad people” were listening and waiting to pounce. “Come, come with me!”

“What the hell?” April said as their mom flagged down a groundskeeper and asked for directions to security.

“I’m hungry,” Brian whined.

“I’m taking you to the police!” their mother screamed, clutching their wrists and dragging them through the park.

Brian looked over at his big sister and laughed, hoping she might laugh too. This was a joke, he thought, Mom acting silly. April smiled back even though she knew their life had just changed, that nothing would ever look the same again. You could shrug off lost keys and dishwashing detergent accidentally put in the freezer. Forgetting the faces of your children? Not an anecdote for bridge group.

“Hello, ma’am, can I help you?” a guard asked as they stormed the stuffy security trailer.

“Someone left these minors alone at the zoo!” April’s mother shouted, flinging the kids forward, their wrists now red and lumpy from her grip. “You have to find their parents! They won’t tell me anything!”

“All right.” The man finished off his Slurpee and pulled out a notepad. He looked directly at April. “You’re hardly a kid. Where are your parents?”

“This is a little hard to explain,” April said nervously. Brian stood beside her, alternating between giggles and feeble little cries. “She
is
our mother.”

“Uh, beg pardon?” The man swiped a hand over his mustache, then ran a blue tongue over his lips. April would never get over that particular shade of artificial blue.

“This is our mom,” she said. “This happens sometimes. She gets confused. Her name is Sandra Grace Potter. She was born on December 2, 1951. We are Brian and April Potter. Our father is Richard. He works at the naval base on Coronado. We live in Coronado, too.”

“Oh my god!” their mother shouted, startling everyone in the room. Even the rotating desk fan jumped.

Finally, April thought. She realizes what’s going on.

“My purse! Someone stole my purse.” She turned to April. “Did you little hooligans take it?”

“Mom—”

“I can’t find my purse.” She started patting her sides, her stomach, her breasts.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” the security officer said. He reached for a walkie-talkie. “I’ll put a call out. See if someone found it. What does it look like?”

“Hmmm.” Their mom placed a finger to her chin. “You know what’s funny? I don’t even remember!”

“It’s maroon,” April said. “Leather. With a drawstring top. There should be keys to an Oldsmobile station wagon inside. And probably a million little bunched-up pieces of scented pink Kleenex. Also black-cherry-flavored ChapStick.”

Recounting these things made fourteen-year-old April’s eyes water. She couldn’t figure out why.

“So you did steal my purse!” their mom screamed.

“Mom, I didn’t. Okay, this is so weird.”

“April?” Brian whimpered, a corner of his shirt twisted and shoved between his teeth. He was ten but at that moment looked closer to three.

Eyes locked on the maybe-family members, the guard mumbled into his walkie-talkie. He needed help of a kind he could not articulate.

That a good Samaritan found Sandy’s purse in the aviary was the lucky break April (and the security guard) needed. They were able to ID the woman as well as her children based on the school pictures in her wallet. By the time their father showed up, Mom had mostly regained her bearings, unaware they’d been at the zoo all day but with a vague recollection of trying to help someone else’s kids.

“And so,” April said, looking up and catching Luc’s gaze for the first time since she started the story. “That was the beginning of the end.”

“Wow,” he said and rubbed his chin. “That is quite the story.”

“Yes. It was awful. What sucks even more is that it happened at the ‘World Famous San Diego Zoo,’ that whore of a tourist attraction that insists on forty-seven billboards on every highway and nonstop advertising loops on radio and television.”

“That is, as you say,
brutal
.”