Bad Marie (9 page)

Marie didn’t want to ask Benoît for anything, ever again, but also she couldn’t imagine talking to that dreadful man, the waiter. He had all the power in the world: to bring her food or deny it.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Benoît said.

But Benoît hailed the waiter. He ordered two more beers and, not even looking at the menu, ordered food for all of them. Marie smiled at him, grateful, and almost immediately wished that she hadn’t. Benoît reached for the kimono on the table, pressing the silk fabric to his cheek.

“You really are a thief,” he said.

It had made sense for Marie to take the kimono. Of all the belongings that had come out of her backpack, this had been Marie’s favorite. She thought of it as her own. She had worn it after their baths, before she and Benoît made love. Benoît would pull on the sash, open the flaps of silk, and watch, almost reverent, as it fell to the floor.

“My grandmother needs to be cremated,” Benoît said. “Her apartment needs to be cleaned. Her bill at the nursing home needs to be settled. My wife knows that I am here. That I ran off with the babysitter. She is coming to France. She is coming. I walked out on Lili. Again. After making love to her. For the second time in my life, I have walked out on her. I don’t know if she will forgive me this time.”

Marie looked at Benoît Doniel, plagiarist, blankly.

He was worried about Ellen, his wife.

He was worried about Lili. He was worried about Lili, his former lover. His present lover, too. He had just admitted to that.

Marie did not exist.

You and me,
he had said on the boat.

Ludivine meowed again from inside Marie’s backpack. They could be arrested for animal abuse. The meows had become weaker, less frequent. The cat very well might die in this Paris restaurant. Marie would have to carry this dead cat with her for the rest of her life.

Marie drank more beer.

It was something to do.

The beer was already starting to get warm. She needed to drink more quickly.

“What did Ellen say?” Marie said. “In New York? What did she say about me?”

“Who are you?” Benoît looked at Marie as if he might spit in her face. “A criminal. You just got out of prison. What was I thinking?” He shook his head with disgust. “You are very pretty, you know. You have big tits.”

Marie felt tears spring to her eyes, as if she had been hit. She turned away from Benoît and smiled at Caitlin, who never liked to see anyone cry.

“Hey there Kit Kat.”

The nickname seemed wrong with Ludivine suffocating beneath the table.

“Are you crying?” Caitlin asked.

Marie shook her head.

“Me?” she said. “No way. Not me. I don’t cry. Never ever. I am a tough, hardened criminal.”

Caitlin stood up on her chair. She leaned over and wiped a tear from Marie’s face.

“Your food is coming,” Marie told Caitlin. “Something good to eat. Something French and delicious. What did you order for her?” she asked Benoît. “Something she’ll like?”

Benoît Doniel shrugged.

“Something delicious,” Marie said to Caitlin. “You’ll see. Better than macaroni and cheese.”

Caitlin wiped another tear from Marie’s face.

“Where is Mommy?”

Marie wiped an imaginary tear off of Caitlin’s cheek.

“She’s on her way now,” Marie said. “What did you think? She just left the office. She’s on her way. She works too hard, your mother.”

The waiter arrived with the food.

He looked at the table, covered with Marie’s things. Marie looked at Benoît. “You figure it out,” she said. “You have already humiliated me.”

Benoît pushed her things onto the extra chair at the table, much of the haphazard pile falling to the floor. The displeased waiter continued to look displeased, but he served them their food. Benoît had ordered some kind of pasta, small shells covered in a cream sauce. It was a French macaroni and cheese: mild, smooth, easy to slide down. The waiter had brought the same dish for Caitlin, only in a smaller bowl.

Marie and Benoît and Caitlin, they ate in silence. Marie was grateful for the food, grateful that she did not need to decide what to eat, that Benoît did know, without having to ask, what she would like. They had sat like this in Ellen’s kitchen, eating companionably; there had been no animosity, only an unhurried calm, pleasure. As Benoît began to eat his pasta, she could feel a change in him, the hatred easing from his body.

He had never spoken that way before, about her tits.

“Forgive me,” he said. He actually ruffled Marie’s hair. “Please. I brought you here, didn’t I? Forgive me. I don’t know who I am anymore. Do you know?”

Marie didn’t.

Benoît looked at the bangles on his wrist, touched them with affection. “Ellen never wore these, did she?”

Marie shook her head.

“She did not like them, though she would never say so.”

“They are beautiful.”

“My grandmother used to make this dish.”

There were small peas in the sauce. Bits of bacon.

The next time the waiter came around, Benoît ordered a cognac and coffee.

“I want moose,” Caitlin said, and he ordered that, too.

“I like this restaurant.” Benoît Doniel leaned back in his chair, lighting a cigarette.

Outside the window, Marie observed Lili Gaudet walk past. She was wearing heels, a long skirt, a silver coat, red lipstick. Her long blond hair was loose and blew in the wind. She looked glamorous, like a movie star. She was accompanied by an older man, equally well dressed, who held her by the elbow, and just like that, they were gone. Benoît followed Marie’s gaze, in time to see Lili Gaudet disappear into the night.

“She looks devastated,” Benoît noted, his voice flat. Disappointed, perhaps. Marie could not tell.

The waiter put the check on the table.

Benoît picked it up and put it back down.

“I charge it?” he asked.

“You have no money? Nothing?”

“Rien,
” he said. He held out empty hands. “I spent everything I had on the taxi.”

“I have money,” Marie offered. “I’ll pay. And then, we can go to a hotel. Okay? Please?”

Benoît nodded, drinking his cognac.

The waiter accepted her American dollars. Given the poor exchange rate and the beer and the coffee and Caitlin’s milk, the cognac and the dessert, it was more expensive than Marie had known was possible for one simple meal.

The hotel cost more than two hundred euros for the night.
Marie felt something close to panic as she handed over the money, fresh, colorful euros recently changed at an all-night market. She was even less happy to hand over her passport, but the clerk would not give them the room without it. She felt like a homeless person in the bright hotel lobby, carrying her belongings in paper shopping bags.

There was no bathtub in the room.

“There is no bathtub,” Marie said.

The disappointment floored her.

“It’s no problem,” Benoît said, and the worst part was that to him it was not a problem.

Marie would have to bathe Caitlin either in the sink or the shower. She was prepared at least; she had bought a package of diapers at the market. They had cost twenty euros. She had spent close to fifty euros stocking up on things she thought she might need: a bar of chocolate with hazelnuts, a small wheel of Brie, a baguette, a salami, a jar of mashed apricots, milk, vanilla yogurt. A bottle of wine.

“It’s a good thing,” Benoît said, “I found myself a woman with money.”

Marie was certain this relationship would not last another day. The strain had been too much: death, infidelity, cat abuse, plagiarism, and now this added worry about money. Also, they were drunk, still, from dinner.

Benoît lay down on the bed, shoes on.

“Caitlin needs to get ready for bed,” Marie said.

Benoît looked at her but did not move.

Marie took Caitlin into the bathroom without a tub and changed her diaper. In the early days, when she was first learning her job, Caitlin needed to remind Marie, but those days were over. Marie knew when Caitlin needed to be changed. She could smell it, and she could usually anticipate it before she could smell it.

Marie had forgotten to buy wipes. She used a hotel face towel to wipe off a smear of yellow shit from Caitlin’s soft bottom. Caitlin’s poo smelled like the sauce from their dinner, like white wine and Parmesan cheese.

“I want my pink nightgown,” Caitlin said. “My pink one.”

Caitlin’s pink nightgown was in Lili Gaudet’s apartment. If they were lucky. Marie had no idea if Benoît had packed it. What she realized, though, was that when they woke up the next day, she would have nothing for Caitlin: no clean clothes, no stroller, no toys to play with. Marie had lasted three months with Juan José. Now, she was grateful that they had made it through the day. The idea of tomorrow filled Marie with panic. Ellen, she knew, Ellen would be coming to Paris. She could be landing at that very moment; she could already be on her way to the French police.

“You’re all clean,” she said to Caitlin.

Caitlin was happy to be clean. She ran out of the bathroom naked except for a fresh diaper, and Marie was struck, again, by how perfect she was. It was almost a travesty to put Caitlin in clothes, cover up her soft, peach-colored skin. Hide those chubby legs, her bony rib cage. Her little belly button.

Benoît had turned on the television, filling the room with unwanted noise, the sounds of French people speaking to one another in French. It made no sense how angry this made Marie. Benoît was eating Marie’s bar of hazelnut chocolate. She watched as her backpack inched off the bed and fell to the floor with a loud thud. The entire time Marie had been changing Caitlin’s diaper, Benoît had not even liberated his grandmother’s hateful cat. Marie knelt down and unzipped the bag. Ludivine came running out. She stopped in front of the chest of drawers, looked around, and then immediately started to meow.

“Why did you take this miserable cat?” Marie asked.

“She belonged to my grandmother,” Benoît said.

Until that afternoon, Marie had not known that Benoît Doniel had a grandmother. He had never mentioned a cat. Marie didn’t know what to do with this man, now that she had successfully maneuvered him into the hotel room. She had been trying to keep him away from the French actress, but the French actress was out on a date with another man. An older man. Probably a rich man. That was how much she cared about Benoît. Marie looked at Benoît, the floppy hair, the beaky nose, and she felt tired.

“Do you have good memories?” Marie asked. “About your grandmother? Did you love her?”

Benoît thought about this question.

“She always wore funny hats that tied beneath her head. She smelled like lavender. When I was a boy, she used to tell me that I had to toughen up. That I acted like a girl. She used to make me cry. She would bake special treats and give them to Nathalie. Not me.”

“This cat is pure poison,” Marie said.

She turned her backpack inside out. The cat had peed in her bag. The room was beginning to smell like cat pee. Ludivine continued to meow, opening her mouth to show the toothless gap.

“I don’t know why I took her. It feels like I am leaving everything behind.”

“We can throw her out the window,” Marie said.

“You did not just say that.”

“No,” Marie said. “I didn’t.”

Marie and Benoît stared at each other. The scab on his cheek had hardened, six or seven small dark red splotches in a neat line. Any good feeling that had been restored between them while they’d eaten creamy pasta with peas was gone again. They stared at each other with mutual loathing. Nothing else.

“Loodie is meowing,” Caitlin said.

Marie looked at Caitlin, alarmed by her proximity to the crazed cat. She poured some of the milk she had bought for Caitlin into a hotel ashtray and put it on the floor for the cat Benoît would not take care of. Ludivine went for the milk and the meowing stopped.

“That’s much better,” Benoît said.

“Marie,” Caitlin said.

“Yes, baby.”

“I want my pink nightgown.”

Marie nodded.

“I know you do.” She began to rifle through her paper bags for something that might work. She found a red tank top, her favorite red tank top. She had had it before prison, had worn it in Mexico. With Juan José. More and more, she was thinking about Juan José.

“Hold up your arms,” she said.

Caitlin held up her arms, reminding Marie why she loved her. The tank top fit her like a long, snug dress.

“That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” Marie said. “You look pretty in red.”

“I look pretty,” Caitlin said.

“We used to visit her,” Benoît said. “At the sea. My grandmother. She used to rent a house, in the summers, on the sea.”

“Like in your book?” Marie stopped herself. “Your sister’s book?”

“Everyone in France goes away in the summer.”

He was right, Benoît Doniel, not to talk about it. Marie felt an impulse that could only be described as violent when she remembered again how he had betrayed her. She had loved the author, the one with the swoopy hair and unmarked face. She could care less about the real man, his shoes on the bed. She did not want to know about his childhood.

“Do you think she left you any money?”

Benoît shook his head. “You saw how she lived,” he said. “She was poor. I did not know how bad it had gotten. I don’t even know if she owns that apartment. Sophie had papers to give me. I left without taking them. I am an idiot.”

“Do you have any money? Besides that? Any at all?”

Benoît shook his head.

“No savings? No bank account?”

Benoît shook his head.

“The only money I ever had was from
Virginie at Sea
. I used that up years ago.”

Marie lifted Caitlin onto the bed. Caitlin crawled over to Benoît, lying down next to him. Benoît fingered the strap of the red tank top.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “I’ll go get her a nightgown.”

“How?”

Benoît got up, suddenly, as if there had been a reason all along that he had never taken off his shoes.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

Marie looked at him with horror.

“No,” she said.

“I’ll get our things.”

“I won’t forgive you. Not for this.”

“I’ll come right back.”

Marie shook her head. He was leaving her. She felt her mouth drop open. She would not beg. She would not beg him to stay. She had nothing but contempt for Benoît Doniel, but still, this did not seem possible. He was leaving her.

“You have my daughter,” he said. “I will be right back.”

“Ten minutes?” Marie said.

“Yes.” Benoît looked at his watch. “Maybe a little more. Twenty. Twenty minutes.”

And then he was gone. He fled the hotel room like he had fled his grandmother’s apartment. Desperately seeking escape. He left without kissing Marie good-bye, without even a pause for Caitlin, who had fallen asleep on top of the covers. Ellen had not kissed her daughter, either, the day they had left for Paris.

Twenty minutes, he’d said.

Marie looked at the clock.

She pulled the covers back, and gently put Caitlin beneath them. She kissed Caitlin’s forehead, and thought of all the things she had done wrong. She watched Ludivine lap up her milk from the ashtray.

“Long day,” Marie said.

Benoît Doniel had left her. Already, two minutes had passed.

On the television, there was a French rock band playing to a crowded stadium. Marie reached for the remote control; she was going to turn it off, but instead, she changed the channel. The channels were all French, channel after channel, even the American films and TV shows she recognized were in French, until she came to CNN World News. News of the world. Marie could not remember the last time she had taken any interest in anything besides herself. She turned off the television.

Ludivine jumped onto the bed and started to wash herself. She licked her leg with a scratchy pink tongue.

“I’m sorry, cat,” Marie told her, “but you are not my problem.”

Marie picked up Ludivine, holding her as far away from her body as she could, and put her outside the door to the hotel room, locking it behind her.

The meowing started right away, plaintive, sad, as if the cat had no real expectations. She had been abandoned in an apartment, after all, left to die, been rescued, tossed into a moving taxi, and then stuffed into an airless backpack. Now this. Eventually she would have to give up.

Instead, Ludivine started to scratch on the door, the sound of her claws ripping into the wood as bad as the meows. And then, finally, the noise stopped. Marie counted to ten. She opened the door. Ludivine had fallen asleep on the doormat. Marie closed the door behind her.

She felt guilty.

Guilt was almost as bad as regret. She picked up the empty ashtray and refilled it with more of Caitlin’s milk and put it on the floor in the hallway, next to the sleeping cat.

Marie went back into the room. She didn’t know what came next. She sat down at the end of the bed and watched Caitlin sleep. She looked at her watch. Benoît had been gone for fifteen minutes. The French actress lived less than three blocks away. Marie calculated: eight minutes to get there, eight minutes to return to the hotel, five minutes of conversation. That was all she deserved. Which meant that Benoît would be back soon.

Marie pulled back the curtains in front of the window. The window opened to a balcony with a view of the Eiffel Tower, which lit up the sky. She had had no idea.

Marie looked back into the room. Benoît Doniel was still gone; Caitlin was asleep. Marie was all alone with the famous monument. She had expected to feel a great sense of wonder, seeing the Eiffel Tower with her own eyes, but she couldn’t register the appropriate emotion. Marie had taken a boat trip down the Seine, but what had made a greater impression was Ludivine’s heap of steaming vomit on the kitchen floor.

Marie leaned her arms against the balcony railing, nodding to herself. She had made it. She was not in a prison cell. She was not in her mother’s sad, dirty house, staring at the walls. She was breathing fresh air, her long hair blowing in the wind, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. It
was
beautiful. She could see that, even if it did not make her feel happy. She still recognized it. The beauty.

Marie could go there, the Eiffel Tower. She could go tomorrow. Marie did not need to be afraid. She could look forward to the coming day.

Marie would wake up in Paris. In this not-so-awful hotel room, with a view almost too painfully perfect to take in. She would go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Tomorrow.

Benoît had been gone for over an hour.

Lili Gaudet, she could talk.

Marie stepped back into the room. She changed into Ellen’s red kimono, but it no longer felt like hers. She got on the bed and stretched out next to Caitlin, stroking her hair, her soft white-blond hair.

“Hi Caty Bean,” she said to the sleeping girl.

And then, Benoît Doniel had been gone for two hours.

Marie took her backpack into the bathroom and scrubbed it with hotel soap and dried it with the hotel blow dryer. Caitlin did not wake up. Marie removed all of her belongings from the paper shopping bags and carefully, slowly, repacked her backpack. Making everything fit better than it had before.

Benoît had been gone for three hours and twenty-eight minutes. Even Lili Gaudet could not talk for that long.

Marie got back into the bed and did what she would do in prison, when she was in dire need of comfort. She read
Virginie at Sea
. It was a different book now, knowing what she knew, but Marie started at the end, as she often did. Virginie walked away from the sea lion that she had spent the summer trying to save, knowing that it would die. She walked into the water, still wearing her clothes, until she could no longer stand, and then she dove into the water, swimming out, deeper and deeper, into the dark blue sea.

The ending changed for Marie every time she read it. There was no way to
know
: Would Virginie, left floating on her back in the final sentence, turn around and swim back to shore? Or would she keep swimming, disappear, drown? Could she somehow stay there, forever suspended in time, floating?

Everything had changed, knowing what Nathalie had chosen for herself. There was no hope to be found in
Virginie at Sea
. No solace. No comfort. Nathalie had not lived long enough to publish her beautiful little book. Like Juan José, she had chosen death.