Before Ever After (6 page)

Brad leaned toward Shelley’s ear. “I wouldn’t trade the Eiffel Tower for this guy’s buns, would you?”

Shelley giggled, agreeing fully.

Max tilted the rearview mirror to look at her. “What’s so funny, luv?”

“Oh, er, nothing,” Shelley said. The edges of her mouth were still twitching.

“Already we have secrets between us. Well, let’s see what other secrets await us on this trip, eh, campers?” Max turned a knob on the stereo and filled the Volkswagen with the falsetto of the brothers Gibb. “First stop, Paris.”

The mirrored ball showered flecks of sunlight across her eyelids. Shelley stirred from a dream about French carbohydrates. The warm buttery scent grew stronger, teasing her awake. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and leaned out of the van’s window. The wind tousled her hair and carried with it a sonorous pleasure: the ensemble of croissants calling her name.

“Bonjour, campers!” Max said. “We are now in gay Paree. We’ll be making a stop at our accommodations so we can have some breakfast before we begin our little adventure.”

An assortment of yawns, grunts, and crackles of joints answered him. Dex sounded particularly creaky.

Shelley caught Max’s eye in the mirror and smiled. He gave her a wink.

Max drove the van through the Right Bank and down a cobbled street lined with grandes dames decked in their finest wrought-iron lace. He parked in front of one of the regal buildings. He stepped out of the van
and rang the doorbell. A round old lady answered the door and bounded onto the sidewalk.

“Maximilian!” The woman kissed both of Max’s cheeks.

“Marianne,
comment ça va?
”

“Ça va très bien, merci!”
Marianne’s ample chest heaved with delight.

“Et les poulets?”
Max asked.

And the chickens? Or at least that’s what Shelley thought he asked. Her French wasn’t as good as she had thought.

“
Très bien! Et toi
, Maximilian?” Marianne’s eyes darted over Max’s face. “You look the same as always,” she continued in French.

Max smiled. “There are seven of us who will be bothering you this time,” he said, reverting to English. He signaled the group to join him.

“You no zat eet ees nevah a bozzer, Maximilian.” Marianne’s accent coated each syllable of her English like a layer of marzipan. “Welcom, evreewon. I am Marianne, zee caretakah ov zeez hom. Please com eenside.”

Unless the local YMCA had done some major renovations, Shelley thought, this was not the budget hostel she had expected to be staying in for the price she’d paid for Max’s tour. The building she walked into had fallen out of step with time, preserving an elegance more likely to be seen cordoned behind the Louvre’s velvet ropes. She couldn’t help feeling that her jeans and red Chuck Taylors were an affront to the parlor’s gilded ceiling, silk-covered walls, and crystal fixtures. “Are we washing dishes to pay for this?” she asked Max.

“Yes, but you’ll need to wear your French maid’s uniform first,” he said. “Marianne will show you where you can change.”

Marianne giggled and took Shelley’s arm. “Come. I weel show you to your rums.” Her cheeks puffed as she led the group up a carved staircase.

To her credit, Shelley managed to behave like an adult long enough for Marianne to close the door of her room behind her. She shed all such pretense when she heard it click shut. The room was a jewel box. She guessed
it had once belonged to the dark-haired girl whose faded portrait hung on one of its walls. The quiet smile in the girl’s amber eyes made Shelley feel welcome. She launched herself onto the canopied bed and sank into a sea of pillows and silk. Highly inappropriate thoughts of a certain tour guide stirred inside her. She fiddled with the button on her jeans and considered locking the door. She closed her eyes.

“Amore,”
Max whispered in her ear.

Shelley bolted upright, then heaved a sigh of relief. Max was not there. His voice had drifted in from the small garden below her window. She peeked out.

Max was singing—opera—impressively. Shelley watched him sing as he collected brown eggs from a small henhouse tucked in the corner of the garden. Two clucking feather balls darted around him like puppies. Smug satisfaction curled in the corners of her mouth. She had not forgotten her French after all.

A whiff of strong coffee lured the group from their rooms, but it was the warm, savory scent that made them scamper down the staircase. They bounded into the kitchen.

“Feeding time at the zoo.” Max pulled the oven door open and flooded the white brick kitchen with promise. “Rooms all right, campers?”

“Boudoirs, Max, boudoirs,” Brad said. “Between your donations to orphanages and setting us up in this palace, I can’t figure out how you’re making any money on this tour—not that I’m complaining. I love being on the receiving end of charity.”

“The owners of this home are friends of mine, mate. They like that I drop in and keep an eye on the place for them once in a while.” Max drew a large earthenware dish from the oven.

The group followed Max and their noses to a rustic wooden table. It groaned under the weight of freshly baked bread, croissants, jams, coffee, and fruit. Max set the dish at the center of the table, revealing a golden crust of cheese topped with a sprinkling of fresh herbs. It bubbled an invitation.

“I only had time to whip up some baked eggs and cheese this morning,
but it should be enough to sustain you through our adventures today,” Max said. “I was worried that I might find you chewing one another’s appendages off if I attempted anything more elaborate. To be honest, it was a bit of a mess to clean up the last time that happened.”

“If your cooking is as lovely as it smells, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about any of us snacking on body parts today.” Shelley was lying, of course, since nibbling on Max seemed like a perfectly good alternative to breakfast—at least that’s how she felt before her first forkful of his baked eggs.

She sank her teeth into melted cheese and summer, unleashing a silk stream of eggs and cream in her mouth. A buttery earthiness lingered on her tongue. She gulped orange juice to keep from moaning from the world’s first egg orgasm.

Rose gave Shelley a knowing look. “I came as well, dear. Twice.”

Jonathan sputtered, turning a shade brighter than the raspberry preserves on his baguette. “Ah … um … yes, yes, wonderful eggs, Max.
Très magnifique.
”

Shelley did not recover quite as elegantly, and was still choking on the juice that had spurted out of her nose and onto Max’s shirt. Max came to her rescue with a couple of solid pats to her back, a napkin, and a grin.

Shelley watched Jonathan mop up the last of his eggs. She sipped her coffee and made a mental list of what she knew about her traveling companions so far:

Dex was a freelance writer, chewed slowly, and had a wheat allergy
.

Jonathan was more than happy to save Dex from his croissants
.

Rose was not, and religiously reminded her husband to take his anti-cholesterol pills
.

The honeymooners argued about Jonathan’s diet but agreed on the care of hydrangeas—so much so that they got married at the flower club where they met
.

Brad and Simon did not belong to a garden club, were not allergic to
wheat, and did not have high cholesterol, but were thrilled about their new wedding-planning business
.

That about covered it except for Max.

Shelley set her cup on the table. It was the second she had drained while waiting for her guide to volunteer information about himself. She decided to take matters into her own hands. “And how about you, Max? Is this what you do full time? I recall that you were chasing after some chickens when we spoke over the phone. Married? Um, happily?”

Max smiled. “Maximilian B. Gallus. Tour operator by profession, chicken farmer by passion, and single on account of the vow of celibacy required by the Poultry Club of Great Britain. It is a curious fact that jealous chickens do not lay as many eggs as their emotionally secure counterparts, you see.” He turned to the group. “And now, campers, if you’re done with breakfast, it’s time we made our way to the first of our two destinations in Paris. Let’s meet in the parlor in ten minutes, shall we?”

The group gathered beneath the ornate Metro sign at the top of the steps leading to the subway.

Dex eyed the sign and pulled a small Lumix camera from his backpack. He adjusted his baseball cap and took a deep breath. “Um, can I take your picture, Shelley?”

Shelley obliged by default, too lost in her own thoughts to manage anything more than a blank stare. She was busy relishing the breakfast that had settled lazily in her stomach and the fact that, celibate or not, Max was single. She smiled to herself.

Dex angled his camera and framed Shelley below the subway sign’s green art nouveau arch.

“Now listen, campers,” Max said. “Take note of this place in case you get lost during our field trip and need to find your way back home. If you don’t think you can remember where we started from, you can purchase a baguette and leave a trail of bread crumbs. Oh, and before we head off, there are three things you must remember. First, don’t talk to strangers.
Second, you need to be aware that your travel insurance does not cover acts of stupidity or alien abduction. Please do your best to avoid them. And third, hold on to your mates.”

The couples in the group took Max’s instructions to heart and proceeded hand in hand down the stairs of the station.

Dex glanced at Shelley, his cheeks as red as his hair. He held out his arm to her. “Um … I suppose he means us.”

“No, I don’t, actually.” Max grinned at Dex.

“Oh, uh, well …” Dex’s arm snapped back into place.

Max turned to Shelley. “You’re in luck, luv. Not only am I skilled at rescuing damsels from drowning in orange juice, but you’ll find that I’m also rather adept at mating.”

Shelley raised a brow. “Mating?”

“Mating,” Max said, “from the word
mate
, a word derived from the Old Dutch word
maet
or
companion
, which shares the same root as
mete
, which means ‘to measure.’ ”

“I see,” Shelley said. “So what you are in fact offering me is a measure of companionship, correct?”

“Indeed.” Max stuck out the crook of his arm. “The length of my arm to be exact. All in accordance with the guidelines of the Poultry Club, I assure you. You won’t get lost, I have a place to rest my arm, and the chickens are secure in my fidelity.” He shrugged at Dex. “I’d offer you my other arm …”

“Er, that’s okay.” Dex stuck his hands in his pockets and marched down the steps. “I’ll take my chance with the bread crumbs.”

Simon looked up at the name of the station from which they had emerged. “Père Lachaise. That’s the cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried, right?”

“That’s correct,” Max said. “The Cimetière du Père-Lachaise was the site of a Jesuit residence and was converted into a cemetery in 1804. Apart from Mr. Morrison, it is home to other famous residents such as Héloise and Abélard, Oscar Wilde, Maria Callas, and Frédéric Chopin, to name a few.”

“And who among that distinguished set shall we be paying a visit to today, Max?” Jonathan asked.

“You’ll meet her soon enough.”

Père Lachaise was a village, Shelley thought, minus the village. There were no charming country houses along the tree-shaded streets, only crumbling mausoleums, each more sadly beautiful than the next. Brad snapped away with his camera, capturing the eternal mourning of the stone angels that stood watch over them. Occasionally, he trained his Nikon at an aging rocker that strode past them, focusing on a thinning gray ponytail or a tear in his jeans. She guessed that these leather-cuffed devotees were not searching for Oscar Wilde.

As much as she liked the Doors, however, she could not fathom why anyone would come to Père Lachaise of his or her own accord. She loathed cemeteries. They broke her heart like posters for missing dogs and icecream cones dropped by little kids. But it wasn’t the yellow Labrador puppies, vanilla melting on the pavement, or the dead beneath the gravestones that made her sad. What tore her up was the thought of the people who lost them. That, and soggy grass—the kind your heels sank into after an hour of steady rain.

Shelley could still feel the way the grass had squished under her feet that gray morning she stood at her mother’s side watching raindrops splatter over her dad’s coffin. She did not know at the time that she was attending three funerals: one for her dad, the second for her ruined ballet flats, and the third for the twinkle in her mom’s eye when her dad walked through the door.

Shelley blinked back tears. She looked around, searching for dry and solid ground. Apart from the clicking of Brad’s camera, her little group walked in silence, their feet shuffling along the same path, their thoughts wandering on more distant roads. Dex seemed to have drifted the farthest away. He glanced toward her and caught her looking at him. He flashed her the same fractured smile he had when they had met in the van. It was bright, but it still made Shelley wonder if something less sunny was hidden beneath.

“This way,” Max said as he grabbed Shelley’s arm. Leaves rustled above the thin dirt path, leading toward a stone wall. Shelley didn’t notice them. She was busy trying not to trip over their fluttering shadows. Walking arm in arm with Max had the unfortunate effect of making her knees wobble.

“Has anyone here heard of the Bloody Week?” Max asked. “And just to be clear, I am not referring to that nasty union strike at the tube last month.”

“If memory serves me right, I believe that was the week when the French government reclaimed Paris from the Communards who had taken over the city in the late 1800s,” Jonathan said.

“Well done, Jonathan,” Max said. “That would be a somewhat sanitized definition, but, yes, technically correct. Although the twenty thousand men, women, and children who were brutally murdered that week might think that ‘mass indiscriminate slaughter’ was a more apt description. Semantics.” He shrugged. “Ah, there it is.” He pointed to the perimeter wall of the cemetery and doubled his pace, dragging Shelley along with him.