Hidden in Paris (19 page)

Alone in the bathroom, Althea studied her face. She looked like someone else entirely. What kind of world Lola lived in, a world where lipstick could cheer a girl up. She opened the drawers of the vanity and neatly organized the creams and make-up. When she was finished, she wiped the surfaces of the vanity and the sink with a tissue, all the while observing her face in the mirror.

She walked down the stairs, feeling like a cardboard cutout, and as stiff as one. Her eyelashes were heavy with mascara like small screens in front of her eyes. No one was in the living room. The only telephone in the house, besides the one in Annie’s bedroom, sat on a mahogany table that faced yet another mirror, and Althea watched the strange life-form wearing her hair dial a number and bring the phone to her ear.

Mars

Chapter 14

Halfway into bringing the groceries back home that morning, Annie noticed a few new things: The temperature was in the seventies, it wasn’t raining, and cafés and restaurant terraces were open. Everywhere, Parisians were flooding out of office buildings and onto the streets. Hems were up, coats were conspicuously absent, men had hungry stares, and women looked effervescent. Spring! She understood with a heavy heart. Soon enough she would have to face shedding layers of clothing and expose her winter lard. Winter suited her better, sweaters, pants, no need to tuck in her stomach. This spring would be even harder to circumvent with two skinny women in the house.

Spring was taking her by surprise. In the last month and a half she had barely kept afloat, cooking, cleaning, washing sheets, fighting, and putting up with Althea’s idiosyncrasies and Jared’s mysterious comings and goings. But she had also adapted to so much, so fast. Lia’s meltdowns, at first appalling and unacceptable, she’d come to see as part of the ebbs and flows of a week. She’d grinded her teeth during Simon’s night screams, then began sleeping like a baby herself for the first time in years at about the same time he did. She had gone from resenting having Lola as her second shadow, to feeling bored when Lola was out and about. She could compare that month of February to a slow incubation period. Like an incubation period, she had not known something was afoot. She had resisted February, all of it, but now that March was here, she had the feeling that things were different, that she felt different and that she might remain different whether she wanted it or not.

She entered the house and listened for signs of life but heard nothing but the low hum of the laundry machine. The kids were in school and Lola, who spent afternoons in subways, museums, gardens, and streets exploring Paris one arrondissement at a time with Simon, had long ceased asking if Annie wanted to come along. She entered the kitchen, her arms full of groceries and was surprised to find Lola and Simon there.

“It’s a beautiful day. We’re going out,” Lola said.

“See you later!”

“The ‘we’ includes you.”

“I don’t think so,” Annie said, her voice lacking conviction.

“Why not?”

“I have nothing to wear.”

They walked up to her room. This was the first time she let Lola and Simon in since the first day when she gave them a tour of the house. Simon climbed on the bed and used it as a trampoline while Lola foraged in her closet. In minutes, Lola had retrieved a pair of black pants, leather boots and her Burberry Trench coat.

“Here you go. Timeless classics,” she said. Annie watched Lola arrange the pants, coat and an orange twin set on the bed and then brandish a silk scarf. “Hermes?” she exclaimed. “You own a Hermes scarf?”

“Johnny was into that designer stuff.” Lola would have gasped at the quantities of purses, shoes and clothes Johnny had purchased for her and that she had taken to designer resale stores, partly for the money, partly because she wanted nothing to do with them. This scarf was one of the exceptions.

They walked down the many steps towards the Passy métro station and, judging from Lola and Simon’s confidence, it was clear they knew their way around and that Annie was to follow. Already, they were more Parisian than she was. She had avoided mass transportation just as much as she had avoided driving. She had avoided anything that took her more than half a mile away from her house. They squeezed into the already packed metro car. All these people! She held her breath for many stations, until people began getting off and she no longer needed to be body against body. No matter how inconspicuous Lola tried to be, faces turned toward her. A well-dressed man immediately offered his seat to Lola, who declined with a smile.

“French men are the best,” Lola said when they walked out of the station. “They flirt but there is a lot of respect. It feels just fun, relaxed. Not like Italians who are like little kids who haven’t been taught their manners. Men in some cultures are just frightening.”

“You don’t think American men are respectful?”

Lola dismissed it. “American men are a bore is what they are. They have no idea how to flirt. In the street they wouldn’t dream of locking eyes with a woman, unless they’re in safe accredited pick-up stations like bars or nightclubs. French men flirt easily, not to pick you up, but to give you a nice compliment.”

“Yeah, I remember those days. Now the lack of flirting is a slap in the face every time I go out of the house.”

“You hardly get out of the house.”

“Maybe now you understand why.”

“You might want to turn on the ‘I’m available’ signals.”

“I’m not available.”

“So they don’t flirt. This proves my point.”

They emerged
Place Saint Germain Des Prés
. Annie raised her eyes toward the
Café Les Deux Magots
. The best hot chocolates in all of Paris. Johnny would have espresso, she the hot chocolate. They would detail the
Parisiennes
passing by, and Annie would wonder how they did it. Clutching her own purse, she would wonder how, for another woman, it became a fashion accessory.

They walked though the cobblestone streets of
Saint Germain des Prés
, for a while, entered stores, and admired the buildings. Lola spotted an empty table at the terrace of the Café de Flore. They made their way to the center of the terrace. Next to them were four men at a table and another table with six women in their mid-thirties. Conversations slowed at both tables, and everyone took their time staring at Lola. Again. Annie glared at them and sat down. “When I was in my twenties, and, looking back on it, pretty cute, I’d get intoxicated by the way Parisian men looked at me too. All that sexual energy.”

Lola took Simon out of the stroller and let him wander through and under the tables. “Speaking of sexual energy, the testosterone level in the house has gone way up since Jared moved in.”

“Tell me about it,” Annie said mournfully. “But I wouldn’t get too excited about Jared.”

“I’m not excited, I just--”

“He’s trouble.”

“He is?”

“He’s had a sort of Dickensian childhood. Or more like out of Zola in his case. No one has ever found out who killed his father. He was raised in an area of
Sarcelles
, and that’s one nasty suburb where even the police don’t want to go. They say his father was murdered because of drug debts. Jared was a little kid then. It was all before I knew him. His mother raised him and his sister by herself. Not entirely by herself. They knew Lucas, and asked him if he could be Jared’s godfather. Lucas might well be the only person in the world who would take this kind of title seriously. So Lucas helped with money. I suspect he still does.”

“Lucas is such a good man,” Lola said. “He is,” Annie agreed, and as she said it, she realized, maybe for the first time, how true that was. “Jared was about eleven when his five-year-old sister was diagnosed with leukemia. She was gone very fast. That’s when Jared’s mother all but gave up on living. Jared’s way to deal with this was to take on the role of the man. He became her protector and caretaker when he was just a little boy. He dropped out of school, began painting and did very well. He had exhibitions right and left. And then last year, his mother died.”

“Is that when Jared stopped painting?”

“So I’m told by Lucas. He kind of dropped everything.”

“Is he any good?”

“His stuff isn’t exactly decorative. It’s on the tortured side. His dying mother was his preferred subject.”

They watched Simon totter around. He went from table to table, inspecting the sides of people’s coffee cups for forgotten sugar cubes. People smiled at him and gave him paper-wrapped sugar cubes just to watch the expression of joy on his face.

“It’s generous of you to let him live in your house,” Lola said.

Annie dismissed it with a wave of the hand. “I need the money.”

“I enjoy having him around for my own selfish reasons. Talk about eye candy. Just when I thought living in France could not get any better, here arrived Mr.
Brun Ténébreux
.”

Annie considered Lola with a frown. “Come on, you must have led a pretty sweet life in Beverly Hills, with all the money, the sun 300 days out of the year.”

“Let me tell you what it’s like for women like me,” Lola said. “In France, you’re only expected to look your best. In L.A., it’s mandatory that you remain young and splendid eternally. How about that for pressure? And you can’t imagine what it’s like to be watched, judged, and demolished by the wives.”

“The wives?”

“Women like me, women who married someone rich or famous. My friends, I guess. Women who want to see you fail.” Simon came trotting towards them and Lola pried a handful of sugar cubes from his hand. “It’s not even personal. In my world, witnessing financial or emotional collapses is a spectator sport.”

“How come?”

“Boredom? Or else competitiveness, narcissism. That’s the temperament it takes to land a wealthy man. Once those women do, their function in life thereafter is to shop. Accumulation as
a raison d’être
. All we talk about is weight, plastic surgery, and shopping.”

“But you must have friends. You’re so nice.”

Lola shrugged, “The only people I dare open up to are my personal trainer and my hairdresser. When your social circle is defined by tax brackets, looks, and social status, one has to pay good money to find a friendly ear.”

Conflicting thoughts went through Annie’s brain. One was that she too might be one of the friendly ears Lola was paying for. But then it occurred to her she was thankful for it. It occurred to her that she too had been terribly lonely and friendless.

“I was feeling so trapped,” Lola added. “I felt as trapped outside my house as I did inside. I think we aren’t always aware of the intelligence behind our actions. I thought coming to Paris was a spur-of-the-moment reaction. But I think I had put out this intention, you know, at the vibration level. I was asking the universe for a solution, and the universe answered.”

That sent Annie into a flurry of head shaking and eye rolling. “It’s hocus-pocus.”

“You’re out of touch with your spiritual core,” Lola said. “I think that full-blown depression was where I was headed.” A cloud passed over Lola’s eyes. She took Simon on her lap and held him tight. “I ran away just in time.”

Annie surprised herself by making a deliberate attempt to cheer Lola up. “Well, wherever you are headed now, there will be a place for you. Men are at your feet.” She made a joke of it. “All I’ve got is the butcher at the
Boucheries Roger
on the rue de l’Annonciation.”

“Now you admit it!” Lola laughed.

“Now I’m realizing it.” Of course this wasn’t true. The butcher had been courting Annie for years, and though his cheeks looked pretty much like his ground beef, she was guilty of a fantasy or two about being taken by him on the butcher block, amongst
rotis de porc and côtelettes d’agneau
.

“Maybe it is the spring thing,” Lola suggested. “Look around.”

At the terrace, the four men at the one table were now in full flirtatious conversation with the group of women at the next table. At smaller tables, couples were holding hands or gazing into each other’s eyes.

“It must be the spring thing,” Annie sighed.

Lola’s look was comical. Annie had taught her to gently fold in the egg whites so as not to break the air bubbles, and Lola, stiff, her T-shirt splattered with stains of every single ingredient in the recipe, wore a worried look on her face like she was diffusing a time bomb. Lola raised her eyes for some form of approval and Annie made a little sign in the general direction of Althea, who had stacked cut vegetables into neat little piles on one side and small mounds of vegetable peels on the other. Lola nodded her head in what seemed to be agreement. All week, Annie had pestered Lola about Althea’s strangeness and thinness, and finally Lola was acknowledging the problem, or so it seemed. Annie needed no more show of support to finally open her mouth.

“Althea, how come you’re this skinny?” she asked. The sentence wasn’t out of her mouth before Lola was giving her a look and shaking her head in an emphatic no.

“I’m not exactly skinny,” Althea responded as she peeled a potato in one long graceful ribbon. “There are areas that have cellulite on them,” she continued in a flat voice. “Like my inner thighs.”

Annie worked on her paella, coating the clams and shrimps evenly with juice with one hand while picking uncontrollably at the baguette with the other. “Your inner what?”

Althea wore jeans that were probably the equivalent of a size zero, yet were baggy on her. She stood from her chair and grabbed the inside of her pant leg.

“Here.”

Annie laughed, “Well, if you’re not skinny, then I’m obese.”

Althea considered that information. “I guess you’re...curvaceous,” she said with an oh-so-subtle grimace of disgust.

“Gee, thanks! I do like to think of myself as curvaceous. Curvaceous is good in my book,” she said, but her feelings were hurt. “Althea, how much do you weigh, exactly?” she asked. And then, unable to restrain herself another instant added: “Do you have an eating disorder?”