Hidden in Paris (28 page)

A superhighway of ants crawled from under the garage door to the kitchen, to the sink, and industriously blackened every inch of the dirty dishes that filled the sink and marred the countertop. Mark observed the ants from his seat at the kitchen island as he chewed his Stouffer frozen pizza. Selena had quit two weeks before and things were going to the dogs but he didn’t really care. He swallowed the last of the pizza, reached for the can of Raid, and discharged a long spray of ant-and-roach killer in the direction of the sink. He watched the ants wither and die wondering if this would be enough to send him to hell.

What he thought was the flu had turned into something else. He wasn’t going to the office and when the office called he had a hard time picking up the phone. He had decided to stay home, skipping showers and shaving for a few more days. The phone was ringing. Again he hoped it was Lola and not the office. But it was never Lola and it was always the office. He picked up the receiver.

“I think I’ve found her,” said a man’s voice.

Mark sprang to his feet. “How? Where is she?”

“She’s definitely in Paris,” the voice said. “I have an address. Do you want me to fly there? Take pictures?”

“No, no...not yet. I need to think. I’ll call you back.” Mark hung up the phone feeling lighter than he had in weeks. He imagined himself arriving at the door of some French hotel, she falling into his arms, the kids... but the memory of their last phone conversation came to him again, like a vice on his heart. He had tried to play it smooth and had said all the wrong things. It had started with Lola asking him if he was “doing okay” and it had pissed him off that she would do something so wrong and selfish and then expect reassurance that it didn’t affect him.

He had tried to be funny. “Oh, just peachy,” he had said. “You know, making money, playing strip poker with my girlfriends.”

There had been a mundane exchange then Lola said, “I’ve been thinking of the reasons I left. I think it also has to do with needing to do something worthwhile with my life.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he had answered. “Of course you do things that are worthwhile.”

“I’m not even raising my own children.”

“What kind of bull is that?”

“The nannies. You think the nannies are better than me. You won’t even trust me to be a mother to my children.”

Mark had rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “That is bar none the most ridiculous accusation I have ever heard. The nannies are for you, Lola, not for me. Everybody does it. You can free up time to-”

“To accompany you on business trips?” she had interrupted. “I end up leaving the kids for days at a time. You don’t know how much I’ve cried in those hotel rooms while you were doing business.”

“You never said anything!”

“It’s always about what you want, and what you think, Mark. I was afraid to disappoint you.”

“It looks like you’ve conquered your fear all right. Well good news, the nanny quit, and so did the maid. When you get back home there will be no one left to blame!”

“You want to know why I left? For this! This very comment!”

“What? What did I say?”

“Do you even hear yourself?” Lola said angrily. “Calling me a parasite all the time?”

“But I didn’t call you a...”

“And screaming at me and putting me down?”

Lola barely sounded like herself. He did not know how to respond to her aggressiveness. “Is that all?” he asked.

“You won’t change,” Lola had said flatly.

“I’m too dumb, eh?”

“To change, you’d have to see that the way you do things doesn’t work.”

“Oh, spare me the psychoanalysis.”

“It’s always about what others have done wrong. Heads have to roll.”

“If you were so miserable, why didn’t you say so?”

“I was terrified of speaking to you.”

“What stopped you?”

Lola had sounded incredulous. “What stopped me?” She breathed in. “You can’t be asking that question! How about your uncontrollable, violent anger? How about the names you called me? Do you at all realize how unforgivable you’ve been, and how much I have forgiven you anyway?”

“Oh!” he said, furious now, “because you think that your resentment didn’t seep out continuously?”

“You’ve got an anger problem. Of course I had resentment,” Lola had exclaimed.

“Disappearing like this, and now all this crap about being afraid and not wanting nannies? Make up your fucking mind, Lola.”

“You’re out of control, and I can’t stand it!” she said.

The bitch! He had felt the rage rise in him like a damned Godzilla out of the waters. He had yelled, “You want a divorce? Say it, for Christ’s sake!”

“I don’t want a divorce,” Lola had cried. “I want a good marriage.”

He was not listening anymore. He was screaming. “We have a good marriage! We have a freaking mansion, we...” Mark searched for proof. “You have a life of leisure!”

“Mark, you’re in denial,” had come Lola’s cold voice.

“You have to come back Lola, by law! I’ll sue your ass!” was all he could think of saying.

By that point, Lola was sobbing on the line. “I...I’m not ready. And with that attitude, I don’t know if I ever will be.”

“Then screw your attitude,” he screamed. “Fuck you Lola!”

When he realized that Lola had hung up, he had hurled the receiver against the wall. The phone had smashed into pieces that scattered around the kitchen with earsplitting violence. Days later, the shards of phone were still there on the floor, telling him more about himself than he wanted to know. He could have picked them up, yet part of him was interested in what the remnants of the telephone were saying. Never mind the ants, this was what he would go to hell for. For that broken phone. For that fury that overtook him and was long past his ability to control.

Up until this moment, he had been focused on the private investigator and finding Lola. But now that he had tracked her down, he realized it might be too late. She had not really been found. In fact she might be lost to him now.

Mark opened his wallet and took out the card. Larry had given him the card, Larry, his boxing coach, of all people. The irony wasn’t lost on him. When your boxing coach hands you the card of a shrink who deals with anger management, you know you’ve got a problem. Mark rubbed his eyes and neck and dialed the shrink’s number.

Chapter 21

Annie slipped into her shorts, and it was a delicious feeling. The zipper zipped a nice smooth zip. She didn’t even need to hold her stomach in. She turned around, looked at her butt. Nice! Feeling like a runway model, she descended to the garden in shorts and a tank top. The heat wave, unseasonable for May, had metamorphosed the garden in a few days. The clematis burst with pale pink flowers, the air was heavy with the scent of wisteria and leaf buds practically opening before the eyes. The children in their bathing suits were running in and out of the house and Lola was sun tanning in her bikini, her skin gleaming with suntan lotion.

Annie had spent the winter hauling car-sized flagstones around and now the planting could start. She knelt in the musk-scented earth and got that feeling again. That feeling of urgency, that feeling that she was about to burst with...what? For half an hour, she raked the earth with her fingers, making small holes, separating flats of creeping thyme and baby’s tears into small chunks and placing them in between the flagstone while the children pursued each other armed with loaded water pistols.

Lola turned away from the French magazine she was leafing through. “I hate sunbathing marks. Would you mind if I do like the French and go topless?”

“Do I mind that you look this good? Of course no, why would I mind,” Annie answered. She surprised herself for saying what was on her mind, and then realized that the reason she could say it was because Lola’s beauty no longer raised red flags in her. She and Lola were as different as night and day, but she had dropped at least twelve pounds and felt better than she had in years, light and diaphanous, practically waif-like. But it wasn’t just the weight. It was something else that had to do with Lucas telling her she had a backbone, and that she was the full package and whatever other silly thing he had said but that for some reason made her suddenly feel attractive.

She lifted her face towards Althea’s bedroom window, and sure enough, there was Althea, watching them. Was she waiting for an authorization to join the fun? Or was she just being creepy? She waved at Althea to come down but Althea disappeared from the window. A few minutes later, to her surprise, Althea materialized in the garden. She wore winter clothes, black pants, black turtleneck and heavy black makeup around her eyes. She would never understand how this girl functioned. Althea was, according to Maxence, “turning emo” which she understood was the new Goth. Althea plopped down on a plastic chaise like a teenager who wants to be there but resents it all the same.

“Take some clothes off,” Annie suggested. “Lola did and she feels much better. See...look.”

Althea glanced in the direction of Lola’s bare breasts and quickly looked away.

“Lola is busy acting French so she cannot be disturbed at the moment.”

Lola glanced above an obsolete
Paris Match
. “You betcha,” she said and resumed her inaction.

The children came running from the house and spilled into the backyard followed by Lia in tears. Althea sprang to her feet in reflex, and Annie had the notion that Althea was experiencing Lola’s nudity like it was her own.

“What’s going on in there?” she asked Maxence.

Lia was drenched, “They ganged up on me,” she wailed. “They wet me!”

“So, isn’t that the whole point?” Annie wondered out loud to Lola who shrugged behind her magazine. Lia noticed her mom.

“Ewww...Mom!”

“Maxence, no water balloons in the house,” Annie yelled without conviction.

Maxence, followed by Paul, Laurent, and Simon, stomped into the yard. Her boys all ignored Lola. They had seen bare breasts at the beach their entire life. “It’s just a few tiny drops. It’s not gonna kill her.”

“Just sit out there and be quiet. All of you.” Annie said.

“Can’t you find anything to keep yourselves occupied without killing each other?” Lola asked behind her magazine.

“No, we’re bored.” Simon said.

Althea got up from her plastic chair and walked towards the kitchen. She almost entered the house, then turned back towards the garden, looked away, and said to no one in particular, “We can do something if you guys have washable markers.” Annie had to hold onto her trowel not to fall. She did a quick glance in the direction of Lola who glanced back.

“It’s not a school day. I’m not doing crafts,” Maxence said.

“I mean,” Althea said timidly, “maybe, if you want, I’ll tattoo you.”

Maxence perked up. “Cool!”

Lia shook her head. “I’m not doing it.”

“Not on the face, no blood, no profanity, no weapons,” Annie said.

Lola folded her magazine and got up. Her bare breasts shone with oil and looked a lot like torpedoes. “I’m off to yoga,” she said.

Annie pursed her lips, “Not in
this
accoutrement I hope!”

Annie resumed her planting and watched from the corner of her eye the unlikely scene unfolding. She didn’t know what was most unlikely, the children cooperating, Althea taking an initiative, or the fact that Althea had a secret talent. Out in the sun-drenched garden, Althea used a thin black marker and began to draw patterns of entangled animals, dragons, lizards, bees, and unicorns on Maxence’s arms and torso. She drew precisely and without hesitation, as if she were merely reproducing the figures. She was indefatigable even as the boys wanting their turns harassed her by calling out names of animals or superheroes they wanted on their bodies. She drew without small chat and certainly without pretending to play with them. In her expression, all Annie could see was an artist at work, completely engrossed in what she was doing. When Lia volunteered to color in the drawings to make them look like real tattoos, Althea let her without seeming the least bit territorial about her creation.

After a while, Annie stopped pretending to garden and went to sit next to them to watch Althea work. By the time Lola came back two hours later from her first yoga class as a teacher, the children were covered in drawings and Althea was putting the finishing touches on the garland of flowers that circled Lia’s arms. Annie, sunburned and covered with dirt was taking pictures.

“She’s good,” Lola whispered.

“She’s damn good,” Annie said.

They both looked at Althea, not knowing what to think.

Lucas peered above his Armani sunglasses. On the north side of center court, in the bleachers, Jared’s black silhouette moved past pastel Lacoste shirts and wide-brim hats. Then back the other way when he realized he was on the wrong side of the bleachers. Second row seat at Roland Garros, and Jared was forty-five minutes late!

Jared came to sit beside him. They followed the yellow ball from one racket, to the clay, to another racket and back, the set ending with a murmur of discontent from the audience. Lucas wore a white polo shirt and light seersucker pants appropriate for the time, place, and heat wave. “Aren’t you hot?” he asked. Jared seemed to realize only then that he was, and removed his coat. He was too pale and did not look healthy at all. Lucas took a sip of Evian and offered him a bottle.

“You need some sun,” he said. “You live at night--” He was interrupted by a cheer from the crowd. One of the players had removed his shirt. “American players have no class. Do you see Europeans doing this? No. How are things with your damsel in distress?”

Jared looked at him and frowned. “Who?”

“That, that creature. Althea. Lovely, really. Only--”

“How is it going with Annie?” Jared interrupted.

Lucas shook his head. “Ah! Annie. The other day in her kitchen, I came on to her.” He sighed. “I don’t know what possessed me. It was unpremeditated, awful. I made a terrible fool of myself. There’s so little time alone with her and with Lola being there all the time, there is so much flirting and joking going on. I’m at the mercy of two irresistible females. The last thing I need is for Annie to see me as a buffoon with too much testosterone.”

Jared shrugged, “Don’t you think it’s about time to be more direct? Haven’t you wasted enough time? Years, in fact?”

Lucas continued with his train of thought. “Annie’s more self-sufficient than ever. Of course, it also confirms my positive opinion of her. She is not needy. I don’t think I’ve ever been with a woman who wasn’t needy one way or another.” Lucas turned and looked at Jared. “I want to warn you about that.”

“What?”

“Needy women.”

“I don’t need any warning.”

“That lovely young woman, of course. Althea? Right? Youth, beauty, they can be quite manipulative. Annie is a different woman entirely: strong, smart, autonomous.”

“Annie’s a pain in the ass.”

“That’s because you’re not living up to your potential! At least with Annie, I know where I stand.”

“Do you really?”

“At least I’m not manipulated.”

“Not manipulated?” Jared stood up. “You’re the Testosterone Buffoon.”

“Ah, merde!” Lucas said as the players walked back on the court. “How am I going to fix this?” he asked. But Jared was already gone.

Althea had taken to wandering the streets around the house while waiting for her time with Jared. The day was overwhelmingly hot and the house had no air conditioning, which turned her room under the roof into a furnace. She walked and stopped in front of a store she had noticed before. The name of the shop was “
librairie traditionelle
,” an old-fashioned book and art supply store. As she entered, she was welcomed by the jingle of a bell placed on the door. Inside, it was as cool and quiet as the street had been sweltering and busy. The store smelled of chalk, books and ink. She moved around the cramped alleys and shelves heavy with merchandise, letting her fingers caress the various surfaces. She did not know why she had stopped there or what she was looking for. Her fingers recognized the sensation first.
Papier Canson
, one of the finest papers in the world.

Her dad had given Althea her first drawing pad for her eighth birthday. It had a black cover and the pages were thick and smooth. Each year on her birthday, she’d go to the store and choose a new one. She drew everything and everywhere. She drew during school. She drew at home when her parents watched TV. She’d sit on a bench at the playground and draw. She liked that kids and even adults looked over her shoulder as she drew, and often complimented her. She wanted to take lessons one day to become an artist. By the time she was fourteen, she had filled every page of six sketchpads. When she was fifteen, they moved. In her new bedroom, Althea had already put away the content of every box of her belongings when she realized her pads were missing.

“Mom, I can’t find something.”

Her mom had been frazzled from the move, her patience was thin that year and she was smoking more than ever. She blew a cloud of angry smoke at her. “What’s missing?”

“My drawing pads.”

“I can’t keep every single shred of paper this family produces. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Althea had screamed and sobbed and yelled at her mom. As a result, she had been slapped and grounded. She then stopped drawing.

Althea admired the ancient wood shelves, the rows of inks, paint tubes and pigments arranged by hues, then went back to the area for drawing paper and pads. She opened a couple of pads, smelled them, felt their grain with the palm of her hand. There was something noble about blank white paper, something that made her heart flutter.

Jared saw things the way artists did, which was also the way she used to see things. He noticed every inch of her face and body when he painted her. He looked at what she ate, how she ate. He looked at how she walked. He observed the way she held her spoon, the way she put on her shoes. It was exhilarating and terrifying, to be watched like this.

Her mother was the opposite: completely self-involved. She didn’t care about her daughter’s needs, or talent. Her mother had neglected Althea and rejected anything she did that was short of devoting her life to her mom. Her throat tightened.

She bought a vellum pad and a box of expensive pastels. Forgetting the heat, she hurried back to the house, holding the paper bag against her chest like a shield. She immediately dialed the number. In Cincinnati, it was the heart of the night. Her mom’s voice came, apprehensive, disoriented. “Hello?”