Hidden in Paris (38 page)

Annie raised her voice, “can’t you see you have to stop trying to please everyone?”

“Shhhh...”

“I’m sick and tired of people doing what’s wrong for them.”

Lola thought of the children. She thought of Mark, who was probably in a state of advanced agitation waiting for her. She thought of the life she had here that she didn’t want to give up. She thought of the life that was waiting for her in Beverly Hills. The soulless mansion, the bleak runs to generic stores, the
right
shirt always at the dry cleaner. Watching her step. Watching her back. Her breathing was constricted. She felt a strange rush of energy throughout her body. “Why don’t
you
tell me what’s best for me then, since you have all the answers,” she said between clenched teeth.

“You don’t want to hear what I think,” Annie barked.

Lola’s pulse raced. “Try me,” she said coldly.

Annie put her hands on her hips and said, “How about you end the charade and tell him the truth. Tell him you want a divorce.”

Lola felt a heat wave engulf her. Who was Annie to give her orders on how to run her life? Who was she to talk to her as though she were a little girl? Despite herself, she raised her voice. It was entirely unlike her to raise her voice. “How can you be so sure?“

“It’s so obvious!”

“You don’t know him at all. You’re not in my shoes.”

“
One life!
We have one life! And if you go back with him you know what
your
life is going to be. It won’t change mine.
You
ran away from him.
You
disappeared.
You
hid for months. Can’t you remember how bad it had to be for someone like
you
to do something that drastic? You were in hell! Your life was horrible!”

Lola paced angrily from the tub to the door and back. It was so ridiculous, this fight in the bathroom. “No matter what, I’ll have to go back and live in the States. Otherwise, you know what he’ll do? He’ll go after the children. I kidnapped them. I could go to jail!”

“Ha! You realize that now, after all these months?”

“And the children...And Mark still loves me. He said so. He said he missed me.”

“Ha! Famous fucking last words! He loves to
own
you, haven’t you noticed?”

Lola had noticed. She tried to resist the volcano brewing inside her. “No, I did
not
notice!”

Tears flew from Annie’s eyes. She didn’t even bother wiping them. “Fine, I’m out of here. I’m very
fucking
disappointed in you.”

Lola erupted. “Stop saying fucking! And I’m not here to make you happy! You want me to stop pleasing
him
so that I can please
you
? Trade one tyrant for another?”

Annie opened her mouth in shock. “I have zero invested interest in your decision!”

“Stop fixating on
my
life, okay? Why don’t you start working on yours if you’re so evolved...and
leave me alone
.”

“Fine! Let him use you as a rug. You love it!” Annie wiped her tears, all anger suddenly out of her voice. “Am I still taking the kids to the ocean?”

“Yes! Take them to the fucking ocean,” Lola yelled. It felt good to yell. So good.

Annie raised an eyebrow, as though she wondered what Lola was so mad about, shrugged and left the bathroom.

Lola sat on the edge of the bathtub, shaking. Mark was still waiting downstairs. He would have to wait. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw pure rage. She barely recognized herself. Her hands were folded into tight fists. If Annie hadn’t left, she would have whacked her, she knew she would have.

Suddenly, the door opened, and Annie peeked in. “Okay, honey, keep in touch with the anger. It’s good, excellent!” and she closed the door.

So this was how it worked? Lola ran back to her room and nearly ripped her clothes off. She replaced them with an old pair of jeans and a baggy sweater. She wiped her lipstick with the back of her hand. She kept her fists tight. She was ready for Mark.

It was an eerie feeling to be walking down the steps of Annie’s house and in the streets of the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris with Mark. Her heart was beating hard. How had she managed to push away the thought of him? Now that he was here, he filled all the spaces in her head, and unfortunately, in her heart. He wore that lavender aftershave she liked so much, and that did not help. It was irrational of her, but she was just thrilled. It was as though his presence in Paris was a sign that he loved her. It wasn’t like this at all, of course, but she so badly wanted this evening to be romantic. Had he taken her in his arms, would she have buried her head in his neck, or would she have been able to resist? But Mark only walked and did not try to take her hand. Thank goodness he didn’t take her hand.

The sun was slowly setting. They walked in silence, neither of them managing small talk. They passed all the familiar shops closed for the night. She would not be able to show him the jewelry-like spread of pastries behind the window of the boulangerie, the quaint cheese shop. She longed to share the marvelous Parisian sights and experiences with him. But now, glancing at his profile, the strong angle of his jaw, watching him hurry through the streets as though lost in his thoughts, she doubted he would be the kind to enjoy Paris at all. She was catching herself remembering Mark as she wished he would be, as opposed to how he really was.

They advanced toward rue de Passy in search of a restaurant. There was the building where she taught Yoga. There was rue de l’Annonciation, where she bought peonies and
fromage de chêvre
. Here was the very mailbox where she dropped the postcards. Over there at the end of rue de Passy was the métro and the city beyond. Between the centuries-old buildings, the sky was deep blue with streaks of pink clouds. Mark marched without looking and she walked along without sharing, her heart tightening with each step.

As they walked, she also began to sense something different in the air that had nothing to do with Mark’s presence. The streets were unmistakably livelier than they usually were at this time on a Friday evening. The neighborhood, polished and upper class did not usually attract the kind of Parisians who party at night. But the more they advanced, the more she saw men and women, couples and groups of teenagers everywhere. Was it music she heard? There was a sense of anticipation and excitement in the air she did not recognize.

It wasn’t until they were halfway up rue de Passy that she remembered. Today was June 21st. Summer solstice. Tonight was the yearly Fête de la Musique. This also meant that tonight was the third anniversary of Johnny’s death. No wonder Annie was a basket case.

Bands were setting up, and Parisians were flocking out of buildings and onto the streets. Small crowds were beginning to gather around musicians, and many were already dancing. Was Mark noticing any of this? Paris was
en fête
and she was stuck with her own personal party-pooper.

They slowed their pace as they passed restaurants dressed in long white tablecloths and flickering candles on diminutive tables set right on the sidewalk. At the terraces, couples gazed at each other over stiff menus. The rainstorm of the day before and the heat of today had turned the evening warm and balmy. The quality, the texture of the air reminded her of the Hawaiian breeze of their honeymoon. They had made love on the lanai for days. They had lived naked for a week and had fed each other mango and pineapple, drunk with each other’s touch. She closed her eyes and thought she smelled the salt of an improbable ocean.

Mark came to a stop and pointed up to a restaurant sign. “What about here? Chinese?” A Chinese restaurant? In Paris? Mark always chose the restaurant, and there was a time when she would rather not have made that kind of decision. Already Mark had entered the restaurant, but she surprised herself by not following him inside. She remained standing by a table nudged between the wall and the sidewalk, a table set for two with a small bouquet of orchids in the center.

Inside, Mark was speaking to the maître d’ in a boisterous English that was clearly getting him nowhere. Lola watched him through the glass window. Had he noticed she had not followed him inside? Her body was filled with the kind of energy that could have launched a rocket, an energy that rushed through her arms and accumulated in her fisted hands. Mark finally turned to speak to her, and seeing that she wasn’t there, stormed outside. When he found her standing by the small table, he looked so flabbergasted that she almost laughed. “You’re not coming?” he asked, and there was a tinge of despair in his tone.

She waved in the direction of the white tablecloth “I want to eat right here.”

She marveled at how easy it was to state this simple fact.

Mark turned on his feet; returned inside, spoke to the same maître d’ who hurried outside with him, menus in hand. As they sat down, Mark did not seem upset, as though what had just happened was of no significance. Could it be this easy? Simply ask and you shall receive?

Mark, with much arm movement, ordered a scotch. The waiter had to be playing dumb, squinting and shaking his head emphatically in incomprehension. Lola found it very amusing to watch his Majesty Mark the Great, Ruler of All He Saw, struggle with a society for which the American’s concept of “service” is seen as humiliating subservience. Clearly, Mark had rubbed management the wrong way by bullying his way to a table. This meal would be fun to watch. Paris would chip away at Mark’s arrogance real fast. Lola couldn’t hide a smile.

“Anything you can do to help here?” said Mark, not amused.

“
Bonsoir, pourrais-je avoir un whisky pour monsieur et pour moi un verre de rosé, s’il vous plait,
” she said. The waiter beamed at her “
bien sûr, Madame
,” and left.

“I guess you speak the native dialect. You learned fast.”

“I took French for years.”

“Didn’t know that.”

“Don’t know much about me, do you?” she said, surprised at the animosity in her voice.

Mark seemed taken aback by her confrontational tone. “Please spare me the attitude,” he said.

What would Annie answer to that? Lola looked Mark straight in the eyes. “If I were you, I’d put the diplomatic gloves back on,” she said.

“Diplomatic? You’re the one who disappeared.” He paused, looked away. “You took the children with you. You left me. I think
you owe me
an apology,” he paused again, “and remorse. Don’t you think it would be appropriate, now that your pitbull friend is not around? And...” Mark stopped what had sounded like the introduction to one of his tirades and studied his menu. Lola didn’t respond. If it weren’t for her pitbull friend, she would have had no time to regroup and things would have taken a very different turn. Right now, she felt strong, stronger than she had ever felt. She waited for an end to Mark’s sentence, ready for a fight, but the end of the sentence did not come, and Lola wondered again about the strange discrepancy between the way Mark looked at the moment, weary, almost unassuming, and the way she knew him to be.

Chapter 28

As soon as the door to the house closed behind Lola and Mark, Annie rushed about the house, grabbed a couple of duffle bags, and hopped from room to room gathering clothes, pajamas, soap, toiletries, teddy bears. She found the umbrella in the attic, the suntan lotion in the bathroom, water guns in the garden. Within half an hour, she was ready to go. She pushed and shoved the duffle bags and the umbrella down the garage stairs. The kids would be surprised to go on a trip. The weather was perfect. They would have a blast. They’d make a fire pit in the sand and barbecue there. She and Lucas would have ice-cold beers. Beach and beer mixed great. She felt twenty years old. Or fifteen. She had been riding this crazy adrenaline wave all day and she still felt pumped! Thinking of her night with Lucas, she laughed. What in hell was this all about? Was she actually having an affair with Lucas? She dropped the content of her arms on the garage floor by the van and climbed back upstairs to fetch her razor and cellulite cream. She ran back down to the garage, back to the house for the car keys, and again to the garage. She had a vague recollection of Althea, and Jared, and Lola, and Mark. The hell with them all! She opened the trunk, stuffed it with bags, towels, and beach balls. She walked around the van and put her hand on the door.

There was a strange hollow feeling in her stomach. She opened the door, climbed in and sat on the cold leather of the front seat, the van as familiar as the palm of her hand, yet so alien. The smell of the cold car, the dust on the dashboard, even the broken toys, her sitting in the driver’s seat, everything so terribly unchanged since that night exactly three years ago. She put the key in the ignition and the engine started. She rested both hands on the wheel and had the creepiest of sensations throughout her body. She quickly turned off the engine, put her hands back on the wheel, and tried to breathe.

Something awful was taking hold of her chest. Her fingers. All of a sudden she wasn’t sure she recognized her own fingers. Her vision blurred. Cold sweat sprang from the nape of her neck and her hands began to shake. The flu? Something she ate? A heart attack? Does a heart attack come with an abominable sense of dread? A scream threatened to come out of her, but her lips refused to open. She had the urge to jump out of the van and run! Run out, now! But she was powerlessly stuck, unable to feel her arms, her legs, her body, unable to move. She had enough presence of mind to realize what was happening to her. This had happened before. She knew what this was. The events of the day, the van... She was having a panic attack.

How could he? How could Johnny do this to her?

She waited. It would pass. She would die or it would pass. It had passed before. Where was Lucas? She needed him now. Cold sweat and shaking, nothing could be done about it. She waited, waited, waited. She wanted to scream but even that was impossible. And then, abruptly, it stopped. Her body stopped shaking. She could breathe again. She sat panting, her hands on the wheel. Sweat streamed down her face, and suddenly, tears sprang, bitter tears. Tears of rage.

Johnny had robbed her. He had died like a coward. He had died without explaining. He had quit. And she would never know. She would never find out who she was—the woman Johnny was leaving her for.

She began sobbing, each sob like a laceration in her heart. The children had been spared by Johnny’s death. But she hadn’t been. In the darkness of the garage, the scene unwrapped before her eyes. The lie, the reality she had created for herself and the children practically the moment when she saw Johnny’s corpse in the cold room. She would never tell a soul that Johnny was leaving them. The children would never have to know.

Three years ago to the day. Summer solstice. Fête de la Musique. Something was off that night, uneasy. She had spoken continuously in the car. He said he wanted to go out with her to discuss something important. She hadn’t let him. He said he wanted to go out to dinner. Did he really know her that poorly? She was far more likely to have a scene in a restaurant than at home where the children could hear.

She had felt close to him that night, that entire year, but it was the wrong kind of closeness, born from unrequited passion. Her parents had pointed it out early on in their marriage: Wasn’t Johnny a bit too handsome? It was a mismatch. The mismatch, so obvious to everyone, herself included, was apparently of no concern for Johnny. He had wanted to marry
her
, he had said. He had loved
her
. He had chosen
her
.

Then, just like that, ten years and three children later, Johnny had dumped
her
. In a van, in the middle of Paris, just like that. The words from that night seeped into her brain, invaded her heart, taking hold deep in her soul. Those malignant words of his, so carefully buried within her for three years. She had been driving the van through Paris while Johnny sat in the passenger seat, trusting her.

“Annie, I met someone.”

“Someone who?” She said as she drove. She was not going to understand easily.

“A woman.”

The dread had come upon her. It had to be a misunderstanding. She turned right at the light, any light. What street they were on, which city, which country, she could not have said. “What kind of woman?” she asked.

“A woman, Annie. I fell in love with someone.” He added, “I’m sorry.”

“Who is she?” She hadn’t wanted to hear the answer. Johnny said her name, but Annie didn’t know her.

“How old is she?”

It mattered without mattering. They had been together for two years, he said. In love, behind her back, a joyous, carefree betrayal. Tell her the prognosis. Cut the crap.

“We want to live together,” Johnny said.

We
? A new
we
that did not include her. The cancer of his words was aggressive, spreading fast. Annie’s life as she knew it would never be the same. The horror of another woman jumped at her, filled her with poison. She drove mechanically as Johnny spoke in his warm reasonable, charming voice. You could not be mad at Johnny. No one could be mad at Johnny. Everyone loved Johnny.

It did occur to her to stop driving, every part or her still intent on going out on a date with him, only with a shattered heart. She had only allowed one thought to echo in her mind: she could, she would, win Johnny back from that bitch whoever she was.

“Annie, I want a divorce,” Johnny finally said.

The words barely registered. So she would have to fight harder. Johnny was smitten by this woman but he would not break up his family over her. But then he told her the terrible truth.

“We want to start over in Australia. She’s from over there. She can’t stay here, professionally and legally.”

There was Johnny, in the car, letting her drive, trusting her completely. Her man. Her funny, charming man. Her love, her best friend. He’d obviously had plenty of time to get used to the whole idea because he spoke with patience and compassion. He was putting himself in her shoes. To him, the news had been digested. He had become comfortable with the idea, with the logistics of abandoning her and the boys.

“But the boys?” she screamed. “Australia?” This couldn’t be. He could break her heart all he wanted. But her babies’ hearts?

The heat of the rage that followed was memorized in every cell of her body. How she had wanted to slam on the breaks to send Johnny flying through the windshield. How she had wanted to pierce his heart like he was piercing hers. How she had pictured glass shards deep in his chest. It would have only been fair. How else could he have felt the abject pain, the abandonment, and the battleground of their souls for the years to come. Instead, she had stopped the van in a street near Avenue Victor Hugo, any street, put the car in park and put her forehead on the wheel.
He didn’t love her
.

Johnny foolishly put his hand on her arm. “I realize I’m doing something shitty to you guys. But you’ll be fine. The kids need you more than they need me.”

“
But that’s not true
,” she yelled, yanking away from his hand. Johnny had the uneasy smile of the one who knows that shit would soon and inexorably hit the fan. “You
have
to live near them,” she cried out. “You can’t go away that far.”

But she had known he absolutely could. He had done it before, in fact. He had left his own family in order to move to France.
He never called his parents
. They called France and complained, and she’d be the one to shrug impatiently, the phone nudged between her cheek and her shoulder as she changed a diaper or cooked dinner. Couldn’t they just get
over him
, already?

She was the one who called Johnny’s parents with news. She was the one who remembered to send gifts, letters. She remembered birthdays, apologized, covered for him, protected everyone’s feelings the best she could. Johnny couldn’t be fenced in; couldn’t they see that?

In the parked van, somewhere near Avenue Victor Hugo, she began to scream, sounds that were not human. Her strength had not been human either. She punched him in the shoulder. “Leave! Get out! Out! Get out of my fucking car!” She watched powerlessly as Johnny got out of the van, and walked away on the boulevard, away from her, and toward his fate.

His fate happened two hours later, when Johnny was at the wheel of his brother’s car and drove it to his death. The very night she thought
she
would die, Johnny had ended up killing himself.

Oh, she had massaged that night over and over in her head. Every night of the last three years and almost every day. Was it her fault, this accident, since she kicked him out of the van? Or was it his fault? Had she killed him or had he killed himself? If the boys knew, would they blame her? Would they hate him? Would they hate her? And again and again for three years:
He didn’t love her
.

Now that the panic attack subsided, a strange calm swept through her. She’d survived that one. She was alive and sitting in the driver’s seat of her van, which was still parked inside her garage. She breathed with relief, dug in her purse for a Kleenex, and wiped her eyes and nose.

Something felt odd, hollow. What now? Something was missing all of a sudden, but what was it? It occurred to her that she had in fact, for all intents and purposes, been stuck in that van ever since that night, that she had been sobbing inwardly for three long and lonely years. And she had been angry. So angry. But suddenly a long forgotten sense of lightness was emerging out of thin air. What was this? Something was not there anymore?

It took several minutes for Annie to understand that what was strangely missing was her pain.

It was past bedtime. She pictured the kids, their faces pale with exhaustion. The sandy eyes. This was mommy time, and they were piled up in Lucas’s apartment wondering about going home. Lucas. Johnny’s friend. Lucas knew about Johnny and that woman, but had never said a word. He had tried but she had not let him and now she knew why. By not letting him speak, she didn’t have to let him, or anyone, know what she knew. By not telling anyone she could keep Johnny intact, their story intact, for the children, and maybe, also, for herself. Lucas had let her keep her secret. A secret about being unlovable, carelessly tossed away. A secret much too heavy to carry alone.

Pain for the boys had come the morning after. Unfathomable pain, but a pain of a different nature. A pain possibly easier to digest for them, one day, than the trauma they would have experienced had Johnny been able to carry out his plan to abandon them all. As long as she would have a say in it, the memory of Johnny as a loving father and husband would be preserved. Not for Johnny. No, not for Johnny, but for the boys. So that they would continue to feel loved by him.

She turned the key in the ignition. “Fuck you, Johnny,” she wailed in the garage. “Fuck you, asshole, disgusting liar, cheater, coward, selfish bastard. You were
right
, loser! We didn’t need you after all!”

Annie started the engine and stormed the car out of the garage. She drove as the sun went down, radiating a red glow on the stones of the buildings. Music and warm air flowed through the van’s open windows, and her hair floated wildly behind her. She drove the van through Paris to take her boys to a weekend at the beach. She drove the van through Paris to meet her lover.

Jared waited for the nurse to leave his room to rip the IV needle from his arm. He stumbled out of bed and had to hang onto the wall not to fall, but by the time he reached the closet and found his clothes neatly folded, he was able to stand almost normally. When the nurse came back into his room, he was gone.

Minutes later he was riding a cab through dense traffic. The purple glow of sundown and the last of the day’s light reflected on the Seine, transforming it to a river of pure silver. The deep green sycamore leaves were almost black against the cobalt blue sky. The act of breathing alone was exhausting and his vision was still altered from the drugs he had taken and those they had given him in the hospital.

Tonight was the Fête de la Musique, he realized. He rolled up his window to protect his throbbing head from the discordance of competing music that came from every street, every house and every room in every apartment. The interior of the silent cab became a pocket of quietness that floated through the city like a bubble. The carved stones of buildings gleamed in the street lights, every light was a blurred star. The statues seemed alive, churches like giants in helmets and coats of armor, the wooden doors of century-old buildings like gaping mouths.