Searching for Tina Turner (30 page)

Every city in the south of France has a visitor’s bureau. This one is housed on the ground floor of a three-story building.
A wood-framed picture window is filled with posters of Villefranche-sur-Mer, the homes along the hillside, and yachts afloat
in the port. Inside the bureau, one woman among the staff of five admits to speaking English. “Hello,” she calls out from
behind her desk.

Harmon steps forward and asks if anyone knows where Tina Turner lives. He carries himself with an air of responsibility and
privilege. The woman puts on her glasses, then looks him up and down. Stepping to the counter, she tells him she has heard
Madame Turner lives near the top of the Colline du Vinaigrier; that many tourists come to look for the celebrity, but that
Madame does not come to town often. It is possible she shops or has lunch in
la vielle ville
—the old town—the woman doesn’t know, she is not a fan.

“There are other celebrities that
habitent
—live—in this area as well,” the woman says. “Messieurs Bono and Elton John.” She lays a map over the counter and bends over
it, motioning to Harmon to do the same. She gives vague directions to the hill where Tina’s Villa Anna Fleur could be and
goes on to say that at each of the very expensive homes in that area there are guards and secured gates. “We French are not
secretive, simply very, how would you say, hush-hush, monsieur? There is no way to tell who lives where, but there is a rumor
that her villa is higher up the mountain than Monsieur Bono’s.”

Harmon proffers his full chipped-tooth smile and bows. Lena watches him work his magic on the woman and hopes that he can
do the same with Cheryl and Bruce and get them interested in these other famous people’s homes, although Sonny Bono is the
only Bono she knows, and he died years ago.

“We’ll drive around for a while. It won’t hurt to do a little reconnaissance preparation.” Harmon looks at Lena when he speaks.
“Or would you rather get something to eat first?”

“Maybe Tina would like to meet a couple of hip brothers and sisters from the States. That can’t happen too often.” Cheryl
offers her reason why Tina would want to open her doors to them. “There can’t be too many black folks that come through here.”

“Whatever works,” Bruce says. “But whatever we do, we need to make it quick.”

Three blocks past the laurier-rose the woman described, up the crest of the hills and past an old stone wall. Harmon cannot
follow the signs and drive at the same time. The woman gave Lena a postcard from a website that describes nightlife, shopping,
and the celebrities in and around this area. Usually the postcards in Nice show pictures of the sea from a vantage point in
the hills. This one is of a building close to the water’s edge, marked with a red arrow pointing to a gathering of palm trees
and brush on top of the hill. “Tina’s villa” is written in block letters.

They drive up and up past many gates with iron forged into initials, flowers, and what look like family crests. The juices
in Lena’s stomach gurgle from nausea and anticipation. What will she say if they find Tina? She has a vague speech prepared
for after the concert, but if they run into Tina here they would appear to be fanatical. Her intention to thank Tina would
be lost. So close and so far away.

From this high up Lena observes, like she did in Eze, that the world lies before them, this time from a different angle. Full,
thick trees frame the view of Cap Ferrat and the coast toward Monaco.

“Without a street address we could wander aimlessly for hours.” Harmon steers carefully from left to right. He opens his window
and sticks his head out every time they come to an initialed gate in hope that they will come across the letters TT or a guard
who, seeing their fancy car, might feel sorry for them and give them better directions than they have.

“Man, I don’t know about you, and you’ll forgive me, Lena, but I’ve about had it up to here with these roads and quaint cities.”
Bruce yawns.

“I like the snaky roads. It’s part of history,” Lena says. “Even you said the French take pride in their history.”

“I say let’s take our pride and get out of the south of France.” Bruce looks directly at Harmon’s eyes in the rearview mirror
as he speaks. Lena catches this coded signal and saddens at the thought of Harmon’s departure. All things in their time.

“What’s the plan?” Cheryl looks at Bruce, having picked up the signal as well.

“After the bike trip, we’d always planned to go to Paris for four days, then head back to Chicago. Harmon and I were thinking
maybe you two would—”

“Yes!” Cheryl’s voice is resolute.

“I’ve got unfinished business here.” Lena has seen Paris, twice. Has seen the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées, wandered through
the Père-Lachaise cemetery, and bought handmade umbrellas in the boutique on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. She adores the City
of Lights.

“Should we flip a coin? Heads Paris, tails Paris. Either way, I’m going.” Harmon swerves the car to the side of the road and
searches his pockets for a coin. “It’s only a couple of days.”

“Only a couple of days,” Bruce says. “Nine hours by car, a little over five by train, and, most importantly, a quick trip
of about an hour and a half by plane. What say you, ladies?”

Lena is amazed at Bruce’s collection of seemingly unrelated facts. If nothing else, she has gained respect for the man. Her
Tina Turner folder sits in her lap, research that has led nowhere; no closer to finding Tina than she was when they stepped
off the plane. But she cannot deny the calm, the pluckiness that has gathered in her heart and soul since she has been in
France. Whether it is Tina or Harmon or whacky Cheryl, she is thankful. “I’ve been there before. Too many memories.”

“No Eiffel Tower, no Notre Dame, no Louvre. We’ll go to places neither of us has seen before. C’mon. Tina would want you to
take advantage of the moment.”

Randall would have demanded; Harmon is asking. Does it make a difference? Because, bottom line, isn’t she hitching herself
to somebody else’s star all over again?

A
limousine whisks the four travelers away from the airport, the cars, jitneys, a cab driver arguing with a gendarme over the
parking lot exit fee and whizzes along a freeway that resembles an American turnpike: heavy trucks, modern office buildings,
apartments, and factories to the left and right of the road; fields of green, industrial warehouses, Ikea.

“What should we do first? I say: Sacré-Coeur or the Panthéon.” Harmon pokes Bruce’s shoulder. “No eating.”

Bruce’s expression implies his difference of opinion. “That’s what you think.”

“Paris is eye candy,” Lena says. “Everywhere is someplace different. Walk and look, that’s what I want to do.”

Paris is divided into twenty spiraling sections like the chambers of a nautilus shell; each
arrondissement
is different, a city within a city. On their first trip to Paris, Lena and Randall roamed for days in silly search of the
red dividing lines so carefully drawn in guidebooks—which were nowhere to be seen. Instead, they ended up with twenty photos
of themselves, one for each arrondissement, standing beside the twelve-inch-high blue signs with white lettering that mark
the districts.

“I want to taste as many of the four hundred varieties of cheese as I possibly can.” Lena reaches for Harmon’s hand. “And
discover new wines.”

As the car gets closer to the center of Paris, the tip of the Eiffel Tower appears in the distance and the city changes. Now
the buildings, their slate tiles and zinc roofs and stone in all shades of beige and oyster, become more weathered and wear
their centuries proudly. People line the sidewalks from curb to building edges. The Seine splits the city; the spires of churches
split the skyline.

“Shopping. Right Bank couture, rue Saint-Honoré, Left Bank hip—that works for me,” Cheryl offers. “You get a little bit of
everything when you shop—food, views, art.”

“The Buddha Bar.” Bruce’s words are more order than suggestion. “Cheryl will love it. Some of the highest priced drinks in
the world—twenty-five bucks for champagne cocktails—food’s good, but the people-watching is better.”

The limousine driver swings a hard right onto one of the thirty-six bridges connecting the Right Bank to the Left and their
hotel. Cheryl twists her neck for a better view of the Louvre’s ornate moldings. From this angle the museum’s walls—too pale
to call mustard, too yellow to call beige—are immense. “If we had more time, I’d spend days in there.”

Their boutique hotel sits in the middle of a narrow block named rue des Beaux-Arts. The street, Cheryl tells them, is named
for the celebrated art school bordering it where Matisse, Seurat, Caillebotte, and thousands of other famous artists once
roamed. Students with backpacks hanging from their shoulders and canvas totes slung like messenger bags across their chests
wander in and out of a narrow gate into the school’s courtyard. Cars parked bumper-to-bumper like vertical sardines on the
curb leave room for traffic to flow in only one direction. There are art galleries—their windows crowded with African masks
and iron sculptures and abstract landscapes—small restaurants, retail space on the street floors of buildings meant for multilevel
living. Everything is compact, every space occupied; utilitarian.

The limo driver parks the long sedan in front of the hotel. Bruce and Harmon open the wide doors and step out to tip the driver
and take care of the luggage. Cheryl yanks Lena’s coat as she scoots across the seat to follow them. “I’m staying in Bruce’s
room.”

Lena scrutinizes Cheryl’s face as if she hasn’t a clue what her friend is talking about and realizes that it’s hard to hear
what Cheryl is saying. Lena doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, if it’s the French influence or Bruce’s, but this new softness
is better on her ears. Smiling, she motions to Cheryl to repeat her words, and when she does, Cheryl adds, “You can have our
room all to yourself. But, think about staying with Harmon. He’s falling in love, and that’s not a bad thing.”

Lena knows how much truth there is in Cheryl’s words. It is in Harmon’s eyes when he listens to her plans and his touch when
she least expects it; it’s in the way he says her name when he holds her, in their silences.

All the buildings on this street, including the hotel, are constructed as if leaning one on the other; each one distinguished
and different from the next. Each is composed of three or four even rows of twelve-foot-high rectangular windows and nine-inch
ledges beneath them bordered by vine-patterned, wrought iron railings. The facades are washed in faded yellows, grays, and
blues, interrupted with carved wooden moldings, closed doors, eighteen to twenty feet high, that lead to courtyards and the
apartments above.

The hotel is like this, a beautiful secret behind an ordinary door. The lobby is intimate and welcoming. The walls are covered
in rich, maroon velour; striped brown and gold curtains held together with variegated gold-threaded swags create intimate
conversation corners; black velvet-covered chairs and the Oriental carpet mimic the same color scheme. A circular foyer and
an antique table with claw feet separate the lobby from the bar beyond. The glass vase on top of the table is full of tall
curly willow, roses, lilies, and hand-sized exotic purple flowers that Lena doesn’t recognize.

“Stay with me?” As they approach the faux-painted front desk, Harmon tugs Lena’s elbow. “I booked a room with a terrace.”

“
Bonjour, mesdames, messieurs. Bienvenue
. Welcome.” A young woman dressed in a tailored beige dress and a Chanel scarf greets Lena, Cheryl, Harmon, and Bruce with
an enthusiastic smile. Once the paperwork is complete, she hands the men the keys to all three rooms.

Harmon hands a key to Lena. “Your decision.”

What will it hurt, she ponders, to let this sumptuousness, this attention overtake her? She hands her key back to Harmon and
takes his hand. Once in front of Harmon’s room, the bellman opens the door onto a suite, cozy and luxurious in the way that
only the French can create: budding roses, sheer window curtains, crisp linens, books by the bed, and an antique writing desk
with curved, spindly legs. A sofa faces the window to the street, and, on the opposite side of the room, a floor-to-ceiling
glass door opens to the deck and the rooftops of Paris.

Pigeons nest in the eaves outside the window, their coos velvety and continuous. In the bathroom, the walls are covered with
flocked wallpaper, the floors with marble tiles that mix well with the modern faucets, shower, and tub. Lena recognizes, discreetly
tucked into a corner of the counter, the labeled soap and perfume vial. They are not the normal gratuitous toiletries; they
are gifts of the signature gardenia fragrance of Annick Goutal.

“Lulu loves this stuff,” Lena calls out to Harmon and gathers the bottle and bars of soap like Lulu does whenever she stays
in a hotel. “These are for her collection.”

“There’s more where those came from, Lena.” Harmon watches Lena stuff the toiletries into a drawer under the sink.

“Go ’way. Shoo!” Lena taunts. “I’m calling Lulu. She’ll expect me to bring home more than this once I tell her it’s here.”
Lena dials the 0-1-1+1+ Lulu’s number.

“We can buy more if she likes it that much.”

“This is much more fun.”

Lulu’s voice quivers a weak greeting on the other end of the phone.

“It’s me, Lulu. Bonjour.” Two in the afternoon in Paris is very early in the morning in California and not a problem for Lulu,
who can’t sleep past dawn. “Cheryl and I decided to visit Paris for a few days. Your favorite perfume is in the bathroom.”

“Free?” Lulu’s voice changes to an energized pitch at the prospect of more of this expensive perfume that Lena has included
in Christmas and Mother’s Day presents for the last twenty years. “Then you better make sure you bring a lot of it home and
save yourself some money!”

Lena tries to paint a picture with her words, that she will back up with her photographs once she is home, of how different
Nice and Paris are from anything Lulu has ever seen. The farthest Lulu and John Henry ever traveled was back to Mississippi
to sell John Henry’s family’s farm and visit the few relatives they had left in the small town they grew up in.