Searching for Tina Turner (32 page)

“L’amour,” the old man fusses. “Tout le monde s’embrasse à Paris. Paris est pour les amants.”

“He said,” Harmon translates, kissing Lena again, this time on her cheek, “something about love, lovers, and kissing in Paris.”

Behind the stands, proprietors of hardware stores, pastry shops, and restaurants linger in doorways, beckon them to partake
of their goods, too. A farmer winks when she stops in front of his stand. He passes a box of bright red strawberries across
his table. “You must have these, and champagne, pour… l’amour, eh?”

Lena winks back and tucks the fragile fruit into her tote, not wishing to disabuse the friendly fruit seller of his romantic
notion. “Tina Turner’s strength helped me—fate holds her in my future. Rebuilding my relationship with Camille and Kendrick—that’s
my future, too. That’s about all I can cope with now. That and my everyday, run-of-the-mill life.”

“And what about me?”

The Randall question again.

“We only have so many opportunities. I want our fates to be connected, yours and mine,” Harmon finishes.

Lena admires a vendor’s attention to detail: a box of thick-stalked, albino asparagus tied with string; apples, oranges, figs,
and onions sheathed in smooth orangish skin carefully lined in neat, color-coordinated rows, a presentation for the eyes and
nose. Patrons patiently wait in line for the vendors to select the ripest and the best. In Paris the vendors bag and weigh
the produce for their appreciative customers.

“That’s the weirdest looking asparagus I’ve ever seen.” Lena looks at the vendor, points to the asparagus, then to her camera
and smiles.

“Oui, oui,” the vendor says, holding the pale vegetable in front of him. Lena snaps his picture. Standing almost on top of
the asparagus, she photographs the stalks from above.

The shoulder strap cuts across Lena’s chest and Harmon adjusts it. She hasn’t taken a picture in days; Harmon has distracted
her from Tina and from photographing France. But now the desire stimulates her brain, the synaptic memory commands her fingertips:
the uneven cobblestones, the cloudy sky, the artful display some proprietor has taken the time to arrange—flower petals strewn
on the street, a perfect row of chocolate truffles.

She shoots picture after picture: purple hydrangeas atop a whitewashed chair, a broken door hinge, a rusted bicycle leaning
against a lamppost. Fingers warm against camera’s metal, eyelashes flit against the viewfinder.
Whir. Click.
To see what others cannot; light, shading, innuendo. Capturing time. Memories alter with time, but photos never will. Their
permanence is to her as fate is to Harmon: preordained.

“This is my fate.” Lifting her camera to the sky, she spins in a circle, presses the shutter release so that the camera whirs,
clicks, and snaps pictures in all directions. Her dream lodged in the back of her brain, covered itself with Randall’s rejection
and Harmon’s consideration. “A keen eye. A connection to what others want to see. Creating art. Sharing it.”

“And me, Lena, let fate bless you with me, too.”

Lena stumbles with the realization of Vernon’s prediction and kisses Harmon—long, slow, hungry, hard. This old friend has
helped her to understand, to put what she wants into words.

H
armon and Lena run at a steady pace alongside the Seine before the
bookinistes
open their stands filled with antique leather-bound books and twenties-style postcards wrapped in cellophane, before the
damp streets overflow with tourists and working Parisians, before the shuttered windows of the ubiquitous apartments open
to the dreary sky. It may not be true that Americans are the only people jogging these uneven streets this early in the morning,
Lena thinks, but every other voice that greets them carries a distinctive, American twang.

Like they have each of the three days they’ve been in Paris, Harmon and Lena slow their pace as they approach rue Buci. In
the evenings this street’s sidewalks are full of music and people dining contentedly under extended awnings. Mornings, the
stands are stocked with lemons, plump tomatoes, strawberries, white hydrangeas, red roses, and bread.

“Ça va?” Harmon slaps high five—in the manner of men who have known each other for years—with the African who sells the biggest,
flakiest croissants on the street from a cart stacked with tarnished baking trays.

“Tout va bien, mon frère.” The African adds an extra croissant to Lena’s already full paper sack. “Pour votre amie.”

“A perk,” Harmon calls this generosity, “of being a brother in Paris with a pretty woman by his side.”

The street from the rue Buci back to the hotel has become a classroom. They practice everyday French:
le cordonnier
at the shoemaker’s repair shop,
nettoyage à sec
at the smell of the dry-cleaning chemicals,
poissonnerie
at the window where empty aluminum trays will later be filled with fresh fish,
le tabac
. “The fun,” Harmon says, “is to figure out what the words mean by looking in the windows.”

“Bonjour, monsieur. Madame.” The hotel receptionist greets them as they enter the lobby.

“Bonjour!” Lena replies. So much for the myth of French aloofness. Every morning the bellman, the receptionist, the doorman
greet them in the same warm way. Is it because their black skin makes them so easily identifiable, Lena wonders, or is it
because they look like they’re in love?

“Let’s see what the kids are up to.” Harmon punches the elevator button for Bruce’s floor one above theirs.

“What’s the plan?” Harmon asks when Bruce opens the door. The question has become both mantra and joke. Beyond Bruce’s terry-robed
back, a footed silver serving tray sits atop the king-sized bed with two full-bloomed white roses, a silver coffee carafe,
the
Herald Tribune,
and a porcelain pitcher artfully loaded on top.

“Montmartre,” Cheryl shouts from the bathroom.

“It’s hilly up there,” Lena shouts back. “You sure?”

After exploring the rue Mouffetard, Lena and Harmon returned to the hotel to meet Cheryl and Bruce. Like first-time tourists,
the four rushed through the upstairs gallery of the Musée d’Orsay so Lena could see Gauguin’s Tahitian studies; took two Métro
trains to the first arrondissement and strolled the Champs-Élysées; walked under the Arc de Triomphe and climbed the interior
steps, until Bruce refused to go any farther. From the Métro they wandered past city hall, past bridge after bridge to the
golden statue that marks where the Bastille stood before the French Revolution.

Bruce was in charge of food and surprisingly serendipitous in his dinner choice: he peeked into a restaurant that intrigued
him and chatted, in broken French and hand signals, with the chef about his food. The cozy brasserie served the best foie
gras and paté de campagne any of them had ever eaten, and the chef, after many compliments from Bruce, concocted an original
chocolate dessert for them.

Dialing the concierge, Bruce’s words are final: “Today, we’re taking a taxi.”

f   f   f

“
That
is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Cheryl sticks her head out the taxi window and squints to get a better look
at Sacré-Coeur. The seven domes visible from the front of the stark, white church end in long pointed tubes, like spiked pith
helmets. “But, there is no way
this
girl is climbing
those
steps.”

The taxi slows at the foot of the funicular and points to a rail car as if he understands. “Six cent escaliers, madame.” The
motion of the crowd working its way mostly down, not up the flights of steps, is like a winding river of upright bodies flowing
away from the highest point in Paris after the Eiffel Tower.

“Six hundred stairs.” Assuming the role of tour guide, Harmon steps onto the crowded sidewalk. “We can walk down that street
and weave our way past the street where Picasso once lived and back to the top. That way we’ll get a two for one tour: neighborhoods
and Sacré-Coeur.”

Shops surround the base of the stairs, each wooden stall crammed with souvenirs: scarves on hangers flutter in the breeze,
postcards spin on wobbly racks, and handsized replicas of the church beckon from the shelves. Harmon picks up a liquid-filled
globe with plastic snow that tumbles onto a miniature Sacré-Coeur inside when he turns it upside down. “You’ll accept this,
won’t you?” He passes the souvenir to Lena. The look on his face is devilish, like the old Harmon, who was as funny as he
was serious.

“With pleasure.”

Harmon and Lena weave past a circular park and stone-colored buildings. Cheryl and Bruce’s huffs are audible and labored behind
them. The hilly area is the kind of neighborhood Americans understand: a man washes his car in the driveway of a house that
could be a mansion or an apartment building, garages attached to houses with gardens, front porches and picture windows, children
playing on the sidewalk.

“Give me that guidebook.” Bruce takes the green guidebook from Harmon’s hand and sits at a rest stop with benches and a dog
run behind it. Across the street, a reddish building and its faded sign peek from behind an overgrown bush and a rickety,
green-tipped fence. “You walk. I’ll find a good place for lunch.”

“Rest a minute.” Cheryl hooks her elbow into Lena’s and leads her across the street. “I want to take a closer look at that
building.”

Tourists with guidebooks and cameras gather around the brick building and point to the sign: “Au Lapin Agile.” Cheryl tells
Lena that she suspects that this is the famous cabaret of artists and writers that Picasso memorialized in his 1905 painting.
Instead of singing for his supper, Cheryl tells Lena, he painted for it.

Harmon waves from the other side of the street. A dog, no bigger than Cheryl’s tote bag, on a long leash held by a frail-looking
older woman, sniffs around the men’s feet. Harmon is attentive; his smile is constant, and the older woman looks as if she
is ready to hand her diminutive pet over to him.

“Well,” Cheryl says, “this is a different trip from what we planned.”

Lena examines the worn plaque bolted onto the building’s side. It repeats the same information that Cheryl has just shared
with her. “I love this detour, but I should know where Tina Turner lives by now. I hoped I might run into her.”

“Listen,” Cheryl says. “When Harmon and Bruce knew they’d had enough of Nice and decided to follow their plan to come to Paris,
Harmon explained to his buddy how he feels about you.” Cheryl condenses what Bruce told her in between shopping sprees. In
a small wine-tasting bar, twenty-four full bottles in front of them, Bruce and Harmon tried to decide which wines they would
send back to Chicago while Harmon confessed that he wanted to be with Lena. That she is a good combination of what he likes
in a woman: smart, sexy, and easy to be around. He didn’t want to lose that. He had passed the notion of making up for past
sins.

“Bruce says Harmon doesn’t focus on the past. That when he saw you, something clicked. He knew it was right.”

Bruce listened before offering advice. Harmon confessed that Lena’s sadness offered an opening and that was what smart litigators
look for. “Man, what did you expect? It’s like the exclamation point on your damn theory of fate.”

“When we first started this trip, Lena, you were sad. Sad face, sad eyes, sad aura. Now you’re different. Have you asked yourself
why?”

“Because this is Paris! Because I don’t have to think about divorce or my kids hating me or my direction—I’m going to see
Tina.”

“Harmon has a lot more to do with your being happy than you give him credit for.”

“I can’t deny that he has something to do with it, but my happiness comes from me, from inside.” Lena points to Bruce and
Harmon. The two men tease the small dog, seemingly content to wait for Lena and Cheryl to decide what comes next.

“Love comes from inside. Go for it. Women like you always end up screwing for love anyway.” Arm in arm, Cheryl and Lena move
away from the old cabaret. “We haven’t had the chance to spend much time together,” Cheryl says. “I miss catching up like
old times. What do you say to going to the Matisse exhibit at the Luxembourg? Just you and me.”

“Deal.”

f   f   f

From this location a partial view of Paris spreads out before them in an orderly fashion: flat, no hills between Montmartre
and a hilly mass of green on the far side of the city. There are pointed rooftops of varying heights. Notre Dame stands out,
as does the Île de la Cité, the island some call the true heart of Paris.

“Richard Wright, Chester Himes, and James Baldwin wrote in Paris. The next time we come”—Harmon looks at Lena who holds his
gaze—“we’ll take one of the black tours. Every one knows Josephine Baker, but there was a big jazz following here—Sidney Bichet
had a nightclub. Black soldiers were here during both World Wars. I wish we had time to see it all.”

“I know there must be at least one soul food restaurant here.” Cheryl taps Bruce’s shoulder lightly with her fist and pokes
out her bottom lip like a spoiled child. “Let’s have fried chicken in Paris!”

“Fried chicken in Paris. Ha!” Bruce playfully pinches Cheryl’s cheek. When it comes to food, he readily voices his opinions.
His cheeks and stomach jiggle with his joke. “As long as I can go to my mother’s house and eat the best fried chicken in the
world, I will not be eating any soul food in Paris.”

f   f   f

Two hours later, the plaza in front of Sacré-Coeur is crowded with groups led by tour guides lecturing in Spanish, German,
and Japanese. All of Paris—the streets skinny like lines, the gold roof of the opera house, the Eiffel Tower—is within sight.
A British guide addresses his group from atop a wooden box.

“Take note of the stone. Sacré-Coeur was built in the late nineteenth century with the stone of Château Landon. The brilliant
white is actually the effect of rainwater. When wet, the stone secretes a white substance similar to paint. Thus, it is always
a brilliant white.” The guide smiles as if this is a fact that everyone in his group, and Lena, and the other English-speaking
eavesdroppers around the perimeter of the group, should be proud of.