Searching for Tina Turner (34 page)

Lena tiptoes around the suite, stops to take in the fragrance of the rubrum lilies. Since the concierge discovered they are
her favorites, the room has been full of the fresh flowers every other day. Today he has added a spray of a flaxen, star-shaped
flower that Lena reminds herself to ask the name of. She smiles at the attention to detail and reminds herself to tell Harmon
to be generous when the time comes to tip.

Who can she talk to, she wonders? Who can she tell how strong she feels, not so much loved—in a way she hasn’t been in a while—but
cared about for who she is, not what she can do, and that makes her feel secure. Her cell phone comes alive to a perky ring
tone. Harmon grumbles and turns onto his side before she closes the bathroom door behind her. The phone screen flashes Randall’s
photo for the second time in five days.

Lena turns the bathtub faucets, pours all of the bath oil into the tub, and drops her clothes onto the floor. In the tub,
the slow-running water and bubbles envelop her; the fragrance of the sweet gardenia soap makes her think of Lulu. Her mother
would be delighted if she could see her baby girl stepping out on her own. Or almost. One touch of the recall button on her
phone makes it easy to call Randall back.

“Why haven’t you answered my messages, Lena?” Caller ID eliminates the need for a proper, kinder greeting.

“I’m…” Lena takes a second to adjust to the realization that she doesn’t have to report in or make excuses.

“How are you?” Manners restored, Randall goes on without her response. “I’m in Brussels.”

Close but far away. Her stomach tightens, and she wishes for the thick pink liquid in her suitcase to coat her insides against
the acid building there. Getting it might awaken Harmon, and then what would she do? Her heart says to chitchat, to inquire:
Did the CEO position come through? Why are you in Brussels? Do you miss me? Do I miss you?

“What do you want, Randall?”

“Camille told me you’re in Nice. I have to be in Paris, tonight. Have dinner with me. I can make reservations for your flight,
and I’ll pay for your ticket and a night at the Crillon.”

The elegant five-star hotel is where Lena told him she wanted to stay on their next visit to Paris. From a distance the hotel
looked like an extension of the Louvre or an official building meant to house government offices. As they approached the historic
Place de la Concorde, where the Jardin des Tuileries ends and the Champs-Élysées begins, they discovered that the building
was not what they thought, but rather the famous Hôtel de Crillon. They stood near the fountain of sculpted black bodies with
gold turbans and watched the doormen help guests from a line of Bentleys, Maybachs, and other expensive cars neither had seen
before. Once inside the landmark hotel, they strolled from the lobby—the floor a marbled black-and-white checkerboard—to the
bar. The hotel smelled like money, like extravagance, like someplace Lena wanted to be.

“Let’s see. The last time I saw you, Randall, you snarled at me.” Lena’s voice is a loud whisper she prays Harmon cannot hear.
“For months you schemed to keep most of what we had on your side of the balance sheet, now you
happen
to be in Brussels,
and
you conveniently have to be in Paris,
and
you want to have dinner with me?”

Randall chuckles in the playful way she hasn’t heard in a long time. “Put that way, my proposition does seem a little farfetched.
But what have you got to lose?”

“I already lost it,” Lena whispers, “and one dinner in Paris isn’t going to make up for that.” The soft spot is still there.
Eight months since she slept with Randall, eight months since they shared the same bed. Two months, more or less, since they
signed their settlement paper. Since she saw the look she never wants to see in his eyes again. Lena kicks the faucet with
her foot to stop the water from spilling over the side. The overflow drain gurgles as it sucks up the excess.

Perhaps she is more like that damn Kimchee than she realized. Perhaps that is why she couldn’t stand the cat. One day, during
what she now thinks of as her foggy time, Lena drove past the grocery store, the yoga studio, the library where she volunteered
and parked at the Berkeley Marina to watch the waves crash against the abandoned pier. When she came home from her pretend
errands, she found Kimchee strolling across the kitchen counter, tail lifted high, as if the granite were his path to glory.
He continued around the counter until he got to the spot where he wanted to jump down. His eyes dared Lena to say a word.

At this moment, Lena feels like she understands that uppity cat. She feels like looking Randall in the eye and daring him
to accept her as she is right now, this day, in a hotel room with a man—not him—who claims to love and appreciate her as much
or more than he once did. This is her territory. She will not be intimidated by his smile, by the eyebrow that lifts when
she walks into a room, by the curve of his lips as they turn from frown to smile. She will not be seduced by his lavish lure.
She will strut into that restaurant, if only for the effect.

“I’m in Paris. Tell me where and what time, and I’ll meet you.”

f   f   f

The bathroom door swings open.

“I’m not going to lie. I heard you talking, heard you say his name. So I listened. That’s the problem with being a light sleeper.”
Harmon closes the toilet seat and sits on top of it. His face is unreadable.

“I’m sorry.”

Harmon pauses, his hands folded across his chest. His eyes reflect his thoughts, like the winning attorney he is, of what
her last words to Randall mean.

“What does he want?”

“To have dinner.”

“And if I asked you not to go?”

“I’ve been honest, Harmon. I’m still not used to saying no to him.”

She lays her phone on the floor and steps out of the tub, extending her arm for one of the plush towels from the counter rack.
With her back to Harmon, Lena wraps the towel around her, covering her body from the top of her breasts to her mid thigh so
that passion cannot take over where logic should.

“How did he know you were here?” Harmon stands and paces from the tub to the toilet and back. His voice is steady, like a
probing drill.

“We have children together, Harmon. Camille and Kendrick know where I am. Camille told him.”

He asks his next question, again the strategic litigator who never asks compound questions: “How did he know you were in Paris?”

“He knew I was in France. It’s a crazy coincidence that he’s in Paris.”

“What does he want?”

“He didn’t say.” And she didn’t ask. Old habits die hard.

Harmon walks out of the room.

“It’s dinner, Harmon. Nothing more.”

“Like we had
dinner
that first night in Nice?”

“That’s not fair.” Lena shakes her head no and reaches for his arm. He pulls away and heads for the desk where the ring sits
in its open pouch.

“I was serious when I bought this. I’m serious now. Think about that when you see him. Your ex is no fool.” He grabs the room
key, slips into his sandals, and walks to the door. “I’m going downstairs to the bar, and I’m going to stay there until you’re
gone. I’m going to get drunk. I’m going to hope you remember whose bed you’ve been sleeping in for the last eleven days. But
don’t worry, I won’t give away your little secret rendezvous.” The door slams behind him, but he speaks loud enough for her
and everyone else on the floor to hear. “But, I might reconsider my damn theory of fate.”

f   f   f

Randall is casually elegant in a tan suede jacket and what looks like a silk shirt underneath. Lena can’t tell if he is thinner
or heavier than the last time she saw him. She wonders if this were a picture, how she would photograph it. She would call
it “Things I Don’t Know about the Man I Used to Love” and cover it with question marks: Are his clothes new? Does he play
new jazz or old on the CD player in his car? Has he slept with another woman as she has with another man? Did he enjoy it?
Did her ghost linger at the foot of the bed as his has? Another corner full of
z
’s: has he thought more about the surgery to correct his snoring? Has he cut back on the three cups of coffee that get his
thoughts started in the morning? Who takes his shirts to the cleaners?

“Hey, Randall.”

To her surprise he rises to greet her with a bear hug and a grin. His look is sheepish and tentative. “I ordered for you.
Pouilly-Fuissé is a good substitute for those chardonnays you love.”

“Actually, I’m into Bordeaux these days.” His surprise is obvious. Lena motions to the waiter and asks for his recommendation
and ignores Randall scanning her face in a way that makes her want to blush.

The waiter sets a glass in front of Lena with as much flourish as Randall used to present her with gifts. She sniffs the wine,
sips, and lets it linger on her tongue the way Harmon does with the first taste from a new bottle.

“Why are you in Paris?”

“I’m here with Cheryl and a couple of… friends.” Lena watches Randall’s effort not to criticize her friend cut lines on his
otherwise smooth face. “I enjoy Cheryl’s company. I always have.”

“It’s been a long time since we were in Paris, and if I’m not mistaken it was about this same time of the year.”

The second time Lena and Randall came to Paris they held hands and strolled the Seine at midnight so they could see a full
Paris moon. He’d held her close, slipped his hands in her pants, and made her want him to do more. They’d made love that night
in a way that they never had before or since then; laughed long and hard the next morning, made love again and a baby. When
she miscarried, Randall promised to bring her back to Paris, to re-create that night, but they never returned.

Randall is pensive in the way that Lena has forgotten. Two people who, two months ago, could barely stand to be in the same
room together, who fought over money and all the possessions they had accumulated and acted as if they had never been in love,
didn’t have children together whom they adored. The same bitter taste that crept onto her tongue during those sessions is
there now. It spoils the desire for food. When the waiter presents the menus, Lena orders a small fish entrée, a salad, no
appetizer. Randall’s appetite is hearty enough for salad, oysters, and a complicated-sounding entrée.

“Knock, knock,” he prompts her like she once did long ago, and she obliges with the proper response.

“Who’s there?”

“TIDA’s new CEO.” Randall slides his hand across the table to hold hers. His touch is different. Understated. Foreign. Now
she finds herself comparing Randall to Harmon instead of the other way around.

“I wanted you to be the first to know.”

“Not afraid I’ll ask for more money, are you? Is this”—her voice falls into the singsong inflection that Randall used to admire,
her open arms indicate the beautiful restaurant around her—“another one of your bribes? Did you call Sharon?”

Randall ducks like a boxer, a quick move of his shoulders and head to the left then the right. “Low blow. Two low blows.”

“You have a way of getting what you want.”

The server sets their entrées on the table and lights the candles. Their talk drifts to Camille and Kendrick. Camille’s first
semester has started off with a bang; she loves her classes and has already started making friends and concedes to being called
Camille again. Kendrick has a clean bill of health from Dr. Miller, though he recommended their son see a campus counselor
from time to time. He met a girl from Mississippi. Not his first relationship, but someone he really likes. The irony of Kendrick
meeting someone from her parents’ home state is enough to make them both chuckle and wonder, if like John Henry and Lulu,
Kendrick will marry and live with this girl until death forces them apart.

Lena pursues the details of her children’s lives that she should be familiar with. That they have kept from her. She has learned
to live with not a word or an email from Kendrick and the one call from Camille—a concession Lena now presumes, with Randall
sitting in front of her, to homesickness for the life she, they all, once had. Even though she and Harmon sipped their morning
coffee in Internet cafés with the specific intention of checking her email. Even though she has sent long emails to them describing
France. She loves her children: they are worthy of her love, but they do not understand that she is worthy of theirs.

“I won’t beat around the bush, Lena, in case you’re wondering why I asked you to meet me.” He speaks while the server clears
away their dishes and presents them with leather-bound dessert menus. Their habit, when they were married, happily married,
was to share. One dessert. Two spoons. Lena shakes her head no at the waiter and the luscious pastry described in English
on the menu. Randall frowns, waits, and when she repeats her decision he, too, declines.

“I’ve been mad at you for a long time. Even before we split up. You changed.”

“I didn’t change, Randall. I grew and you wouldn’t keep up with me, that’s all. Need I go over our session with Dr. Brustere?”

“I miss family. I miss home. I miss you.”

“Why now, Randall? The ink is barely dry on our agreement.”

“I let things go too far.”

Not exactly an apology. If she still counted days, hours, and more, Lena would wonder how many times she wanted to hear him
say he was sorry. She knows this man, knows this is as close as he will come to those words. Did he go too far by letting
Kendrick’s problems and Camille’s insolence come between them? By putting work before his well-intentioned wife? Was seeing
her as object, not partner, going too far? The third finger on Lena’s left hand pulses, as it hasn’t in a while—not that the
finger hasn’t ached, but she no longer acknowledges it.

“Since when do you flip-flop on a decision? What do you want?”

“It’s not complicated, Lena. I want the woman who was with me when I was low man on the totem pole to be with me when I’m
at the top. Did you expect some out-of-body experience?”